The Ethno-Zionist-Revisionism-Old Testament-Bashing Megathread

[The Brain]

Jewish God created the concept of history. It's in the Bible.

[Sheilbh]

To put it another way, the Israelis were engaging in exactly the same kind of practice as everyone else in that age - myth making.

So if no one had a concept of history in the way you are using that term how can what the Isrealis were doing be considered to be revisionist?  ie what "history" were they revising?

Exactly. They weren't expressing themselves in any way that we would recognise as historical. To talk about historical revisionism in the Pentateuch is a bit like complaining that it doesn't scan. It's both correct and entirely missing the point.

[Ideologue]

On a slightly related note to the Egyptian issues with Exodus, I read an article on the Ebert site that started with a plea for Angelina Jolie not to whitewash Cleopatra.

By "read" of couse I mean I read that opening line and stopped and felt sad.

[Queequeg]

I don't think there is any actual evidence, the Bible aside, that there ever were any large population of Jews in Egypt, let alone that there were Jewish slaves etc.

It is best to think of the Exodus as pure mythology, perhaps tangentally inspired by some actual events - sort of like the medieval legendarium of King Arthur.

It is only with the rise of the Israelite kingdom that there is anything approaching history. Even then, the actual amout of "hard" information we really possess is ludicrously slight - until a couple of decades ago, there was not one single non-Biblical mention of King David. Now there is one - a mention of the "House of David" from the reign of the son of King Ahab (found on a broken stele celebrating a victory over said king).

Anything alleged to occur prior to that is not really "history" at all - it is legend and myth. (Much of what is alleged to occur after that is of course also legend and myth, but increasingly verges on the historical - or at least, historical facts are mingled with the legendary).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tel_Dan_Stele

I'd be really surprised if there wasn't some weird grain of truth in the Exodus story. 

Semitic people lived in Egypt in this period.  It could have started as "hey remember how our great-great-great grandfather was a Hyksos?  Well he wasn't a brutal conqueror-the Egyptians were mean to him."  This is also a period when the Egyptians are starting to expand their control in to Canaan, so it might have started as a story of Semitic peoples fleeing Egyptian expansion in to the eastern wilderness and was then reinterpreted as foreshadowing the Babylonian exile. 

[CountDeMoney]

Can't we just toss the Old Testament under the category of "conventional wisdom"?  It's the Old Testament.

[Queequeg]

I just don't think wholesale fabrication of vaguely historical-sounding ethnic origins is that likely. 

So, if you ask a lot of white Americans, they'll talk about how they're "Irish" even if they are actually something like 75% German.  For whatever reason, Irishness seems more authentic/prestigious a background than German.  Give that a dozen generations and a collapse of literacy and it would probably look like a very weird story that would still have some vague connection to the original narrative of their ancestors coming over from Europe to America. 

[Admiral Yi]

What?  I'm pretty sure white Americans are predominantly Scotch-Irish.

[dps]

It is only with the rise of the Israelite kingdom that there is anything approaching history. Even then, the actual amout of "hard" information we really possess is ludicrously slight - until a couple of decades ago, there was not one single non-Biblical mention of King David. Now there is one - a mention of the "House of David" from the reign of the son of King Ahab (found on a broken stele celebrating a victory over said king).

Anything alleged to occur prior to that is not really "history" at all - it is legend and myth. (Much of what is alleged to occur after that is of course also legend and myth, but increasingly verges on the historical - or at least, historical facts are mingled with the legendary).

Lots of information we have about events before, say, 1400 or so is like that--it all comes from one source or maybe two.

[Sheilbh]

What?  I'm pretty sure white Americans are predominantly Scotch-Irish.

Actually they're the ones least likely to identify any roots in Europe. People who just identify as 'American' rather than anything else are overwhelmingly of Scotch-Irish origin. See the collected works of Jim Webb

[Queequeg]

What?  I'm pretty sure white Americans are predominantly Scotch-Irish.

As Sheilbh said, a lot of Scots-Irish are Appalachian or Southern and identify only as "American."  German is the single most common ethnic origin in the US. At least white ethnic origin.

Which makes sense.  There just wasn't a big enough population base in Scotland and Ireland to populate a huge portion of the 210 something Euro-Americans. 

[Eddie Teach]

Yet our most common surnames come from Britain- Smith, Williams, Johnson, Brown, Davis, etc.

[Razgovory]

How can something be historically revisionist if there's no concept of history?

Err what?

Man, I warned you.  The concept of "history" didn't exist back then, at least not our concept of history.  You might as well talk about "neolithic science"  If you throw out sources describing events that can't physically happen then you pretty much throw away 95% of the written documents from the time period.  Even basic things like Sumerian kings lists.  Hell you are going to throw out books that we know have a firm basis in historical fact, and occur much, much later.  For instance we have throw out the Julius Caesar's commentary on the Gaullic Wars since he describe things we know are not physically possible.

[Razgovory]

Yet our most common surnames come from Britain- Smith, Williams, Johnson, Brown, Davis, etc.

Not mine!  Mine is German.  Half the people in this area have German names.  Schmidt is more common then Smith.

[CountDeMoney]

Yet our most common surnames come from Britain- Smith, Williams, Johnson, Brown, Davis, etc.

A lot of continental immigrants dropped their non-English surnames once they moved to America.   And all those last names you just listed could be African-American which, as Oprah would say, is another show.

[Admiral Yi]

As Sheilbh said, a lot of Scots-Irish are Appalachian or Southern and identify only as "American."  German is the single most common ethnic origin in the US. At least white ethnic origin.

Which makes sense.  There just wasn't a big enough population base in Scotland and Ireland to populate a huge portion of the 210 something Euro-Americans.

Are you talking about ethnic origin that people identify with or ethnic origin regardless of identification?  I really can't tell.