Early in my blogging experience, I wrote the following post as a way of describing the conflict between the Western Judeo-Christian world and the Islamic world. It was my intention back then to follow up with an historical continuation. I have not done that as my blog began to go down a different avenue of interest. However, today I read a comment to a question that posed the question as to why the left in this country identifies more with Muslims than with their own Christian countrymen. My theory is that it has nothing at all to do with religion and everything to do with those who advocate common sense and intelligent reasoning using the brains God gave us to use against those who advocate the oppression of thought whether by liberal academics, moonbats, clerics, preachers, or the concept of a petty and angry God. The left wants to oppress thought and freedom and so do the radical right. For that reason, I'm going to repeat my earlier post that is archived over on my old blog and not quickly available here for reference. In that post, my conclusion was simply that it all boils down to old fashioned sibling rivalry. Daddy (God) loves me more than you, nanna nanna nanna. This reasoning flies in the face of both the covenant God made with Abraham regarding Isaac and Ishmael and presupposes that some part of God's creations are more loved by God than others, which in this writer's opinion is pure hogwash. It also eliminates one of the most basic premises of God's whole design ... that human kind (man) is given dominon and CHOICES in how to exercise this dominon. The rules are man made. As far as I know there is only one basic rule of God, the 10 Commandments not withstanding, which is so simple it is ignored by all: we are to LOVE. This is the theme over and over in both the old and new testaments of the Bible. It is expressed in a myriad of ways and most of us have learned this tenant when we memorized the words: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." I get angry at the Christian right radicals because they forget that Jesus was one of the "chosen" with lineage to Isaac and tend to worship Paul and his arrogant and sexist attitude instead of glorifying God. I get angry at the left for refusing to see the hand of God in all of mankind instead glorifying themselves and I get angry at the Muslim thought because it grows out of sulking, disaffected children who use torture, oppression and rape to control.
Originally posted 2 December 2004
I've been trying to organize my thoughts and decide whether to start this Middle East history study in the present and work back in time, or start in ancient times and work forward. Because I believe that all the history of strife and alienation of the Middle East traces back to the " Covenant of Abraham," I've decided to start with the ancient and work toward the present (I should live so long). The first signs of civilization began approximately 4500 B.C. Two civilizations emerged at about the same time ... the Mesopotamians to the northeast of Palestine and Egyptian to the southwest of it. It was about 2500 years before these two civilizations discovered the existence of the other and the fight began. Palestine, as the buffer, had little chance of avoiding the fight.
The oldest and most prominent Mesopotamian civilizations began with the city-states of Susa, Kish, and Ur, now part of modern Iraq. In the third millennium B.C., Sargon I, conquered the Sumerians and formed the Sumerian-Akkadian kingdom with a high standard of living and a highly developed culture. The development of cuneiform writing was their greatest contribution and a vast improvement over Egyptian hieroglyphics.
Around 2100 B.C., all city-states in this area were
united into the far-reaching Babylonian Empire.
Hammurabi was the Moses of the Babylonians, giving them their code of law as a present from heaven, much as Moses gave his code of law to the Israelites at Mount Sinai one thousand years later.
While the Babylonians were building their cities, drinking their wine, getting rich, and dreaming of world conquest, there were as yet no Jews. In about 2000 B.C., a new Semitic tribe, the Assyrians, began to challenge the soft and rich Babylonians. At about the same time, a man named Terah took his son Abram, Abram's wife Sarai, and his grandson Lot, the nephew of Abram, and emigrated from the cosmopolitan city of Ur in Babylonia. Not much is known about Terah except that the Bible traces his genealogy to Shem, one of the three sons of Noah. Whether he was a Babylonian or what language he spoke or what his occupation was, is never mentioned. We have to assume he was not a poor sheepherder since he lived in one of the most sophisticated cities of that age.
So why does any of this matter? The Bible, our main source of reference leaves more questions unanswered than answered. All we know is that by the act of crossing the River Euphrates, Terah and his family group become the first people in the Bible identified as Ivriim, or in English "Hebrews," ... the people "who crossed over," the people "from the other side of the river."
Terah and his family wander six hundred miles northwest from Ur to the land of Haran, in the southern part of what is now Turkey. Terah dies and the story of Abram/Abraham begins ... a beginning that has not ended to the present day. It is in Haran after his father's death that Abram has his first meeting with the Lord God "Jehovah." God proposes his Covenant to the elderly Abram. Abram is to be called Abraham and Sarai, his wife, to be called Sarah or Princess. To seal the Covenant, all males were to be circumcised. In return, God will make the descendants of Abraham "His Chosen People and place them under His protection. (Note: God does not promise to make them better, only that they will exist as a separate and distinct entity and be His people.) From an historical point of view, it doesn't matter if this experience was real or imaginary on Abraham's part. In four thousand years, the idea of a Covenant is still alive and well in daily prayers and synagogues around the world. The idea of a "Covenant with God" is the driving force in Judaism and without it there can be no Judaism and no Jews. For four hundred years, Abraham and his descendants wandered about as nomads in the land of Canaan, without a country of their own or a stable form of government. The were often regarded by the pagan population as strange and a little crazy, worshiping a God that was invisible. But, we get ahead of ourselves.
When God told Abraham "I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you," and when He said about Sarah, "I'll bless her and give her a son. And she'll become a mother of many nations; kings of nations will come from her," Abraham wondered how he at 100 years and his wife at ninety years could have a child. Abraham called out, "Oh, that Ishmael might find favor in your sight" And God answered, "As for Ishmael, I've heard your request. I have blessed him and I will make him fruitful and will give him many descendants. He will father twelve princes, and I will make him a great nation. But with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you this time next year, will I establish my covenant."
As far as I am concerned, we have reached the crux of the matter. Isaac and Ishmael. Half brothers. The elder forced to take second place to the younger. The makings of a dysfunctional family right from the git go.
So I'll pick up this story later as we begin to trace the history of Isaac and Ishmael.
End of old post *********** End of old post
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