Your fathers rejected the prophets
20
Oct
After the period of the Judges, which was a
truly theocratic period, ended, the people of Israel began to ask for Kings (Samuel 8,6-8), the kings ruled from 928 BC until the destruction of the first temple in Jerusalem (586 BC), but the people had already gone into captivity in Babylon in 722 BC, more than 100 years later the kingdom of Judah was destroyed.
Already in the last period of the judges, Samuel, who was also a prophet, saw the people going astray, and even his children no longer followed divine laws, the very division between Israel and Judah (it must be said that this is where the name of Jews), and was the second king of Israel, David, who unites the two kingdoms and names the capital Jerusalem, where his son Solomon will build the first temple.
It was the prophet Ezekiel who lived in Babylonian exile, between 593 BC and 571 BC, who prophesied the destruction of the temple and spoke of the infidelities of the Hebrew people, the prophet Isaiah had also preached that sin had reached Israel and Judah in such a way that the curse would hit the Hebrew people, the biggest of which, of course, was the exile from Babylon.
When Cyrus becomes king of Persia and takes Babylon in 538 BC, he allows the Hebrew people to return to their land and the possibility of rebuilding their temple, the second, but the people’s deviations continue to occur until the last and greatest of the prophets John the Baptist , the one whose head Herod asked for in exchange for Salome’s dance, which he asks for at his mother’s suggestion.
Jesus was rejected for challenging the Pharisees and teachers of the law of his time, there were also those who wanted a leading position in the war against the Roman empire, after the death and resurrection of Jesus in the year 70 AD, the second temple was destroyed by the general Roman Titus and only the wailing wall remained (photo).
Jerusalem was burned and the Jewish people were dispersed, the Jews who settled in Eastern Europe were called Ashkenazi and those from the Iberian Peninsula Sephardim.
Jesus’ position on the Roman empire was clear, since the Romans also feared him, Herod especially, and Pilate washed his hands at his crucifixion, when the Pharisees set a trap asking if it was fair to pay taxes, Jesus takes a coin and upon seeing the figure of Caesar he says: “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s” (Mt 22,34-40) this trap remains in religious circles to this day.
Israel’s first disputes
19
Oct
So Abram, who was a Chaldean, from the city of
Ur in the south of Mesopotamia, under divine inspiration under the river Euphrates and goes to Haran, and then goes down to Canaan, passing through Sodom, where he separates from his nephew Lot, and leaving from there they should not look back, Lot’s wife looks and becomes a pillar of salt.
They arrive in Canaan and there were already inhabitants there (the Canaanites), there was a divine promise to give him a son, but with the consent of his wife Sarah (the original name Sarai was changed by God), Abram fathers the son Ishmael from the slave Hagar. , but later Sarah will also have her son Isaac.
God asks him for his son as a sacrifice, but when he is ready to do so, an angel appears to him and asks him to sacrifice a lamb instead, and then promises him infinite descendants and becomes called Abraham.
The site of this sacrifice is today a mosque, but there is an agreement between Muslims, Christians and Jews to be able to visit the place, today called Dome of the Rock (photo).
The family issue was important at the time, after all Abram was supposed to be the patriarch of the people chosen by God, so he wanted a woman from his lineage and not a Canaanite, he found Rebekah, daughter of Bethuel, sister of Laban, this one from a branch of the family who remained in Haran.
New drama, Rebeca has difficulty having children, but ends up having twins, Esau and Jacob, this one is born later and would lose his right to birthright, if it weren’t for a bad trick with his mother to prepare a supper to the liking of Isaac who was almost blind, and dressing his son in furs because his brother born minutes earlier, therefore older, was hairier, and Isaac blesses Jacob.
But Jacob knows that he needs God’s blessing, so going to meet his brother, one night he fights with an angel to obtain divine blessing, after that he will be called Israel, the suffix el in the bible means God, so he who fought with God, in fact, with a year Gabriel, “fortress of God” or Michael, which means “no one like God”, leader of the “armies”.
