An open letter to all the Hebrew Bible devotees
Unless you are of Jewish decent, why believe in a purportedly holy book the sole scope of which is to glorify an oriental tribe?
In the days the Hebrew Bible was composed, gods were the emblem and how ethnic groups identified themselves. If a group was victorious it meant their god was bigger than the god of the vanquished. Ergo all the wishful thinking sable-rattling of the Hebrew Bible against Egyptians, Amalekites, Canaanites, Philistines, etc...
Do you think our ancestors, whether Greeks, Romans, Phoenicians, Hittites, Lydians, Egyptians, Mesopotamians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Persians, Celts, Germanics, et alia were less religious and less devoted to their gods? They certainly were not godless or devoid of religious fervor.
Do you really think that our ancestors were then less moral because instead of constructing a body of rules and regulations under the guise of a divine revelation built great architectural wonders of temples and shrines to their gods for all to see? There is more piety in an ancient temple's fallen stone than in all the Hebrew Bible. The arrogance is not there.
Democracy and Western individualism? The Hebrew Bible does not have an ounce of either. Rather collectivism is present in a big way and when vox populi demanded a leader, a king was appointed by Samuel, a judge (just like the US Supreme Court did with Bush43) not by popular acclaim. And then there is this ever-interfering YHWH who dictates all.
Why wallow in a book where ethnic cleansing, guilt by association, collective punishment, pimping and cruelty to animals are legitimized and sanctioned by YHWH?
If it is prophecies Hebrew Bible devotees hanker after let them have Nostradamus's quatrains. The prophecies there are more current and accurate.
Older religions and polytheistic religions have been maligned to make room for monotheistic religions for a very long time but polytheistic religions were really henotheistic since one god whether Marduk, Zeus, Amun, Re or Amun-Re was paramount. Monotheistic religions on the other hand become polytheistic when all those angels, saints, Mother Marys, etc... are rolled in. And by the intrinsic virtue of lacking a central dogmatic authority, polytheism was a much more inclusive religion. (Compare this with the many Christian sects America has begotten thanks to this lack of a central Church on its soil. The Pilgrims came to Plymouth not because they were discriminated against in tolerant Holland where they had initially sought a refuge but because they themselves could not discriminate). Spiritual comfort is where one finds it. No creed or belief is superior to any other.
Ancient societies were seekers of stability, law and order, morality and social justice just like today's societies.
Give credit where credit is due. Egypt and Mesopotamia were first in codifying piety as the archaeological record discovered in the last two hundred years attest. Why put all the ideals of religiousness, morality and justice in a Jewish basket?
In the days the Hebrew Bible was composed, gods were the emblem and how ethnic groups identified themselves. If a group was victorious it meant their god was bigger than the god of the vanquished. Ergo all the wishful thinking sable-rattling of the Hebrew Bible against Egyptians, Amalekites, Canaanites, Philistines, etc...
Do you think our ancestors, whether Greeks, Romans, Phoenicians, Hittites, Lydians, Egyptians, Mesopotamians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Persians, Celts, Germanics, et alia were less religious and less devoted to their gods? They certainly were not godless or devoid of religious fervor.
Do you really think that our ancestors were then less moral because instead of constructing a body of rules and regulations under the guise of a divine revelation built great architectural wonders of temples and shrines to their gods for all to see? There is more piety in an ancient temple's fallen stone than in all the Hebrew Bible. The arrogance is not there.
Democracy and Western individualism? The Hebrew Bible does not have an ounce of either. Rather collectivism is present in a big way and when vox populi demanded a leader, a king was appointed by Samuel, a judge (just like the US Supreme Court did with Bush43) not by popular acclaim. And then there is this ever-interfering YHWH who dictates all.
Why wallow in a book where ethnic cleansing, guilt by association, collective punishment, pimping and cruelty to animals are legitimized and sanctioned by YHWH?
If it is prophecies Hebrew Bible devotees hanker after let them have Nostradamus's quatrains. The prophecies there are more current and accurate.
Older religions and polytheistic religions have been maligned to make room for monotheistic religions for a very long time but polytheistic religions were really henotheistic since one god whether Marduk, Zeus, Amun, Re or Amun-Re was paramount. Monotheistic religions on the other hand become polytheistic when all those angels, saints, Mother Marys, etc... are rolled in. And by the intrinsic virtue of lacking a central dogmatic authority, polytheism was a much more inclusive religion. (Compare this with the many Christian sects America has begotten thanks to this lack of a central Church on its soil. The Pilgrims came to Plymouth not because they were discriminated against in tolerant Holland where they had initially sought a refuge but because they themselves could not discriminate). Spiritual comfort is where one finds it. No creed or belief is superior to any other.
Ancient societies were seekers of stability, law and order, morality and social justice just like today's societies.
Give credit where credit is due. Egypt and Mesopotamia were first in codifying piety as the archaeological record discovered in the last two hundred years attest. Why put all the ideals of religiousness, morality and justice in a Jewish basket?
posted by TheEtruscan at 12:24 PM
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