Is this the cause of Anti-Semitism?

16 And thou shalt consume all the people which the LORD thy God shall deliver thee; thine eye shall have no pity upon them: neither shalt thou serve their gods; for that will be a snare unto thee.

Deuteronomy, one of the 5 books of Moses- part of the Hebrew Torah.
The Ten commandmants were delivered to the Hebrews by Moses, along with the statutes of the Lord; to be followed as law.
Deuteronomy 7:16 shows just one of the statutes.
Has this and many of the other statutes, been the bug-bear of why the jewish people feel persecuted by other races.
When other cultures have freedom to read the bible, and interpret this passage; would it be outrageous to think that some would feel the need to retaliate over the impending and threatening, nature of the law of The Lord, as delivered by Moses.
Heres a link to the whole chapter for the interesteds' perusal.

reply to post by KRISKALI777


-.-

Jewish people can read the Bible. Usually they actually do, just like they can read the Qa'ran if they want. Jews can learn about other religions. They won't be hit by lightening if they read it.

Where is this nonsense coming from?

No one follows this stuff anymore. It's not applicable. It's like how there aren't tent-temples anymore in the desert, Jews stopped sacrificing things, etc. You don't expect a religion to stay the same for thousands of years, do you?

Don't Christians follow the ten commandments as well? Don't Christians read Deuteronomy and abide by it, TOO, because it's part of the Bible?

Maybe Jewish people don't feel persecuted, maybe for some reason no one can actually understand them.

Maybe they all speak in tongues and have 5 heads and that's why you all feel the need to treat them so differently. I just don't get it.

reply to post by ravenshadow13

Where is this nonsense coming from?

Yes, I've asked myself that many times, and only arrived at the fact that its straight from the Old Testament.
And to agree with you I do think both Christianity, Judaism and Islam are absolute nonsense- in a spiritual sense.

reply to post by KRISKALI777


But Christians believe in the Old Testament, too. That's the thing. I mean, if they don't want to believe all of it that's fine but they would be INCLUDED in all of this, as well. Since most of them were probably Jewish at one time back thousands of years ago. And if not, they would have converted to a Judeo-Christian belief at one point in time and this would still apply to them. If Christians aren't included in this part, then they should knock off Noah and Eden and all of that, too.

The only big difference between Judaism and Christianity is Jesus and whether or not he was of godly material. And like, even many Christians don't take the Bible word for word, why would the Jews take everything in Deuteronomy literally, too? It would be impossible, and kind of pointless.

Oddly enough Christianity was symbolized by a fish, any particular reason as to why ?

reply to post by ravenshadow13

Christianity, Judaism and Islam are absolute nonsense- in a spiritual sense.

I am not really sure why you confuse me with someone who has the slightest simpathy for Christianity.
Christainity and Judaism have gone hand in hand since Christianitys' invention (Read: the Creed of Nicea).
I guess the difference is that Jews got their beliefs, and Christians (Gentiles) got the booby-prize.Christians get to worship a man as a God.

reply to post by KRISKALI777


I didn't write that, you did. Actually.
The reason I'm writing about Christianity more is that it's currently the majority in America.

I also don't use the word "gentile"

[edit on 5/24/2009 by ravenshadow13]

I believe Christianity uses a fish because one of the stories about Jesus said he was "The Fisher of men" . I think I learned this from the movie the Fisher King . Good flick btw ! OOor it might have to do with that Dagon Babylonian guy ....The Pope wares a fish on his head .

What I don't get is why can't people get it through their heads , it's not one religious group that's bad or idiotically group.... IT'S FANATICISM , and the belief that one's group is superior to others.


[edit on 24-5-2009 by OpusMarkII]

reply to post by tristar


Something else about the fish symbol.... Back in the bad ol days of rome if you were christian you got the sword. If you wanted to Identify yourself as a christian with out risking much you could make a curved line in the dirt with a stick or your foot.... If the other dude saw that and completed the fish with another curved line then you would both know that you were christians and that you were in the same company.

