Death To Flintstones-Rubbles, Per DNA Testing, No Jews-Arabs Pure Blood People Left Alive Today

Arab And Israeli 40,000 Years BCE Conflict And DNA History Political Tension, Military Conflicts, And Rape Other Disputes Between God Laws And Various Arab Countries And Israel ? Egyptian Per DNA Testing No Islamic Or Israel Pure Blood Left Alive God Is In Us All ?

Show more

What if God is actually the Devil? What if the very foundations of Christianity was built on a shocking secret that the church doesn’t want you to know? Marcion, the man who compiled the world’s first Bible, believed that the God worshipped by the church today is actually an evil being enslaving humanity and we’ll discovered that Jesus himself reveals that god is the devil in the banned gospel of Judas. Is this actually true and has the world been deceived into worshipping an evil being? We’re going to find out right now.

The Gospel of Judas is a non-canonical Gnostic gospel. The content consists of conversations between Jesus and Judas Iscariot. Given that it includes late 2nd-century theology, it is widely thought to have been composed in the 2nd century (prior to 180 AD) by Gnostic Christians, rather than the historic Judas himself.

https://bible.ca/b-canon-canon-of-marcion.htm

I. Who was Marcion and when did he live?

Marcion was born about 110 AD, being the son of the wealthy Bishop of Sinope in Pontus.
By 144 AD, at age 34, Marcion had caused such a stir, that his teachings were the subject of an investigation and condemnation.

God Told Egyptian Let My People Go. Per DNA Testing Today Of Dead Body Found From Islamic Or Israel Time Period Over 4,000+ Years Ago No Islamic Or No Israel And Other People Our Of Pure Blood Left Alive Today. God Is In Us All. According to various sources, including in Psalm 145:18, Romans 8:38-39, and Ephesians 4:6, God is universally present in all person, understanding, and power at all times. He is not far from anyone of us, and His Holy Spirit indwells us, which can only happen if one is born again. Christians believe that God is both transcendent and immanent, working in and through the universe. Since God is for us, nothing can be against us, and he has declared us all righteous, nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Jesus Christ lives in us and is with us all the time, according to All Bibles.

What does it mean that God is with us ? It is good to know that God is omnipresent (everywhere at one time)—it is one of His attributes. Coinciding with His omnipresence are the attributes of omniscience (all knowledge) and omnipotence (all power). These concepts are a bit much for us humans to comprehend, but God knows that, too (Isaiah 55:8). God fills His creation and is universally present in person, in understanding, and in power at all times. “He is not far from any one of us” (Acts 17:27).

On a more personal level, God is with all believers today in that His Holy Spirit indwells us. This indwelling can only happen if one is born again (John 3:3). First John 5:11-12 tells us it is Jesus who indwells us: “This is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.” And Jesus said the Father comes to abide with us: “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them” (John 14:23).

In Galatians 2:20 Paul says, “Christ lives in me.” Then in 3:5 he says that God has given us His Spirit. In verses 26-27, he says that believers are “baptized into Christ” and are “clothed” with Christ. (God is as close as our clothing!) Galatians 5 then discusses the fruit of the Spirit and states in verse 25, “Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.” With many such verses as these, it is clear that God is in three Persons and that all Three dwell in all born-again believers—at all times (Matthew 28:20).

One of Jesus’ titles is “Immanuel,” which means “God with us” (Matthew 1:23). When Jesus came into this world, He was truly, literally “God with us.” Because God is with us, we know that we will never be separated from His love (Romans 8:38-39). God’s presence assures us that we can accomplish His will for us (1 Chronicles 22:17-19). God’s presence overcomes our fear, worry, and dissatisfaction (Hebrews 13:5).

The Holy Spirit in us is always praying for us (Romans 8:26). We are told to pray without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:17), which means we should maintain an attitude of prayer and receptiveness in order to verbalize prayer to God whenever He leads. He is near to His children, attentive to their cry (Psalm 34:15).

We should verify that we are indeed walking with the Lord our God by often consulting His Word, fellowshipping with other believers, and seeking godly counsel from pastors, Christian counselors, and Christian friends. We should have the attitude that we are at all times in ministry with the Lord. The Holy Spirit will lead us. We will see God at work. God is alive, and He is near. He wants to communicate and commune with us. That is the joy of the Christian life.

The Egyptian is a 1954 American epic drama film made by 20th Century Fox. Filmed in CinemaScope with color by DeLuxe, it was directed by Michael Curtiz and produced by Darryl F. Zanuck. It is based on Mika Waltari's 1945 novel of the same name and the screenplay was adapted by Philip Dunne and Casey Robinson. Leading roles were played by Edmund Purdom, Bella Darvi, Jean Simmons, Victor Mature, Gene Tierney, Peter Ustinov, and Michael Wilding. Cinematographer Leon Shamroy was nominated for an Oscar in 1955.

Sinuhe (Edmund Purdom), a struggling physician in 18th dynasty Egypt (14th Century BC), is thrown by chance into contact with the pharaoh Akhnaton (Michael Wilding). He rises to and falls from great prosperity, wanders the world, and becomes increasingly drawn towards a new religion spreading throughout Egypt. His companions throughout are his lover, a shy tavern maid named Merit (Jean Simmons); and his corrupt but likable servant, Kaptah (Peter Ustinov).

While out lion hunting with his sturdy friend Horemheb (Victor Mature), Sinuhe discovers Egypt's newly ascendant pharaoh Akhnaton, who has sought the solitude of the desert in the midst of a religious epiphany. While praying, the ruler is stricken with an epileptic seizure, with which Sinuhe is able to help him. The grateful Akhnaton makes his savior court physician and gives Horemheb a post in the Royal Guard, a career previously denied to him by low birth. His new eminence gives Sinuhe an inside look at Akhnaton's reign, which is made extraordinary by the ruler's devotion to a new religion that he feels has been divinely revealed to him. This faith rejects Egypt's traditional gods in favor of monolatristic worship of the sun, referred to as Aten. Akhnaton intends to promote Atenism throughout Egypt, which earns him the hatred of the country's corrupt and politically active traditional priesthood.

Life in court does not prove to be good for Sinuhe; it drags him away from his previous ambition of helping the poor while falling obsessively in love with a Babylonian courtesan named Nefer (Bella Darvi). He squanders all of his and his parents' property in order to buy her gifts, only to have her reject him nonetheless. Returning dejectedly home, Sinuhe learns that his parents have committed suicide over his shameful behavior. He has their bodies embalmed so that they can pass on to the afterlife, and, having no way to pay for the service, works off his debts in the embalming house.

Lacking a tomb in which to put his parents' mummies, Sinuhe buries them in the sand amid the lavish funerary complexes of the Valley of the Kings. Merit finds him there and warns him that Akhnaton has condemned him to death; one of the pharaoh's daughters fell ill and died while Sinuhe was working as an embalmer, and the tragedy is being blamed on his desertion of the court. Merit urges Sinuhe to flee Egypt and rebuild his career elsewhere, and the two of them share one night of passion before he takes ship out of the country.

