#yahwist

[chapelofmyheart]

Prayer to Archangel Michael for Palestine

ᴮʸ ᵐᵉ ♡

Archangel Michael, heavenly defender, angel of peace and war

May you defend the people of Palestine with the power of the Divine Father

May your sword guide them and may the holy spirit shield them

Bring the enemies to their knees as your light opens their eyes

Wash away the fear of the children as your wings cradle them

Archangel Michael, warrior who fears not, and in the name of the Divine Father, Palestine shall not fall. Amen.

I said "Divine Father" cause I wanted to give people a chance to use Yahweh or Allah if they wanted to, so all people could use it :)

[chapelofmyheart]

Always ♡

The person who re-blogged this wants you to know that they are open to questions regarding their spiritual path, witchcraft and faith, and in fact, would love to talk about their spiritual path with you and have a casual talk!!

(this applies to me pspspsps HMU , don't hesitate, i am always open to respectful discussion of our spiritual paths and just being friends!!)

[a-god-in-ruins-rises]

[yahiyshmatthyah613]

[i-love-comparative-religion]

I recently made this video about Asherah.

[chapelofmyheart]

Now you see, I'm not exactly sure if I'd be counted as "pagan" because my religion is abrahamic, but I am a witch so this sorta correlates.

In middle school, I was an atheist and basically hated anything that had to do with abrahamic religion because I only saw it for the rude believers and I based my whole view on G-d around that. When 2020 hit, I began seeing the witchtok uprising and it got me interested in the craft. I began hearing about greek, roman, celtic gods, etc. I began to learn about them and being a beginner witch, I felt connected to Hekate.

Working and worshipping Hekate went ok but began to die down a few years later and I felt her sorta fading away. Maybe Hekate knew I needed something more. Then when watching supernatural, I got an interest in archangel Gabriel. I began doing a ton of research on him and other angels. I began working with him and he began teaching me how to follow G-d. I began diving into catholic magic and it was going ok until I discovered the actual origins of G-d.

I left Catholicism to become a Yahwist and my relationship with Yahweh became even stronger now that I knew the truth about him. I was away from a religion built in lies and brainwashing. Middle school me probably never would be able to imagine that I grew up to become a G-d and bible lover but I am and I'm proud of that.

I'm also proud of not abandoning my witchy ways when transferring to a abrahamic belief. Witchcraft helps me become close to Yahweh and his angels, I get to understand him and reach out to him better. I feel such a massive love and appreciation from him for discovering his true story and name.

Yahweh and witchcraft gives me warmth that atheism never was able to do.

Pagans and polytheists, what are you most proud of in your practice? Lessons you've learned, new methods of worship you've implemented, offerings you've given - that sort of thing. 🧡

[tanadrin]

Fell down a rabbit hole on ancient Israelite child sacrifice and it’s interesting that 1) it’s basically impossible (without jumping through absurd apologetic hoops) to explain important parts of the Hebrew Bible unless they are reacting to, being revised against, or being overlaid on a literary stratum which assumes the existence of Yahwistic child sacrifice; 2) as such it seems there is a very ancient strand of religious law (renegotiated at a very early date!) which specifically commands the sacrifice of all human and animal firstborn males; 3) like all religious law in the Bible, “one group of elites produced religious literature commanding a thing” doesn’t mean that those commandments represent actual universal and uncontested practices—indeed, one of the reasons people produce religious literature is to argue for a set of practices or to shore up their own position by portraying it as normative, and there is very little evidence that the ancient near eastern law codes (religious or secular) produced for propaganda purposes were used like we might use a modern law code; 4) the Canaanite/Phoenecian/Punic/Northwest Semitic religious milieu was certainly one in which infant sqcrifice was at least irregularly practiced, but no such archeological remains have been found in ancient Israel, but by their very nature this kind of infanticide leaves very little remains behind: infant skeletons are small and mostly cartilage, fire seems to have frequently been involved in such sacrifice, and the reason evidence of Carthaginian child sacrifice survived is bc such remains were interred in jars in Carthaginian tophets. 5) While a lot of modern commentators balk at taking the plain meaning of the relevant passages of the Bible seriously, and think that on grounds of basic social and emotional realism they cannot be read as supporting the existence at one time of Yahwistic child sacrifice, we really do not understand the realities of living in an Iron Age society with its attendant phenomenally high infant mortality rates, where many parents seem to have bonded with their children much later, and fertility rates were much higher to compensate for the basic reality of how often babies died. I would add to that my hunch that people in the ancient past were by modern standards just more likely to be traumatized in general, and that probably fucks up how you deal with violence and the value of human life and how you build systems which create social meaning out of death, too. “People in the past were human beings who loved their children” is not incompatible with “people in the past did horrific shit occasionally because they thought it was spiritually, socially, or materially necessary.”

