Sooo history -- clearing up a lot of ignorance part 2

So the Canaanites have reared their heads in current urban legends about the population of the Holy Land over time, and I posted some history.

You can see from that history that the Israelites did not wipe out the Canaanites. On the Fact-Checking thread, I specifically wrote about the old genocide urban legends. I've tweeted about it too.

What's more, we know there were Canaanites in the 1220s BCE, three centuries after the Israelites came to the Holy Land.

Now there are new urban legends that pull in the Canaanites. The fact is, they are still with us. The people of Lebanon have a Canaanite inheritance.

And lol and behold, it is the same J2 Y chromosome haplogroup found in many Jews. It originated in NE Anatolia during the Neolithic and domestication of wheat, wine grapes, and animals, close to the Caucasus. You know. Near Ararat. Genesis 10 in the Bible gets another confirmation. 

So a) the Israelites did NOT kill off all the Canaanites b) the Canaanites were known to the Egyptian New Kingdom as living in the Holy Land and c) the Canaanites had descendants who are still with us.

I'm just saying -- hand-wringing not accepted

I finally saw that stupid tweet that said "what are we supposed to do as American Jews in this situation".

I don't think that person understands Jewishness because the answer is obvious.

IT'S CHANUKKAH. THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT CHANUKKAH IS IMPORTANT FOR. RISING UP AND SHOWING PEOPLE WE ARE HERE.

You don't need a fancy setup. Go to your grocery and buy enough packs of birthday candles to get you through, and some matches.

Wrap a box in aluminum foil.

Find a window that looks out onto the street, and into which people on the street can look.

Melt the bottom of a candle enough for it to stand upright on the foil.

LIGHT ONE CANDLE AND USE IT TO LIGHT THAT DAMNED STANDING CANDLE AND PUT IT IN THE WINDOW WHERE PEOPLE CAN SEE IT AS IT BURNS

The proper place for Chanukkah candle lighting is in the home. We all of us need to stand up and be counted. That is what Chanukkah is about. Not hand-wringing. Not hiding. 

And then play this, standing up while you listen to the anthem.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-y12LJlFkU

Here you'll find instructions on what to do after tonight.

https://www.chabad.org/holidays/chanukah/article_cdo/aid/102911/jewish/What-Is-Hanukkah.htm

Sooo history -- clearing up a lot of ignorance

In light of the false information going around on the web, mostly with anti-Semitic screeds, I thought it was time to give some information I didn't give on my Fact-Checking blog. The supporting data is in the bibliography. 

There are two reasons for most of the ignorance. One is simply that schools don't teach Jewish history, even in AP courses, and that history is never a required subject. The other is that courses dealing with Jewish history do not use post-1995 data like I did, ignore DNA evidence, and know nothing about the intersection between the Bible and Olrik's work. That's aside from the fact that academic writers are so ignorant about Biblical Hebrew and Jewish classics.

So here's the real deal.

By 4000 BCE the Semitic language parent had developed in eastern Anatolia south of the Caucasus mountains, distinct from the nearby ergative isolate Hurrian or its ancestor, and also the Indic languages. A Jewish ancestor is set in this location at this time, when wine grapes were being domesticated and meteoric iron was being used. The J1 and J2 Neolithic Y-chromosome subclades begin to develop at this time in NE Anatolia, and they are the main subclades in men descended from Jewish males.

The Jewish culture begins about 2500 BCE with a small nucleus of people who move west, after environmental changes dessicate the edin which used to be watered by four rivers, of which only two survive today. At the time smelted iron was coming into use. 

About 2350 BCE, the Hebrews of Ur have migrated west to the crossroads trading city of Haran, then southwest along the trade routes to the region of Numeira which is now in Jordan. Akkadian was used in diplomacy and trade all over southwest Asia. 

By 2000 BCE, after the destruction of Ebla and the Gutian takeover of Mesopotamia, ties between the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean coast weakened. Communities in southeast Anatolia dissolved along with the trade routes that had supported them. Ugaritic, Canaanitic, and Hebrew began to develop and, coincidentally, the Indic Sea Peoples began to differentiate from each other, carrying the R1a Y-chromosome subclade of the Indo-Europeans (which also originated in NE Anatolia). Carbon steel and war chariots hitched to horses appeared by this time.

