Saturday, April 28, 2012

Agriculture First in Middle East



Epic trek for Stone Age farmer




From: AFP April 28,



2012 12:00



.... DNA analysis of four Stone Age humans in Sweden reveals how agriculture spread from the Middle East about 11,000 years ago to Europe about 6000 years later. DNA from four 5000-year-old skeletons showed one had been a farmer from a people linked to present-day Cypriots, co-existing 400km away from the community of the other three, who had been hunter-gatherers with northern genes. Researchers said the two groups "had entirely different genetic backgrounds and lived side by side for more than a thousand years, to finally interbreed".



AFP



Taken from:



http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/epic-trek-for-stone-age-farmer/story-e6frg6so-1226341080522




Sunday, April 15, 2012

Sigmund Freud Mistakenly Argued that Moses Was an Egyptian





Sigmund Freud and Moses the Lawgiver




Twice Freud strayed away into a by-path off the high road of psychoanalytic investigation—once, many years ago, when he he wrote a study of aesthetics, and the second time in his eighties, when he undertook an inquiry into biblical history. Both times the prophet Moses was the object of his investigation. In the first instance it was Michelangelo’s statue of Moses, selected out of all the work produced by Michelangelo and from all the other creations of the plastic arts. Later it was Moses the law-giver, whose historic figure exercised a compelling effect on the spiritual vision of the creator of depth psychology.



Is this accidental? A man may accidentally meet another twice at the same spot, but it is not accidental when an old man returns to the place where once, in the full vigor of his manhood, a figure held him enthralled. What compelled the man who maintained that he was ignorant of the “oceanic feeling” of religious experience to approach the great religious founder and attempt to illuminate his spiritual aspect as well as the traits of his appearance? He said that religion was a neurosis; was he seeking the traits of neurosis in Moses? In not a single line has he given any indication of this. “I decided to put it away [the work], but it haunted me like an unlaid ghost.” (1) Something profoundly personal is hinted at in such a confession.



Freud’s work on Moses, the Egyptian, is not a psychoanalytical or psychological study. But we shall proceed in the manner of Freud when delivering over the author of a literary work to the tribunal of psychoanalysis.



Unless one follows the traditions which have been handed down, a reconstruction of the personality of Moses is not possible on the basis of the remainder of the available historical material. When such an attempt is made to mold anew a statue of this giant from the scraps of relevant history—to give not an analysis of the tradition, but a synthesis of the personality—then we have before us an artistic creation, just as Michelangelo’s prophet with the tablets is an artistic creation. But by referring to such a statue we should not attempt to make an analysis of what is hidden in the mythical past, but rather an analysis of the artist.



Whatever is alien to Freud in the traditional figure of Moses will be regarded in his inquiry as alien to Moses; whatever there is in the figure of Moses that fails to reflect Freud’s concept will be found in historical and exegetical excursions and bound up with the inquiry.



In analysis this is called projection. In order to project one’s inner world onto some personality of the outer world, some similarity must first be found. The associations which lead to this may be positive and also negative. Correspondingly, the associations will be colored by love or negatively charged with hate, everything depending on which unconscious impulses are being outwardly projected. The projections may be on occasion divided up into two personalities: one is taken over by the “good” ego, the other by the “evil” ego; one is idealized and the other hated. Everything which does not correspond to the good or evil ego will either remain unseen or be denied.



“Moses is an Egyptian.” How is this proved? Two explanations are given in the first of the three essays, which bears the title of “Moses an Egyptian.” One is historical and philological, the other is psychological and folkloristic. The first one is: “Moses” is an element of many Egyptian names, such as, for example, Ramses (Ra-mose), Thut-mose; Mose in Egyptian means child. Hence, Moses was an Egyptian.



A man who is not an Egyptologist enters on a difficult excursion in order to demonstrate that an Egyptian name is a proof of non-Hebrew descent, but the very man making this endeavor bears the name of Sigmund and is a Jew. Is he aware of the striking inadequacy of his proof? On the basis of such a demonstration, anyone by the name of Sigmund is a Teuton; therefore this demonstration may be rejected, for the same reason that a child of Jewish parents born in Moravia may be called Sigmund.



In a footnote on page 23, Freud cites Eduard Meyer: “The name Moses is probably . . . Egyptian. This does not prove, however, that these generations were of Egyptian origin, but it proves that they had relations with Egypt.” To this Freud appends a remarkable question: “One may well ask what kind of relation one is to imagine.”





The other, psychological, demonstration that Moses belonged to the Egyptian people is as follows: In many legends about the origin and adulthood of famous men of the past, a stereotype is retained: the hero is of exalted descent; even as a child he is recognized by his father as a future danger to him, is compelled to flee, and is rescued and brought up by poor people; when he is fully grown his noble descent comes to light. Such is the echo resounding through the folk-tales. Since, according to the legend, Moses was born among humble people of an oppressed race, and rescued and brought up by the king’s daughter, Freud associates himself with Eduard Meyer’s idea that the legend was falsified and must be set right; and he arrives at the contention that the historic Moses was of higher descent, of the royal house of Pharaoh, and possibly even the son of the Egyptian princess.