And I am in some ways sympathetic to people who are reluctant to accept evidence of ancient Israelite, or even ancient Carthaginian child sacrifice. It’s so alien to our own moral sensibilities—it is in fact utterly repugnant to them! Ergo the urge to try to read the evidence differently, even if it requires wild contortions. But we know that (for instance) the death penalty and exposure of infants and religious ordeals would have all been common in the region and it seems a small step to me to imagine some ritualization of these practices that at least imbues infanticide with some kind of deeper spiritual significance, if for no other reason than as a kind of cope. In a way it’s encouraging that we have come so far that we refuse to believe any society could have ever endorsed such a thing. Nor is it a recent transition: much of the overt violence and bloodshed of the ancient Israelite law codes was renegotiated away thousands of years ago, and the renegotiation of child sacrifice happened so early that it was a major part of the formation of those codes in the form that we have them now. That too is encouraging—you don’t need modern, historically contingent sensibilities to look at brutal social systems and go “fuck this, let’s replace them with something kinder and more humane.” That tendency is as much a part of the basic forces that drive human history as our violence or our shortsightedness is.

[girlactionfigure]

Recently, Alana Hadid collaborated on an Instagram post that claims Palestinian identity predates Judaism. It would be one thing to try to argue that Palestinian identity as it exists today predates the State of Israel -- something not everyone would agree with -- but Judaism?

If your advocacy for Palestinians requires you to deny, revise, or rewrite Jewish history, that’s not advocacy for Palestinians. That’s antisemitism.

RELIGION IN ANTIQUITY

Let’s put a few concepts into historical context. The concept of religion as it exists today did not exist in the ancient world. In antiquity, national and religious identities were almost one in the same. Think, for example, of the Ancient Egyptians or the Ancient Greeks. Though they both observed their own pantheon of gods and practiced their own traditional religious rituals, when we think of Ancient Egyptians or Ancient Greeks, we don’t think of them as religious groups. In the Middle East, most nations had a “national god;” for example, the Assyrians named themselves after their national god, Ashur. 

The difference between Ancient Egyptians and Ancient Greeks and Jews today is that while the Egyptians and Greeks have long ceased practicing their ancient national religions, in favor of religions like Christianity and Islam, Jews today do continue practicing the same religious rituals and rites as our ancient ancestors did. 

Just like the Ancient Egyptians made no differentiation between their national and religious identity, Jewish national and religious identity is still deeply intertwined. In fact, there is no word for “religion” in the Hebrew Bible. The closest would be “dat,” meaning law, or “emuna,” meaning belief.

BEFORE JUDAISM: YAHWISM 

The precursor to Judaism, Yahwism, dates back to the 12th century BCE. The most significant difference between Yahwism and Judaism is that the Yahwists only followed the Hebrew God -- YHWH -- but did not necessarily reject the rest of the existence of the Canaanite pantheon. 

The cult of YHWH was the national cult of the Kingdom of Israel (1047 BCE-930 BCE), though it seems other Canaanite cultures may have worshipped YHWH as well. Interestingly, the Hebrew God as depicted in the Hebrew Bible seems to be an amalgamation of YHWH and El, the most important god in the Canaanite pantheon.

FROM YAHWISM TO JUDAISM

In 930 BCE, the Kingdom of Israel split into two: the Kingdom of Israel to the north, also known as Samaria, and the Kingdom of Judah to the south. The term “Jew” comes from “Judahite,” as in a resident or citizen of the Kingdom of Judah. In Hebrew, the word for “Judahite” and “Jew” is the same, “Yehudi.” 

In 587 BCE, the Babylonians conquered the Kingdom of Judah and exiled its educated class to Babylon. It was around this time that the transition between Yahwism and Judaism -- which had been happening slowly over centuries -- became complete. The Jews came to reject the very existence of the rest of the deities in the Canaanite pantheon and, due to the Babylonian Exile, Jewish practices also picked up Babylonian influences.

