Quote:When he changes the name of the magazine, get back to me.
I don't give a shit about Hershel Shanks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hershel_Shanks
who began his career as a lawyer in the US Justice Department and who is nothing more than an amateur archaeologist who publishes a magazine to make money from dolts.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsou...18181.html
He trumpets every half-assed idea that comes along ( the james ossuary, the Joash tablet ) in order to SELL MAGAZINES. I'm afraid if you want to learn about archaeology you will have to read works by actual archaeologists not con men.
Quote:I am completely willing to discuss the facts and physical evidence
Bullshit. What you want to do is discuss only those "facts" or your interpretation of them that support whatever preconceived notion you have.
Your attribution of the holy horseshit to 2d century Alexandria makes no sense. The Ptolemaic dynasty controlled Jerusalem in the 3d century. By the second, it was under the control of the Seleucids. Egypt was a fading power which had to be propped up by the Romans.
It simply makes no sense to suggest that a kingdom which was struggling to stay afloat would waste any time at all worrying about concocting an origin myth for an insignificant province under the control of another power and which would make Egypt look like the bad guys who were defeated by a rabble.
The story of the Maccabaean revolt being some sort of religious struggle is told only in the Book of Maccabees. That could just as easily have been back-written as all the rest of it. What we know is that as Antiochus withdrew from his invasion of Egypt in the face of Roman opposition he stopped off at Jerusalem and restored a faction which seemed to be either Greeks or Hellenized Judaeans. In 164 BC he died while leading a campaign against Parthia. THEN, the revolt breaks out in Jerusalem. But it was almost traditional that revolts broke out, if they were going to break out at all, when a king died and before the successor had consolidated power. For all we know, this could have simply been some noble with delusions of grandeur deciding the time was right to rebel and all the happy holy horseshit was written out later as a justification.
It is not until the end of the second century BC, c 110 that John Hyrcanus finally threw off the last remnants of Seleucid control and began subjugating other regions. It is at this precise point in time that an independent state which became something of a regional power (in the absence of other real powers ) came into existence and whose kings might actually benefit from a legacy which has them the heirs to an "empire" which just so happens to conform to the territory which was attributed to "David" and what they were able to control.
Cui bono. "Who benefits?" The Egyptians and the Seleucids could never have benefited from a tale which inflates the importance and divine specialness of their subject people.
I asked you once before if you were looking for a smoking gun and I still think you are. This shit was not written in one sitting. Various pieces of local legends and folklore were combined AND EDITED to suit the needs of whoever was calling the shots.
