Japan was founded by Jews

[Fraggle Rocker]

The spoken language have almost no relation, but the written language is very close, originated from China.

The Chinese Buddhist missionaries brought Chinese culture and technology, wholesale, to Japan (and also to Korea). This elevated the nation from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age almost literally overnight, and surpassed the capabilities of their language to deal with the myriad new concepts. So the scholars, rulers and other people in power learned Chinese of necessity. For centuries, all educated Japanese people were fluent in Chinese, just as all educated Europeans were fluent in Latin in the Middle Ages. Eventually their national pride kicked in and they wanted to develop a writing system for Japanese. Lacking the phonetic alphabet that aided the transcription of the European languages (or the Arabic abjad that aided the people of the Middle East, or Sanskrit's phonetic Devanagari script that many of the Indian languages use), they struggled with adapting Chinese characters to Japanese. This is a terrible fit because the two languages could hardly be more different in phonetics, grammar and syntax. For a while they simply wrote in Chinese, but eventually they devised conventions for representing a Japanese word by the character for the more-or-less equivalent Chinese word. This was not terribly successful for two reasons:

• Japanese had assimilated thousands of Chinese words (just as English has with Latin) and they already used those characters for the original Chinese words.
• Japanese has inflections, which Chinese does not (not even singular-plural or present-past-future), and there was no way to record them.

Over the centuries they invented a phonetic syllabary (like an alphabet except each symbol represents an entire syllable) for all the particles and endings. At the same time they reduced the number of Chinese characters in use. Today the standard Japanese character set includes only 2000 Chinese kanji (Chinese uses 5000), each of which can be read as a Chinese word or a Japanese word and you just have to know it from context, and also a syllabary of 50 phonetic symbols for writing inflections and particles, and also a second syllabary of 50 symbols for writing foreign words and abbreviations. Oh yeah, and virtually all Japanese also know the Roman alphabet. And they call this progress!

In fact, outside of the scriptures, there is no evidence in any of the Biblical patriarchs (from Noah to Abraham to Isaac to Jacob). A similar argument can be made for Prophets who came after the patriarchs (Moses, Jesus, and to a much lesser degree, Muhammad). I personally think all of these figures existed. Would you consider me a fool for believing so?

"Fool" would be too harsh a word. So would "gullible," since you admit the weakness of the evidence. Perhaps "romantic" would serve the purpose without being an insult.

This is a place of science and scholarship--or at least we Moderators try to keep it that way. We abide by the Rule of Laplace: Extraordinary assertions must be supported by extraordinary evidence before anyone is obliged to treat them with respect. To say that you know the names of an entire succession of people who lived, at best, in a time when recordkeeping was cursory, or, at worst, in a time whose place in our space-time continuum has not been established (Noah's Ark? A flood that raised sea level to the top of Mt. Ararat when we know that there is nowhere near that much water on this entire planet?), is certainly a textbook example of an "extraordinary assertion."

And you admit that the only supporting evidence you have is a so-called "holy" book, which even on its own timeline had to have been passed down orally for generations before the actual book took form. This is hardly extraordinary evidence!

So you'll have to live with the fact that we have no obligation to treat your assertion with respect. Or, as I said above, to regard you other than as a romantic.

On a more sober note, to admit that you regard the Tanakh as a history book, rather than a collection of metaphors, casts aspersions on the quality of your scholarship. This will make many of us skeptical of all of your future assertions.

 

[Slysoon]

Fraggle Rocker

This is a place of science and scholarship--or at least we Moderators try to keep it that way. We abide by the Rule of Laplace: Extraordinary assertions must be supported by extraordinary evidence before anyone is obliged to treat them with respect. To say that you know the names of an entire succession of people who lived, at best, in a time when recordkeeping was cursory, or, at worst, in a time whose place in our space-time continuum has not been established (Noah's Ark? A flood that raised sea level to the top of Mt. Ararat when we know that there is nowhere near that much water on this entire planet?), is certainly a textbook example of an "extraordinary assertion."

Of the Five Books of Moses, the eight books of The Prophets, the eleven books of The Writings, and all the additional and unique books of the various Old Testaments and different editions of the New Testament, it is interesting you choose to touch on one story from the one book (Genesis) which primarily describes pre-history, as told by “Yahweh”, instead of the other books which seek to outline historical events and establish laws as written by scholars of the time. It is understood by all of us that the Books of Moses refer to the oldest of times, and thus contain the lowest levels of historical validity due to their oral history, which is why S.A.M. and I were discussing archaeological findings to link the apiru/Shasu to the Hebrews as told in Exodus, and verify the building of the Temples as told in various books (primarily Kings, Daniel, Ezra, and Nehemiah) using physical and non-Biblical sources. You are more than welcome to join our discussion, or in the very least quit being disingenuous.