ETYMOLOGY OF JUDAISM

The term “Judaism” itself does not come from Hebrew. Rather, it comes from Greek, and dates to the period of the Greek occupation of Judea (i.e. around the time of the story of Hanukkah). “Judaism” comes from Ἰουδαϊσμός” [Ioudaismos], a variation of the Greek term “Hellenismos.” It’s how the Greek occupiers described Jewish culture, religious ritual, and religious belief.

"Ioudaïsmós [was not] reduced to the designation of a religion. It means rather 'the aggregate of all those characteristics that makes Judaeans Judaean (or Jews Jewish).'"

Biblical scholar Shaye J. D. Cohen

To reiterate, for Jews themselves, there was no distinction between their national identity and their religious identity.

JUDAISM AS A RELIGION

Given that the concept of religion is a foreign one to Jewish identity, when did Jews start seeing ourselves as a religiousgroup? It all goes back to Napoleon and the French Revolution. 

For hundreds of years in Europe, Jews were denied citizenship, equal rights, and confined to living in ghettos. It was during the French Revolution that Jews were finally emancipated. Shortly after, Napoleon instituted a policy of Jewish emancipation that guaranteed Jews freedom from discrimination -- so long as we stripped the “national” elements from our Jewishness and instead reduced it merely to a religious identity. 

In 1806, Napoleon wrote: “[It is necessary to] reduce, if not destroy, the tendency of Jewish people to practice a very great number of activities that are harmful to civilization and to public order in society in all the countries of the world. It is necessary to stop the harm by preventing it; to prevent it, it is necessary to change the Jews…Once part of their youth will take its place in our armies, they will cease to have Jewish interests and sentiments; their interests and sentiments will be French.”

Napoleon’s assimilationist policies fundamentally shifted how Jews understood their identity. This set the groundwork for the Haskalah (Jewish Enlightenment) and the establishment of “religious” Jewish movements, such as the Reform and Conservative movements.

JEWISH IDENTITY

A NATION

If we are looking at Jewish identity through a Jewish lens, it’s important to understand that first and foremost, Jews consider ourselves a nation, which is why we call ourselves Am Yisrael, or the Nation of Israel. 

In this context, a nation is not necessarily a nation-state but rather, a group of people whose collective identity includes shared language, history, ethnicity, territory, and/or culture. It’s a term more political in nature than “ethnicity,” as a nation sees itself as having a common political destiny.

AN ETHNORELIGIOUS GROUP

In modern terms, we’d call ourselves an “ethnoreligious group,” meaning an ethnic group with a common religious practice.

A TRIBE

Jews also often refer to ourselves as a tribe, though technically we came from a confederation of tribes. In fact, the word “tribe” comes from “tribus” in Latin, which was first used to describe the 12 tribes of Israel.

WHAT ABOUT THE PHILISTINES?

The Philistines were an ancient seafaring people of Greek origin. They settled in Gaza and parts of what is now southern Israel in 1175 BCE. They are ethnically and culturally unrelated to today’s Palestinians and were exterminated by the Babylonians in the 7th century BCE.

“Philistine” is not what the Philistines called themselves, but rather, what the Israelites and Ancient Egyptians called them. We don’t know what the Philistines called themselves. The word comes from the Hebrew word “peleshet,” meaning “invader,” “squatter,” or “foreigner.”

For a full bibliography of my sources, please head over to my Instagram and  Patreon. 

rootsmetals

stop lying about Jewish history challenge 😃 the rest of the post is debunked in my DBAPP 4 highlight but I thought I’d fully address this particularly egregious lie because WOW! on second thought I do find this topic super interesting to talk about, so thanks I guess 😅

[elegantpersoncreation]

She seized the throne in blood. 👑🔥 Athaliah wasn’t just a queen—she was Judah’s only ruling queen. When her son, King Ahaziah, was assassinated, she made sure no rival could challenge her. Her method? A ruthless massacre of the royal family. For six years, she ruled with an iron grip, promoting the worship of Baal and standing against the powerful Yahwist priesthood...

The creator marked the content as AI-generated.

