Israel

[Pigboy]

Anyone know a brief potted history of Israel. Where was the original Israel?

[Antrax]

What, exactly, would you like to know?
I'll give some general info:
In 1890 the first zionist congress was held. The idea about getting a land for the Jewish people was discussed then. People started migrating in small groups to the area which is now Israel - mostly to the four large cities: Jerusalem, Sefad, God Knows and I Don't Remember. This was mostly a religious migration - the people were orthodox Jews who lived off donations from rich Jews abroad, and they focused mainly on the big, religious citiez. In 190something Russian idealists began migrating to what is today Israel, wanting to found a socialist society there. They founded new cities, and believed in hard labour, which came in handy since there was nothing here. They started buying land from its rightful owners (mostly arabs of one sort or the other) and building settlements on it. As the years progressed, more and more people came to what was basically a very crappy country with nothing much in it. In the meantime, the zionist organisations persisted in their efforts to get formal acknowledgement, and in 1917 a statement by Lord Wossname Balfour was given, declaring that Jews should get a home land in Palestine (which was divided under British and French control since WW1). Here comes a long line of fights between Jews and Arabs, Jew freedom fighters doing terrorist attacks on the British to persuade them to leave, yadda yadda... enter the holocaust. The world is obviously shocked, UN feels bad for us, and in November 29, 1947, a vote is held and passed in the UN, declaring that some of the land in "Palestine" is now actually "Israel". The arabs weren't very happy with that, so they attacked in 1948, Jews weren't thrilled with being dead so they melded the terrorist organisations into an army and fought back, conquered some land, arabs again dissatisfied, 67 they attack again and lose horribly, Jews conquer the rest of what is currently Israel, 73 arabs attack again, Jews have a hard time but end up winning again, have a peace treaty with Egypt' give them back Sinai, 1981 another war, another victory, hurray for us.

(I'm just not sure what interests you exactly, the historical processes that led to all the migrations are fairly dull, and the wars and/or the "freedom fights" are pretty flamebait. So, just tell me what you're curious about, and I'll expand on it)
Antrax
Antrax

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"Look, that's why there's rules, understand? So that you think before you break 'em" - Lu-Tze, Thief of Time

[Courk]

My guess is he's looking for the location of Biblical Israel.

[Pigboy]

Courk is right. When did the Isralites leave? (Why? Incidentally why are they now Israeli?) Where did Moses lead them to? That kinda stuff.

Also I heard that there were suggestions that the State of Israel might have been created in Argentina or some other place.

[Antrax]

Ah, those. So, for the story of the exodus from egypt, read this link. As for "Argentina or something", in one of the zionist congresses, there was deliberation about an offer made to the Jews - to have a country in Uganda. Herzl himself supported it, but it was voted against, because Jerusalem was too important to give up. Every couple of years, in independence day, someone makes a documentary about what would have happened had the Jews accepted the proposal
Antrax

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"Look, that's why there's rules, understand? So that you think before you break 'em" - Lu-Tze, Thief of Time

[Pigboy]

So, The first Israel was created following the Exodus from Egypt?

If so, why were they called Israelites prior to that? Or what united the Hebrews prior to that were they all from the same place? Where?

[This message has been edited by Pigboy (edited 04-22-2004 06:51 AM).]

[Antrax]

Oh. THAT. In that case, it goes like this:
You have God, and he creates the world, and makes Adam and Eve. They screw up, get banished, have kids, etc. Fast forward a bit. God gets pissed off at the world sucking, wants to kill everyone, but Noah is too cool to be smited like that, so God tells him to build an ark and floods everybody else to oblivion. After he calms down, Noah is like "wtf. Don't ever do that again". God promises never to smite everything in creation again, and off we go. Fast foward a lot. Abraham is walking around, when God talks to him and tells him to sacrifice his only child, Jacob, to him. Abraham goes to do it, an angel stops him and tells him "psyche, we were only testing you". God promises Abraham his alliance, and it's marked by chopping off a part of the penis. Huzzah, Judaism. Abrham croaks, Jacob has a bunch of sons, the coolest of them all is Joseph. The other brothers are jealous of Joseph, so they sell him to the Egyptians, but Joseph pwns the egyptians, becomes a big shot in Egypt, and all his brothers end up moving there. Fast forward a lot, everybody forgot what a great guy Joseph was, and now the Hebrews (the correct term) are slaves in Egypt. God is pissed off nobody remembers him, so he decides to muddy up the waters a bit, and bugs Moses to go and free the Hebrews, about which you've read. After the exodus, the Jews walk around in the desert, with God providing the food and entertainment. However, he's a crappy host, and they grow tired of manna and uncertainty, and continously complain how life sucks now and was great as slaves in Egypt. Moses goes up mount Sinai to get the Torah, the word of God. When he doesn't come back within a reasonable time frame, the Hebrews become restless, and decide God sucks. Instead, they melt their jewelery into this cow thing, and worship it instead. Moses returns after 40 days with the Torah, and gets mighty pissed off at his people worshipping a cow. So naturally he breaks the stone tablets God gave him with the living word of God, the absolute truth, and punishes them all. God, in the meantime, is really pissed off because the Hebrews are so crappy as worshippers that they'd prever a golden calf over him, so he figures he'll smite the lot of them and find himself better people. Moses talks him out of it, and he goes up the mountain again to get the second edition of the commandments. Then God promises everybody to give them the land of Cna'an (today: Israel) using cool CGI effects. But since they all suck as a people, he marches them in circles in the desert for 40 years before allowing them to enter, and never lets Moses enter the holy land, as punishment for doubting him earlier on. Instead you have some other dork, and God tells him "go and slay everybody in there, it's your land now". So they go and slay everybody there, with God's help, and take the land.

