Politics by Any Other Name (Jewish Identity and Language Issues)

Neither Adam, Seth nor Noah were called Jew; nor were Abraham, Isaac or Jacob. Moses was not called a Jew and neither were Saul, David or Solomon called Jew. In fact you will not find the word Jew in the first eleven books of the Bible. 

The first time Jews are mentioned in the Bible, is in II Kings 16:6 (and then only in translations revised in the eighteenth century) where we find Israel was at war with the Jews and drove the Jews from Elath. It is interesting that we can read over five hundred pages of the Bible before we find a “Jew” anywhere, yet those who call themselves Jew today claim the first five books of the bible and call it their Torah.

It is strange how modern conventions and politics have so changed language and perception, so that those who claim to have written the first five books of the Bible and call themselves “Jews”, can't find the word Jew written anywhere in the book they call their own.  A scholar on Jewish identity formation wrote:

"The challenges for group formation of modern "Jews" were this: they were seeking to define themselves as a group of people not living in a land that they claimed origin from, did not have any continuous nor demonstrable link to.  Secondly, the land they claimed origin from was occupied continuously by others.  Thirdly, the basis for this groups claims was a non historical, religious text of uncertain provenance, with definitions that were unclear, contradictory or lacking, and affirmations that were wavering, imprecise and not unique.  Fourthly, the claims made by this group of people, was to an ancient and hereditary birthright that conflicted with more substantial claims, particularly because the claim of origin was a claim of divine right and right of conquest, not autochthony. Fifthly, the claim of divine right and right of conquest was one whose application rested upon the claim being a uniquely chosen people by God, with special hereditary attributes, rights, duties and protections in relation to the rest of humanity (a "chosen people"), no matter where this chosen people found themselves.  

An additional problem was that the claim made for being a "chosen people" according to religious texts was rebutted by the world's two largest religions, Christianity and Islam, which claimed universal, antagonistic and superseding and/or replacement covenants, or competing claims to the heritage of the same faith tradition.  In the second millennium in AD, these religions were clarifying and expanding their identities with the support of the political structures of the time. This was also a time of formation for the modern Jew, without the benefit of the state, when the "Jews" did not even have a clear name." 

The term “Jew” originated in the late eighteenth century as an abbreviation of the term Judean and refers to a resident of Judea without regard to race or religion, which we have much evidence for in Biblical passages and more reliably, the historic record. It was also applied to the tribe of Judah by later scholars.  

It was not until the last century that we saw the word “Jew” expanded to mean virtually everyone in the region even before there was a “Judah”, and including people who were distinctly not of that tribe.

This particular use was largely taken by Jewish scholars, who were both attempting to solidify their historical identity enjoying a new found voice in European and American scholarship. These scholars were also seeking to blunt the force of biblical anti-Judean sentiment and it was at this time, in Germany that the phrase anti-Semitism came into being, a religious / pseudo-scientific term that broadened Jewish identity to include virtually all of the eastern and southern world from the European vantage point, from the Atlantic to the Indian sub-continent.

In none of the manuscripts of the original Old or New Testament was Jesus described or referred to as a "Jew" nor is Jesus a Jew even by the standards of a person from Judea.  But in recent years Jesus has been converted by the power of language application into a Jew!

While the use of term “Semitic” (descended from Biblical personage Shem) has been disputed by scholars who point out that the generational information in the Bible is contradictory and perhaps impossible there is, nevertheless a language, culture and religious similarity that exists. Equally important from a religious perspective is that there was an exchange of religious ideas through out the Near East among this language and cultural group. Egypt is where we see the first documented monotheistic society, and many beliefs and practices, from creation stories, circumcision, to a day of rest and baptism create a sort of religious catalogue. It is thus not surprising when we see tribal gods and personal gods, mutual recognition of gods and an assortment heavenly figures who come into play in the Old Testament.

Jews as Pharisees

As the people calling themselves Jews have a failure of ancient recorded recorded history that there is, prior to the modern period, of a race, religion or nationality, referred to as "Jew" (as opposed to the peoples of Judea, there are traces to particular sects of the people of Judea in the time of Jesus, to which self-styled "Jews" today refer to as "Jews", were known, i.e., "Pharisees" who followed the practices described, controlled the Temple of Jerusalem and all of its offices, and were depicted in the role of “Jews” as is present usage.

Jews as Edomites

In this murky order of things we are left we can apply post fact logic to make the linkage that otherwise does not exist. A Judahite or descendent of the Tribe of Judah are the precursors in name if not descent of Jews though this is not undisputed.

Psalm 83:3 says God's elect are "hidden" or protected ones, and that they are under attack from a coalition of evil groups led by Edom. Who was Edom? Esau, the brother of the patriarch Jacob, became the ancestor of the people called Edom, or Idumea.  

The Antiquities of the Jews by Flavius Josephus, XIII ix 1; XV vii 9 instructs us: John Hyrcanus forcibly assimilated the Edomites as a national group in about 120BC. The Jewish historian Josephus, who lived just after the time of Christ, wrote, "They [Edom] were hereafter no other than Jews'. 

