Thomas L. Thompson is a biblical theologian who lives in Denmark. The focus of Thompson's writing has been the interface between the bible (specifically the Old Testament) and archaeology. What we call the old testament is the Tanakh, or Hebrew Testament.

In The Mythic Past: Biblical Archaeology and the Myth of Israel, he argued that the bible was entirely, or almost entirely, a product of the period between the 5th and 2nd centuries BC and is fictional. Others have claimed that the ruling dynasty of the Hasmonean Kingdom generated the Tanakh for political reasons. (imagine using religion for a political purpose!)

He claims we have no history of Israel. We have no Adam and Eve, worldwide flood, or even a time of the patriarchs; it is all myth. There is no evidence of a United Monarchy, no evidence of a capitol in Jerusalem, no evidence of a unified political force dominating western Palestine.

We have no evidence for the existence of kings named Saul, David, or Solomon! We have no evidence of a temple in Jerusalem at this early period.

No ark of the covenant! Indiana Jones call your office!

Israel Finkelstein who is the director of archeology at Tel Aviv University describe the bible as no more historical than the Homeric saga, or Odysseus, or Aeneas's founding of Rome. The biblical narrative is filled with inconsistencies and anachronisms that make it more like a historical novel of today, if even that.

No children, the "new testament" fairs no better than the Tanakh.

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=13168

Evil usually hides its face, because the sight of it repulses all but the depraved. However, in the case of Benny Morris, writing in Friday's New York Times, we see something new: a proud evil, glorying in pure malevolence. His piece is a cold, calculated attempt to simultaneously shock and intimidate, one that succeeds at the former but fails miserably at the latter.

Here's the shocker, really a double jolt: "Israel," he avers, "will almost surely attack Iran's nuclear sites in the next four to seven months." Either that, he writes, or else Israel will eventually have to launch "a preemptive nuclear strike." His message to the West: take out Iran, or we'll nuke 'em!

The Israelis have been threatening to strike for the past six months, so nothing new there, except for the tone of certainty. Morris is no fringe nut-job flailing away on his obscure blog; he's a prominent Israeli historian writing on the most noted opinion page of them all, a veritable bulletin board for governing elites worldwide. As such, he is almost certainly speaking with some insight into Israeli government plans. It is, in any case, almost inconceivable that he wrote his piece without the foreknowledge and consent of Israeli government officials.

As to whether he – and they – are bluffing, well, I wouldn't count on it. With all this talk of Iran's alleged attempt to build nuclear weapons – which our own intelligence services say was abandoned years ago – Israel is the one country in the region we know is armed to the gills with nukes. Given their history, the increasing extremism of their leadership and polity, and their fanatical devotion to the doctrine of preemption – indeed, they invented it, while George W. Bush merely adopted it – the Israelis are far more likely than any other member of the nuclear club to actually use nukes, as Morris makes all too clear.

In what has to be the most widely circulated blackmail note ever written, Morris announces, "It is in the interest of neither Iran nor the United States (nor, for that matter, the rest of the world) that Iran be savaged by a nuclear strike" – so take out the Iranians, or we will. To be fair, he also says it won't be a good thing if "both Israel and Iran suffer such a fate," but since Iran has no nuclear weapons and has given up all attempts to make them, this is just window-dressing for a genocidal agenda. [...]

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More at link.

http://desertpeace.wordpress.com/

DesertPeace

This is a blog by a Jewish fellow who is from America but moved to Israel 25 years ago. I have read him for a long time, although sometimes I stop a while as it gets too heart breaking for me to follow. Too much empathy with the downtrodden is a problem with me.

He is a nice fellow, and very pleasant if you correspond. I recommend you make his blog a part of your week.

http://desertpeace.wordpress.com/2008/07/20/
israeli-occupation-soldier-shoots-blindfolded-
handcuffed-palestinian-detainee/

An Israeli occupation army soldier earlier this month shot from a close range and injured a handcuffed and blindfolded Palestinian detainee, an Israeli human rights group revealed Sunday.

According to B’tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, the incident took place on 7 July, in Nil’in, a village in the central West Bank.

Palestinians and foreign peace activists hold regular and mostly non-violent protests against the confiscation by Israel of private Palestinian land for the construction of the “Separation Wall,” the gigantic barrier Israel is building in the area.

Vast swaths of Palestinian farms, orchards and groves have been seized by Israel under the pretext of building the wall, most of which is built deep in the West Bank far away from the so-called Green Line, the former armistice line between Israel proper and the occupied Palestinian territory. [...]

more at link ...

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I read reports about brutal, insane, sub-human behavior in the occupied territories all the time just like the one above. Do all the trolls we saw on this thread not care about the ethnic cleansing that the Israeli government is attempting?