The Real History Of Judaism

I'm in the final round for a JIB (Jewish & Israeli Blog Award) in the category of Best Jewish Skepticism Blog. Thanks again to everyone who voted for me, and thanks in advance to those who vote for me in the final round. Vote Bacon! GO HERE TO VOTE FOR ME Thanks again. And thanks to Tikkunger for nominating me in the first place.

I'm Bacon Eating Atheist Jew and NOT Jewish Atheist, who we can refer to as Sandy Koufax (a Lefty Jew). You can vote for him in the best Left Wing blog category. I did.

Dov Bear is kicking the crap out me right now. He puts a lot of secret code on his blog, so it is hard to really understand. But he is pretty good at soliciting votes, I'll give him that.

I'm not really a Skeptic. A Skeptic actually thinks there is a possibility that the Bible is non fictional and that God exists. I'm past the Skeptic phase. I'm a Bible Mega-minimalist. Here is a short video which sort of explains my stance (but I'm way more extreme):


You can go through life assuming most of the beliefs that you were taught as a child and throughout your early adulthood, are complete fact. But you'd be shocked to find that many "truths" you believe are completely improbable. Noah's Ark is an easy one to completely refute. But so is the Exodus. I used to assume that the Exodus was partly true, at least, until I started looking for evidence. The same is true for a historical Jesus. I was sincerely surprised when I found there was no evidence for either. I'm open to new evidence to, I don't need either to not be historical in order to be an atheist. It doesn't help me one way or the other. I just like facts and reality.

This brings me to the real history of Judaism. I was lucky to find a documentary on Youtube about the book, The Bible Unearthed. I may not have to buy the book after watching the entire 10 video clips this morning. It was absolutely fascinating and informative stuff. Everyone should watch these clips (remember, the New Testament is pretty dependent on the Old Testament being true).

JEWS WERE AN ETHNICITY LONG BEFORE THEY WERE A RELIGION

Oral tradition means squat to me. "Frankly, Scarlett, I don't give a damn," and "Play it again, Sam," are perfect examples that even with today's media, the masses screw up famous movie lines, even in a very short time frame. In today's day and age, we can rely on archaeological evidence, ancient writings and dating techniques to put the pieces of the puzzle together.

The biggest revelation from the video was the fact that Hebrews (an ethnicity) were Polytheistic at least up until 7th to 8th Century BC and the Old Testament was not started until the 7th Century with the "Book of Deuteronomy." There is plenty of evidence to back this up. Also enlightening was the fact that when the Exodus was supposed to happen, Canaan was governed and occupied by Egyptians.

That would mean that with regards to both Abraham and Moses, for whom there is absolutely no supporting secular evidence of, that there is no reason whatsoever to believe the stories of either are true. If either Abraham or Moses existed and had chats with God, the idea of monotheism for the Hebrews would have become a dominant belief system. Not to mention, the claim that there were hundreds of thousands of witnesses for the Exodus, and they told their kids who told their kids yadda yadda yadda. If there were witnesses to plagues and the parting of the sea, not only would monotheism have become an immediate gimme for the Hebrews, but it would have become one for the Egyptians too.

This also has implications with respect to, the probably non existent, Solomon's Temple. In the video, it is explained that there is possible evidence that David existed, but he didn't rule over a very large empire. A large empire in the region didn't exist. But the idea of a Temple to worship an invisible God was an impossibility. Now there could have been a Temple that existed where worshiping idols and celestial objects was common place, and it most likely wouldn't have been very large. That is why even with "oral history" it hasn't been found.

Evidence points to the people of Canaan and Judea worshiping idols right through to the 600's BC and even past that. Motivation to unite the Hebrews in 7th Century BC by Josiah, most likely led to the story of the Exodus and the attempting banning of idol worship, as well as inventing a more dramatic history for the people who lived in the region.

The reality is that the region went through many different regime changes. Egyptians, Hebrews, etc. ruled the land at various times. In 587, the Babylonians defeated the Jews (many were finally monotheistic by then, and many Jews were exiled to Babylon.

The Jews came back 50 years later, and this time they actually had developed a real religious history of sorts and their monotheism gained steam and support. Again, in order to unify the people of the region, God was given more defined wants, and Ezra wrote them down and presented them to the people. It was at this time that Judaism officially became a religion.

The video makes a great point that at this time, individualism and the foundations of today's Western world goals and mindset was born thanks to the Jews of 5th and 6th Century. BC and the Torah.

Here is part one of the 10 part series of videos (9 minutes each, except the last one is less than 3 minutes):

Again, for the entire series of videos go here.

And if you haven't voted for yet for the JIB Award, GO HERE AND VOTE, SCIENCE DAMMIT!