[eesirachs]

history of the hebrew bible

—1250-1000 bce israel emerges in the highlands of canaan, holding oral narratives of the pentateuch (abraham, if historical, ca. 1800, moses ca. 1250)

—1050 bce the united monarchy forms. saul's reign ca. 1050. david's ca. 1000. solomon's ca. 960. the latter erects the temple. the first former prophets are summoned

—ca 950 bce the oral narrative of the pentateuch is recorded in hebrew. some scholars name this earliest source the yahwist

—922 bce the kingdoms separate into israel in the north (capital samaria) and judah in the south (capital jerusalem). more former prophets are summoned, as well as the latter and the twelve

—ca 850 bce the so-called elohist source records oral narratives of the pentateuch. they may have access to the yahwist source

—722/21 bce assyria ruins samaria, exiles population. this exile affects prophets from the north such as amos and hosea

—621 bce josiah "finds" a scroll in the temple. this deuteronomist source reifies his reforms

—606 babylon and medes ruin nineveh

—597-586 bce babylon ruins jerusalem, namely, the temple. exiles population. this exile affects prophets from the south such as ezekiel and jeremiah

—ca 550 bce the priestly source, keen on re-membering in the midst of exile, records oral narratives of pentateuch. they made use of earlier written sources (so-called j, e, and d sources). some scholars suggest most, if not all, of the hebrew narrative is in fact recorded in this exile period

—539 bce persia ruins babylon, returns judean exiles, allows for temple to be rebuilt

—520-515 bce the temple rebuilt in jerusalem. this starts the 'second temple period'

—400 bce the torah section of the canon reaches its final form

—336-323 bce alexander the great ruins persia

—312-198 bce ptolemies of egypt reign over judah. the dead sea scrolls are composed ca. 300-100 bce. seleucids conquer jerusalem ca. 198

—200s bce LXX is composed in greek. the prophets section of the canon reaches its final form

—168/167 bce syria reigns over jerusalem. maccabean revolt

—33 ce a rabbi from nazareth with kind eyes hangs on a cross

—40s-60s ce a pharisee falls off a horse, sends letters to house churches (pauline epistles)

—66-70 ce the second temple is destroyed

—60s-110s the four gospels of the second testament are written. a fifth one, named q, may or may not be lost at this time

—100 ce the writings section of the canon reaches its final form

—300-400 ce codex vaticanus and codex sinaiticus composed

—600-900 ce the MT is rendered. hebrew is afforded vowels, finally. aleppo codex and cairo codex composed

[cryptotheism]

I think I must have written poorly because I was trying to make it clear how ubiquitous the belief in omniscience and omnipotence is in classical theology - to the point it wasn't a matter of dispute like christology. My bad! Firing off discussions in comments on here I should slow down on anything complex.

AH OKAY. See, I was still trying to figure out what that other asker waned out of the question. I was still under the impression we were discussing Yahwist/temple judaic beliefs, so when you brought up Plotinus I was like "he wasn't born for several centuries, clearly i have another Atlantean crank in my comments" which was a leap to conclusions on my part lol

[chapelofmyheart]

Asherah aesthetic 🌱🌾🌤

[chthonic-sorcery]

Tired of zionists claiming it's anti-Semetic to talk about the origins of Judaism from the Yahwists following their break off from the Caananites, or to talk about the Babylonian and Egyptian influences. Tbh it feels racist "ew those dirty filthy Egyptians/Babylonians/Caananites they were so evil" like girl bffr

[yumemiyas-wips]

According to my scant, second hand knowledge of the Jewish religion (idek the proper name, don't @ me), Catholicism, and Christianity, back when Jews were nomads, way before they settled down in one place, their god Yahweh was, in two words, a vicious dickhead of a storm god, and only after they settled down in Canaan did they try to calm him down by doing the theological equivalent of murdering the real wise and kind skydaddy god, El, blessed be his name, and then have Yahweh wear his flayed skin like some sort of grotesque mask and eat the rest, and that frankly goes pretty hard. Anyways I'm SOOO co-opting that into my writing, imagine worshipping the god that killed the supreme skydaddy and ate his corpse to gain his might. That's baller.

Edit: After further study, I have concluded that Yahweh was once an aspect of Qos, a mountain, weather and war god of the Edomite people. The ancient Israelites of Canaan then did a systematic eradication of every other god in the greater Canaan religion, including such gods as El and Asherah, Yam and Lotan, Arsu and Azizos, Aglibol, Malakbel, Yahribol, Bel, and Ba'al Hadad. In their shame after the crushing of the ancient Jewish kingdom under Babylon, the Jews, jealous in the banning of sacrifices to Yahweh, later wrote into their own Bible the banning of sacrifices to all gods. But Yahweh took sacrifices, and Yahweh took sacrifices in human infants, for Yahweh was a fellow Canaanite god just like the rest of them.