Freud undertakes a detailed psychological demonstration with reference to folkloristic research into the legends of various peoples and heroes—without noticing that the emendation cannot be equated with the legendary stereotype, if he himself does not regard Moses as a legendary prince but as a real one. The fictional element is the princely origin of the hero. It is true that on the basis of history it can be proved that a legendary hero was no prince by blood, but on the basis of a legend about a non-prince can a scientific proof be adduced that the hero was, nevertheless, an historical prince?



In the countless folktales the lowly origin of the hero is denied and a nobler one poetically ascribed to him. Accordingly, in revision and correction doubt must be cast upon the princely blood of the hero. If Moses had been named as the son of royal blood in the biblical tradition, then skepticism would be in place and a suspicion justified that the legend had undergone a conventional distortion. But Freud recognizes Moses as an historical prince by blood, and so it is he who composes the legend according to its usual stereotype. He would like to maintain that Moses was the son of a princess.(2) This anecdote is taken from Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams, published in 1900.





Freud quotes Rank: “As a result of ‘national motives’ the legend was reconstructed into the version we know.”



Freud is aware that the theory of Moses’ Egyptian descent lacks a strong foundation.



. . . Further thought tells us that an original Moses myth of this kind, one not diverging from other birth myths, could not have existed. For the legend is either of Egyptian or of Jewish origin. The first supposition may be excluded. The Egyptians had no motive to glorify Moses; to them he was not a hero. So the legend should have originated among the Jewish people; that is to say, it was attached in the usual version to the person of their leader. But for that purpose it was entirely unfitted; what good is a legend to a people that makes their hero into an alien? (p. 20)



The only thing left was to assume that “in a later, and rather clumsy treatment of the legendary material, the adapter saw fit to equip his hero Moses with certain features appertaining to the classical exposure myths characteristic of a hero.” (p. 21)



With this unsatisfactory and even uncertain result our investigation would have to end, without having contributed anything to answering the question whether Moses was an Egyptian, were there not another and perhaps more successful way of approaching the exposure myth itself.



As a rule the real family corresponds to the humble one, the noble family to the fictitious one. In the case of Moses something seemed to be different. And here the new point of view may perhaps bring some illumination. It is that the first family, the one from which the babe is exposed to danger, is in all comparable cases the fictitious one; the second family, however, by which the hero is adopted and in which he grows up, is his real one. If we have the courage to accept this statement as a general truth to which the Moses legend is also subject, then we suddenly see our way clear: Moses is an Egyptian—probably of noble origin—whom the myth undertakes to transform into a Jew. And that would be our conclusion!” (pp. 21f.)



At this point, where Freud hopes to find the necessary proof, we must expose a logical error. Let us repeat Freud’s train of thought.



A. The legend has been falsified because of national motives; originally the legend had it that Moses was the son of an Egyptian king.



B. Since Freud considers this proof inadequate, he establishes another and more convincing one by setting up a rule: the first family is the fictitious one.



Then for what reason is the first family in the saga fictitious and the later one real? Surely because fantasies concerning noble descent are natural and belong to many people; fantasies concerning lowlier descent are unnatural, for what purpose would they serve? If it is desired to test the Moses legend coolly, critically, and with skepticism, then it would be more plausible to leave him his poor Hebrew parents, and to explain away princesses who discover poor children as figments of the imagination.



It is a wish-fulfilment that Moses was an Egyptian (and that Freud is free-born), and a second, infantile wish-fulfilment that Moses was of royal blood. Freud transforms the elite character of the people into the the “chosen” character of his own spiritual model.



According to Freud, Moses was not a Hebrew but an Egyptian child; his mother was not Johebed, the wife of Amram, but a princess (his father is unnamed). He was saved from the water and adopted not by the princess but by poor Hebrews. The correction, however, is soon extended: no reason exists for assuming that he was adopted by a Hebrew woman, and so he would not need to have been exposed by the princess.



It was not Moses who spoke about God to Pharaoh, but Pharaoh who taught Moses about the unique God. Moses did not flee from Pharaoh into the wilderness. Instead of competing with Moses in the magical arts, the Egyptian priests taught Moses violently to oppose all magic and to reject all mysteries. Moses was slow of speech—this is to be understood to mean that he had to speak through interpreters, not with Pharaoh, but with the Hebrews.



And further, “our reconstruction leaves not room for . . . the ten plagues, [and] the passage through the Red Sea, and the solemn law-giving on Mount Sinai will not lead us astray.” (p. 54)



Since Freud does not perceive the inadequacy of his demonstration he is, according to psychoanalytic terminology, in a state of scotomization. But a psychic scotoma happens to be a proof that something touching the person very closely bears a disagreeable affect, which gives rise to a block in perception.



