Merry Christmas (part 3)

- In the past quarter century, archaelogists have seen "one settled assumption over who the ancient Israelites were and where they came from provided false". Instead of a band of invaders who conquered Canaan, the "Israelites are now thought to have been an indigenous culture that developed west of the Jordan River around 1200 B.C.E". The epic stories of Abraham, Isaac, and the other patriarchs "appear to have been spliced...out of various piecs of local lore". The whole account of Davids empire is now viewed as "an invention of Jerusalem-based priests in the seventh and eight centuries B.C.E. who were keen to burnish their national history". ( By the way, a study of comparative religions shows that all ancient peoples did the same). Jewish monotheism- that is, the exclusive worship of a Semitic deity called YHWA, or Yahweh (Jehovah) didn't fully "coalesce" until sometime between an Assyrian conquest of the northern kingdom of Israel in 722 B.C.E. and the Babylonians conquest of the southern kingdoms of Judah in 586. The Bible indicates this happened much earlier. The true origins appeared in Egyptian religious thought. The situation gets even more problematic for the traditionalists in every camp. Abraham, was utterly mythological. "Not only is there no evidence that any such figure as Abraham ever lived but archaelogists beleive that there is no way such a figure could have lived given what we now about Israelites origins". In other words, he was a leading figure in the larger myth. The Exodus too did not occur, based on a growing body of evidence about Ancient Egptian border defences, desert sites where the fleeing Israelites allegedely camped, and so on.

- Mark, having become the interpreter for Peter, wrote down accurately what he remembered, but not in the correct order: "For he neither heard the Lord nor accompanied him". Matthew put the Oracles of the Lord in the Hebrew language, "and each one interpreted them as best he could". Papias knew of no other Gospels than those of Mark and Matthew at that time, and actually he had heard of such writings only from the elders at second hand. He has not seen any himself. "Myth" from the old Egyptian mutu, meaning utterance or sayings, relates it to the Egyptian mattiu, which means "the word of truth" or "true sayings". The resemblance to Matthew here cannot be accidental.

- The Suffering and Vindication of the Innocent Righteous One is seen in the stories of the suffering servant Isaiah, in Tobit, in Esther, in Daniel, and in other places. All tell a story of a righteous man or woman who suffers, is convicted and condemned to death, gets resurrected at the last moment, and rises to a high position. "It is the tale of how the Jews saw themselves; the pious persecuted by the powerful, the people of God subjugated by the godless". It was an image readily absorbed by the Christian sect, so the tale of Jesus also follows this pattern.

"The invention or discovery of symbols is doubtless by far the greatest single event in the history of man. Without them no intellectual advance is possible; with them, there is no limit set to intellectual development except inherent stupidity" - John Dewey

- El-Asar = Lazarus , Bethany = Beth-Anu,
- Isis (old source name was Meri, like the Latin word mare, "the sea" -the primitive source of all life). The Egyptian plural of Meri, however, was Merti. In the Latin feminie form, this became Mertae. In Hebrew, it resolved into what was rendered in English as Martha.