Jacob will have as his sons those who will give their name to the twelve tribes of Israel (see previous topic) and Joseph, sold as a slave to the Egyptians, having gifts of revelation, reveals to the Egyptian king what his dreams about “fat cows and lean cows” meant. ”, that a time of scarcity would come and receives a role from Pharaoh precisely to take care of the kingdom’s dispensations.
The brothers who sold him then leave Canaan and go to Egypt, where Joseph, after expressing his discontent (a scream was heard throughout the palace), welcomes the brothers, so Israel no longer has the lands and other peoples take their place. .
However, the next pharaoh, apparently Sethi, is not a friend of the Jews and wants all newborn babies to be killed, but Moses’ mother, Jochebed, throws him into a basket in the Nile River and he is welcomed by a princess and she takes him to reign in her care.
Moses is trained as a nobleman, but he wants to free his people who live as slaves, and in a certain mystical event, called the “burning bush”, God reveals his destiny and asks him to command his people back to Canaan, after several battles the kingdom of Israel is revived, but divided with Judah to the South, judges are appointed, rulers who were called by God.
This is the only true theocratic period of the Bible, the judges were appointed by divine inspiration, some were simple people, like Gideon (woodcutter) and Deborah, there were 14 judges, but the people later asked for kings “like other peoples” and they depended on the prophets
Between narratives and inner development
18
Oct
Before continuing with the history of Israel,
which will also involve two exoduses until its attempted dissolution as a nation, a reading of the book “La crisis de la narración” (published by Herder, Argentina) clarifies an important aspect of modern narratives, or what the author calls it “post-narratives”, “telling stories is selling them”.
He clarifies that the “art of storytelling as a strategy to convey messages emotionally”, today everyone talks about narratives to justify their post-truth, has led us to a paradox “that the inflationary use of narratives can manifest a crisis in the narrative itself” , in other times, narratives “accommodated us in our being”, giving meaning and guidance to life.
There was an intrinsic truth, or at least a complete theory of solutions that included man as a whole, and unlike the current lightened narratives (distorting the original narrative, when based on any), “they are the description of the micronarratives of the present, which They lack all gravitation and all pretense of truth.”
True to its style, it is neither informative nor illustrative, examples and categorizations chaotically shape facts and ideas throughout the text, and when there is an original narrative, it is distorted.
Clarifies, now, to understand [a certain topic], there is nothing that explains, orders and one. There is no report, because there is no past. There is no community. Without history, then there is no hope for the future.
He concludes that “with current hyperactivity, which seeks to drive away boredom, we never reach a deep state of spiritual relaxation”, which is developed in other books of his such as “The Society of Fatigue” and “The Aroma of Time”.
He calls modern man “phono sapiens”, who does not know “the development of inner existence”.
Religious and historical origins of Israel and Palestine
17
Oct
Although Noah is not a recorded figure in
history, his sons Ham and Shem are recorded as they are the origin of the Hamite and Semitic peoples, the latter stand out for being Hebrews and Arabs and thus share both cultural and religious origins.
Abraham, who was a Chaldean, a people who lived south of the Euphrates River, was the son of, in the lineage of Shem, comes from his son Arphaxad, who fathered Shelah, who fathered Heber, who fathered Peleg, who fathered Reu, who fathered Serug , who fathered Nahor, who fathered Terah, father of Abram (only later will he be called Abraham due to his descendants).
Abram’s father and brother die in Chaldea, and his nephew Lot, who will travel to Canaan, meanwhile going up the Euphrates River and then down through the north of the Middle East, before separating, dividing the lands, leaving Lot with the most fertile to the west and Abram with the southern lands.
Lot’s descendants became people known as Ammonites, due to the god Amon, and who are children of Lot’s incest with his youngest daughter. Lot looks and turns into salt.
To the east to the Mediterranean lies Abraham, now called that by God, after having his Son Isaac (promised by God) with his wife Sarah, and Ishmael with Hagar, his slave.