Such a lack of perception is in no case a defect of logical capacity, but rather a psychological phenomenon. In reality every scotoma retains its own logic. And there is logic in this case as well: Freud does not wish to recognize Moses as a Hebrew because he did not wish to recognize Sigmund as a Jew either. He does not consciously deny his adherence to the Jewish people at all; on the contrary, he emphasizes it at the very outset of the book. Nor would the idea of disowning his people ever consciously occur to him. But psychoanalysis has always taught us that it is not the conscious, but the unconscious material that is to be considered as decisive for the personality. That which is emphasized in the first few hours of the analysis often serves the precise purpose of masking the unconscious impulses; indeed, who taught us to hear “yes” in place of “no” and “no” in place of “yes” in such utterances?



In spite of the words in Freud’s introduction, “to deny a people the man whom it praises as the greatest of its sons is not a deed to be undertaken lightheartedly,” there soon follows a slip of the pen: “We had hoped [our emphasis] the suggestion that Moses was an Egyptian would prove fruitful. . .” Accordingly, “Moses an Egyptian” would have to be translated as “Freud an Aryan, or free-born.” There is no illogic here: he would like to feel himself as not a pariah.



Freud wrote this study—we should like to mention briefly—during the flowering of the race-theories of the elite character of the Aryans. Subsequently we shall attempt to investigate the more profound reasons for this renunciation of his race.



As I have said, I do not wish to adopt any position with respect to the historical reconstruction. Yet the personality of Moses appears to be completely altered by Freud’s hand; much falls away, and something else is added, and a shape appears before us which is a reflected image. Even if Freud is right, the remarkable fact of his interest in a historical personality, and also of his wonderful, divining insight, would be a proof of a psychic affinity which approaches spiritual identity. If Freud is wrong he is wrong as a historian. He remains, however, in the right as a poet, ruling over his poetry by virtue of his imagination.





References





Moses and Monotheism, transl. by Katherine Jones (London, 1939), p. 164.



This conclusion of the essay called “Moses and Egyptian” was anticipated by a Jewish youngster in an anecdote: During the religious hour the instructor asked the class, “Who knows who Moses’ mother was?” The class was silent. A Jewish pupil present raised his hand and said: “Pharaoh’s daughter.” “How is that? She was the one who found him.” “That’s what she said,” answered the daring pupil.
 


....




Taken from: http://www.varchive.org/tpp/moses.htm

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Moses Foretold Jesus



1 Now Peter and John went up together into the temple at the hour of prayer, being the ninth hour.


2 And a certain man alame from his mother’s womb was carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple which is called Beautiful, to ask alms of them that entered into the temple;


3 Who seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple asked an aalms.


4 And Peter, fastening his eyes upon him with John, said, Look on us.


5 And he gave heed unto them, expecting to receive something of them.


6 Then Peter said, Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have agive I thee: In the bname of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk.


7 And he took him by the right hand, and alifted him up: and immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength.


8 And he leaping up stood, and walked, and entered with them into the temple, walking, and leaping, and praising God.


9 And all the people asaw him walking and praising God:


10 And they knew that it was he which sat for alms at the Beautiful gate of the temple: and they were filled with wonder and amazement at that which had happened unto him.


11 And as the lame man which was healed held Peter and John, all the people ran together unto them in the aporch that is called Solomon’s, greatly wondering.


12 ¶And when Peter saw it, he answered unto the people, Ye men of Israel, why marvel ye at this? or why look ye so earnestly on us, as though by our aown power or holiness we had made this man to walk?


13 The God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath aglorified his Son Jesus; whom ye bdelivered up, and cdenied him in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let him go.


14 But ye denied the Holy One and the Just, and desired a amurderer to be granted unto you;


15 And killed the Prince of life, whom God hath braised from the dead; whereof we are cwitnesses.


16 And his aname through faith in his name hath made this man strong, whom ye see and know: yea, the faith which is by him hath given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all.


17 And now, brethren, aI bwot that through cignorance ye did it, as did also your rulers.


18 But those things, which God before had ashewed by the mouth of all his bprophets, that Christ should suffer, he hath so fulfilled.


19 ¶aRepent ye therefore, and be bconverted, that your sins may be cblotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the dpresence of the Lord;


20 And he shall send aJesus Christ, which before was preached unto you:b


21 Whom the heaven must receive until the times of arestitution of all things, which God hath bspoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began.


22 For Moses truly said unto the fathers, A aprophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you.


23 And it shall come to pass, that every soul, which will not hear that prophet, shall be adestroyed from among the people.


24 Yea, and all the prophets from Samuel and those that follow after, as many as have spoken, have likewise aforetold of these days.