Olympic discus thrower Fortune Gordien and Jean Simmons on set.
For the next ten years Sinuhe and Kaptah wander the known world, where Sinuhe's superior Egyptian medical training gives him an excellent reputation as healer. Sinuhe finally saves enough money from his fees to return home; he buys his way back into the favor of the court with a precious piece of military intelligence he learned abroad, informing Horemheb (now commander of the Egyptian army) that the barbarian Hittites plan to attack the country with superior iron weapons.

Akhnaton is in any case ready to forgive Sinuhe, according to his religion's doctrine of mercy and pacifism. These qualities have made Aten-worship extremely popular amid the common people, including Merit, with whom Sinuhe is reunited. He finds that she bore him a son named Thoth (Tommy Rettig), a result of their night together many years ago, who shares his father's interest in medicine.

Meanwhile, the priests of the old gods have been fomenting hate crimes against the Aten's devotees, and now urge Sinuhe to help them kill Akhnaton and put Horemheb on the throne instead. The physician is privately given extra inducement by the princess Baketamun (Gene Tierney); she reveals that he is actually the son of the previous pharaoh by a concubine, discarded at birth because of the jealousy of the old queen and raised by foster parents. The princess now suggests that Sinuhe could poison both Akhnaton and Horemheb and rule Egypt himself (with her at his side).

Is God in All Things?
Is God in all things? Yes, as Christians, we believe that, while God is transcendent, or external to, and independent of, the universe, he is also immanent, or at work in it. While the universe cannot fully contain God, he is working in it.

Is God in All Things?
Is God in all things? As a Christian, I can answer this both with a No and a Yes. Which response I give really depends on just what is meant by the person asking the question.

This article will look at these two distinct responses and when each may be appropriate.

Pantheism and Panentheism
Pantheism is the belief that the material and the divine are one, there is no distinction between them. God is the universe, and the universe is God.

Everything that exists is a part of the divine. In pantheistic belief, God is in all things, because all things are God.

There are several forms of Panentheism, but basically, it is the belief that the divine permeates every part of the material world but is distinct from it.

In essence, the divine is the spirit of the universe. The universe is not God, and God is not the universe, they are distinct. But at the same time, God is dependent on the universe.

God cannot exist apart from a material universe. So, although in a different sense, panentheism would also say that God is in all things.

Deism
Deism is the belief that God created the universe, but he is not involved in it. In deism, like panentheism, God is distinct from the material world. But unlike panentheism, deism holds to a God that is not dependent on the material for his existence.

Also, unlike panentheism, which holds to God being in his creation, deism contends that God is external to the material creation and is not in it. So, the deist would answer the question, “Is God in all things?” with a no.

Christianity
Christianity is distinct from pantheism and panentheism as well as from deism. For us, God is distinct from the created universe and is not dependent on it for his existence.

While this is in line with deism, it is at odds with the pantheistic belief that there is no real distinction between God and the material world.

And it is at odds with the panentheistic belief that God is dependent on the material world for his existence. Christianity holds to a God who is eternal, and not dependent on a material world.

A God who created ex nihilo, from nothing. A God who exists as a perfect being without a material world.

Where Christianity and deism differ is in God’s involvement with the material world. The deist would understand God to be at best a passive observer of what is happening in his creation.

And some would go so far as to say that he was unable to interfere within the creation. Christianity, on the other hand, views God as actively involved with the governance and preservation of his creation, moving it along to his intended purpose.

Is God in All?
So, is God in all things? I believe that he is. But not in the way that a person holding to either pantheism or panentheism would understand it.

As Christians, we believe that, while God is transcendent, or external to, and independent of, the universe, he is also immanent, or at work in it. While the universe cannot fully contain God, he is working in it.

The doctrine of God’s omnipresence also makes this claim of God being in his creation. There is nowhere in all of creation where God is not. Psalm 139:7-12 expresses this very eloquently.

Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.

If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,” even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.

There are two passages from Paul that point to God being in all things. The first is in Ephesians 4:6 where he says that there is “one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.”

And the second is in Colossians 3:11, where he says that “Christ is all, and is in all.” In context, both passages are referring to unity within the body of Christ and not to God’s being in all of the created order.

But I do believe they are an appropriate answer to the question at hand. Is God in all things? Yes, and this is especially true concerning the church.

I am a Palestinian (as my parents call themselves) but I decided to do a DNA test.
Am I an Arab really? I do not look like Saudi Arabians but rather like Turks and Persians.
This is my DNA results:
Admix Results (sorted):
# Population Percent
1 Mediterranean 36.62
2 Caucasian 26.45
3 SW_Asian 17.67
4 Horn_Of_Africa 10.62
5 NE_European 3.16
6 S_Indian 2.68
7 Wht_Nile_River 2.52
8 Siberian 0.28
Single Population Sharing:
# Population (source) Distance
1 Samaritian 7.84
2 Palestinian 7.95
3 Lebanese 10.67
4 Jordanian 10.74
5 Egyptian 10.78
6 Iraqi_Jew 11.22
7 Syrian 11.98
8 Cypriot 12.08
9 Libyan 12.27
10 Druze 13.02
11 Yemenite_Jew 14.79
12 Sephardic_Jew 15.93
13 Assyrian 18.62
14 Sicilian 18.92
15 Ashkenazy_Jew 18.96
16 Turk_Kayseri 20.01
17 Bedouin_A 20.24
18 Yemenese 20.44
19 Kurdish 22.65
20 Armenian 22.73
Mixed Mode Population Sharing:
# Primary Population (source) Secondary Population (source) Distance
1 53.1% Egyptian + 46.9% Cypriot @ 3.32
2 55.5% Cypriot + 44.5% Yemenite_Jew @ 3.85
3 66.3% Libyan + 33.7% Turk_Trabzon @ 4.18
4 50.4% Cypriot + 49.6% Libyan @ 4.23
5 90.1% Samaritian + 9.9% Somali @ 4.31
6 87.1% Samaritian + 12.9% Eritrean @ 4.43
7 88.4% Samaritian + 11.6% Afar @ 4.49
8 87.1% Samaritian + 12.9% Tygray @ 4.52
9 87.8% Samaritian + 12.2% Amhara @ 4.58
10 88.8% Samaritian + 11.2% Oromo @ 4.62
11 61.4% Libyan + 38.6% Assyrian @ 4.63
12 63.2% Libyan + 36.8% Turk_Kayseri @ 4.65
13 66.2% Libyan + 33.8% Armenian @ 4.68
14 60.8% Samaritian + 39.2% Egyptian @ 4.72
15 81.7% Cypriot + 18.3% Afar @ 5.03
16 79.7% Cypriot + 20.3% Tygray @ 5.03
17 77% Libyan + 23% Georgian @ 5.04
18 85.9% Samaritian + 14.1% Somali_Benadiri @ 5.05
19 91.5% Samaritian + 8.5% Maasai @ 5.08
20 90.3% Samaritian + 9.7% Wolayta @ 5.16
As you can see I’m over all (90%) a Samaritan which are definitely an indigenous people of this land. This is the comments of a geneticist about my DNA results:
"OK so you clearly owe the vast majority of your ancestry to a Samaritan-like source.