The fables of Genesis were never taken as literally during ancient times as they are today, and they do not take away from the scholarship of those who contributed invaluable books and letters to the Holy Scriptures. Many books of the Tanakh, and many books of the Old and New Testaments were written by authors who witnessed the events they were writing of first-hand, or wrote of their immediate predecessors and spiritual leaders. If you were to ignore the religious fervour surrounding these texts today, you would notice the existence of many fantastic, first-hand documents which offer our only explanation to the happenings of a significant portion of the ancient world. If you eschew these sources on the basis that they have come to form largely followed religions, then you leave yourself with very little literature to draw upon and only sparse, open-ended archaeological findings.

So you'll have to live with the fact that we have no obligation to treat your assertion with respect. Or, as I said above, to regard you other than as a romantic.

Oh, but my studies of the Tanakh and of Rabbinic literature (primarily the Babylonian Talmud as translated by Soncino) seem to have contributed more to this discussion than your student-level definitions of the simplest of terms (such as “Jew”) and errant understanding of the Old Testament, for starters. The reason why I believe these figures existed is because I believe history, for the most part, attests to their recordings, and the recordings of their disciples. The patriarchs and other rich characters of legend simply fill in roles we know somebody once played. Who they truly were, we never will know.

Finally, before you insult the validity of ancient tomes and texts which so much of our knowledge depends upon, you must do yourself the honour of reading them.

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

Finally, before you insult the validity of ancient tomes and texts which so much of our knowledge depends upon, you must do yourself the honour of reading them.

I read Genesis and Exodus. How much more of my life to I have to waste on patent bullshit? I don't watch slasher movies either.

And BTW, you did say you believe in NOAH! Explain to me how so much water could have appeared, without falling back on antiscientific supernaturalism, and then maybe there's a dialog worthy of a place of science.

 

[Slysoon]

Fraggle Rocker

You “read Genesis and Exodus”? Before your edit, you mentioned you did not read any such “patent bullshit”. Perhaps you regret admitting to not having read any of the crucial literature necessary for understanding the richness of Jewish history. So what if you did read two books of the Torah, no less the very two which even video games have been made in commemoration of? Do you expect us to take you seriously with such a pitiful effort?

You admit to ignoring the ancient texts and wish to lecture others on the topics these texts cover. Your opinion carries no weight, and I already addressed your obsession over Genesis fables. Please avoid these topics until such time that you have read at least a book on the subject cover to cover instead of bragging of the story or two you already know. You are wasting my time.

 

[Walter L. Wagner]

Not to change the discourse too much, and on a related theme as the title of this thread, there is some evidence that the Jews (or an offshoot of them) influenced the Polynesians. This would have been before the Polynesians left the Chinese mainland and began settling the Polynesian islands. The evidence is not great, but it is interesting. Specifically, there are two cultural practices that were unique to the Jewish peoples and Polynesian peoples of antiquity. Namely, they both practiced circumcision (the Polynesians left stone erections commemorating their manhood, which are circumcised), and they both had a 'place of refuge' where a person accused of a murder of passion or accident could flee, and if obtaining that refuge, would be exonerated of the crime.

I don't know enough of the time-lines, but I believe that the early Polynesians have an ancestry traced to the shores of China at about 1,000 BC where they were a sea-faring people. This would have allowed enough time for Jewish peoples moving eastward to have come in contact and influenced them; along about the same time as the Thread theme asserts Jewish influence on Japan's settlements (that displaced native inhabitants?).

This is a murky area of history for me, on which perhaps others might have more light.

 

[S.A.M.]

Circumcision was practised by the Egyptians, its not unique to Jews.

 

[iceaura]

The problem with the apiru-Hebrew theory is that the apiru seem to be more of a disorderly class of criminals, rebels, and conquerors (described as being composed of soldiers, highway robbers, and so on). Another problem is that the apiru do not share a language, based on the names of individual apiru we know of. They seem to have been a disorganized class of rebels and militiamen who caused unrest in various ancient civilizations.

Why is that a "problem"?

It would be a miracle indeed if the highly scholarly tradition of the Jews, coupled with the physical evidence of a Temple ruined by the same people who were still harassing them (Babylonians), turned out to be a grand misunderstanding, and the long awaited rebuilding of the flattened Temple was actually the first of its kind.

It would not be a miracle if a people's legendary account of themselves turned out to be a collection of myths with very little and much altered basis in physical events.

That would be more of a norm.

 

[Slysoon]

Why is that a "problem"?

The fundamental problem is that the apiru are regarded as more of a criminal social class than an ethnic group of people. The specific problems include their apparent lack of a common language and origin, which goes against the Biblical characterization of the Hebrew people. The fact that the apiru are never mentioned as a nomadic pastoralist people as the scriptures describe them, is another strike against the theory. Although the Shasu connection has its oddities and loose assumptions, it is still much nearer the truth.