I think the causes of anti-Semitism (as it relates to people of specifically Jewish heritage) are manifold:

- Ignorance, paranoia, and xenophobia. Most religious Jewish communities throughout history have separated themselves from the non-Jewish societies in which they lived in quite a few ways. They kept their own religion, and did not incorporate the religions of thiose around them. They did not often intermarry with non-Jews. They had very specific dietary requirements which differed from other cultures. Certainly in ancient and medieval times, the ignorant and poorly-educated in various societies saw this as something to fear. It was fear of the unknown, in many ways. Here were people who lived amongst them, but were very different to them. Their traditions and rites were unfamiliar and, hence, something to be feared.

- Tradition. It sounds horrible to say it like that, but, unfortunately, Jews have been amongst the most persecuted groups of people in the whole of history. They have served as the whipping-boys for various cultures throughout the whole of Europe since they began migrating to other countries. They have been a convenient scapegoat for the ignorant, and blood libel and the poisoning of wells have been a traditional ongoing accusation against Jews, and have popped up time and time throughout the ages (even up to the 20th century!!) despite a total lack of supporting evidence. Many a pogrom has been started because a Christian child went missing and whose disappearance was then blamed on the poor old Jews. So, yeah, it is a kind of sick "tradition" in a way, especially in parts of the old Soviet Union, Eastern Europe (Hungary etc), and just about anywhere in Europe in the Middle Ages.

- Usury/Moneylending - Christians in Europe were banned from lending money for profit to other Christians. Because of existing anti-Semitism, Jews were very restricted in what they could trade in, and were quite often even prohibited from owning property. So, naturally, the role of moneylenders was very often filled by Jewish people. They proved to be very good at it over time, and developed an incredibly astute business acumen. For the Christians, who resented this, it was quite often easier for them to accuse Jews of sacrificing kiddies and to then trash their homes and steal their stuff, than to pay back their debts. This happened on a massive scale, right up to indebted monarchs. I believe that this is also the source of many racist adages about "Jews and money" made by ignorant and bigoted people even in the modern age.

- The "Christ" thing. Some of Christ's Jewish contemporaries saw him as a threat to the religious status quo and worked against him, collaborating with the Roman authorities to get him executed. Despite the fact that many of the Jews that came into contact with Jesus became his devout followers, people over the ages have chosen to focus on the former Jews, rather than the latter, and so we get the old stupid saying that the "Jews crucified Jesus". This really just stems from ignorance once again, as the Romans never got persecuted for crucifying Jesus. In the Middle Ages, when faith was everything, this was just another convenient excuse for people to persecute Jews living amongst them.

So anyway, there are a few roots of anti-Semitism as I see them, specifically relating to Jews. I think that the word itself has, over time, almost become inherently specific to Jewish people, as most users of the word forget that many other Middle-Eastern folk are also "Semitic".

Originally posted by tristar
Oddly enough Christianity was symbolized by a fish, any particular reason as to why ?

It derives from the Greek word for fish: ICTHYS, which is also an anagram for: Iesous Christos Theou Yios Soter, meaning, Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour.

It was kind of a secret symbol for early Christians, in a time when Christianity was an illegal cult (prior to Constantine).

reply to post by titorite


One theory of where the fish comes into Christian symbolism, states that the Fish symbol is older than the organised religion of Christianity itself.
Christopher Knight & Robert Lomas, in their book the Hiram Key, say this:

Although viewed as a Christian symbol it is a very ancient badge of priestliness and was undoubtedlythe symbol of the Nasorean Party, and when Christians used it to identify their holy places in Jerusalem towards the end of the first century, it was the only mark that existed for them. It may well ahve been adpoted by John The Baptist. The name " Nasorean" is a form of the word "Nazrani" which means both 'little fishes' and 'Christians' in modern Arabic, just as it did in Aramaic 2000 years ago.

Note that formalized Christianity never came into being until 325AD, documented in Constatines' mainifest The Creed of Nicea.
So like most things in Christianity; was plagiarized and encompassed within their said belief structure.

Originally posted by tristar
Oddly enough Christianity was symbolized by a fish, any particular reason as to why ?

Astrological symbolism.