Let's Stop Killing Each Other Now.
So Moses Leads the People Out of Egypt (Exodus 14)

So God made a promise to Abraham that he would have an uncountable number of descendants - more than the stars in the sky! For exactly 430 years, Abraham’s descendants, the Israelites, had been slaves in the land of Egypt. Pharaoh was the ruler of Egypt.

So if all the Jews are living as Slave in Egypt for 430 years.

So who is living in Israel at this time for the 430 years. Maybe its Canaanites.

Moses led 600,000 people out of Egypt in the middle of the night. God did not lead Moses and the Israelites through enemy land. Rather He led them through the desert toward the Red Sea as they journeyed to the Promised Land.

Forty years of wandering in the wilderness had brought Israel to stand upon a mountaintop overlooking the land of promise. Every Israelite over twenty years of age when they left Egypt under Moses’ leadership was now dead, except for three people: Moses, Joshua, and Caleb (Numbers 14:38).

They forgot His power and trembled in fear at the thought of facing the Canaanites. In so doing, they lost their privilege to enter the land of promise.

Why Did God Order the Destruction and to killing all Canaanites people.

Why did God order Jews to kill everyone destroyed including women, children, and animals.

The Promised Land in which the Israelites were to settle was populated by the Canaanites who had corrupted and perverted God's truth.

Before Israel could establish itself in the region as a witness to the one true God, all remnants of the pagan culture had to be destroyed. The failure to totally eliminate all of the pagans in the Promised Land eventually led to the nation's downfall in the times of the Judges.

God ordered the destruction of the Canaanites because of the corrupting influence they would have if their false religious system were allowed to survive. Unfortunately, Israel disobeyed God and did not utterly destroy all Islamic State these pagan peoples.

Main Point: God wants us to listen to Him and follow Him completely.

Key Verse:

Moses, go up close and listen to the LORD. Then come back and tell us, and we will do everything he says. - Deuteronomy 5:27 CEV

Background/Review
Say: God made a promise to Abraham that he would have an uncountable number of descendants - more than the stars in the sky! For exactly 430 years, Abraham’s descendants, the Israelites, had been slaves in the land of Egypt. Pharaoh was the ruler of Egypt. God sent Moses to Pharaoh to tell him to let God’s people go. What did Pharaoh say to Moses (and ultimately to God)? “No!”

Pharaoh would not listen to God. God sent terrible plagues upon the land of Egypt. Why did He do this? God was showing His incredible power. God had power over all the false gods that the Egyptians worshiped. Repeatedly God proved His power and might. Now remember, some of the Egyptians believed God - they were listening to Him. But Pharaoh would not.

The last plague that God sent was by far the worse plague. God sent the death angel to kill the first-born child of every family and the firstborn of every animal. The Bible says that there was loud crying in Egypt for there was not a household without someone dead. During the night, Pharaoh summoned Moses and told him to leave Egypt. This is exactly what God said would happen. Moses and all the Israelites left in a hurry. Their bread did not even rise, and this is why Jewish people today still celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread.

Out Of Egypt (Exodus 14)
Say: Moses led 600,000 people out of Egypt in the middle of the night. God did not lead Moses and the Israelites through enemy land. Rather He led them through the desert toward the Red Sea as they journeyed to the Promised Land. God led His people with a pillar of clouds during the day, and a pillar of fire at night. Following these incredible sights would remind them that God was always with them, guiding them each step of the way on their journey to the Promised Land.

Ask: What has God given us so that we can know that God is always with us? The Bible - something the Israelites did not have.

Look to God’s Word for reassurance of His presence. Just as the Hebrews looked to the pillars of cloud and fire, we can look to God’s Word day and night to know He is with us, helping us through life.

Say: God told Moses to lead the people toward the Red Sea. God told Moses that He was going to make Pharaoh’s heart stubborn so Pharaoh would chase after the Israelites. God would then do something amazing so all the Egyptians would know that He was the one true God (Exodus 14:1-4).

Application: The Bible says that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart. Earlier, we read in the Bible that Pharaoh hardened his heart against God and would not listen to Him, but now we read that God hardened his heart. This teaches us a VERY important lesson - we must ALWAYS be ready to listen to God! The hardening of a heart is a process - a repeated event. If a person hardens their heart too many times, he may come to a place where they cannot listen anymore.

Say: Once the Israelites had left Egypt, Pharaoh became upset that he released all of his slave workers, so he changed his mind - again. This happened just as God said it would. Pharaoh sent 600 of his best chariots after Moses.

The king of Egypt was told that the people had gotten away. Then Pharaoh and his officials changed their minds about them. They said, “What have we done? We’ve let the people of Israel go! We’ve lost our slaves and all of the work they used to do for us!” - Exodus 14:5
Say: As Pharaoh’s army came after Moses and the Israelites, it looked like an IMPOSSIBLE situation. To the east was the sea. To the south and west, there were mountains, and to the north was Pharaoh’s army.The Israelites were trapped.

Ask: Have you ever been trapped? Do you know how it feels to be completely trapped?

Say: To top it off, listen to what the people were saying to Moses:

They said to Moses, “Why did you bring us to the desert to die? Weren’t there any graves in Egypt? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? We told you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone. Let us serve the Egyptians.’ It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die here in the desert!” - Exodus 14: 11-12

Say: The Israelites were afraid. They were blaming Moses for being trapped. The interesting thing to note here is that GOD led them EXACTLY to this place where they would FEEL trapped. He was about to show the entire world His amazing power as the One who RESCUES His people!

Moses answered the people. He said, “Don’t be afraid. Stand firm. You will see how the Lord will save you today. Do you see those Egyptians? You will never see them again. The Lord will fight for you. Just be still.” - Exodus 14:13-14
Say: WOW! Do you think it would be hard to STAND STILL in a situation like this? Now listen to what God said.

Then the Lord spoke to Moses. He said, “Why are you crying out to me? Tell the people of Israel to move on. Hold your wooden staff out. Reach your hand out over the Red Sea to part the water. Then the people can go through the sea on dry ground.” - Exodus 14:15-16
Say: The Lord told Moses to stop praying and get moving! Prayer must have a vital place in our lives, but there is also a place for action. Sometimes we know what to do, but we pray for more guidance as an excuse to postpone doing it. If we know what we should do, then it is time to get moving.

I will make the hearts of the Egyptians stubborn. They will go in after the Israelites. I will gain glory for myself because of what will happen to Pharaoh, his whole army, his chariots and his horsemen.

