ex-l wrote:Dare I ask such an ex-BK Dada-ji as you ... how does all that fit into BK philosophy, or BK philosophy fit into that?
I'll refer to the BK view along the way..
I remember it said in BK classes that the first religion founded after the degradation of the adi sanatan dharma (more commonly known as Hinduism) was the one founded by Abraham and it was the first montheism - a claim most people believe too, but that discounts the Pharaoh Amenhotep who is known to be the first monotheist we have a record of.
Judaism, Christianity and Islam are often called the "Abrahamic" religions or traditions as they all consider themselves branches of the Abrahamic line.
In Islam, all three are called
Alh-al-khitab, ie "people of the book" who are of the same scriptural tradition. Each one declares itself as the
New! Improved! version of the previous religion, as does every new sect within a religion.
Abraham is said to have led his tribe away from Ur (in southern Iraq today) so the people would not be persecuted or influenced by the other religions and could live live according to the religion of YHWA their tribe's god (a bit like the Puritans left England to go to America, or the Mormons going to Salt Lake City). Hence, the First Commandment is
You shall have no other gods before Me, implying there are other gods, and, again, after Moses spends time on Mt Sinai he comes back to find the people have returned to earlier forms of ritual and worshipping "the golden calf".
In the Hebrew original, God never promises Canaan/Israel to be for the Israelites exclusively. There are some Ultra - Orthodox sects of Judaism who reject Zionism for this very reason. They see the Promised land as an internal one.
Dr Naomi Wolf
26 July 2014
Okay, so I was challenged below:
"Read the Bible! God gave the land of Israel to the Jewish people." So ... I may get crucified for this but I have started to say it - most recently (terrified, trembling) to warm welcome in a synagogue in LA - "Actually if you read Genesis Exodus and Deuteronomy in Hebrew -- as I do -- you see that God did not "give" Israel to the Jews/Israelites. We as Jews are raised with the creed that "God gave us the land of Israel" in Genesis -- and that ethnically 'we are the chosen people." But actually -- and I could not believe my eyes when I saw this, I checked my reading with major scholars and they confirmed it -- actually God's "covenant" in Genesis, Exodus and Deuteronomy with the Jewish people is NOT ABOUT AN ETHNICITY AND NOT ABOUT A CONTRACT. IT IS ABOUT A WAY OF
Again and again in the "covenant" language He never says, "I will give you, ethnic Israelites, the land of Israel". Rather He says something far more radical - far more subversive - far more Godlike in my view. He says: If you visit those imprisoned ... act mercifully to the widow and the orphan ... welcome the stranger in your midst ... tend the sick ... do justice and love mercy ... and perform various other tasks ... THEN YOU WILL BE MY PEOPLE AND THIS LAND WILL BE YOUR LAND.
So "my people" is not ethnic -- it is transactional. We are God's people not by birth but by a way of behaving, that is ethical, kind and just. And we STOP being "God's people" when we are not ethical, kind and just. And ANYONE who is ethical, kind and just is, according to God in Genesis, "God's people."
And the "contract" to "give" us Israel is conditional -- we can live in God's land IF we are "God's people" in this way -- just, merciful, compassionate.
AND -- it never ever says it is ONLY your land. Even when passages spell out geographical "boundaries" (as if God does such a thing), it never says this is exclusively your land. It never says I will give this land JUST to you. Remember these were homeless nomads who had left slavery in Egypt and were wandering around in the desert; at most these passages say "settle here", but they do not say "settle here exclusively". Indeed again and again it talks about welcoming "zarim" -- translated as "strangers" but it can also be translated as "people/tribes who are not you" -- in your midst. Blew my mind, hope it blows yours.
Christianity considers Jesus as 'the Christ" - the anointed one - the fulfilment of Jewish messianic prophecies and the new religion as the maturation of the Torah from laws to live by into a new transcendent teleology (end purpose) dependant on the acceptance of Jesus Christ as messiah. Which means, of course, no later prophets or revisions are needed. All early Christians were Jews, saw themselves as part of judaism. It is said Jesus was an Essene, one mystical sect of Judaism. Only after Paul was 'the gospel" offered to gentiles, where it found more fertile soil.
Then along comes Mohamed who says Jesus Christ is but another of the human prophets and he, Mohamed, is now the final prophet. The when Ali, son-in-law of the prophet, loses the battle for dominance in the Islamic world we have the dynastically-based schism between Shia and Sunni Islam. Then others, such as Bahaula - founder of the Ba'Hai faith - come along. Bahaula says he is not only the
Mahdi (redeemer who appears just before Jesus's coming when its time for the world to end) but also the next prophet in the line going back through Mohamed and all the way to Abraham, he has come to correct the teachings and is a new prophet, he and his followers are turned on as heretics.
The BKs of course have gone through their schisms too and it's this that sees them use every means possible to block and harass alt-BKs. It's not worth debating which group represent the truer BK knowledge or practice because, as it's all nonsense, it's debating who represents the truer nonsense!
Given the drawings of the Kalpa tree showed the three as branches of the Hindu trunk back then, that either means the God of the BKs was confused when he gave, they say, the visions to Lekhraj (aka Brahma) upon which these early drawings were based, or the god that approved the later versions decided it was better PR to align with the historical understanding, divine truth be damned!
They also said - the official BK line - that being the second oldest religion they were the second most degraded and that's why the Jews were so persecuted over the centuries. I remember a couple of classes where the teacher went to great lengths (for consistency) to describe the persecution of Hindus as even greater, suffered under the Mughals, although that's late in the piece, and
southern India had a different experience in its interaction with Islam.
The name Palestine from Peleset is found in ancient Egyptian records. It shifted phonetically through the Greek form Παλεστινη = "Palestini" - which Herodotus uses around 500 BCE to name the whole region from the sea right through to the Persian kingdoms. That name has stuck right up until today. Gaza today sits smack-bang in the middle of the ancient Kingdom of the Philistines referred to in the Bible - imagine Gaza's borders expanded north, east and south.
Other areas that the zionists which to make part of Eretz Israel (Greater Israel) includes the biblical kingdoms of Samaria (Samaritans) and Moab. The kingdoms of Israel and Judah were often at war, united for only a short time. All of which shows the Zionist appeal to the authority of the Bible is an appeal to a very brief period in that land's history.
Note the "Aramean tribes" in the east. Aramaic was Jesus's language and the main language common throughout the region along with Greek, which was used for administration and education after Alexander's conquests in 330BCE). Latin was the language of the Roman soldiers around the time of Jesus. Greek and Aramaic were used all the way east and north east to the Punjab region and today's Uzbekistan. The oldest written Buddhist texts are Ashoka's edicts found on a rock carving in Afghanistan in both Greek and Aramaic