Edit 2: THIS POST IS ABOUT THE PRE-JUDAISM YAHWIST CULT OF THE ANCIENT CITY STATE OF ISRAEL AND HOW IT BECAME THE MODERN CULTS. Having to add this because some fucking [REDACTED] in the comments think that literal historical facts (with added hyperbole) is antisemitic somehow. They know who they are.

[witchoftheouachitas]

Biblical Evidence of “divinely ordained” imperialism, settler colonialism, and indigenous genocide by the “God” YHWH

The UN Genocide Convention that was ratified in response to the Holocaust during WWII contains 5 “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” These five acts include:

1. killing members of the group

2. causing them serious bodily or mental harm

3. imposing living conditions intended to destroy the group

4. preventing births

5. forcibly transferring children out of the group

The convention further criminalizes "complicity, attempt, or incitement/encouragement” of genocide.

Monotheistic, Abrahamic Yahwist Jews are NOT the indigenous inhabitants of the so-called “Holy Land.” These people and their ancestors are the violent colonizers and perpetrators of genocide and ecocide on indigenous western Levantine land, and there are many biblical scriptures that confirm this and even fit the criteria for the biblical Israelites to be criminally tried for genocide under the UN Convention.

The fact that millions of people worldwide have and still blindly follow the narcissistic abusive, toxic, malignant Abrahamic religions, despite the fact that it all contains this sort of indignity (and so much more) within it disgusts me, saddens me, confuses me, and enrages me. I have personally connected so many of our world’s problems and injustices with the creation and maintenance of Abrahamic religion and Abrahamic religious supremacy.

If we are to have universal peace, love, joy, compassion, and liberation, all toxic, malignant, narcissistic abusive religions, theologies, ideologies, etc. must be abolished for good! The top of these are the Abrahamic religions, because due to centuries of violent imperialism, colonization, genocide, and ecocide, these religions have the most brainwashed and/traumatized converted victims (AKA “followers��).

We all need to return to our pre-Abrahamic, indigenous “pagan” roots that we all have. And all those who may want to jump to conclusions and accuse me of being antisemitic or Islamophobic—let’s not be hasty and irrational. Jews need to remember that there was widespread “pagan” polytheistic Judaism before the creation and oppressive maintenance of the toxic and malignant monotheistic Yahwist Judaism. Yahwist Judaism is NOT the indigenous Jewish religion and the “Holy Land” supposedly set apart by their “God” YHWH is NOT the indigenous Jewish land either. And Muslims must remember that Islam is simply a 700s AD plagiarization of Christianity and Yahwist Judaism, and before the violent takeover of these religions, their indigenous ancestors practiced their respective native polytheistic religions. All of these should also remember that they are ALL semitic-speaking peoples, therefore the term “antisemitism”—which has been now ceaselessly weaponized by Zionist genocide apologists—needs to be repaired to where it’s not exclusive to only Jews, but defines ALL semitic-speaking peoples, including Arabs.

Pre-Abrahamic Jews were EQUALS with all other pre-Abrahamic pagans/Gentiles until the creation and maintenance of monotheistic Yahwist Judaism, in which Jews were supposedly “set apart” and “set above” all other “pagan”/“gentile” peoples of the world by this “God” YHWH. Tell me, how is this theology ANY DIFFERENT than, for example, Adolf Hitler claiming that his white Aryan race was the superior human race of the entire earth? How is Adolf Hitler’s ideology ANY DIFFERENT from the Bible, in which the Israelites were repeatedly commanded and encouraged by their “God” YHWH to violently colonize and commit genocide against indigenous western Levantine peoples?

Exodus 23:23-33

“For mine Angel shall go before thee [Israelites], and bring thee in unto the Amorites, and the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Canaanites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites: and I will cut them off. Thou shalt not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do after their works: but thou shalt utterly overthrow them, and quite break down their images. And ye shall serve the LORD your God, and he shall bless thy bread, and thy water; and I will take sickness away from the midst of thee. There shall nothing cast their young, nor be barren, in thy land: the number of thy days I will fulfil. I will send my fear before thee, and will destroy all the people to whom thou shalt come, and I will make all thine enemies turn their backs unto thee. And I will send hornets before thee, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before thee. I will not drive them out from before thee in one year; lest the land become desolate, and the beast of the field multiply against thee. By little and little I will drive them out from before thee, until thou be increased, and inherit the land. And I will set thy bounds from the Red sea even unto the sea of the Philistines, and from the desert unto the river: for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand; and thou shalt drive them out before thee. Thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor with their gods. They shall not dwell in thy land, lest they make thee sin against me: for if thou serve their gods, it will surely be a snare unto thee.”