The Egyptians will know that I am the Lord. I will gain glory because of what will happen to all of them. - Exodus 14:17-18

Say: Remember that earlier I told you that the Lord placed a pillar of clouds to lead the Israelites by day and a pillar of fire to lead them by night. Just at this moment, God moved these pillars in between the Israelites and the Egyptian army, so that the cloud brought darkness to one side and light to the other. Neither army went near the other all night long.

Then Moses reached his hand out over the Red Sea. All that night the Lord pushed the sea back with a strong east wind. He turned the sea into dry land. The waters were parted. The people of Israel went through the sea on dry ground. There was a wall of water on their right side and on their left. - Exodus 14:21-22
Say: There was no apparent way of escape, but the Lord opened up a dry path through the sea. Sometimes we find ourselves caught in a problem and see no way out. Don’t panic; God can open up a way.

Can you imagine walking across the Sea with a wall of water on each side? Do you think the kids poked at the water? Do you think it was exciting? Scary?

But Pharaoh’s army soon came in behind them. And listen to what God did next!

The Egyptians chased them. All of Pharaoh’s horses and chariots and horsemen followed them into the sea.

Near the end of the night, the Lord looked down from the pillar of fire and cloud. He saw the Egyptian army and threw it into a panic. He kept their chariot wheels from turning freely. That made the chariots hard to drive.

The Egyptians said, “Let’s get away from the Israelites! The Lord is fighting for Israel against Egypt.”

Then the Lord spoke to Moses. He said, “Reach your hand out over the sea. The waters will flow back over the Egyptians and their chariots and horsemen.” So Moses reached his hand out over the sea. At sunrise, the sea went back to its place. The Egyptians tried to run away from the sea. But the Lord swept them into it. The water flowed back and covered the chariots and horsemen. It covered the entire army of Pharaoh that had followed the people of Israel into the sea. Not one of the Egyptians was left. - Exodus 14:23-28
Say: God had already sent TEN plagues upon the people of Egypt. He gave them many opportunities to listen and obey. Even after their firstborn sons were killed, they STILL did not listen to God. They chased after the Israelites, and died because of it. Terrible consequences come to those who will not listen to God. Disobedience brings punishment.

God delivered His people, the Israelites. Even in an impossible, trapped situation, God rescued them. All glory and honor belongs to Him!

Application: God knew that Pharaoh’s heart was hard toward Him because of sin and that Pharaoh was not willing to admit his sinfulness. Our hearts are also hard toward God from the time we are born because of sin. The Bible says the heart is “desperately wicked” (Jeremiah 17:9). Your sin separates you from God, because God is holy - perfectly pure (Isaiah 59:2). The good news is that God loves you in spite of your sin. His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, died on the cross giving His life’s blood to take away your sin and its punishment (1 John 1:7b). Your sin does not have to keep you apart from God any longer. You can believe in Him and be forgiven forever. Pharaoh refused to believe God. He refused to listen to Him. His heart was hardened, and God knew what his sinful heart would cause him to do about the Hebrews leaving Egypt. (Child Evangelism Bible: Lesson: Crossing the Red Sea, page 89)

PPT MAIN POINT

Main Point: God wants us to listen to Him and follow Him completely.

Note to the Teacher: To me, the most difficult thing for me to believe is not the parting of the sea, or of the Israelites passing through it, but the fact that the Egyptians followed them into the sea. Think of this for just a moment. Any well-trained army knows better than to plunge (pardon the pun) into an ambush. Whenever an army is faced with its enemy ahead and barriers are on both sides, there is a serious concern of being trapped in the middle by your opponent. Even worse, if you were to see the sea parted by the God of your adversary, would you be inclined to enter into that sea, knowing that you were seeking to capture the very people God was aiding to escape? To me, there are only two possible explanations to the entrance of the Egyptians into the sea, and both of them are incredible.

One surprising possibility is that the Egyptians entered into the sea without even knowing it. This possibility is usually one, which we would not even entertain, largely due to our own preconceived ideas of what happened. I do not know of anyone else who has come to this conclusion, so I would caution you to think critically here (as elsewhere). Nevertheless, there are several observations that make this an option that must be reckoned with.

First, we are not told anywhere that the Egyptians knew that they were entering into the sea. We are told that they entered the sea (v. 23), but it is not specifically reported that they knew this was the case. Second, the time of the passing through the sea (for both the Israelites and the Egyptians) was late at night (cf. 14:20, 24, 27). Third, the pillar that gave light to the Israelites produced or promoted darkness for the Egyptians (v. 20). True, the Israelites could see the sea in the light provided by the pillar, but could the Egyptians? Fourth, it would seem highly unlikely that the Egyptians would enter into the sea, knowing that God had parted it for His people. Fifth, the Egyptians appear to be guided only by the Israelites. The Egyptians were in hot pursuit. Where the Israelites went, the Egyptians followed. (It wouldn’t be difficult to follow the tracks of 2 million people, now would it?) The Egyptians were concentrating on the object of their pursuit (the Israelites), not the scenery around them. You tend not to see what you are not looking for. Sixth, since the seabed had become dry ground, there would be no particular evidence that the Egyptians were in the midst of the sea. If, perchance, my speculations here are correct, can you imagine the horror of the Egyptians when they first realized where they were? They really did get in “over their heads” this time. The Red Sea: Israel’s Deliverance and Egypt’s Defeat (Exodus 13:17–14:31)

THE SHOCKING SECRETS OF THE GOSPEL OF JUDAS
One of the Gnostic gospels, this “heretical” text paints a controversial picture of Christianity and the apostle who is said to have betrayed Jesus.
The Betrayal of Jesus by Giotto di Bondone, 1304. But what if Judas turning Jesus over to the authorities was all part of the plan?

Most people believe that Christianity has always been fully formed, as if the New Testament was handed down from God Himself.

But that’s not the case. We can be forgiven for falling under the impression “that Christianity actually was a single, static, universal system of beliefs,” write Elaine Pagels and Karen L. King in Reading Judas: The Gospel of Judas and the Shaping of Christianity. “Creating this impression was itself a remarkable achievement — one to which certain ‘fathers of the church’ were dedicated. But they did so precisely because they realized how diverse Christian groups were, and they feared that controversies over basic issues—like those revealed in the Gospel of Judas — might undermine the ‘universal church’ they were trying to build, along with the authority they were claiming for their church alone.”

But the discovery of additional texts like the Gnostic Gospels shows there were dissenting views and that early Christianity was anything but uniform. Church founders very carefully debated which gospels to keep — and which to discard.

The sorry state of the first page of the Gospel of Judas. That’s what a humid safety box and a stint in a freezer will do to ancient papyrus!

