'Colonizing a MetaphorThe Bible and Middle East History
By ERIC WALBERG
For more than a century, archaeologists and historians have attempted to confirm beliefs of both Christians and Jews about their common past using the Old Testament (OT) and New Testaments (NT) as starting points. Christians, while embracing the OT as a harmless precursor of the NT, insist that the combined texts prove the truth of Judaic monotheism, with its covenant with God, a covenant that was renewed with the resurrection of Jesus as the Christ. Jews, of course, stick with the basic OT texts, insisting they alone prove their role as God's Chosen People and their right to create a Jewish state, Israel, in the Holy Land. This Jewish state was first grudgingly accepted by the Christian West, and now is enthusiastically embraced by some Christians based on their own misreading of the Bible. The Bible supposedly predicts that the Jews will return to their supposed promised land, and the messiah will (re)appear, signalling either the end of the Earth or the reign of God.So what are the "facts"? What do modern archaeology and other sciences have to say about the Bible? Does it help us resolve the question of the validity of Jesus as a legitimate messiah, one who would end Judaism and found a truly universal religion for all mankind? Does it allow Judaism a new lease on life, providing proof of the existence of a Greater Israel from the Nile to the Euphrates, with a spectacular and ancient history? And are we fated to die in a fiery apocalypse as predicted in Revelations?While archaeologists cannot help us answer the latter question, it can tell us something about the past. Biblical archaeology has expanded rapidly in the past half-century as a new academic field in search of both justification and funding. Unlike Muslims, for whom the Biblical legends are accepted as the legacy of all mankind and require no shards or inscriptions to prove this, both Christians and Zionists have tapped them to fuel their respective politico-religious agendas and have produced mountains of studies. But it is now clear to the most respected Christian, Jewish, Muslim and/or secular archaeologists that this supposedly scholarly, rigorous and objective discipline, with its methodology of taking biblical passages and digging and poking away in likely places, looking for proof of what they say, has been a big failure, if not a hoax. While the financial benefits of tying the Bible to archaeology have increased, historical and intellectual benefits have just as rapidly diminished.Two egregious flaws lie behind this. Firstly, it is somehow overlooked that both the Old and New Testaments were first written down only in the fourth c BC (mostly from the third c BC) to the first c AD by Hellenised Jews, i.e., over a relatively short historical period of approximately four centuries, the culmination of Hellenism as it flourished in the Middle East up to and including its manifestation under the Roman empire. The references to "old Israel" of the distant past are directed at the enlightenment of people living at that time, and have much more to do with events at that time than some distant, mythical history which was never recorded in stone, so to speak, but was rather passed down from generation to generation much like other peoples have passed down the legends of their origins -- orally, embellished by talented composers and poets. Furthermore, the OT and NT are closely integrated in structure, themes, and underlying philosophy, and to reject one part as heretical (as the Jews do the NT) or another part as a mere harmless introduction to the real text (as do the Christians concerning the OT) is not only unprofessional, but foolish and even subversive.'
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Jews, of course, stick with the basic OT texts, insisting they alone prove their role as God's Chosen People and their right to create a Jewish state, Israel, in the Holy Land. This Jewish state was first grudgingly accepted by the Christian West, and now is enthusiastically embraced by some Christians based on their own misreading of the Bible.
Dit stukje reduceert het hele jodendom tot een soort bijbels geïnspireerd zionisme. Hoe zeer ik het eens kan zijn met kritiek op het zionisme als zodanig, de oorspong van het zionisme is zuiver seculier, de joodse variant van het negentiende eeuwse nationalisme, en gebruikte religieuze taal slechts om opportunistische redenen. Wie zich een klein beetje verdiept in het zionisme weet dat het religieze establishment decennia lang zeer sceptisch stond tegenover het "goddeloze" project om de joden naar Palestina te brengen. Tot op de dag van vandaag zijn er relatief grote groepen chassieden en andere "frommen" die de Staat Israël zo ongeveer als het joods equivalent van de Antichrist beschouwen: een entiteit die de komst van Melech ha-Moshiach (de gezalfde koning die rechtvaardig over Israël zal heersen) vertraagt.
Vervang hierboven dus "Jews" door "zionists".