The name Israel itself is given to Jacob after he wrestles with an Angel - it resembles "beat god" in Ancient Hebrew (I'm not making this up). Later on, the name was given to the country.
Antrax

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"Look, that's why there's rules, understand? So that you think before you break 'em" - Lu-Tze, Thief of Time

[Pigboy]

Cool Potted history.

So a fewf questions. After 40 years, the Hebrews get to Canaa, I guess where the Canaanites are living, mightily slay them ?(Do we know of this battle?), then live there and call it by what name? Still canaa? Is this the same canaa where Jesus did the water/wine thing? Did they leave Canaa? How come they got dispossessed of Canaa/Israel? and where was it?

[Primo]

Originally posted by Antrax:

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In 1890 the first zionist congress was held. The idea about getting a land for the Jewish people was discussed then. People started migrating in small groups to the area which is now Israel - mostly to the four large cities: Jerusalem, Sefad, God Knows and I Don't Remember. This was mostly a religious migration - the people were orthodox Jews who lived off donations from rich Jews abroad, and they focused mainly on the big, religious citiez. In 190something Russian idealists began migrating to what is today Israel, wanting to found a socialist society there. They founded new cities, and believed in hard labour, which came in handy since there was nothing here. They started buying land from its rightful owners (mostly arabs of one sort or the other) and building settlements on it. As the years progressed, more and more people came to what was basically a very crappy country with nothing much in it. In the meantime, the zionist organisations persisted in their efforts to get formal acknowledgement, and in 1917 a statement by Lord Wossname Balfour was given, declaring that Jews should get a home land in Palestine (which was divided under British and French control since WW1). Here comes a long line of fights between Jews and Arabs, Jew freedom fighters doing terrorist attacks on the British to persuade them to leave, yadda yadda... enter the holocaust. The world is obviously shocked, UN feels bad for us, and in November 29, 1947, a vote is held and passed in the UN, declaring that some of the land in "Palestine" is now actually "Israel". The arabs weren't very happy with that, so they attacked in 1948, Jews weren't thrilled with being dead so they melded the terrorist organisations into an army and fought back, conquered some land, arabs again dissatisfied, 67 they attack again and lose horribly, Jews conquer the rest of what is currently Israel, 73 arabs attack again, Jews have a hard time but end up winning again, have a peace treaty with Egypt' give them back Sinai, 1981 another war, another victory, hurray for us.

---

That wouldn't happen to be from an encyclopedia now would it?

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Listen to Bob Marley

[Antrax]

Firstly, it's Cna'an.
Secondly, more than one nation/people live there. You have Yevusi, Prizi, Hiti, Edomi... etc. Don't remember how many, but many. There are many detailed descriptions of exactly how they are slain, plus some folklore about it, to boot. I think 2 books in the bible deal mostly with that. The land of Cna'an was later split between the 12 tribes of Israel, and each section got a name according to the tribe living there. Then, a while later, when Jews moved to monarchy, there were two lands: Jehuda and Israel. Then, finally, King David or whoever united them, and voila, here's Israel. It's always in the same geographical location - if you're really interested, I could look it up in the bible when I get back home, there are maps on the back.
I have no clue where Jesus did his thing, but AFAIK he was born in Nazrat, which is a city in Israel, so I guess it's in the same place.

The dispossession is more of a historical story - it's not from the bible AFAIK. Basically you have Greeks and Romans invading all over the place, conquering the holy land and destroying the temple. Jews disperse throughout the world, knowing some day they'll return back to the land of Israel. Until about 100 years ago, this was Jewish tradition. Nowadays, it's just a fact
Antrax

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"Look, that's why there's rules, understand? So that you think before you break 'em" - Lu-Tze, Thief of Time

[Pigboy]

Fantastic! Thanks much for a real informative history! Yeah the map stuff sounds good. I'm just thinking it would be pretty hard to get exactly the same land back.

How come Israel as such is never mentioned in the New testament bible? Cna'an is, but it seems it became Israel long before that, right?

Also, at the risk of provoking someone who has been so helpful, there is no biblical precendent for the 'recreation' of Israel is there? I mean God gave it then you lost it, or was promised to the Jews in perpetuity?

I also read once of Israel being referred to as 'ersatz Israel' which made me wonder about its location.

[This message has been edited by Pigboy (edited 04-22-2004 08:44 AM).]

[Antrax]

I have only skimmed the new testament once, briefly. I actually know more about the book of Mormon than I do about the entire New Testament. Anyway, the land was Cna'an before it was Israel, but it's just a naming convention. That territory was promised to the Hebrews by God in the exodus.
And don't take what I'm saying too seriously - I may have made some errors here and there like messing up the timeline or leaving out important people. I only studied bible because they made me, and I was more interested in the funny bits, as you can see.
Antrax

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"Look, that's why there's rules, understand? So that you think before you break 'em" - Lu-Tze, Thief of Time

[Pigboy]

bumped cos you replied whilst I was editing. Ta

[Sniklac16]

Wow I'm impressed. I'm catholic and I didn't even know some of this stuff.

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"Stories just show the writers imagination but poetry is writing from the heart"

[Samadhi]

Was it Moses who saw god and couldn't speak any more after?

[God.]

He gave me such a bad press!!!

I even gave him a car!! He never even thanked me for it!

[Vader]

Antrax is mostly correct in all that he says. Albeit I have a different point of view that he & I debated so very much in a previous thread. He is mostly dead on for his part. The reason Isreal is not mentioned in the New Testament is because that is where the Hebrews and Catholics differ. This is where Jesus becomes the focal point of the Catholic faith. The Hebrews do not focus on him and therefor don't really believe in the New Testament side of the Bible.

Please don't hold this as cannon, but I am pretty sure of this.