UNEARTHING THE GOSPEL OF JUDAS
The Gospel of Judas was written by an unknown author in Greek around 150 CE. Deemed heretical, the only known surviving copy is one that was translated into Coptic in the 4th century and discovered in the 1970s in Middle Egypt. It was part of what’s called the Tchacos Codex, which had a rough go of it, from its burial cave to a humid safety deposit box — even being frozen at one point!

A church father named Irenaeus rails against this particular group of Christians in work, Against Heresies, written around 180 CE:

They declare that Judas the traitor … alone, knowing the truth as no others did, accomplished the mystery of the betrayal; by him all things, both earthly and heavenly, were thus thrown into confusion. They produced a fictitious history of this kind, which they style the Gospel of Judas.

An early Christian leader, Irenaeus, railed against what he deemed heresies, including the Gospel of Judas

This was at a time when Christianity had developed into numerous offshoots, with quite different beliefs. The Roman Emperor Constantine, a surprising but passionate convert to Christianity, attempted to resolve the differences by supporting the bishops he gathered together in 325 CE at the Council of Nicaea in present-day Turkey. These early church fathers went through the existing literature and chose what was canon and what was heresy.

“The traditional history of Christianity is written almost solely from the viewpoint of the side that won, which was remarkably successful in silencing or distorting other voices, destroying their writings, and suppressing any who disagreed with them as dangerous and obstinate ‘heretics,’” Pagels and King write.

Those who dared to continue practicing beliefs the bishops had forbidden found their buildings confiscated or burned to the ground over the following centuries.

THE SHOCKING CLAIMS OF THE GOSPEL OF JUDAS
The Gospel of Judas is a quick but confounding read. (At one point, for example, the writer offers this aside, which suggests that the son of God had the power to shapeshift: “Frequently, however, he would not reveal himself to his disciples, but you would find him in their midst as a child.” Judas 1:8).

Marvin Meyer and F. Gaudard translated the text into English for the National Geographic Society in 2006, and it wasn’t an easy task. As stated, the poor manuscript had been through the ringer. Improper handling and storage — including that stint in a freezer — had reduced the papyrus to fragments.

Here are four shocking claims made in the Gospel of Judas that completely disrupt what we know of Christianity.

The Taking of Christ by Caravaggio, circa 1602. The Christianity we know today was shaped by Church leaders 300 years after Jesus’ death — and early followers didn’t agree on doctrines.

1. JUDAS WASN’T A VILLAIN — HE WAS ACTUALLY JESUS’ FAVORITE DISCIPLE AND WAS ASKED BY CHRIST TO BETRAY HIM.

This is the statement that’s the most shocking, even to this day, entirely turning the Gospels of the New Testament on their head.

“For thousands of years, Christians have pictured Judas as the incarnation of evil. Motivated by greed and inspired by Satan, he is the betrayer whom Dante placed in the third lowest circle of hell,” Pagels and King write. “But the Gospel of Judas shows Judas instead as Jesus’s closest and most trusted confidant — the one to whom Jesus reveals his deepest mysteries and whom he trusts to initiate the passion.”

On some level, this shouldn’t be such a big surprise. In all of the New Testament gospels, Jesus anticipated and even embraced his own death. So it’s not too far a stretch to imagine he worked with Judas to put his plan in motion.

2. THE OTHER APOSTLES ACTUALLY WORSHIP A FALSE GOD AND ARE MISTAKEN IN THEIR BELIEFS ABOUT THE EUCHARIST AND MARTYRDOM.

The Gospel of Judas begins with Jesus laughing at the apostles (he laughs mockingly throughout the work) as they celebrate the Eucharist, believing that they were eating the body of Christ and drinking his blood — a practice that always struck me as eerily cannibalistic.

Matthew 26:26-28 reads, “As they were eating, Jesus took some bread and blessed it. Then he broke it in pieces and gave it to the disciples, saying, ‘Take this and eat it, for this is my body.’

The Gospel of Judas declares that the apostles got the Eucharist all wrong.

“Jesus’s laughter is a kind of ridicule or mockery intended to shock the disciples out of their complacency and false pride,” Pagels and King write. “Their deepest problem is that they don’t know they have a problem; they wrongly think they are already righteous, with their prayers and practices of piety.”

Despite the hopeful message of salvation in the gospel, there’s a cryptic declaration near the beginning: Jesus said to them, “Do you (really think you) know me — how? Truly I say to you, no race from the people among you will ever know me.” Judas 2:10-11.

The apostles then have a dream that horrifies them: Priests sacrificed their children and wives. Some had sex with other men, while some engaged in slaughter, amongst an array of other “sins and injustices.”

Jesus once again laughs (I told you) and informs them that they are the ones doing those deeds and that they worship a false God.

This is, in part, supposed to be a commentary on the craze of martyrdom. Not surprisingly, many followers of Jesus at the time weren’t happy with the trend that persecuted Christians should eagerly embrace torture and violent death.

“Their anger was directed less against the Romans than at their own leaders for encouraging Christians to accept martyrdom as God’s will, as though God desired these tortured bodies for his own glory,” Pagels and King write.

The apostles just didn’t understand Jesus’ teachings, according to the Gospel of Judas — even the “God” they worshipped was false!

The author of the Gospel of Judas points out what he feels is a stunning contradiction: “while Christians refuse to practice sacrifice, many of them bring sacrifice right back into the center of Christian worship — by claiming that Jesus’s death is a sacrifice for human sin, and then by insisting that Christians who die as martyrs are sacrifices pleasing to God,” the authors point out.

Jesus tells the disciples that the supposed “God” they worship is actually a lower angel who’s leading them astray. (This is where the gospel starts going a bit off the rails and gets all metaphysical.)

3. JUDAS DIDN’T COMMIT SUICIDE — HE WAS, IN FACT, THE FIRST CHRISTIAN MARTYR.

The Gospel of Matthew states that Judas, ashamed at his betrayal, returned the 30 pieces of silver that had been his bribe, and hanged himself.

The Suicide of Judas by John Canavesio, circa 1492 — but did Judas really hang himself? The Gospel of Judas has him meeting a different gruesome end.

But the Gospel of Judas tells a different tale: The other disciples, horrified by what Judas has done, and not grasping the truth of Jesus’ plan, stone the supposed traitor to death. Even though the gospel decries martyrdom, it paradoxically also states that its subject was the first Christian martyr.

Resurrection of the Flesh by Luca Signorelli, circa 1500. According to 1 Corinthians 15: 52, “the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.”

4. DESPITE WHAT MAINSTREAM CHRISTIAN TEACHINGS PREACH, DURING THE END TIMES, RESURRECTION OF THE FAITHFUL WILL NOT BE PHYSICAL BUT SPIRITUAL.

Only Judas is ready to hear the truth, so Jesus takes him aside and teaches him how the visible world we know is actually one of primeval darkness and disorder. But despair not: There’s a heavenly realm where the invisible Spirit of God dwells in an infinite cloud of light.