The Jewish scholar Cecil Roth in his Concise Jewish Encyclopedia (1980) says on page 154, "John Hyrcanus forcibly converted [Edom] to Judaism. From then on they were part of the Jewish people. In the Talmud the name of Edom was applied to Christian Rome, and was then used for Christianity in general". Terrible judgments against Edom are made in most of the prophecies of the Old Testament. For instance, Isaiah 34, 63, Jeremiah 49, and the entire book of Obadiah. To what extent the Edomites then are present day Jews (as a renaming or overlapping or related group) is speculation.

Modern Jews Referring to Themselves as Khazars

Unsuspecting Christians are subjected to this barrage from sources they have little reason to suspect. Jewish scholars such as Arthur Koestler originally asserted the historic accuracy that so-called "Jews" throughout the world today of eastern European origin are unquestionably the historic descendants of the Khazars, a Turko-Finn ancient Mongoloid nation deep in the heart of Asia, according to history, who battled their way in bloody wars about the 1st century B.C. into eastern Europe where they set up their Khazar kingdom.

The historic existence of the Khazar kingdom of so-called "Jews", their rise and fall and how King Bulan and the Khazar nation in about 740 A.D. became "Jews" ) or Hebrews by conversion was not a new assertion. In 1945 this author gave nation-wide publicity to his many years intensive research into the "facts of life" concerning Khazars. Koestler's promulgation of these ideas was sensational but came at a very sensitive moment in history for "Jews" being published at the close of the war.”

It may very well be that Koestler, a Zionist was politically motivated to end the racial and (Christian) Biblical problems that Jewish ethnicity caused for Jews in the West. If Jewish ethnicity and Jewish ties to a condemned people in the Bible was a source of animosity, it was one was also one that would not go away as long as external perceptions of separation and difference on racial and religious grounds existed.  That Koestler was a Zionist and influential Jewish scholar fed the impression that Koestler’s motivations might have tainted if not altogether constructed his scholarship.

The Zionist movement in particular felt that there were dangerous implications to their now powerful movement.  Koestler became then, a target for some who felt he was doing more harm than good regardless of his intentions. While the scholarship should rightly be contested, it should not be attacked for its conclusion rather than its research and premise.

Regardless of his motivations or the quality of his scholarship, Koestler was a single scholar in a line of those who have tried to research an area where there is historic record is virtually non existent and even the few entries in the religious record are spotty and contradictory. Both religious works and research leaves us with over a millennium of information missing.

In an original 1903 edition of the Jewish Encyclopedia in New York's Public Library, and in the Library of Congress, Volume IV, pages 1 to 5 inclusive, appears a most comprehensive history of the Khazars. Also in the New York Public Library are 327 books by the world's greatest historians and other sources of reference, in addition to the Jewish Encyclopedia, dealing with Khazar history, and written between the 3rd A.D. and 20th centuries by contemporaries of the Khazars and by modern historians on that subject.

Language Issues Follow 

Synagogue

Synagogue- c.1175, from O.Fr. sinagoge (11c.), from L.L. synagoga "congregation of Jews," from Gk. synagoge "place of assembly, synagogue," lit. "meeting, assembly," from synagein "to gather, assemble," from syn- "together" + agein "bring, lead."   The French word of ultimately Greek origin was assimilated by Jews over time and it entered into (European Jewish usage) and Western consciousness as a "Jewish word for their Church" when it is no such thing.


Rabbi


And likewise with “Rabbi” or “Rebbe” being a Greek word presumably influenced by a Semitic word meaning “Sir” or “Master”. It is still in common use in its original form in Arabic “Rahb” or “Rehb” in the same context. The word assumed its use as Priest only in the last late 18^th century, with European Jewry giving it this context as learned borrowing and presumably an alteration to make an equivalent to the (Catholic) Christian function of priest.

Passover


Interestingly, "Passover" is also not found in the Bible.  Passover has entered by translation as an often misunderstood language parallelism in Pesach which was a holiday of sacrifice of the Lamb and rest rooted in Canaan and celebrated in ancient times in the entire Middle East and preceding Judaism. Like the exile story itself, which was a story far preceding Judaism (ironically a borrowing of the stories of the Canaanites and Sumerians.) These appropriated phenomena were conflated-  a holiday of sacrifice and the "exodus" story particularly among European Jewry.  The Biblical and historic holiday event is documented as occurring before the Exodus and among Canaanites, including the consumption of unleavened bread and lamb sacrifice, and lamb (and wine) consumption during a feast.  In the Bible the feast event is all that is provided.   Historically the only time we come close to anything resembling the story that could be Passover in any Jewish context it is Josephus' account of a tale he supposedly hears from Manetho, identifying the expulsion of the Jews with the expulsion of Hyksos and the expulsion of a group of lepers, led by an Egyptian priest called Osarseph. Other better documented accounts reflect that Josephus' tale itself a conflation of events of the Amarna period, the earlier Hyksos expulsion, and events throughout the 19th Dynasty.


Circumcision

Circumcision is another example of a cultural issue that causes confusion with identities.  The Book of Jeremiah lists the Egyptians, Jews, Edomites, Ammonites and Moabites among others who circumcise, and circumcisions seem to include the majority of ancient cultures in the area. Herodotus, writing a century later in the fifth century BC adds the Colchians, Ethiopians, Phoenicians, and Nabateans (a catchall term for the trading people of northern Arabia, Canaan, Jordan, Syria and Euphrates) as circumcising. For all of these peoples the reason is described the same, a religious and health act that is tribal in nature.