Palestinian Tantrum at Putin the Poisoner When He References Reality

[jordan179]

Some news items just make you want to laugh. Case in point:

Gil Rorien, "Arab Rage: Putin Recognized Jerusalem's Jewish Past," first published 06/28/2012,

Arab Muslims are enraged by remarks made by Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kotel, recognizing Jerusalem's Jewish roots

Comments

[irked_indeed]

(though the evidence also reveals that High Ancient Judaism was very different in some ways from what the Jewish Priests of Classical times reported).

I'm interested in filling in some ignorance on my part, here - what leads you to say this? Links appreciated!

[jordan179]

Well, to begin with it was henotheistic. Yahweh was the First and Most Powerful God, but he was not (yet) the Only God. Note that the Commandment is "have no other gods before Me," not "have no other gods." Heck, Yahweh even had a wife -- Asherah, the Lady of the Doves, who was probably cognate with Ishtar/Astarte from Sumerian and Babylonian myth respectively.

Also, the identity of the Hebrews wasn't as well-defined in early times as it was later on. While they seem to have had some prohibitions against exogamy especially in their leading families, there was almost certainly more intermarriage than that to which they later admitted. How else to explain all the groups (like the Samaritans) who practiced variants of Judaism by Classical times, but who weren't considered "proper" Jews by the priests?

[fpb]

I have a problem with that. I realize that it is the standard reconstruction, but it clashes with the way I believe religions develop, which is that the strong assertion of original ideas comes EARLIER and the "normalization" or assimilation to other known religious ideas comes later - for instance, the Christian statements of John and Paul are certainly earlier than Gnostic Christianity, and likewise the wholly monotheistic Gathas of Zarathustra come much earlier than the visible absorption of pagan elements and the transformation of angels into deities to be worshipped that are found in historical Zoroastrianism. There certainly were elements in earlier Hebraism that Deutoronomic and then Rabbinic Judaism largely wiped out, but I feel certain that Asherah, for instance, was not one of them. It was an ettempt to "normalize" the Jewish religion in terms of the Jews' richer and more advanced and admired northern cousins, the Phoenicians, who did have such a goddess married to their chief god El - we know Phoenician religion from the

[marycatelli]

If someone said we will have no one else beside you and you find there are other people and it was defended on the ground they were "behind" you -- I would say it was warping an idiom past the weight it can bear.

[marycatelli]

On what evidence do you say that he had a consort, BTW?

[irked_indeed]

Okay. Interesting theses.

Certainly the Old Testament doesn't deny the existence of widespread Asherah-worship - it shows up quite a bit in Kings, for instance. It does, however, rather argue against the originality of this.

I would be curious to know what sources you're drawing on, here.