Made in Alexandria: The Origin of the Yahweh Cult

[A_Nony_Mouse]

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.

So does Dever. As I noted he was fishing for a money quote from Finkelstein. As to advising me to read real arkie sources, what do you think I have been saying?

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.

Who would you attribute it to and when? There is evidence of a literate culture in Judea until the 2nd c. BC. But if I have missed thousands of examples of literacy outside of the Septuagint stories please direct me to them. While you are at it show me the Judean library where records going back at least 600 years were kept.

If you have evidence the stuff could have been created by Judeans and earlier than that timeframe please tell me about it.

Seriously, Who created them and when? I am working by a process of elimination and alliances.

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.

I will repeat. The Maccabean revolt recounted in I and II Maccabe is expanded when Josephus makes it clear it was a sedition against the Seleucids in favor of the Ptolemys.

As to an origin myth, and wasting time, my statement is the absence of a literate culture in Judean at any earlier date precludes and earlier creation date. I said it was built from scratch FOR the high priest by Ptolemy. He built the priest a copy of the entire city of Jerusalem for him to rule. Setting four or five people to a 1-2 year task of creating a backstory is in the noise in comparison to an entire city.

I have not found the details yet but I read a reference to that created city was so effective in supporting Judea against Tiberius that he had to divert some time to destroying it. Granted that was two centuries later but obviously it was not a cardboard imitation of a city.

As to making Pharonic Egypt look like the bad guy, why would a Greek give a damn? Nationalism was not invented until the 19th c. on our side of zero.

As to struggling to stay afloat and being propped up I am unaware of anything making that a credible description. A century later Caesar shows up and does not try to annex it. A few years later Antony took a shot at controlling the eastern Med against the interests of Rome. If the winds had been different the history of the region could have been much more interesting.

The story of the Maccabaean revolt being some sort of religious struggle is told only in the Book of Maccabees.

And by Josephus in Wars of the Jews. It is a classic proxy war between the major powers. Think Vietnam as a modern example. Post Roman Europe down to the 18th c. is littered with small wars on the marches between large kingdoms.

That could just as easily have been back-written as all the rest of it.

Except that I, II, and III Maccabe and Josephus all tell the same story. Only IV is clearly written after Josephus. And Pompey finds the odd priest king rulers in place as described as being created by Maccabe.

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.

I can't say you haven't been doing your homework. But read Josephus, Wars of the Jews on the subject. What you say is correct but no pissant country is going to take on hugely greater military power without backup. In 76 Judea had backup from converts all along north Africa including sympathizer factions in Egypt. That is why it took so long to stomp on Judea.

As to it being after the sedition started, that is what I said. But there is ZERO justification from Josephus. Antiochus is only the bad guy after he conquers Jerusalem and puts his gods in the temple.

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.

Note John is a Greek name. Hyrcanus is Hyrcania a kingdom on the Caspian see that was an conquered by Alexander. One does not hate Greeks as in Maccabes and at the same time give your kids Greek names.

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.

If you look at the history of the Maccabe clan you will find they changed alliances between Ptolemys and Seleucids faster than people change spouses these days.

As to David, he is a total invention but these days even believers will admit he could have been no more than a name.

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.

Considering how little effort creating it would take there is no reason to imply it was something significant particularly in comparison to building a copy of Jerusalem. The wealth of Egypt was demonstrated by Cleopatra dissolving priceless pearls in wine. Now that I think about that might not be a true story. But the quantity of grain it was selling to Rome alone would have made it rich.

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.

Please. In comparison there is greater variety and greater coherence in Buffy, The Vampire Slayer and Angel than in these stories. There are maybe twenty times more words and it was all produced in only eight years with two writers. The major difference is those TV series were much better edited and had quite good continuity. In comparison the Septuagint stories are sloppy on both those points.

If this comparison feels wrong, try thinking of five and half seasons of Supernatural