Los daarvan zit er nog een probleem aan dit stuk. Het is ver bezijden de waarheid dat "Jews... stick with the basic OT texts". Het jodendom verhoudt zich tot het Oude Testament als een advocaat tot het wetboek van strafrecht. Altijd inspirerend, maar een leidraad als het nodig is en een last waar je creatief mee moet omspringen als het zo uitkomt. Dat kan ik ook academischer zeggen, maar het komt er wel op neer. De mishna, de Babylonische talmoed, en legio andere basisteksten (ik ga hier niet de geschiedenis van de joodse literatuur dunnetjes overdoen) zijn de werkelijke bronnen van de traditioneel-joodse wereldbeschouwing. Dat het jodendom deels gekaapt is door de neo-biblicistische fundamentalisten, die alles wat na de bijbel is ontsproten aan het jodendom negeren of door een geperverteerde deuteronomistische bril beschouwen, daar kan ik ook weinig aan doen.
Dat die bijbel zelf geen "historische betrouwbare" tekst is, moge duidelijk zijn.
Schrijven is liegen - ook in de oudheid.
Ja, is waar. Goede kritiek Herman. Ik denk dat het jodendom na WOII gepolitiseerd is. Bij nader inzien: vrijwel alle grote religies.
Klopt Sonja. Ik zou het keerpunt alleen eerder willen plaatsen, zo ongeveer tussen de 1e en 2e WO, waarin nationale staten opkwamen en imperialisme op hevig verzet stuitte. In het postkoliniale tijdperk kregen die verzetsbewegingen meer gestalte. Het hindoeisme is toen ook gepolitiseerd.
In de islam is het al precies hetzelfde. Alleen is de islam nooit zo hierarchisch geinstitutionaliseerd geweest als het christendom. Het moderne islamisme heeft daarom meer een seculier intellectuele basis dan een theologische. De belangrijkste ideologen van het oorspronkelijke islamisme en het jihadistisch gedachtengoed, waaronder Sayid Qutb en Al Afghani, zijn ook allemaal afkomstig uit het seculiere domein, niet de theologische. Daar moesten ze met hun gedachtengoed concurreren met o.a. het marxisme en leninisme. Sayid Qutb's politieke ideeen, eerst nog aanhanger van het marxistisch-leninisme geweest, is ook duidelijk geschoeid op dat gedachtengoed.
Het moderne jihadisme, met het gezicht van Bin Laden, is ook afkomstig uit dat gepolitiseerde seculiere domein. Prof. Mahmoud Mamdani schrijft daarover in zijn boek "Good Muslim, Bad Muslim":
The shifting center of gravity of the Cold War was the major context in which Afghanistan policy was framed. But it was not the only context. The minor context was the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Ayatullah Khomeini anointed official America as the "Great Satan," and official Islam as "American Islam." But instead of also addressing the issues - the sources of resentment against official America - the Reagan administration hoped to create a pro-American Islamic lobby.
The grand plan of the Reagan administration was two-pronged. First, it drooled at the prospect of uniting a billion Muslims around a holy war, a Crusade, against the evil empire. I use the word Crusade, not Jihad, because only the notion of Crusade can accurately convey the frame of mind in which this initiative was taken. Second, the Reagan administration hoped to turn a religious schism inside Islam, between minority Shia and majority Sunni, into a political schism. Thereby, it hoped to contain the influence of the Iranian Revolution as a minority Shia affair.
This is the context in which an American/Saudi/Pakistani alliance was forged, and religious madresas turned into political schools for training cadres. The Islamic world had not seen an armed Jihad for centuries. But now the CIA was determined to create one. It was determined to put a version of tradition at the service of politics. We are told that the CIA looked for a Saudi Prince to lead this Crusade. It could not find a Prince. But it settled for the next best, the son of an illustrious family closely connected to the royal family. This was not a backwater family steeped in pre-modernity, but a cosmopolitan family. The Bin Laden family is a patron of scholarship. It endows programs at universities like Harvard and Yale.
The CIA created the Mujaheddin and Bin Laden as alternatives to secular nationalism. Just as, in another context, the Israeli intelligence created Hamas as an alternative to the secular PLO.
Contemporary "fundamentalism" is a modern project, not a traditional leftover. When the Soviet Union was defeated in Afghanistan, this terror was unleashed on Afghanistan in the name of liberation. As different factions fought over the liberated country - the Northern Alliance against the Taliban - they shelled and destroyed their own cities with artillery.
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