The patriarchs acquire land at Chevron and Shkhem, but have to migrate away from the latter after destroying the city’s men. The narrative behind the migration has similar elements to Greek saga, and the Achaean Greeks were partners with if not identical to the Pelishtim who settled in the Holy Land.

In the reign of Amenemhet III, the patriarchs migrate to Egypt, but are (illegally) forced into servitude when Canaanitic immigrants take over north Egypt, forming the 17th dynasty,which the Egyptians called Hyksos. 

In 1628 BCE (a radiocarbon date) Thera erupts, part of a swarm of troubles during which the Israelites escape while their Hyksos oppressors try to pick up the pieces. 

The Israelites roam the Sinai Peninsula for 38 years; they consolidate a legal system that subsequently survives 35 centuries of oppression and murder and proves the advantages of common law, which reconciles local tradition with culture-wide law, over civil codes like the Roman one. Not until the reign of Henry II, in England in the 1100s CE, will another common law code arise. Radiocarbon dating places the start of the reign of Ahmose I over a reunited Egypt at about the time of the Ingress. 

Between 1500 and 1200 BCE, the Israelites begin to adapt one version of Ugaritic cuneiform to Hebrew, an easy job because Ugaritic is also a Semitic language and has already adapted cuneiform into a representation of its sound system, dropping logograms and determinants. 

Between 1400 and 1100 BCE, the Aramaeans settle in the territory that takes their name, the Ionians (Achaeans) settle in a part of the Peloponnese known as Achaia, and they also colonize the western coast of the Holy Land where they are known under their Egyptian name of Pelishtim, leaving writings in Linear B. 

About 1300 BCE is the middle date for the Time to Most Recent Common Ancestor of the Jewish kohanim according to 21st century genetics. This is the period of the central shrine at Shiloh, with a tabernacle and an ark of the covenant. Before this, people sacrificed in their settlements which were under frequent attack; that was the time of the bamot, which were prohibited in the Shiloh period.

About 1230 BCE (radiocarbon date) in a period of dessication, Merneptah of the Egyptian 19th dynasty sends soldiers to raid the Holy Land for grain, impacting both the Canaanites and Israelites. He puts up a stele about 1227 BCE which identifies them as distinct peoples living side by side.

Between 1200 and 1100 BCE, the Sea Peoples destroy Ugarit, Wilusa, Hattusas, and other cities. In the previous centuries, the Indo-European Greek/Pelishtim contingent have replaced the Linear B writing system adopted from the Palace Culture, with an adapted version of Ugaritic cuneiform they picked up during their residence in the Holy Land. 

By 1100 BCE the Pelishtim bring the Shiloh central shrine cult to an end and Israelite settlements spring up on bare ground on the hilltops. They refuse to trade with the lowlands, making their own pottery and excluding wild pig, which was part of diets of the Holy Land from Neanderthal times to 900 BCE. Wild pigs survive in the highlands of Israel into the 21st century CE. Bamot are again established. Pottery styles in the north and south differ, hard evidence of cultural differences that will lead to the split monarchy.

By 900 BCE, the Israelite hilltop settlements dissolve. After the First Temple is built, the bamot are again prohibited forever. A previously united kingdom splits into Judea and all the rest of them. 

By 800 BCE, the Jews have developed a distinctive system of writing seen on the Gezer calendar. Aramaic has replaced Akkadian as the language of trade and diplomacy. The Ionians colonize the western coast of Anatolia, unknowingly returning to their homeland, and begin shaping the Sea Peoples epic of the war they took part in that destroyed Wilusa. 

By 690 BCE, the Assyrians take over the northern (Israelite) kingdom. They deport about 22,000 of the northern nobility, then import Assyrian-speaking people to whom the Israelite priests have to adapt their oral tradition. 

By 600 BCE, the Aramaeans conquer Babylon and develop Neo-Babylonian, a hybrid of Aramaic and Akkadian. They conquer Assyria and Judea and deport about 22,000 of the Judean nobility. 

By 500 BCE, the Jews return to the Holy Land and, with authorization from Persian rulers Daryavesh and Koresh, rebuild the temple. They now have a written version of the oral tradition in the wording that developed over the preceding 35 centuries. Its language is Biblical Hebrew, their pre-Captivity vernacular. Their current vernacular is Neo-Babylonian and they will adopt its non-cuneiform script for scrolls that can legally be read from in synagogue. They use Mishnaic Hebrew when running their courts and recording its enactments. 