‭‭Exodus‬ ‭23‬:‭23‬-‭33‬ ‭KJV‬‬

This particular scripture fits the UN criteria for genocide. First, killing members of the group:

“For mine Angel shall go before thee, and bring thee in unto the Amorites, and the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Canaanites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites: and I will cut them off.”

“I will send my fear before thee, and will destroy all the people to whom thou shalt come”

Second, causing them serious bodily and/or mental harm:

“thou shalt utterly overthrow them, and quite break down their images.” (Cultural genocide)

“I will send my fear before thee, and will destroy all the people to whom thou shalt come”

“I will send hornets before thee, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before thee.

Third, imposing living conditions intended to destroy the group:

“I will send my fear before thee, and will destroy all the people to whom thou shalt come“

“I will not drive them out from before thee in one year; lest the land become desolate, and the beast of the field multiply against thee. By little and little I will drive them out from before thee, until thou be increased, and inherit the land.”

Deuteronomy 20:10-20

“When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it. And it shall be, if it make thee answer of peace, and open unto thee, then it shall be, that all the people that is found therein shall be tributaries unto thee, and they shall serve thee. And if it will make no peace with thee, but will make war against thee, then thou shalt besiege it: and when the LORD thy God hath delivered it into thine hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword: but the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself; and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which the LORD thy God hath given thee. Thus shalt thou do unto all the cities which are very far off from thee, which are not of the cities of these nations. But of the cities of these people, which the LORD thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth: but thou shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee: that they teach you not to do after all their abominations, which they have done unto their gods; so should ye sin against the LORD your God. When thou shalt besiege a city a long time, in making war against it to take it, thou shalt not destroy the trees thereof by forcing an axe against them: for thou mayest eat of them, and thou shalt not cut them down (for the tree of the field is man's life) to employ them in the siege: only the trees which thou knowest that they be not trees for meat, thou shalt destroy and cut them down; and thou shalt build bulwarks against the city that maketh war with thee, until it be subdued.”

‭‭Deuteronomy‬ ‭20‬:‭10‬-‭20‬ ‭KJV‬‬

This biblical scripture fits the UN criteria for genocide. First, killing members of the group:

“when the LORD thy God hath delivered it into thine hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword“

“of the cities of these people, which the LORD thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth: but thou shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee”

Second, causing serious bodily and/or mental harm:

“the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself; and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which the LORD thy God hath given thee.“

Third, imposing living conditions meant to destroy the group:

“of the cities of these people, which the LORD thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth: but thou shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee”

Fourth, forcibly transferring children out of the group:

“the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself; and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which the LORD thy God hath given thee.”

This is still a project in progress. I am re-reading the Bible cover-to-cover so I can record all contradictions and indignities within it to be exposed for all to see. To truly decolonize and give native land back, we must realize that the abolition of the violent, settler colonial Abrahamic religions is a requirement.

[tanadrin]

A highly abbreviated history of ancient Israel and Judah as I understand it

Before 1500 BC, a Canaanite culture develops in situ, the result of thousands of years of overlapping waves of migration. The region is inhabited by a mix of highland pastoralists, lowland farmers, and city-dwellers. In the latter part of this period, urbanization intensifies and Canaan becomes more integrated into surrounding regions, especially Mesopotamia and Egypt. The region is fractured, though sometimes tribes and cities join together in confederacies for mutual defense. Egypt and Assyria both occupy Canaan or part of Canaan at different times.

The confederacy known as "Israel" emerges in the northern part of the hilly region west of the Jordan River. Its name references the Northwest Semitic high deity, El, but relatively early the deity Yahweh is introduced into the confederacy, probably by a group from the south who come to occupy a preeminent role in administering the Yahwistic cult. Yahweh is initially cast as a son of El. The Northwestern Semitic peoples often assigned patron deities to nations, and Yahweh is the patron of Israel, as Chemosh is to Moab. Yahweh has a storm-deity profile akin to Baal, elements of which will be retained when Yahweh is conflated with El.