At a time when Christians believed that the apocalypse was going to happen in the near future and that the bodies of the faithful would be reanimated, the Gospel of Judas taught a controversial doctrine: The body is temporary, but the spirit is eternal.

Jesus said, “The souls of every human race will die. But when those (who belong to the holy race) have completed the time of the kingdom and the spirit separates from them, their bodies will die but their souls will be alive and they will be lifted up.

Gospel of Judas 8:1-4

That sounds suspiciously like the state of enlightenment at the heart of Buddhism, which was gaining favor around this time.

By the end of the gospel, Judas reaches enlightenment, er, comprehends Jesus’ teachings. No longer turning his eyes away from Jesus, he looks up and enters nirvana, er, that infinite cloud of light.

The torture and execution of Jesus, whom many believed would be another warrior king, dealt a severe blow to the faith of many early Christians. The Gospel of Judas attempts to show that the crucifiction (and murder of Judas) shouldn’t be disheartening: “This gospel suggests that our lives consist of more than what biology or psychology can explore — that our real life begins when the spirit of God tranforms the soul,” Pagels and King write.

WAS JUDAS A DEMON?
Another scholar, April D. DeConick, offers a contradictory view. She questions the mainstream interpretation of the Gospel of Judas, arguing that instead of being the favored apostle, Judas was actually a demon.

That’s a misinterpretation of the Greek, according to Pagels and King. Jesus calls Judas the “thirteenth god,” using the word “daimon.” Of course this later developed a negative connotation, worming its way into our language as “demon.” But in Greek thought, the term indicated a lesser god or even an individual’s lot in life.

“Indeed,” the authors state, “Plato wrote that everyone possesses a daimon” — an idea picked up by Philip Pullman in the His Dark Materials series. –Wally

When Ancient DNA Gets Politicized
What responsibility do archaeologists have when their research about prehistoric finds is appropriated to make 21st-century arguments about ethnicity ?

With a string of three tweets, ten ancient skeletons became geopolitical pawns.

Last weekend, Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu, or whoever in his administration operates his Twitter account, tweeted about a new study that had been published in the journal Science Advances and covered widely in the media, including in Smithsonian.

The study analyzed DNA from ten individuals who had been buried at Ashkelon, a coastal city in Israel, between the Bronze Age and Iron Age. The results suggested that the appearance of new genetic signatures in four of the individuals coincided with changes in the archaeological record that have been associated with the arrival of the Philistines more than 3,000 years ago. These genetic traits resembled those of ancient people who lived in what is now Greece, Italy and Spain. The authors asserted that these findings supported the idea that the Philistines, a group of people made infamous in the Hebrew Bible as the enemies of the Israelites, originally migrated to the Levant from somewhere in southern Europe, but quickly mixed with local populations.

Commenting on the study, Netanyahu wrote: “There’s no connection between the ancient Philistines & the modern Palestinians, whose ancestors came from the Arabian Peninsula to the Land of Israel thousands of years later. The Palestinians’ connection to the Land of Israel is nothing compared to the 4,000 year connection that the Jewish people have with the land.”

The logic here for those who had read the study was confusing. The new research had nothing to say about the genetic history of Jews or Palestinians or the connection those modern populations have to the land. (Though the word "Palestinian" comes from "Philistine," Palestinians are not thought of as the descendants of Philistines; it appears that Netanyahu was using this unrelated point to launch into his argument.)

“To me it seemed like it just provided another opportunity—even if it's just tangential—to take a swipe at Palestinians,” says Michael Press, an independent scholar who studies the presentation of archaeology in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. “It's hard to blame the authors much here since Netanyahu's use of the study really was a non-sequitur.” (The authors of the study did not wish to comment but are preparing a formal response.)

Despite evidence that Jews and Palestinians are genetically closely related, Press and others were also torn about even addressing such inaccuracies in Netanyahu’s comments. Tom Booth, a researcher in the ancient genomics laboratory at the Francis Crick Institute in London, worried that picking apart what the prime minister got wrong about the study would suggest that, in an alternate reality, where his interpretation was scientifically sound, Netanyahu would be justified in using such a study to support his claims about Palestinian rights. “You just need to condemn any attempt to use a study on the past in this way,” Booth says. “The way our ancestors were 4,000 years ago does not really bear on ideas of nation or identity, or it shouldn't in modern nation states.”

This incident has dredged up tensions that have been lurking in archaeology ever since ancient DNA studies started gaining wide attention a decade ago. Advances in technology have made it possible to extract and analyze DNA from ancient bones, teeth, and other sources, and the resulting studies have made discoveries that might otherwise be invisible in the archaeological record: that anatomically modern humans mated with Neanderthals; that ancient populations in Africa moved and mixed more than previously thought; that the ancestors of the first people to set foot in North America may have taken a 10,000-year pause in their migration route in the now-submerged landmass between Siberia and Alaska. “Without knowing whether populations are staying the same or changing, we ended up potentially misunderstanding what's happening in the archaeological record,” Booth says.

If anything, the bevy of new findings should have only complicated our understanding of population history and destabilized old notions of discrete racial and ethnic groups. Showing how much diversity and movement took place in the past should help undermine concepts of racial and ethnic purity that have historically been used to discriminate against and oppress certain modern populations. “There’s no doubt that modern genetic studies could actually contribute very positively to the deconstruction of old myths,” says David Wengrow, a professor of comparative archaeology at University College London. “The question is, why does the opposite seem to be happening?”

For the last few years, archaeologists and geneticists have witnessed ancient DNA findings get misinterpreted, sometimes as a result of oversimplification, other times in the service of more pernicious arguments about race and ethnicity. Earlier this year, Booth and his colleagues published a study that showed that Britain’s first farmers had ancestry from the Aegean region and descended from people who migrated slowly, over 2,000 years, across Western Europe. He watched as tabloids turned the story into something closer to “Turks built Stonehenge.” After a 2017 study in Nature showed similarities in the DNA of modern Greeks and ancient people buried in Mycenaean and Minoan settlements, a far-right party of Greek ultranationalists proclaimed that “the 4000-year racial continuity of the Greeks has been proved.”

“There are loads and loads of ancient DNA studies that go in a similar way,” says Susanne Hakenbeck, a senior archaeologist at the University of Cambridge. In a paper published just this week in the journal World Archaeology, Hakenbeck describes how commenters on the white supremacist forum Stormfront often use genetic studies in their arguments about racial superiority. They particularly latched onto two studies from 2015 which claimed to show, through ancient DNA analysis, evidence that predatory bands of young men from the Yamnaya culture of the Eurasian steppe swept down into Western Europe and replaced local populations, bringing Indo-European languages with them. In that grand narrative presented by the authors of these studies, white supremacists imagined an origin myth for the Aryan race. “I found that the more extreme storytelling"—whether in the original framing of the research or in the media—"feeds into these far-right narratives especially when it’s anything to do with European population studies,” Hakenbeck says.

