Israel's History and the History of Israel

[Laura]

On the topic of Israel, in my current research, I've just finished two really outstanding books about the "History of Israel" that goes a long way toward explaining how we got where we are. The first one is Victor Tcherikover's "Hellenistic Civilization and the Jews"
http://www.amazon.com/Hellenistic-Civilization-Jews-Victor-Tcherikover/dp/1565634764/ref=sr_1_1
and
Mario Liverani's "Israel's History and the History of Israel"
http://www.amazon.com/Israels-History-Israel-BibleWorld/dp/1845533410/ref=sr_1_3

Both are by very eminent historians and NOT by Bible thumpers. Tcherikover was a Jew and something of a Zionist, and there is a whiff of apologetic, but his training rises to the top and he is really straightforward about why people hated/hate the Jews. Liverani makes it pretty clear that this situation was the result of the creation and imposition of a certain form of Judaism on the ordinary people.

A third, most interesting book is Gabriele Boccaccini's "Beyond the Essene Hypothesis: The Parting of the Ways between Qumran and Enochic Judaism"
http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Essene-Hypothesis-Parting-between/dp/0802843603/ref=sr_1_4

What is interesting about all of the above books is seeing certain behaviors and dynamics repeat over and over again so that one could easily think they are reading about modern times. That is, in my opinion, very useful for understanding both the deeper nature of the problem as well as the likely result of the ideological trajectory.

There is nothing new under the sun.

 

[ROEL]

Many thanks for the pointers, Laura. When I finish The Fifth Option y will get to one of these. Happy 2017!

 

[Martina]

Oh I loved the interview with Mr. Gmirkin you had on Sott Radio. It seems like the same topic

 

[Eboard10]

Interesting paper was published showing how cultural changes in the Levant were driven by population movements.

Ancient DNA from Chalcolithic Israel reveals the role of population mixture in cultural transformation

The material culture of the Late Chalcolithic period in the southern Levant (4500–3900/3800 BCE) is qualitatively distinct from previous and subsequent periods. Here, to test the hypothesis that the advent and decline of this culture was influenced by movements of people, we generated genome-wide ancient DNA from 22 individuals from Peqi’in Cave, Israel. These individuals were part of a homogeneous population that can be modeled as deriving ~57% of its ancestry from groups related to those of the local Levant Neolithic, ~17% from groups related to those of the Iran Chalcolithic, and ~26% from groups related to those of the Anatolian Neolithic. The Peqi’in population also appears to have contributed differently to later Bronze Age groups, one of which we show cannot plausibly have descended from the same population as that of Peqi’in Cave. These results provide an example of how population movements propelled cultural changes in the deep past.

[...]

Our finding that the Levant_ChL population can be well- modeled as a three-way admixture between Levant_N (57%), Anatolia_N (26%), and Iran_ChL (17%), while the Levant_- BA_South can be modeled as a mixture of Levant_N (58%) and Iran_ChL (42%), but has little if any additional Anatolia_N- related ancestry, can only be explained by multiple episodes of population movement. The presence of Iran_ChL-related ances- try in both populations – but not in the earlier Levant_N –suggests a history of spread into the Levant of peoples related to Iranian agriculturalists, which must have occurred at least by the time of the Chalcolithic. The Anatolian_N component present in the Levant_ChL but not in the Levant_BA_South sample suggests that there was also a separate spread of Anatolian-related people into the region. The Levant_BA_South population may thus represent a remnant of a population that formed after an initial spread of Iran_ChL-related ancestry into the Levant that was not affected by the spread of an Anatolia_N-related popu- lation, or perhaps a reintroduction of a population without Anatolia_N-related ancestry to the region. We additionally find that the Levant_ChL population does not serve as a likely source of the Levantine-related ancestry in present-day East African populations (see Supplementary Note 4)24.

[...]

Our finding of genetic discontinuity between the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age periods also resonates with aspects of the archeological record marked by dramatic changes in settlement patterns43, large-scale abandonment of sites52–55, many fewer items with symbolic meaning, and shifts in burial practices, including the disappearance of secondary burial in ossuaries56–59. This supports the view that profound cultural upheaval, leading to the extinction of populations, was associated with the collapse of the Chalcolithic culture in this region18,60–64.