(September 4, 2014 at 12:40 am)Minimalist Wrote: This is a classic tale of the struggle between herders and farmers. In the case of this particular bullshit story, it was told by the herding culture...i.e. the southern kingdom and SURPRISE fucking 'god' finds favor in their sacrifice. Then the angry farmer kills the poor, deserving, herder.......
I imagine the story had a different ending when told in the farming cultures in the more agrarian sections of the region. Since the farmlands were considered valuable they were overrun by various conquerors while the goat fuckers....um, herders.... were able to enter into a vassal relationship with the conquering Assyrians.
It's a pile of shit. Like the rest of the bible.
This is how I've looked at it, especially since reading Robert O'Connell's Soul of the Sword (a history of weapons), wherein he goes into a little detail about the transition from herding to farming, and the tensions which drove the development of weapons such as the compound bow and the sling-propelled spear.