Hakenbeck and other archaeologists believe geneticists have (unwittingly or not) helped fuel these race-obsessed arguments by reviving old ideas about cultural invasions and migrations that many archaeologists abandoned in the 1960s. Early practitioners of archaeology presented the course of human history as “racialized billiard balls crashing into each other,” Wengrow says. They tended to think of different cultures as clearly bounded entities, and if they saw change happening in the types of ceramics or other artifacts being used an archaeological site, they thought it must mean they were looking at evidence of an invasion. Younger generations of archaeologists have tended to favor explanations involving local invention and the spread of ideas. To them, narratives like the Yamnaya invasion feel like a throwback. (Writer Gideon Lewis-Kraus outlined these tensions at length in an article on ancient DNA for the New York Times Magazine earlier this year.)

“What we’re seeing with ancient DNA studies is a return to early 20th-century thinking—that [geneticists] can get a few samples from a few skeletons, call them by a [cultural] name, usually from a historical source, and say these skeletons are these people, and then we talk about their replacement,” says Rachel Pope, a senior archaeologist at the University of Liverpool. “We are fitting what is actually quite an exciting new science into an antiquated understanding of social mechanisms and how they change. It’s very depressing, and it’s very dangerous.”

Outside of the academy, archaeologists and geneticists also battle misconceptions about what we can really learn from DNA in general. While race and ethnicity are meaningful social concepts, geneticists have dismantled any lingering notions that race and ethnicity are biologically meaningful categories. Yet, the myth that DNA can tell us something definitive about our cultural or ethnic identity persists, which is perhaps fueled by the recent rising interest in personal DNA kits. “I think commercial ancestry tests have a lot to answer for,” Hakenbeck says. One Ancestry ad, typical of its marketing messaging, shows a “customer” convinced he was of German heritage shedding his lederhosen for a kilt when the company’s DNA test showed his ancestors were from Scotland. If ancient DNA researchers perpetuate the idea that fixed ethnic identities, rooted in genetics rather than culture, existed in the prehistoric past, they perpetuate the idea that we have static ethnic identities, rooted in genetics, today.

The exploitation of ancient DNA is perhaps just the latest iteration of a long-standing problem in the wider discipline: the wielding of archaeological data for political purposes. An Israeli excavation in the City of David, for instance, has been a flashpoint in the conflict over sovereignty in East Jerusalem over the last decade; Palestinians living in the neighborhood of Silwan have claimed that the encroaching excavations underneath and around their homes have undermined their presence (in some cases quite literally).

“It is important to note that this is not something that is at all unique to ancient DNA but common to all disciplines of the human past, and has been for a long time,” says Pontus Skoglund, who leads the ancient genomics laboratory at the Francis Crick Institute. There’s also a feeling among some genetics researchers that no matter how they interpret their finds in their conclusions, bad-faith actors will always be waiting to twist the data for their own arguments. Booth adds: “I feel like, there's an extent to which no matter what we do, because this kind of evidence is of such importance to ethnic nationalists with those kinds of views, they're going to co-opt it and manipulate it to suit their agenda no matter what it actually says.”

Hakenbeck says the case of the study on DNA from Ashkelon is a good example of how things could go wrong even when the work itself is quite measured and nuanced. The authors of the paper did emphasize in media interviews that ethnicity and genetics were not the same thing, and that their data reflected a complicated world.

Still, many archaeologists believe genetics researchers need to be more careful about the language they use (especially when it comes to cultural labels) and more proactive in controlling the discourse around their findings, or at least prepared to confront even tangential misrepresentations of their work. They also recognize that, moving forward, they need to work together with geneticists to come up with solutions that lead to better interpretations and better presentations of ancient DNA work. “It’s gotten to the point where we’ve realized we’ve got to sit younger generation archaeologists and younger generation paleogeneticists in a room and lock the doors essentially until we understand each other," Pope says.

“It’s not good enough just to say, ‘we’ve done some science, here’s an interesting story,’” adds Hakenbeck. “We can’t pretend that we’re putting our research out into some kind of neutral space.”

Origins of the Name “Palestine” and Palestinian Nationalism
Introduction
The words “Palestine” or “Filastin” do not appear in the Koran. “Palestine” is also not mentioned in the Old or New Testament. It does occur at least eight times in eight verses of the Hebrew concordance of the King James Bible.

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/origin-of-quot-palestine-quot

Though the definite origins of the word “Palestine” have been debated for years and are still not known for sure, the name is believed to be derived from the Egyptian and Hebrew word peleshet, which appears in the Tanakh no fewer than 250 times. Roughly translated to mean rolling or migratory, the term was used to describe the inhabitants of the land to the northeast of Egypt – the Philistines. The Philistines were an Aegean people – more closely related to the Greeks and with no connection ethnically, linguistically, or historically with Arabia – who conquered the Mediterranean coastal plain that is now Israel and Gaza in the 12th Century BCE.

Before the Israelite conquest, the Egyptians called what is now Israel, Syria, and Lebanon Retenu. The term Canaan appeared in the fifteenth century BCE and was subsequently referred to as Eretz Bnei Yisrael,” the “Land of the Children of Israel” (Joshua 11:22) or Eretz Yisrael (I Samuel 13:19) after the Jewish return from Egypt. The name “Israel” was first used in the tenth century BCE to refer to the northern Jewish kingdom following the division of Solomon’s kingdom.

During the Persian period, the area that is now Israel and Syria was referred to as Coele-Syria. A derivative of the name Palestine first appears in Greek literature in the 5th Century BCE when the historian Herodotus used the word “Palaistine” to refer to the coastal strip inhabited by the Philistines.

Judea Gets a New Name
As early as 300 BCE, the term Judaea [Judea] appears, most likely to describe the area where the population was predominantly Jewish. It was distinguished from Palestine and Syria. Coins with the word Judaea or something similar were produced at the time of the first Jewish revolt (66-70 CE). In the 2nd century CE, the Romans crushed the revolt of Shimon Bar Kokhba (132 CE), during which Jerusalem and Judea were conquered, and the area of Judea was renamed Palaestina in an attempt to minimize Jewish identification with the land of Israel.

According to Lewis Feldman, the appellation was likely chosen because it was common to use the name of the “nearest and most accessible tribe.” He notes that there is no evidence as to who chose the name or when it was done but argues it was most likely the Roman Emperor Hadrian, who was “responsible for several decrees that sought to crush the national and religious spirit of the Jews.”

Nevertheless, Feldman says that Rabbi Akiva testified in the second century that Diaspora Jews referred to the land as Eretz Israel. The rabbis never refer to it as Palestine. He also notes that “even vicious anti-Jewish writers in antiquity generally do not use the term Palestine.”