Jews continued to live in the Holy Land for the next 25 centuries, although they spread out worldwide. Two particular infusions were the medieval creation of the kabbalistic community in Tsfat, and the purchases of land from the Ottoman Empire after 1850. The latter is known as The Old Yishuv.

The New Yishuv happened, of course, in 1948. Immediately thereafter, the Jews of Yemen were brought to Israel, and later the Jews of Ethiopia. The Jews of India also immigrated to Israel.

The sad part is that all this information is out there on the web and nobody accesses it. A lot of it is on Jewish Virtual Library. The people who want to smear Jews refuse to learn the truth. But as I said the other week, people who don't hate Jews are equally ignorant because they, too, refuse to use the resources on the Web. We all of us need a better education and as the old saying goes, it's better to be silent and be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt. Keep your tongue between your teeth if you refuse to study up.

Ben Hur, the novel, part 22

So what do we say about Wallace and Ben Hur.

Wallace did not respect his readers. He did not teach them anything by doing good research. Instead, he pandered to all the worst tendencies of Victorian melodrama.

He stole material from every cheap novel and play of the previous couple of centuries, except that he got the name Iras for Balthazar’s daughter from Shakespeare.

He pandered to every bigoted Victorian concept.

Only about 10% of what’s in this novel got into either of the two films made from it. The big thing in both of them was to get to the chariot race somehow because both filmmakers realized that it had everything – sports, excitement, death, and revenge.

It’s pretty sad to say that a novel this long is only 10% worth passing along to posterity, but that’s the case, unless you want to pass along myths and bigotry. They have their place in novels, but it’s not a good place unless you’re writing for an audience of liars or bigots.

Put it another way. I’ve been bingeing Burt Lancaster movies and came across one where he plays a trapper who is forced at arrow point to accept a black man as trade goods in exchange for an entire winter’s furs. While the movie has lots of humor in it, you can’t admire Lancaster’s character because without hating the black man, he is still cruel to him and minimizes the past sufferings of blacks. You probably wouldn’t watch that movie just from my description, even though I can throw in that they become allies in the end.

But it shows how non-haters have nothing to congratulate themselves on if they buy into the lies. Which is partly what my Fact-Checkingblog is about, and why this string of posts belongs there.

Ben Hur, the novel, part 21

We are up to Book VIII and the date is 8 or 9 Nisan. Wallace makes one of many mistakes about Passover. Simonides, who is Jewish, says tomorrow is Passover. It starts at night, which is the 14^th Nisan on the Jewish calendar.

The only time that the 10^th Nisan was important for Passover was the very first one. That time, the Israelites were told to pick out a yearling sheep (or goat) and keep it for use four days later. Mishnah Pesachim 9:5 gives a list of differences between the first Passover and all others. There is no attribution of this Mishnah so it was one generally established by 50 CE and that means it could have been in place for as much as 15 centuries.

Skipping chapter 2, you may wonder why Amrah didn’t bring matso to Judah’s family. Passover has to be celebrated in a state of taharut and leprosy is a condition of tumah.

Skipping chapter 3-7 and now we get to Wallace’s terrible horrible no-good very bad depiction of Passover. In the very first paragraph, people at various fires invite Judah to join them. That ain’t how it works.

The Passover yearling sheep or goat has to be eaten between sundown and midnight. Even if everything from the 7^th lumbar vertebrum is cut off because of gid ha-nasheh, that’s still something like 35 pounds of meat and, in fact, except for not breaking the bones (so they don’t eat the marrow), everything edible has to be consumed – lungs, brains, things we don’t eat nowadays. To make sure of eating about 35 pounds of stuff, you figure how much a healthy adult would eat and invite enough people to finish it by midnight. Every person in your group has to eat at least an olive’s bulk, so you could host 100 people using that one sheep. You don’t invite more at the last minute or you risk not meeting the olive’s bulk requirement.

Second, it’s not just eating. By this time, a recital had developed that made sure to reference all the parts of the Passover story. Judah should not have been roaming the city; he should have been with his legion going through the recital. He was not observing Passover correctly, would not be able to say nirtsah at midnight, and would owe a sacrifice two days later (individuals do not bring their olah on days like Shabbat or Passover after transgressing a positive commandment). And the same is true for every Jew in the procession Judah “saw”.