While Isaac will be the “son of promise” and through him the twelve tribes of Israel will be born, the Quran can be read: “In the Quran; “God gave gifts to all Ishmael, Elisha, Jonah and Lot favor above the nations”, so Ishmael is not passed over.
From Isaac the twins Esau and Jacob were born, Esau is born first, but through a disguise, Jacob dresses in animal skins, helped by his mother Rebekah, as his brother was hairier and his father Isaac was almost blind, he notices the voice different, but blesses the son, in Hebrew tradition the eldest son, the firstborn, had priority in leading the family.
Jacob will fight with an angel to obtain divine blessing, before a confrontation with his brother, and in the biblical narrative it is there that he receives the name Israel, which means “he who fought with God” (every suffix el in Hebrew means God), Gabriel (God’s fortress) and Michael (no one like God) are two possible hypotheses of Jacob’s struggle, now Israel.
The children of Israel will form the 12 tribes: from Helena: from Joseph (who was sold to the Egyptians by his brothers) will be his grandchildren Benjamin and Manasseh, from Leah (first wife): Reuben, Simeon, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun and Levi (who were priests and had no lands), from the slave Bilhah: Dan and Naphtali, and from the slave Zilpah: Gad and Asser.
In fact, there would be thirteen tribes,
but the tribes of Benjamin and Manasseh, sons of Joseph, formed one tribe.
Tension in the Middle East
16
Oct
Despite beginning a critical phase (winter),
the war between Ukraine and Russia is out of focus, with increasing tension between Israel and Palestine, which claims its own territory.
After a daring and cruel incursion into Israeli territory, the military group took several hostages and Israel responded by attacking areas of the Gaza strip and cutting off water and energy in Israeli territory as a way of pressuring the handover of the hostages.
The humanitarian situation caused several international organizations to appeal to Israel to allow humanitarian aid, while Israel gives the option of moving to the south where the water and energy supply would be restored, giving a very short deadline and an ultimatum.
There is a point to the south where a passage to Egypt is possible, which is the Rafah refugee camp, negotiations between US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi indicate that this passage would be open for humanitarian aid.
Israel is preparing for a fight on three fronts, as in southern Lebanon there were attacks by another anti-Semitic group, Hezbollah and there are already tensions and the capture of combat points with Syria, also through Hezbollah.
The greatest tension is the possible involvement of Iran, which finances these groups against Israel and Hamas leaders have already gone to Iran to talk to the country’s authorities, however the US warns that Iran’s entry into the war would cause strong tension with the West, since the US sent aircraft carriers.
The involvement of the Arab world could make the crisis even greater, as there are already unilateral talks.
Russia is a traditional ally of Syria, and with a military approach to Iran it could create an axis of allies with common enemies, which paints a dangerous geopolitical picture.
Peace seems distant, and the elements for a war with tragic consequences are emerging, but there are still localized forces for peace.
Eclipses of the civilizing process
13
Oct
Harmony between peoples, acceptance and
tolerance of differences, dialogue and diplomacy on conflicting issues seem to be further away than ever, like an annular eclipse, it obscures the light and lets only a ring of fire pass through, and as they are There are several points of light sources, there are also regions of shadows that will be confused, looking like night.
Various research shows that this happens to birds when faced with an eclipse, they see that it is getting dark and they behave as they do at dusk, they reduce their activities, withdraw and almost go to sleep, as the eclipse is quick, then they return to normal activities.
These are civilizing processes, there are periods of darkness and it seems like it could be an endless night, but after this moment seeing the mistake of “sleep” during the twilight, they rediscover life and return to normal activities, in the human case with a new perspective of Peace and tolerance, of course, always leave terrible marks: innocent deaths, destruction and misery.
We could have prepared a party, a concert and harmony between peoples, there was no shortage of educators, prophets and futurists who tried to design this scenario, but men always have free will, in our case, we can choose between the eclipse and the twilight and the day.
Eclipse because whether by natural forces or by divine intervention, those who believe desire and wait for this day, even if millions of innocent people perish, the desire for the triumph of good, common sense and peace among men is always an irreversible path, even if they suffer.
