This gets more deliciously absurd every minute.  I cannot decide if I am in a painting by Jackson Pollock painting, Dali, or Miro.

There most certainly is a controversy within archaeological scholars.  You are simply speaking about your religious beliefs, which have nothing to do with physical reality.  Religion is faith, not material truth.  This is what makes religion important in one way and material truth important in another way.  Most people have little trouble keeping them separate, yet integrating the two successfully in their daily lives, just as most people understand that when an actor in a movie gets shot, he is not really dead.

I looked at your “current poll.”  It is not a scientific poll and is of no statistical significance whatsoever. 

That, of course, depends entirely on whether you are talking nonsense or not.

One of the three authors of Pentateuch probably combined two previous documents, one of which contained stories from the northern region that emphasized the tribe of Ephraim, and one of which contained stories from the southern region that emphasized the tribe of Judah.  They were carefully merged to provide a single, unified history so that all the people could declare a common heritage.

At Durban, there was no agreement that Judaism or Jews are racist.  The discussion was strictly about Zionism.  Neither Zionism nor Israel represents the Jewish people, even though each claims to do so.  Political Zionism was opposed by the overwhelming majority of world Jewry until the 1940s, and it is still opposed by many all over the world, including within Israel. 

You reveal an utter ignorance of Judaism.  Not only do Jews not consider rabbis as gods, we have a very long tradition of rising up against our rabbis and their conservative poppycock.  Out prophetic tradition is deep, and we have never taken the Talmud as the work of gods, but as the work of people, sometimes seriously flawed people. 

In 1:27 you emphasize the word “own” and in 2:7 the word “of.”  Mazel tov.

Notice that in 1:27 I could emphasize the word “man” and in 2:27 I could emphasize the word “man.” 

In other words, in 2:27, Adam is a MAN, who became a living soul.  And, according to 1:27, God created MAN in his OWN image.

Therefore, MAN = ADAM = MAN = God’s image.  What is your exact problem?  What, precisely, is the difference between being created and being formed?  And, if there is such a huge difference, why cannot we discern any biological, physiological, neurological, or supernatural differences between the descendents of so-called “man” and so-called “Adam”?  You’d think that if there were a difference between being “formed” and “created” there would be some mighty profound differences!  But even with a lot of equipment no one has found any.

I get it!  You mean the “race” that came from Adam, as opposed to the “race” than came from “man”?

Oh, because some of the descendents of “Adam” had children with the descendents of “man”?

Fantastic!  Exactly how did these tribes get distributed?  Did they walk?  Long way to Iceland!  I sure hope they brought lunch.

Well, sir, you have quoted enough scripture encouraging people to hate me.

I need to know: When did this group of genetically pure descendents of Jacob leave Palestine?  How did they get to the disparate places they settled?  Where is your biblical reference? 

Your page is unavailable.  But this claim is all the more reason to ponder the genetic purity old Jeremiah’s descendents.  For the Celts arrived from elsewhere.  And many things point to their origin the region of the Black Forest.  And many things point to a long history during which they migrated and expanded throughout much of Europe.

My claim is that many Palestinians are descended from ancient Jewish clans that had never left the region, but that converted to both Christianity and Islam over the millennia.  Forced conversion to Islam of entire Jewish clans is documented.  There are old Jewish clan names among Christian Palestinians today.  There is nothing particularly remarkable in this claim.  It is not like I’m claiming that a genetically pure tribe walked to Iceland, or anything.

The Greeks did not build the Parthenon, of course.  They used slave labor.  They used slave labor for everything, from sex to warfare.  Spartan society collapsed for exactly this reason.  They didn’t even reproduce in enough numbers to replace themselves.

Are you actually suggesting that today’s Greeks could not build a structure like the Parthenon, whereas 2,500 years ago people could?  I see.  Let me get this right.  I guess your saying then that the pure-bread people there, 2,500 years ago, could have been building modern day structures, if they had only wanted to.  After all, they were so much smarter than the people are today.

Yes, I deny that Arabs are descended from Ishmael.  I find the whole proposition quite ludicrous.  It is a religious myth, which has its own religious truth, but has no bearing on material truth.

I sincerely doubt that there was ever a human being named Abraham who had a son named Jacob and a son name Ishmael.  Again, the religious truth of this fanciful tale has no correlation with actual material history.  An actor truly gets shot in a movie, but in real life he is not dead.