As part of this merger, Yahweh will also acquire the role of consort of Asherah, who in Ugarit was paired with El.

The early Israelites combine heterogenous tribal traditions into a common historical and religious framework. Integral parts of these traditions include the covenant with Yahweh and an obligation to follow his commands, and a history of Yahweh freeing some or all of the ancestors of the Israelites from bondage in Egypt, guiding them through the wilderness, and leading them to their homeland in Canaan.

These traditions congeal during the pre-monarchic tribal period, from ca. 1200-1000 BCE. They do not include monotheism, the worship of Yahweh at a single temple, or the exclusive worship of Yahweh. In this period, the common bonds of religion and culture suffice to create a single Israelite identity; the component members of the Israelite confederation retain considerably autonomy, though they may act in concert with their fellows, particularly in times of invasion.

At some point around or after the 10th century BCE, separate monarchies emerge centered in various locations in the north (and eventually settling on the city of Samaria) and in Jerusalem in the south. Direct evidence for Saul, David, and Solomon is very weak, and the idea of a period of united monarchy covering Israel and Judah together is contentious. It seems highly likely that the story of the Davidic line is a Judean tradition retrojected onto an idealized period of political unity. Nonetheless, even the Bible has the United Monarchy ending by the late 10th century BCE.

In 720 BCE, the northern kingdom of Israel is destroyed by the Assyrians. About a fifth of its population is deported; a large part flees south to Judah, causing rapid expansion of Jerusalem. The refugee population includes northern Levites and landowners, who are influential in bringing northern religious traditions wiht them, and become part of Jerusalem's administrative elite.

In 640 BCE, King Amon is murdered as part of a coup attempt, suppressed with the aid of these northern notables; Amon's young son Josiah is installed as king. At this time, Judah is vassal to Assyria, but Assyria enters a period of sharp decline, which leads to resurgent nationalism in Judah. This inspires a new rescension of Israelite history and law led by the Deuteronomists (but rooted firmly in the canonical history of Moses), who foreground the exclusive worship of Yahweh, and produce a comprehensive history of Israel since Joshua.

In 622 BCE, Josiah launches a reform program that enforces the henotheistic or monolatrist worship of Yahweh, centralizes all cultic activity in the Jerusalem temple, and enshrines an early form of the Deuteronomistic law as the covenant between Judah and Yahweh, in which Yahweh symbolically replaces the Assyrian king. Asherah-worship is among the casualties of this new religious regime.

In 586 BCE, Judah is conquered by Babylon, and the temple is destroyed. Much of its elite population deported. This upheaval sparks a major period of cultural and religious transformation, especially among the deportees in Babylon, who struggle to understand theologically how they can worship the patron-sovereign god Yahweh from a foreign land. Among other theological developments, this leads to the invention of true monotheism: not only is Yahweh our only god, he is the only god, the god of all the world and not just Israel. The Deuteronomistic texts are revised again as a part of this process.

In 539 BCE, after a half-century of exile, Babylon is defeated by the rising Achaemenid empire, and a small portion of the Babylonian Jewish exiles return to Judah. There, they embark on a project to rebuild the temple, and reform the religion according to new theological understanding. Judah is now "Yehud Medinata," a province of the Persian empire; it flourishes for two centuries until the Greek conquest in 333 BCE.

The post-exilic period is hugely influential on the Jewish scriptures; rescensions in this period incorporate Babylonian influence (especially in the primeval histories), the ancient canonical histories (the patriarchal narratives and Exodus), the post-canonical histories as revised by the Deuteronomists, and many other sources.

After 333 BCE, Judah (Judea) is a frontier region between the Seleucids and Ptolemies; the country is ruled by a hereditary high priest, who is a vassal of Hellenistic rulers. Greek culture and philosophy is influential on the development of Second Temple Jewish thought and traditions. This phenomenon is known as "Hellenistic Judaism," and sprang up first in Alexandria and Antioch, before spreading to Judea. Major achievements of Hellenistic Judaism include the Septuagint, probably a result of there being large Jewish communities in cities like Alexandria that no longer spoke Hebrew or Aramaic.

In 167 BCE, sparked by the religious meddling of Seleucid ruler Antiochus IV Epiphanes, Judea rises up in the Maccabean Revolt. A new kingdom is established under the Hasmonean dynasty, after decades of fighting.