There is a biblical parable that depicts this scenario well, a man was preparing a party and as the guests did not come (they chose other paths), he sent for men on the street, but among them there was also one with inappropriate attire (anti-party attitudes) and asked to be removed, says the reading (Matthew 22, 10-12):
“Then the servants went out into the paths and gathered together everyone they found, both bad and good. And the party room was full of guests. When the king entered to see his guests, he noticed a man who was not wearing a party attire and asked him: ‘Friend, how did you come in here without your party attire?’ “.
“Then the servants went out into the paths and gathered together everyone they found, both bad and good. And the party room was full of guests. When the king entered to see his guests, he noticed a man who was not wearing a party attire and asked him: ‘Friend, how did you come in here without your party attire?’ .
The civilizing process is like this, whoever will win a conflict situation, everyone will lose and in the end those who were on the margins of the conflict process will prepare a new path
Walter, Jennifer. Lunar eclipses have one weird effect on birds. Inverse. March 17, 2022, Available in: https://www.inverse.com/science/lunar-eclipse-bird-flight .
Eclipse, shadow and twilight
12
Oct
We have seen historical and mystical aspects of
the annular Eclipse, now let us focus only on the phenomenon.
The Eclipse is a natural phenomenon that occurs when a body is within a region of shadow caused by another body that has enough light to reduce the luminosity. In the case of a solar eclipse, the Sun is the luminous star and the Moon is positioned between the Sun and Earth, producing a shadow on Earth.
For the Moon to cast a shadow on the Earth, it must be in the New Moon phase, which is when it is between the Sun and the Earth and has a slight semi-arc on one of its edges.
To better understand how eclipses occur, we need to know the concepts of shadow and twilight.
A shadow is when from a point source of light (that is, its dimensions can be neglected as if it were a single point) it is projected onto a smaller intermediate object that will produce a shadow on the larger object, this shadow can also be called an umbra.
In the penumbra there is an extensive source of light, which must be taken into account when the light source is very large or is close to the object, in the case of the Sun it is large enough to produce, from the light on the Moon, a shadow and a penumbra over the Earth (figure).
Thus, the rays of light do not come from a single point, due to the size of the Sun, but from several points, so there will be a region in which it produces a shadow, but others with partial lighting that produce some shades of twilight.
In the figure, the shield disk is the Moon and the larger disk is the Earth. For educational purposes, only one region of shadow was produced, but they are diverse and weaken as they move away from the shadow region.
The phenomenon of the lunar eclipse next Saturday (10/14) is special because an arc around the Sun becomes visible and is therefore called an Annular Eclipse (in the form of a ring).
Eclipse, the Theory of Relativity and town Sobral
11
Oct
In addition to mystical and historical factors,
the eclipse helped the development of both physics and astronomy, there is a curious relationship between an eclipse, the Theory of Relativity and the Brazilian city in the State of Ceará: Sobral.
On May 29, 1919, the sky over the city of Sobral, a city in the interior of State Ceará, Brazil, dawned cloudy (photo taken by the National Observatory in 1919) and the effort of the delegation of astronomers who went there to observe the eclipse and prove their ideas Albert Einstein’s revolutionary ideas would be in vain.
Fortunately, at nine o’clock in the morning a space opened between the clouds and it was possible to make the desired observations.
Einstein’s ideas were that there would be a distortion in the space-time dimensions and that this would be linked to the proximity of massive bodies, stated as follows:
“The trajectory of light can be distorted if there is a massive body distorting space-time in its trajectory, so it appears that the source that emitted that light is in a different position.”
With sensitive equipment, it was possible to make this comparison in the positions during the eclipse and after it, which occurred in May 1919. In December, after months of studying the observations, it was announced that Einstein’s theory was correct, and this is a fact which made the theory of absolute space and time obsolete.
