Christopher Hitchens - Bettany Hughes TV - Richard Dawkins TV - Finkelstein & Silberman & The Bible Unearthed TV - Ze’ev Herzog - Avraham Faust - Ben Stewart - Jordan Maxwell - Keith Thompson - William Dever - Carol Meyers - David Ilan - Donald Redford - Nova: The Bible’s Buried Secrets TV - Francesca Stavrakopoulou TV - Mysteries of the Bible TV - Riddles of the Bible TV - The Bible Uncovered TV - Eric Cline - Who Was Moses? TV - Rolf Krauss - Empires Special: Kingdom of David TV - Francesca Stavrakopoulou - Richard Miles TV - Nova: Ancient Refuge in the Holy Land TV - Biblical Mysteries Explained TV - The Ten Plagues of the Bible - Ring of Power 2008 - Moses Mendelssohn - Exodus 1:13&14 - Exodus 2:25 - Exodus 6:7 - Exodus 12:40 - Exodus 33:3 - Leviticus 26:16-33 - Numbers 32:10-14 - Numbers 33:50-56 - Deuteronomy 1:30 - Deuteronomy 6:4 - Deuteronomy 9:13&14 - Joshua 5:6 - Judges 3:5-7 - Judges 3:8&10 - Judges 3:12 - Judges 4:2 - Judges 4:15 - Judges 4:23 - Judges 5:7 - Judges 6:1 - Judges 17:6 - I Samuel 4:10&11 - I Samuel 7:3 - II Samuel 1:19 - I Kings 6:13 - I Kings 9:6&7 - I Kings 14:15 - II Kings 10:32 - II Kings 13:3 - II Kings 17:3-6 - II Kings 17:18 - II Kings 17:20 - II Kings 17:23 - II Kings 18:9&11 - I Chronicles 10:1 - I Chronicles 10:7 - I Chronicles 17:21 - I Chronicles 21:5 - II Chronicles 2:17&18 - II Chronicles 18:31 - Isaiah 10:20-22 - Isaiah 11:11&12 - Jeremiah 31:37 - Lamentations 2:14-17 - Ezekiel 5:10-17 - Ezekiel 6:3-7&10-14 - Ezekiel 7:2-9&11&14-18&21-27 - Ezekiel 8:10 - Ezekiel 12:15&16&20 - Ezekiel 20:25&26 - Ezekiel 22:15 - Ezekiel 25:4 - Ezekiel 25:7 - Ezekiel 33:24 - Ezekiel 37:12 - Ezekiel 38:8 - Ezekiel 38:16&18-23 - Ezekiel 39:1&3&4 - Ezekiel 39:9-11 - Ezekiel 39:23&25&28 - Hosea 3:4&5 - Joel 3:1&2&15&16 - Amos 6:7-9&14 - Amos 8:3&8-14 - Amos 9:1-8&10&13-15 - Micah 5:9-15 - Micah 6:13-16 - Micah 7:5&16-18 - Zephaniah 1:2-5&8&9&12-18
So we’ll pick the most backward, the most barbaric, the most illiterate, the most superstitious, the most savage people we can find in the most stony area of the world. We won’t appear to the Chinese who can already read … No, we’ll appear to this brutal, slaved, hopeless, superstitious crowd and we’ll force them to cut their way through all of their neighbours with slaughter, genocide and racism and settle in the only part of the Middle East where there’s no oil. Christopher Hitchens
This is our God: this is the God who has made a covenant with our tribe. Christopher Hitchens v Tony Blair, debate 2010 ‘Is Religion a Force for Good in the World?’
I went to interview some of these early Jewish colonial zealots – written off in those days as mere ‘fringe’ elements – and found that they called themselves Gush Emunim or – it sounded just as bad in English – ‘The Bloc of the Faithful’. Why not just say ‘Party of God’ and have done with it? At least they didn’t have the nerve to say that they stole other people’s land because their own home in Poland or Belarus had been taken from them. They said they took the land because god had given it to them from time immemorial. In the noisome town of Hebron, where all of life is focused on a supposedly sacred boneyard in a dank local cave, one of the world’s less pretty sights is that of supposed yeshivah students toting submachine guns and humbling the Arab inhabitants. When I asked one of these charmers where he got his legal authority to be a squatter, he flung his hand, index finger outstretched, toward the sky. Christopher Hitchens, Hitch-22: A Memoir
Actually – and this was where I began to feel seriously uncomfortable – some such divine claim underlay not just ‘the occupation’ but the whole idea of a separate state for Jews in Palestine. Take away the divine warrant for the Holy Land and where were you, and what were you? Just another land-thief like the Turks or the British, except that in this case you wanted the land without the people. And the original Zionist slogan – ‘a land without a people for a people without a land’ – disclosed its own negation when I saw the densely populated Arab towns dwelling sullenly under Jewish tutelage. You want irony? How about Jews becoming colonizers at just the moment when other Europeans had given up on the idea? ibid.
