Posted by panch from inet-gto-aztecas-2-fddi5-0-0.uninet.net.mx (148.233.135.74) on Monday, March 17, 2003 at 2:16PM :
Jehu's Purge
The twelve tribes of Israel were spread out in Canaan...three of them forming the southern kingdon of Judah with Jerusalem as its cult center and nine of them in the northern kingdom of Israel, refered to as "Israelians" to distinguish them from the southern "Judeans", who together with the northeners were called "Israelites". This desolate kingdom in a pot was landlocked...caught between the Philistines and Phoenicians on the coast and the warm-piss trickle known as the Jordan River. For brief periods of time they managed to attack across the river and kill some people...but most of the time they controlled only the most dismal piece of real estate in the entire region, yet nother sign of their god's special care for them. For a brief time David managed to unite all twelve tribes into one sorry-ass kingdom, but with Solomon's death the whole thing blew apart. Not only that but soon Jerusalem was by itself, pitted against all of Judah as well as the northern kingdom, so well did Hebrews understand toleration. That was when Josiah, king of the ENTIRE city of Jerusalem, decided it was time to discover the real and true word of Yahwe, hidden in the walls of the temple till then (wanna buy a bridge?)...and used the fervor this evident mark of Yahwe's favor and devotion to the Jeruslemites gave the people so they went out, full of piss and religion, to slaughter their own kind just to prove Yahwe was the best and because he, "told them to".
The bible was merely the written document of the Yahwistic Cult in Jerusalem...that's all, and in it the rest of the Jews are given short shrift. No king of the northern kingdom is mentioned favorably and nothing those people did found favor in the eyes of the bible cult. When the bible mentions "pagans", or "Baalists" or those who follow Molech and Milcom...those who are, "enemies to Yahwe" or to the "Lord's annointed" or seem "abhorent" in His eyes, I always thought it was referring to non-Jews. When David and other kings of Jerusalem went around killing and ripping up those who refused to see Yahwe's superiority, I never DREAMED they were killing other Jews...each other...themselves.
The bible plays the same game our boys do...and why not, they're all Jews deep down. The bible mentions "Hebrews" as opposed to "Baalists"...it designates one group by an ethnic name, the other by its religious affiliation...carefully avoiding any mention of them being brothers and sisters with a minor religious dispute dividing them. And if you'll recall Abdul Aziz's comment that in a religious war there can be no compromise, that you have to kill everyone...and if you'll further recall that the Jews were all one people...you begin to understand why we're up to our eyebrows in blood and gore...and have been for 2000 years and not "inspite" of the good these religions do, but as a direct consequence of the blood these religions were born in and require in order to survive and the meaningless and trivial distinctions their Hetmen must keep us all divided and killing each other over so they can maintain their separate, individual stature and power base.
Jehu was one of the Judean kings who set a frightful precedent, Gordon and Rendsburg declare, which was to be fateful for all of Western civilization. This king committed the usual murders the Hebrews visited on each other (Assyrians were cruel?)..."he proceeded to wipe out the entire House of Ahab (you'll recall the authors' crowing earlier about how only orientals did this). He also got a hold of a party of Ahaziah's kin and slew them in cold blood." He also had Jezebel defenistrated (how often can you use that great word?) just to keep warm. Jehu also committed an even worse crime for..."He had been anointed by a prophet of Yahwe to secure the victory of Yahwism and to annihilate Baalism from Israel...Jehu with the help of Jonadab (a prophet of the true Lord Yahwe) lured all of the Baalists (their fellow Jews) into the Baal temple for a religious celebration; then by stationing eighty well-armed men at the exits, they killed the congregation in cold blood (that would be women and babies too). The House of Baal was destroyed and left as a dung heap. Israel was purged of Baalism (amazing how many times they had to purge it), and Yahwism had TRIUMPHED (emphasis mine)." Why does it always seem that Murder and Treachery are "triumphant" whenever there is a victory of their god Yahwe? Could the victory of Yahwe BE a victory for and of murder?
In the following paragraph the authors of, "The Bible and the Ancient Near East" stumble into simple, unadorned narative, and don't catch themselves in time..."Jehu's purge was fatal not only for the history of Israel but for all of Western civilization thereafter, for it was a precedent of exclusivism, of fanaticism, where no toleration for any other cult was permissable. This frightful precedent had its reflexes not only on the rare occasions where Jews were in a position to implement such a policy (sic), but more particularly in the history of Christianity and of Islam. Thus the bloody religious wars of Christian Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries C.E., echo, though indirectly, Jehu's precedent in ancient Israel."
Jews, Christians and Muslims are all of one faith...they all admit being desendants of Abraham, would we had drowned him. There isn't a whole lot of difference between them...unless you hear them tell it. From the very beginning Jews were killing each other every chance they got over whether Yahwe was supreme over some other goat-turd desert god. This willingness to kill your own kind over just such meaningless distinctions, then lay the crime at the feet of your Lord, saying you should not be held to blame because He ordered it...is just what we are suffering from to this day. Ross said that Hebrews were merely following their God's orders when they killed and ripped and raped, and therefor there was no crime...well what does that do except make it possible to be forgiven anything and everything ESPECIALLY if you believe God wanted it done. And God DID want it done...says so right there in the bible...Joshua was for letting the Midianite children live but Yahwe ordered him back to kill them, so there could be a complete victory for Yahwism...it wasn't Joshua's "fault" after that...he was only obeying God's orders, which he had to do if he was a true believer. Does it make it any better that this order for total murder comes from a "god" and not an Oberkomander?
This penchant for killing your own people, from the same tribe, from the same ancestral line, has extended down through the ages. At the very time when we're all rubbing shoulders with each other round the world, when we could be learning tolerance and even an appreciation for foreign and exotic ways...when we could finaly begin to see all Humans as descended fom one source...as a huge family...a view we will have to come to sooner or later if we want any sort of peace on earth...at the very time when we're set to leave behind this centuries old bloodlust which claims that even your own family deserves death if they are not conforming to the "truth"...at a time when we could move forward, we are snapped right back to them hoary Hebrew days when a child of the "wrong" religion is an enemy deserving of death and worse...so much worse.
These religions are retrograde...perhaps once, long ago when people were cooking and eating each other, these religions in particular had a new or "futuristic" appeal...perhaps they pointed the way to a brighter horizon...but I sincerely doubt it...the world was far better off under the Mesopotamians who were more civilized and, jealously, hated for it...but today...this very moment, these religions are being used, because this is their main appeal, to once again justify every crime. It is not the meek and mild face of any of these religions that kept them alive and kicking through the ages...it was rather the one thing they all share in common...the ability to forgive yourself and get a good night's sleep after committing the most frightful crimes because "God wanted me to", even to the most heinous and despicable crime of killing your own child as a way to win some favor. And He did...from the very beginning this insane God has commanded and demanded murder and bloodshed and gore...in every religion the Jews gave us. And they might yet get their Armageddon... only give them a little more time.
-- panch
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