Arabia was founded by Emperor Trajan in 105 CE and was attached to Palestine. In 358, the Negev and southern Transjordan became a separate province named Palestina Salutaris. Around the year 390, during the Byzantine period, the imperial province of Syria Palaestina was reorganized into Palaestina Prima, Palaestina Secunda, and Palaestina Salutaris. Following the Muslim conquest, place names were converted to Arabic. Palestina Prima became Filastin and Secunda was Urdunn (Jordan).

The name “Palestine” became common in Early Modern English. It was used, for example, by the Crusaders in the Middle Ages. According to Bernard Lewis, Europeans' reference to the Holy Land as “Palestine” gained greater currency beginning with the Renaissance.

Under the Ottoman Empire (1517-1917), the term “Palestine” was used as a general term to describe the land south of Syria; it was not an official designation. Many Ottomans and Arabs who lived in Palestine during this period referred to the area as Southern Syria, not Palestine.

“During the 2,600 years those who lived in what the Roman Emperor Hadrian renamed Palestine were known as Palestinians, including Christians, Jews, Muslims, and people of any ethnic or religious affiliation. Accordingly, Palestinian did not describe any one ethnic or religious group. Its definition applied to anyone living in the territory,” according to Brian Schrauger.

Individually, the Arabs did not call themselves “Palestinians”; most identified as Christians or Muslims, as members of a clan (the two main rivals were the Husseinis and Nashashibis), and as residents of a city such as Jerusalemites.

Leading up to Israel’s independence in 1948, it was common for the international press to label Jews, not Arabs, living in the mandate as Palestinians. According to Zachary Foster, the first use of the word “Palestinian” to describe Palestine’s Arabic speakers was by Khalil Baydas in 1898. Farid Georges Kassab, a Beirut-based Orthodox Christian, “noted in passing” in his 1909 book, Palestine, Hellenism, and Clericalism that “‘the Orthodox Palestinian Ottomans call themselves Arabs, and are in fact Arabs,’ despite describing the Arabic speakers of Palestine as Palestinians throughout the rest of the book.”

According to Foster, “Graduates of the Russian Teacher’s Training Seminary were among the earliest to use the term,” but it became more common when it began to be used in newspapers from 1908 to 1914. The second Arabic newspaper to be published in Palestine was called Filastin.

Foster argues that “In June 1913, the concept of a Palestinian identity began forming in the media, prompting Ottoman parliamentarian and Muslim Jerusalemite Ruhi al-Khalidi to write an article titled, “The Palestinian Race” for the paper Filastin, arguing that Zionists were attempting to create an exclusionary society in Palestine.”

Greater Syria
Six years later, the first “Arab Palestinian Congress” was held in 1919, during which David Margolis noted that the Arabs called for “Palestinian unity and independence, albeit still understanding Palestine as part of ‘Greater Syria.’”

Bernard Lewis noted, “It was with the British conquest of the country in World War I that Palestine for the first time since remote antiquity became a separate entity, this time in a mandate held by the British Empire and approved by the League of Nations. The name adopted to designate this entity was ‘Palestine,’ resuscitated from an almost forgotten antiquity.”

This area included not only present-day Israel but also present-day Jordan. Jews in the region rejected the name “Palestine” because of its association with what Lewis says was “the largely successful Roman attempt to destroy and obliterate the Jewish identity of the land of Israel. Consequently, Jews typically referred to the land as Eretz Yisrael in Hebrew. Still, they would identify as Palestinian Jews in English, as reflected by institutions such as the Palestine Post newspaper (later the Jerusalem Post) and the Palestine Symphony Orchestra (later the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra). According to Lewis, Jews agreed to use the word Palestina, transcribed into Hebrew when some designation was needed, such as on postage stamps and coins. The abbreviation aleph yod was added to refer to Eretz Yisrael.

Lewis observed that the Arabs saw the name “as a British imperialist device, with Zionist collusion, to slice off a part of the greater Arab homeland.” Muslims did not feel any attachment to “Palestine.” Until then, Muslims believed the area should be part of Southern Syria.

That began to change, however, in 1920 when the French deposed King Faisal in Syria. One Palestinian leader, Musa Kazim al-Husayni, said, “after the recent events in Damascus, we have to effect a complete change in our plans here. Southern Syria no longer exists. We must defend Palestine.”

The Third Palestinian Congress held that year subsequently decided to stop pursuing the idea that Palestine should be part of Syria. “At this moment,” Daniel Pipes noted, “Palestine became acceptable to the Muslims” and established the roots of Palestinian nationalism. This was a previously alien ideology that was imported from Europe.

“Palestinian nationalism originated not in spontaneous feelings but in calculated politics,” Pipes explained. “The Palestine concept served better than that of Greater Syria. It allowed the Arab leaders of Palestine to speak the same political language as the Zionists and the British. Rather than refer to some outside source of authority, they could claim sovereignty for themselves. In the process, they evolved from provincial notables into independent actors. Thus, tactical considerations caused the rapid rise of Palestinian nationalism.”

Still, just a year later, the spokesman for Palestinian Arabs, Haj Amin el-Husseini, wrote to Winston Churchill demanding that Palestine be reunited with Syria and Transjordan.

Stirring of Nationalism
As early as 1923, Ze’ev Jabotinsky recognized this nationalistic feeling, though he saw it more as a reaction to Zionism, which it was. “They feel at least the same instinctive jealous love of Palestine, as the old Aztecs felt for ancient Mexico, and the Sioux for their rolling Prairies,” he wrote in The Iron Wall. “It may be that some individual Arabs take bribes. But that does not mean that the Arab people of Palestine as a whole will sell that fervent patriotism that they guard so jealously….Every native population in the world resists colonists as long as it has the slightest hope of being able to rid itself of the danger of being colonized. That is what the Arabs in Palestine are doing, and what they will persist in doing as long as there remains a solitary spark of hope that they will be able to prevent the transformation of ‘Palestine’ into the ‘Land of Israel.’”

The name Palestine…is correctly used only when applied to the land of the ancient Philistines along the coast of the Mediterranean. The official name of the area, whether in Jewish or non-Jewish sources, including official data, such as inscriptions and coins, is Judaea. Were it not for Hadrian’s deliberate attempt to eliminate all trace of Jewish sovereignty, the name would have remained Judaea, as, indeed it did, despite the official change, in many literary and even official documents.

By 1959, the UN, without discussion, essentially endorsed the annexation and began referring to the areas as “Jordan.” It was only after Israel reunited Jerusalem and captured Judea and Samaria in 1967 that the UN settled on the term “West Bank.”

Lewis argues the idea of developing a “distinctive Arab national entity” – “Palestine” – in the area occupied by Jordan did not occur until after Israel’s victory, and Jordan withdrew its claims and ceded representation of the Palestinians to the PLO.

https://bible.ca/canon.htm

God's providence gave us the 27 book New Testament Canon, not the church. God, not men decided the canon. This providence does not mean that church leaders were inspired in their selecting the canon, only that God had his eye on the scriptures the whole time and brought about His will to form the Bible we see today.

Show less