25 Ye are the achildren of the prophets, and of the bcovenant which God made with our fathers, saying unto Abraham, And in thy seed shall all the kindreds of the earth be cblessed.


26 Unto you first God, having raised up his aSon Jesus, sent him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from his iniquities.


....

















































Regina Coeli





















Queen of Heaven, rejoice, alleluia. / For He whom you did merit to bear, alleluia.





















Has risen, as he said, alleluia. / Pray for us to God, alleluia.





















Rejoice and be glad, O Virgin Mary, alleluia. / For the Lord has truly risen, alleluia.





















Let us pray. O God, who gave joy to the world through the resurrection of Thy Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, grant we beseech Thee, that through the intercession of the Virgin Mary, His Mother, we may obtain the joys of everlasting life. Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.













Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Egal Israel on the Middle Bronze I Israelites

 


Egal and the Exodus


Ein Hatzeva 30 47 52.43N

35 14 47.76E The coordinates are for the moshav where we stayed. I could not identify the ecavation site in the picture.



I first met Egal Israel in 1993 when I was involved in excavations at Ein Hatzeva, 18 miles south of the Dead Sea. It all started the previous year when I talked with Dr Rudolph Cohen, then head of the Israel Antiquities Authority, who holds the same view as I do on the identification of the Middle Bronze I people with the Israelites who invaded Palestine under Joshua about 1405 BC. I told him that I would like to bring my Australian group to one of the sites under his control. He readily agreed and the following year we stayed at a moshav near the dig site and went to work.



Excavations in this area are particularly relevant to the re-identification of the archaeological strata in the Middle Bronze Period because this was the area from which the Israelites first invaded Palestine. Previously Dr Cohen was in charge of the excavations at Kadesh Barnea from where Moses had sent the twelve men to spy out the land they expected to occupy. Dr Cohen realised that two million people could be expected to leave plenty of evidence of their occupation of the area and when he found a proliferation of MBI pottery he concluded that it must have been left behind by the Israelite people who were camped there for at least forty days. Numbers 13:25 says, "And they returned from spying out the land after forty days."



Egal Israel was in charge of all the excavations at Ein Hatzeva and was digging with a team of labourers on the western side of the tel. Occasionally he would come to our site to see how we were getting on, and it was on one of these visits that I asked him about his views. I said, "Egal, Rudolph Cohen believes that the MBI people were the Israelites under Joshua who invaded Palestine, as described in the Bible. Do you agree with him?"



"Of course I do," he replied. "We all do down here."



While I was in Israel this year (2004) I phoned Egal and asked him if he still held the same views about the MBI people, and he assured me that he did, even more than before. I then made an appointment to visit him at his home which, fortuitously, was only 5 miles from where our group was excavating.



On the appointed night we made our way to his house in the moshav and met Egal and his wife, a gracious lady who spoke faultless English, and spent a profitable hour there. Strange to say, Egal works at Beer Sheba and commutes the 120 km to and fro each day. He is working on excavating wells there. The Bible says that Abraham dug a well at Beer Sheba and he feels that while he is working there he is living in the land of Abraham.



Egal has worked on many sites in the Negev (Southern Israel) and was a member of the team which excavated Kadesh Barnea during the period after the Six Day War which resulted in Israel occupying the Sinai Peninsula in which Kadesh Barnea is located. By virtue of his long archaeological experience he is a highly qualified archaeologist. He is a man who has convictions and forcibly expresses his views.



I asked him if he had come to hold these views because he was influenced by Rudolph Cohen, or was it the result of his own observations. He was emphatic that he regarded the Middle Bronze I people to be the Israelites because of the huge weight of archaeological evidence to support this view. There was the profusion of the MBI pottery, not only at Kadesh Barnea, but at other sites along the route of the Israelite Exodus from Egypt to their promised land.



There is also the evidence from Jericho, Gibeon, and other sites in Palestine showing that the MBI people were nomadic, a feature to be expected from a generation that had been born in and lived in tents all their lives. The archaeological evidence shows that they were tribal, with a different culture to the preceding Canaanite people. In the course of time they seem to have completely replaced the previous culture. This would be consistent with the Biblical record which says that the Israelites ultimately replaced the Canaanites. Egal stressed that it was a long and fluctuating process, but that is the picture the book of Judges presents.



I also asked Egal if his views were coloured by his religious beliefs. Did he adopt these views because this is what the Bible says? Must we interpret archaeological evidence accordingly? He was emphatic that his conclusions were based on archaeological evidence alone. He has confidence in the historical reliability of the Hebrew writings in certain areas, but he does not regard them as a divine revelation from God. They must be submitted to the archaeological evidence, which in the case of the Exodus and the MBI period, are consistent with each other.



© David Down 2004







See also this quote from David's latest book, Unveiling the Kings of Israel.