The Astrological constellation in front of which the sun rises on the summer solstace has been considered significant by most Eurasian cultures for a very, very long time, from the ancient Celts in the Westernmost edge of the area all the way to the Japanese in the far east, and just about everywhere in between.

Because of the way the earth "wobbles," this sign changes roughly every 2,600 years. Right around the time Jesus was preaching, it was shifting from Aries into Pisces, which most learned people in the region were well aware of. This was considered very important; the dawning of a new era, and the early Christians made use of the symbolism of the "new age," which at the time was Piscies. (The next, which we are approaching but wich is still a ways off, will be Aquarius, and thus the ideas about the current "new age" and "the age of aquarius").

Before it was Pisces, it was Aries, and there is a lot of Ram symbolism in the world around that time, from Jason and the Golden Fleece to the Ram's horns of the ancient Isarelites. Before that it was Taurus, the bull (The transition from the age of the Bull to the age of the Ram is immortalized in Mithraic symbolism of the slaughtering of the Bull). If you look back at the extremely ancient civilizations from that era, bull symbolism is everywhere...The Canaanite god Baal (Baal = Bull), Moloch, and the oldest anatolian and Sumerian symbols, to name a few.

There are tantalizing hints of even more ancient awareness of this system. The Sphinx, perhaps the most ancient existing monument, is in the shape of a lion, and gazes exactly where the constellation Leo would have risen in the age of Leo. Primeval serpent religions may be the most ancient of all (echoed dimly in the imagery of the Snake in the Garden of Eden in the bible, perhaps?), and this recapitulates the extremely remote age of Draco the Dragon constellation.

I apologize for the late reply , but i would like to add to all those who quoted my post as to the fish and Christianity and the symbol of fish.

I guess, at this point i should point out that i am not representing any religion,political or any other human ideology.

What i am pointing out is that what common denominator does the fish have with the human being. I am asking for people to think about this before posting .

reply to post by tristar

What i am pointing out is that what common denominator does the fish have with the human being. I am asking for people to think about this before posting .

Hi tristar, maybe its another euphemistic metaphor for the Flock? Think about when individuals go to communion, they are given the bread and wine (waiting eagerly on their knees); bread as the body wine as the blood (pretty creepy!).
Ever thrown a chunk of bread into a school of fish? Its a frenzy.
I've heard Christians being refered to a " the flock" many times, that need to be shepharded towards salvation.
Patronizing to say the least. Fish, sheep, 2 animals that dont have (in the churches view) the capacity to reach their own conclusions of salvation. Oh but wait, didn't Jesus refer to the Gentiles as dogs (we may as well go lay with them)?

reply to post by KRISKALI777


Hello,

Look at this as the basic foundation of an existence, it has nothing to do with what you have been conditioned. Please take the time to relate to the core foundation of a species.

Originally posted by tristar
I apologize for the late reply , but i would like to add to all those who quoted my post as to the fish and Christianity and the symbol of fish.

I guess, at this point i should point out that i am not representing any religion,political or any other human ideology.

What i am pointing out is that what common denominator does the fish have with the human being. I am asking for people to think about this before posting .

I'm not sure what you're asking here.

I've already explained how the fish symbol came to be used by early Christians, but another parallel is the fact that Jesus told his followers to be "fishers of men"

BTW, dude, this thread is actually about anti-Semitism and is kinda getting off-topic.

reply to post by Roark


I apologize for the unintended off topic reply i have posted. I was only trying to establish the correlation between the Christians and the symbol of the fish and its parallel identification of the human species.

reply to post by tristar


May I ask, how did you draw a correlation between the symbolism of the fish and the question within the opening post

Originally posted by KRISKALI777
reply to post by tristar

 

May I ask, how did you draw a correlation between the symbolism of the fish and the question within the opening post

"The Ten commandmants were delivered to the Hebrews by Moses, along with the statutes of the Lord; to be followed as law. "

And who has established that it was the Lords intentions for the human species to evolve on an interpretation of a species. The species being man kind had knowledge based on what was given or what was handed down to him at the time frame which has been referenced to based on his ability to comprehend what was or may have been referenced to.

I am not attacking any religion, but i must emphasize that the human species has a limited source of comprehension based on internal or external stimulations.