Many people follow many religious teachings to various extents.  The Karaite Jews still, to this day,  follow the commandments of the Torah as they interpret them, and absolutely refute the interpretation of the rabbinates (the Talmud).  Some Hassidic Jewish sects, for example Neturi Karta, interpret the Torah in such a way as to strictly—and at times violently—oppose the Zionist attempt to rebuild a Jewish state. 

It is not up to me to tell other people how they should or should not interpret any religious myth.  That is a personal choice.

Kuwait and Qatar are not the wealthiest per capita because they are run by brilliant Arabs.  What an ignorant statement.  Kuwait, which is a fake state carved out of Iraqi territory, is wealthy because of its natural resource: oil, which lies only feet below the thin earth’s crust.  Qatar, which is also a fake nation, is wealthy because it is the major shipping port in the region for oil and because the U.S. pours billions of dollars into it so it can be converted into the largest U.S. military base outside of the United States.

Would you please get a clue?  Arabs are no more or less brilliant than any other people on the planet.  The Palestinians, however, have a reputation within the Arab world being among the smartest and most educated.  They have the largest number of advanced degrees per capita than any other Arab group.  Interestingly, like Jews, most of them are Semites.

Are you saying that Finland and Sweden are among the world’s worst in social and economic statistics?  Jews are there, you know.  Oh, by the way, Jews have lived in almost every Muslim nation, save for the most populated, Indonesia.  It didn’t seem to harm their crime rate, as you, yourself, have just indicated.  In fact, the crime rate in France is going up not with the influx of Jews, but with the influx of poor Muslim immigrants from north Africa.  This seems to contradict your argument entirely.

No, it is almost certain that the Romans brought into Italy genetic material from every place they conquered, which was vast.  The are many descendents of Africans who have curly hair.  Therefore, the actual living evidence contradicts your claim that Italians would necessarily have kinky hair if African genetic material had been introduced to their gene pool.

People from Spain are not called Hispanics in the U.S.  They are called Spaniards, just as they are called anywhere else.  Hispanic is a generic term for people show are descended from both Spaniards and indigenous American Indians. 

Well, of course, few people do.  In fact, almost no one.

I know of know historical evidence whatsoever that Gaelic is directly related to Hebrew.  In fact, some linguists suggest that old Gaelic had a SVO order while ancient Hebrew had a VSO order.  That there are certain commonalities in phonemes and words is not at surprising.  After all, the very world “alphabet” comes from the names of the first two letters of the Hebrew alphabet, aleph, bet. 

While there are some intriguing commonalities in customs between Gaelic society and Eastern European Jewry (dances, for example), the connection between the Gaels and a genetically pure group of Israelites is remarkable tenuous.  These commonalties are much more likely explained by the simple migration of a people (the Gaels) who picked up cultural elements from the societies with whom they intermingled along the way.  Such things were happening all the time in the cultural crucible of Europe.  

So who said anything about Yiddish?  Yiddish is a purely Ashkenazi language that developed side by side with German, into which both Spanish and Italian words were injected.

And you think that Attila the Hun and his cast of characters cared much about that as they raped and pillaged their way across the land?

I suggest that you are filled with hate.  You use pejoratives to describe everyone who is not, by your singular definition, a purebred.  You quote scripture that encourages people to hate.  Despite biblical admonitions otherwise, you hold children responsible for the “transgressions” of their parents.  You clearly abhor Jews, or what to you are fake Jews.  You call me an Edomite, or at least suggest I am one by accusing me of writing like one.  

Yet here is a Commandment that tells you not to hate an Edomite, for he is thy brother.  What means this: is thy brother?  This can only mean one thing: has the same parent, or, at least, in a paternalistic society, the same father, the same maker, the same creator, the same shaper, the same “former,” as in “the one who came before” and as in “the one who formed.” 

It is a Commandment to you not to abhor your brother, even if you think he is not genetically pure.

And now I would like for you to please explain to me the following passages from your beloved Deuteronomy (21:10-14)

This says to me that it is perfectly acceptable to have children with women who are not members of the tribe if certain rules are followed.  Many Orthodox Jewish women, to this day, shave their heads when they marry, carrying on an ancient tradition.

Joel R Finkel