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

[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 tablets of Ugarit and other sources. (Phoenician and Hebrew are practically the same language in a different accent.) I doubt the prophets could have spoken so bitterly against her if they had been expressing only their own personal feeling. If you want a much better theory - to my way of thinking - about Hebrew antiquities, read Margaret Barker's books. I had suspected a number of the things she demonstrated before I ever came across her - though of course what she does is infinitely more learned than I ever could have managed it - and I felt from the beginning that she was on the right path. She is, alas, a poor writer - her books can be repetitious to the point of boredom - but what she has to say is important. It also makes massively more sense of the philosophy of Philo and the rise of Christianity, which are practically inexplicable from the standard model.