Finally, Passover has to be observed inside a house. Things have to be carried around during the ceremony and meal and Passover requires observance of the rules of Shabbat, which includes carrying only inside a house or other specified limits. The house also separates the people invited for one sheep from another group and helps insure that the above two rules are observed.

Remember, Jewish observance was not given up by Christians until the time of Paul. Jesus himself observed this Passover according to all its laws. There was no excuse for Judah to do otherwise.

Knitting -- leftovers, a new stitch, and housewares

This isn't so much a new stitch as making a project with the double knit stitch I found in that 1892 Butterick book.

I had leftovers of Palette yarn from old projects. Palette is a nice fingering yarn and I thought I could get at least a couvre pied out of what I had. 

So I cast on 400 stitches to a size 3 needle with a 40 inch cable. The double knit is K1/Yarn to front/Slip 1 purlwise/Yarn to back and on the next row, knit all the slips (which  look like knits on the wrongside) and slip all the knits (which look like purls on the wrongside).

You do not need to do seed stitch or ribbing to keep the edges from curling.

A full skein of Palette does 27 of these double rows of 400 stitches each. 27 rows gives you just about 3 inches, so if you want a six foot long blanket, you need 24 balls of Palette or 5,544 yards of leftovers. With my leftovers, the blanket turned out to be 30 inches wide (400 stitches) and 36 inches long. All the white stripes are 9 rows. Everything else is what I could get out of what I had.

Double knit takes a long time to work. You actually have to work both sides of a row to get the pattern to come out right. But it's harder to make a mistake on than Eye of Partridge. The mistake I made most often was to pick up both the "purl" and "knit" stitch to wrap and sometimes it took me 20 stitches to realize what I did, depending on what I was watching on Youtube at the time.

Let me know if you can come up with any patterns other than stripes. I tried to do color work with a really simple two-stitch pattern and it was a disaster.

With its double layer, this stitch gives a VERY warm result, even warmer than the two-color work of Fair Isle because every stitch is doubled, unlike the base color parts of Fair Isle which don't have a second layer of yarn behind them. But if you need warmth, it's fabulous.

Ben Hur, the novel, part 20

So, Book VII.

Chapter 1 has a falsehood about the tribes of Israelites. Whatever tribes composed the Samaritans, it was not known at that time who they were, except for the kohanim. In the 21^st century, DNA testing has confirmed that Samaritan kohanim are descended in the male line from the same male forebear as Jewish kohanim. There are three other genetic entities among the Samaritans, two of which are more closely related to each other than to the third. We have no surviving members of any of the ten northern tribes to compare their DNA to, so as to see which ones the three are – except that while they are Israelites, they are not Judeans.

In fact, in Deuteronomy 34:1-3, where Mosheh looks out from Mt. Pisgah over the land and sees the territories of the tribes, each tribe is named. In Jewish Torah at any rate. In Samaritan Pentateuch, no tribes are named. All of that was swept away in the Assyrian conquest. The missing tribal names are an indicator that Samaritan Pentateuch transmitted orally for a long time, during which tribal distinctions were forgotten and evaporated out of the recital. This evaporation over time of geographical data is part of Olrik’s principles.

But of course if Wallace wasn’t bothering to read his own Bible, he wouldn’t have studied Samaritan Pentateuch.

Now, it’s Nisan and Wallace has forgotten part of his Christian scripture. He has said nothing about the moneychangers in the Temple. In fact, all the people with Judah would have known about this. Purim is the time of year when Jews pay their poll tax, which goes to fix roads so that pilgrims can get to Jerusalem for Passover. Villages can collect the tax and send it to Jerusalem with a delegate so as not to interrupt everybody’s springtime work.

The tax has to be paid as a half shekel. You cannot pay in Greek or Roman coin. Therefore everybody has to change what coins they have for shekels. That’s why there were tables set up in the Temple where the coins were being changed. Whipping these people out of the Temple disrupted people obeying a mitsvah, which contributed to upkeep of the temple and observance of another mitsvah, Passover.

Whichever Christian scripture discusses that tale was not written by anybody who knows about Judaism, let alone cares about Jewish observance.

Skipping chapters 2-4, I will note that we are up to about 8 Nisan, and Passover starts the 14^th.