The observation took place thanks to intense collaboration between Brazil and England, including the famous English astronomer Arthur Eddington, from the Royal Astronomical Society and the Brazilian Henrique Morize, then director of the National Observatory (ON), and Sobral was chosen because it had better visibility. of the eclipse.
One hundred years after the event, in 2019 the Brazil-United Kingdom partnership in Science and Innovation was celebrated, Brazilian physicist Anelise Pacheco, director of MAST (Brazilian Astronomical and Sciences Related Museum) declared at the time: “Without cooperation, there is no science”, this also applies to the days of today.
Annular eclipse: historical and mystical data
10
Oct
On October 14th, an annular eclipse should
take place, one in which the moon leaves a small ring with southern light and settles in the center of the king star, and which has curious historical and mystical data.
The first historically narrated eclipse, by Herodotus, describes the battle of the Medes and Lydians (590-585 BC) which ended with an agreement after they realized that the day turned into night and in their understanding the darkness should cease for peace, Herodotus describes it like this:
“In the sixth year of the war, a battle took place, and when the fighting had begun, suddenly the day turned into night. (…) The Lydians and the Medes, when they saw that the night had replaced the day, ceased their fight, anxious for peace to be established between them.” Herodotus (1.74).
Before calculating the date of the eclipse, it was believed that the battle would have been fought on September 30, 610 BC (according to William Smith’s Dictionary of the Greeks and Romans), but modern astronomical calculations have established the date as May 28 from 585 BC
The second data was established with the help of the biblical reading of the battles in Israel of Ajailon and Gibeon, which helped, according to the BBC, to reveal the date of an even earlier eclipse, at the time of the retaking of Israel by the Jews returning from Egyptian exile. , the reading that helped reveal this date, also known as Joshua’s prayer, is this (Joshua 10:12-14): “Sun, stand over Gibeon, and you, Moon, over the Valley of Aijalon”.
The BBC report, physicist Colin Humphreys, director of research at the University of Cambridge in England, and astrophysicist Graeme Waddington using this passage calculated the date of the annular eclipse and found October 30, 1207 BC.
The report also mentions that the first person to suggest such a date was the linguist Robert Wilson (1918) and that he even suggests a re-reading of the biblical text:
‘Eclipse, O Sun, in Gibeon,
And the Moon in the Valley of Aijalom´.
Since today we know that there will be a band where the eclipse is total (image) and bands next to it where the eclipse gives a partial shadow.
Heródoto, Histórias, Livro I, Clio, 74.
New war front and dangerous week
09
Oct
Since Israel had developed a strong anti-aircraft
battery scheme called the Iron Dome, missile attacks in the region had decreased, but at the end of the week a new attack by the Hamas group took place and more than 700 people were killed, showing that there are weaknesses in this system.
Israel’s military was caught by surprise on Saturday (10/07) and despite decades of the country becoming a technological powerhouse with the world’s most impressive military and a world-class intelligence agency, all of this simply hasn’t worked and This creates a new front of war in geopolitics already with delicate problems and Israel responded with missiles into Palestinian territory.
Hamas has Iran as a strong ally, which has supplied drones to Russia, and although it has denied that this continues to happen, Iran wants to be part of the BRICS and on the side of another invisible war, according to the words of Medvedev, the vice-president of the Russia’s Security Council and former president of the country, this war is taking place.
He was referring to Russia’s good harvest of wheat grains, which it intends to become a bargaining chip with allied countries, even providing supplies to allied countries in Africa that do not have the resources to purchase grains.
The week is delicate in Ukraine and Russia, because on both sides a new surprise attack is expected, such as that of Hamas in Israel, on the Ukrainian side long-range missiles, and on the Russian side the destruction of energy sources in Ukraine which would make the coming winter cruel to the population and weaken the Ukrainian military army, which already has difficulties with ammunition for conflict regions.
Something new is expected in terms of peace, there is no shortage of nods from Russia, but without negotiating the territories already conquered, while the Ukrainian side wants possession back, including the controversial Crimea, one of the main targets in the counteroffensive.
All people of good will and who know the dangers of war want some relief.
