Originally Posted by JMKeynes
Jews are more of an ethnic group than a religion. Like most “religions,” Judaism is truly absurd. It revolves around an alleged period of slavery in Egypt, and yet, there’s ZERO archeological evidence that Jews were ever in Egypt. Despite this, Jews, including Begin and Netanyahu, falsely claim that “Jews built the pyramids”! The false narrative about Egyptians enslaving Jews came into existence after the Assyrian conquests of the Jews and the Babylonian conquest.
Moreover, notwithstanding the Jewish myth that Moses wrote the Torah, while "God" dictated it on Mt. Sinai, a large portion of the Torah, in fact, merely copies earlier Mesopotamian and Babylonian stories like the Enumah Elish, the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Code of Hammurabi, etc. The Torah is no "truer" than those much older myths and legal codes.
The early Jews' integration and shared identity with the Canaanites and other local cultures is further reflected by the extensive evidence that before the Captivity, Jews in Canaan worshipped local gods like Asheera, Baal, etc. Statues have been found of YHWH and Asheera, which depict them as husband and wife. Even YHWH, who's also referred to as El YHWH, is based on the Canaanite god, El. As to the Jews' polytheistic roots, recall that Moses allegedly went beserk and broke the tablets when, after "having afternoon tea with God" on Mt. Sinai, he found the Israelites worshiping Baal.
Indeed, Jews became monotheistic ONLY AFTER the Persians freed them. At that point, they developed this nationalistic myth of defeating the greatest superpower known to history and having YHWH part the Red Sea as they left and then rain manna from heaven for forty years as they pillaged, raped, and plundered in the desert en route to the Promised Land. This is as plausible as God appearing to Moses as a burning bush, etc.
The "god" of the Old Testament, moreover, is very much akin to other "gods" in the ancient world in that he's a capricious, jealous "human" who always interacts with people, much like the gods in the Iliad, Odyssey, Aeneid, etc.
In my opinion, the great Jonathan Swift could not have been more correct when he stated: “We have just enough religion to make us hate but not enough to make us love each other."
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