Although I appreciate your observation of the rebellious element of the Jewish society and its seeding in ancient history.

It would not be a miracle if a people's legendary account of themselves turned out to be a collection of myths with very little and much altered basis in physical events.

That would be more of a norm.

I did not realize your standards were so low. I never once considered the building of a temple to be a “legendary account” of one’s people.

Temples have been built for quite some time now. I can offer you a history of religious temples if you would like.

 

[ElectricFetus]

Not to change the discourse too much, and on a related theme as the title of this thread, there is some evidence that the Jews (or an offshoot of them) influenced the Polynesians. This would have been before the Polynesians left the Chinese mainland and began settling the Polynesian islands. The evidence is not great, but it is interesting. Specifically, there are two cultural practices that were unique to the Jewish peoples and Polynesian peoples of antiquity. Namely, they both practiced circumcision (the Polynesians left stone erections commemorating their manhood, which are circumcised), and they both had a 'place of refuge' where a person accused of a murder of passion or accident could flee, and if obtaining that refuge, would be exonerated of the crime.

Circumcision may have arisen independently and multiple times, heck the Jews got it from Egypt from moses. Again a handful of cultural similarities means nothing, many ancient civilization made pyramids did not mean they were communicating with each other or that aliens directed them! All I want is a means of disproving (or proving) these associations genetically, since I assume genetics is the only fool proof means, but I maybe wrong with that as well.

 

[Walter L. Wagner]

Circumcision was practised by the Egyptians, its not unique to Jews.

SAM;

Nice drawing. Why are the people be circumcised different color than the people circumcising them? Is that a racial thing going on in Egypt? Were the lighter-skinned people marked by being circucised, so they would/could be distinguished from the rest of the people?

Yes, the Jewish got the practice in Egypt, it would appear, or at least the Torah records that.

Perhaps it did arise independently in multiple regions of the world. I don't know.

What about the "place of refuge" practice. Was that done anywhere else other than Polynesia and the Jewish culture?

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

You “read Genesis and Exodus”? . . . . You admit to ignoring the ancient texts and wish to lecture others on the topics these texts cover. Your opinion carries no weight, and I already addressed your obsession over Genesis fables.

Excuse me, but you're the one who said you believe in Noah, a figure in one of those fairytales at the beginning of the silly little book that has inspired so much evil on this poor planet. Please try to pay attention to your own outrageous statements. Anyone who believes in Noah, Zeus or the Tooth Fairy is a supernaturalist and no scientist, hardly qualified to be giving lectures in a forum with the word "Science" in its name.

You are wasting my time.

Yes indeed. You could be reading more fairytales.

The evidence is not great, but it is interesting. Specifically, there are two cultural practices that were unique to the Jewish peoples and Polynesian peoples of antiquity. Namely, they both practiced circumcision (the Polynesians left stone erections commemorating their manhood, which are circumcised), and they both had a 'place of refuge' where a person accused of a murder of passion or accident could flee, and if obtaining that refuge, would be exonerated of the crime.

You need to read up on archetypes, or at least review my many posts on the subject. Many rituals, images, stories, legends, etc., are common to nearly all societies in nearly all eras. Jung wasn't familiar with genetics, but today we would call these instincts, genetically programmed into our brains.

 

[S.A.M.]

SAM;

Nice drawing. Why are the people be circumcised different color than the people circumcising them? Is that a racial thing going on in Egypt? Were the lighter-skinned people marked by being circucised, so they would/could be distinguished from the rest of the people?

I could be mistaken but I think it was a class thing. I'm not sure who the red people are, but I think circumcision was limited to the royal family or priestly class. I have given sources earlier in sciforums with more details.

According to author David L. Gollaher in his book, Circumcision: A History of the World’s Most Controversial Surgery, the Jewish people borrowed the practice of circumcision from the Egyptians. Egyptians of the time lived in an intellectually and technically advanced society. They had a vast understanding of the human body, were respected for their military conquests and great architecture, and were therefore regarded as amazing to their contemporaries. If the Egyptians performed circumcision, it was considered to be rooted in wisdom. In Egypt, circumcision was a ritual that transformed the youth into manhood, allowing them into admittance of the divine mysteries. Although scholars suggest that circumcision was limited to the elite only (priests and pharaohs), others disagree. Circumcision for the Egyptians was a method of purification; the body’s openings were considered portals through which impure and malignant spirits might penetrate.
http://www.d.umn.edu/~mcco0322/history.htm

Moses is widely cited as the conduit that bought circumcision to the Jews. Initially even Jews waited until adolescence to circumcise. This changed after Alexander expanded the Greek Empire. It is against Greek beliefs to mutilate the human form and Jewish boys started remaining uncircumcised to be more "with it". It is probably then that matters were taken out of their hands by the rabbis and infancy became the norm for circumcision.