Around 110 BCE, John Hyrcanus, high priest and ruler of Judea, invades the transjordan region and Samaria, destroying Shechem and the Samaritan temple on Mount Gerizim. He also invades Idumea, and forces the Idumeans to convert to Judaism under threat of destruction. His son assumes the title of "king" for the first time, combining it with the office of high priest. Under the son, Aristobulus, Galilee is conquered and annexed, and there is an influx of Jewish settlement in the region.

At its peak, the Hasmonean kingdom is almost as large as the semi-mythical United Monarchy; but in 67 BCE, weakened by a civil war, it is conquered by the Romans. The Holy of Holies in the temple is desecrated, and the ruler, Hyrcanus II, is reduced to the status of "ethnarch," a vassal of the Roman Republic.

Some regions conquered by the Hasmoneans are gradually removed from their rule by the Romans; Roman civil wars and struggles with the Parthians often spill over into this client sate; ultimately, when a Parthian-backed pretender is expelled in 37 BCE, Marc Antony and Augustus appoint Herod the Great as king of Judea. The Herodian kingdom expands further north, and northeast over the Jordan. After Herod the Great's death, the country is divided into four parts; Judea proper, Idumea, and Samaria go to Herod Archelaus, who is deposed in 6 BCE; his territory becomes a Roman province.

About this time, Jesus, the son of Joseph, is born in Nazareth, along with his siblings, including James, in the Galilee region ruled by Herod Antipas.

Around 30 CE, Jesus gathers a small band of followers around him; he visits the mystic John the Baptist, and receives baptism from him; he preaches a radical doctrine that includes the imminent coming of the Kingdom of God, and claims a mantle of divine authority in a way highly legible to (and highly controversial within) post-Hellenistic Jewish philosophy, though he does not claim to be God. Eventually he travels to Jerusalem to observe the Passover, where in a notable incident he attacks merchants and moneylenders in the Jewish temple. For various reasons, probably having to due with his radical philosophy and his disturbance of the public peace, he is executed on the orders of the Roman prefect of Judea. A small community of his followers remain, especially in Jerusalem, where they are led by his brother James, and some continue to seek converts to his cause.

In 66 CE, the First Roman-Jewish War occurs. A revolt breaks out, sparked by nationalism, bad governance, and religious tensions. Jerusalem is besieged, and in 70 CE the Temple is destroyed and the city is razed. The last holdouts commit mass suicide at Masada in 73 CE.

Resentment against Roman rule is only intensified; in 129 CE, Hadrian establishes the pagan city of Aelia Capitolina on the ruins of Jerusalem, inciting further Jewish anger. In 132, Simon bar Kokhba leads another rebellion, taking the title Prince of Judea and establishing his own government. Some of his contemporaries think he might be the long-awaited Messiah, but despite initial successes, the rebellion fails. Bar Kokhba is killed in 135, in the last holdout at Betar. The rebels who remain are killed or enslaved; severe Roman repression results in widespread slaughter and enslavement, and the razing of hundreds of towns and villages. According to Cassius Dio, "nearly the whole of Judea" is laid waste. The Jewish presence in Judea is reduced significantly, and the center of gravity for Jewish culture in the southwestern Levant shifts north, to Galilee. Small Jewish communities persist on the edges of Judea and on the coastal plain, suffering religious persecution under Hadrian (and just about every ruler to come thereafter). Even the name "Judea" is abolished, with the area now called "Syria Palaestina."

As under the Babylonian exile, in the post-Second Temple period the Jewish religion undergoes another period of transformation, struggling to deal with its new circumstances. The traditions of the Second Temple period, as practiced by the Pharisees, are written down in the Mishnah to preserve them; they are first redacted by Judah ha-Nasi, probably in Beit Shearim or Sepphoris, some time between 100 and 200 CE. Rabbis (village judges) study the work produced by Judah ha-Nasi extensively. Their discussions are documented in a series of books that come to be known as the Gemara. Scholars in Tiberias and Caesarea (in Galilee and on the Mediterranean coast respectively) compile one form of the Gemara ca. 400 CE, while scholars of the Jewish community in southern Mesopotamia (then still known as Babylonia) compile another, ca. 500 CE. These compilations of Mishnah and Gemara are known as the "Talmud," of which the Babylonian Talmud proves the more influential.