Such a woman was Deborah in the Book of Judges. She was a Judge, meaning not just one well versed in the law but a leader and one who is wise. Deborah is certainly a woman who commanded some respect. In the Bible she is identified as the fiery woman. She’s credited with turning around the fortunes of Israel by leading an army to take the land of Canaan. Bettany Hughes, The Bible, Channel 4 2010
But dwarfed by the mighty temples and giant statues of Babylonian Gods, the Israelites must also confront the fundamental question – Why did their god – Yahweh – forsake them? Richard Dawkins, The Root of All Evil: The Virus of Faith, Channel 4 2006
There was no mass Exodus from Egypt. There was no violent conquest of Canaan. Most of the people who formed early Israel were local people – the same people whom we see in the highlands throughout the Bronze and Iron Ages. The early Israelites were – irony of ironies – themselves originally Canaanites!
The conquest of Canaan by Joshua could not have happened in the way described in the Bible. Most of the towns he is supposed to have conquered either weren’t inhabited, didn’t exist or were conquered at wildly different times.
Jerusalem, which was supposed to have become the capital of the great unified empire of King David (he of David and Goliath fame), appears to have been tiny and only sparsely inhabited in the relevant period. Many of the great monuments of ancient Israel attributed on the authority of the Old Testament to King Solomon were of a later date. Finkelstein and Silberman, The Bible Unearthed, History 2007
Who is this people the Bible calls the Children of Israel? Where did they come from? The Bible Unearthed: The Book
These inscriptions clearly distinguish between two kingdoms: Israel & Judea. ibid.
Whereas archaeology tells us something which is the opposite. According to the archaeology the rise of early Israel is an outcome of the collapse of Canaanite society, not the reason for that collapse. Professor Israel Finkelstein, Tel Aviv University
Biblical archaeology doesn’t work. Is wrong. Israel Finkelstein
There’s no archaeological evidence for the simple reason that we cannot excavate on the Temple Mount. Israel Finkelstein
The Israelites were never in Egypt, did not wander in the desert, did not conquer the land [of Canaan] in a military campaign and did not pass it on to the twelve tribes of Israel. Perhaps even harder to swallow is the fact that the united kingdom of David and Solomon, described in the Bible as a regional power, was at most a small tribal kingdom. Professor Ze’ev Herzog
The Israelites did not like the Canaanite system. And they defined themselves in contrast to that system. By not using decorated pottery, by not using imported pottery, they developed an ideology of simplicity which marked the difference between them and the Egyptian Canaanite system. Avraham Faust, Bar-Ilan University
In ancient Egypt the goddess Isis was the personification of wisdom. Pharaoh Akhenaten changed the worship to himself as he proclaimed himself Amen-Ra, the sun-god. The word Amen at the end of a prayer spawned from the praise given to Amen-Ra. From there the Hebrews left Egypt and travelled north to the Middle East where they encountered the Canaanites who worshipped the god of Saturn – El. The merging of these three gods became the name of the land today which is known – Isis – Ra – EL or Israel. 90% of Judaism is based around the worship of Saturn. Ben Stewart, Esoteric Agenda, 2008
The whole concept of the Old Testament was developed right around the 9th 10th and 11th to 12th century A.D. So that the Old Testament was not an ancient record of an ancient people – there was no ancient Israel. Jordan Maxwell, Project Camelot Conference September 2009
I have found that even Judaism is not a B.C. religion. It did not exist in the B.C. So when we talk about ancient Jerusalem – there was no ancient Israel. Jerusalem, yes, but no ancient Israel. ibid.
Israel is nothing more than Isis – Rah – and El. Consequently, there is nothing holy about Israel. Jordan Maxwell, lecture The Illuminati
cf.
It is simply not true ... Isis was not pronounced Isis in ancient Egypt. Therefore, the name Israel could not have been influence by the name Isis in antiquity. Keith Thompson, The New Age Infiltration of the Truth Movement final cut, 2009
There was no evidence of armed conflict in most of these site. At the same time it was discovered that at most the large Canaanite towns that were supposed to have been destroyed by these Israelites were either not destroyed at all or destroyed by others. William G Dever, University of Arizona
For many revisionists these extreme sceptics, there was no ancient Israel. Israel is an intellectual construct. In other words these people were not re-thinking their past, they were inventing their past. They had no past. So the Bible is a myth, a foundation myth told to legitimate a people who had no legitimacy. William G Dever
They spread the idea of a God who represented freedom, freedom for people to keep the fruits of their own labour. This was a message that was so powerful that it brought people together and gave them a new kind of identity. Carol Meyers, Duke University