Adonis Diaries

Posts Tagged ‘Upper Galilee

Very frequently, Israel would vent its internal pressures by attacking Lebanon, Gaza, Palestinian camps in the West Bank under lame excuses.  Thousands of Lebanese and Palestinians died and were severely injured simply because internal politics in Israel required external campaigns to venting off untenable internal conditions.  Lebanon’s and Palestinian economies and infrastructures were destroyed several times to extending a standing position of an impotent Israeli PM.

These “preemptive wars” were meant to divert the Israelis from their daily troubles with political institutions driving the Israelis to apathy and falsehood security.  Are there any steam venting valves for Israel to fall back on?

Lebanon is off-limit:  Hassan  Allah of Hezbollah warned that upper Galilee will be occupied if Israel tried to attack Lebanon again.  Why not?  Upper Galilee was always attached to the district of Tyr since antiquity.

Gaza is off-limit:  This is not the time to anger the Egyptians going to vote on a referendum on the defunct  “peace treaty”. 

Any attack on Syria means that Israel had decided to return the Golan Heights to Syria with no further negotiations.  Maybe Israel will attempt a preemptive incursion in the West Bank:  I think Hamas would love this lunatic invasion that will decimate every “moderate leader” of this illegitimate Palestinian Authority.

So what is Israel to do now?  How about going for a new election and feel the pulse of Israel’s citizens without undue useless and dangerous preemptive faked wars?  How about spending more money on the million of second-rate citizens who are suffering from apartheid discrimination?

How about a unilateral retreat from the Syrian occupied lands?  Is it not a smart fair price to pay for arrogantly relying for 30 years on a faked “peace treaty” signed by Egyptian dictators?

If Israel fails to clear up all its check-points in the West Bank, and very soon, then, the third Palestinian Intifada will do the job materially.  It is ridiculous to think that Israel government can’t sense that mass revolt is not boiling among the Palestinians, and not just against Abbas. 

Claiming that these hundreds of check-points are for security reasons have no currencies, even in the western world:  It is clear that the barriers in the West Bank are for humiliating the Palestinians and displaying apartheid ideology and manifesting blatant discrimination.

If Israel still believes that the Egyptian army is going to renege on its promises for a civilian government then, Israel is delusional:  The fast spreading of upheavals in the Arab World are there to stay for a long time.  The Egyptian army will enjoy plenty of reminders of what are the consequences of playing its old game.

Israel has been looking at the Arab citizens from the splits of its bunkers:  They are saying that what is happening is none of Israel’s concerns and Israel had no cause in these upheavals. 

Israel has got to come to term:  Peace and security are handy if all the States in the Middle-East consider that it is the responsibility of them all to work toward the best interest of all people in the region.  No more relying on foreign interventions and satisfying foreign interests at the expense of our people.

The Last Supper: Customs in the Levant; Chapter 3.  (March 22, 2009)

 

Obeying parents is not just a filial feeling in the Levant (Near East region of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Palestine) but a religious duty. 

The command is “Obey your mother and father” and God punished Adam for simply disobeying him, period.  The story of St. Luke when Jesus, at aged 12, was found discussing among the priests in the Grand Temple of Carmel as the clan went on pilgrimage is revealing: Jesus had priority to obey his Father; he reminded his parents that he has a duty to obey his God El first. 

In the Levant, no family starts or leaves on a trip before counting and making sure of the presence of all the members of the family. 

After the count, Jesus decided to return to the Temple. After the count, his family didn’t worry about Jesus because he was supposed to be amid the wider clan of relatives and because the Great Temple on Mount Carmel (not Jerusalem) was a familiar visiting place and no more than half a day walk to the town of “Bethlehem Efrateh” (Not the one close to Jerusalem) where they lived (on the east side of Mount Carmel in Upper Galilee) which was within the administrative district of Tyre (and not the Bethlehem in Judea).

 

At the Last Supper, Jesus and his disciples are eating on the roof of a house.  In the Levant, most roofs have a grapevine dangling over an open shed called “aliyat“. The family gathers in that shed during the hot seasons that extend for seven months from Mid May to mid September.

Jesus and the disciples are sitting in a circle around several large platters of various dishes; everyone extends his hand to dip his piece of bread in the platter of his liking; there are no spoons or forks. 

The scene is not as represented by Leonardo Da Vinci in the customs of Florence where you see a server pouring wine in a single cup, starting by the most ranked in the gathering. 

In the Levant customs, before drinking the cup in one shot, the guest wishes long life to his friends and ask them to remember him if he is about to leave them for an extended trip; then he selects the guest sitting next to him to drink in the same single cup. After supper, the cup is passed around and everyone takes just a sip.  Jesus said “I longed so much to eat this supper with you before I suffer”

            Jesus said: “The first one to dip his bread in my platter will deliver me tonight” was confusing to the disciples because they all dipped in Jesus’ platter one time or another. Judas was always the second in command and must have arranged to have his favorite platter close to him and Jesus for easy access. Thus, Judas was the most plausible one to first dip his bread in Jesus’ platter.

Young John loved Jesus and expressed his feeling as to the customs of the Levant by reclining his head on Jesus’ shoulder. 

Jesus adhered to the customs of eating supper; his saluting expressions about eating his flesh or drinking his blood in remembrance of him had a spiritual undertone and suggesting that he was to leave his disciples for good. 

Jesus dipped a piece of bread in a platter and specifically offered it to Judas as a symbol of friendship, no matter what is in Judas’ heart and mind.

Jesus presented the box of money to Judas, the treasurer, as a sign that nothing is changed in Jesus’ faith to Judas loyalty in matter of financial transactions. Anyway, Judas was from a rich family and didn’t need small changes.

            In the garden of Gethsemane Jesus expresses his feelings of sorrows and pains as a Levantine; he lets his feelings pour out and wants his closest friends to share his feelings. 

Three times he invites Peter and the sons of Zebedee to keep the wake with him because “my soul is sad to death”.  Jesus was praying with such earnestness that his “sweating was of blood”. Jesus had no choice but to obey his Father and urged his God by saying: “Father, if it were possible to take away this bitter cup, but it is not as I wish but as you want”

            Judas approached Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane and kissed him several times on the cheeks. Judas was thus telling Jesus, according to the Levant customs that, as of this instant, they are on a par in ranks and that Judas decided that he no longer considers Jesus as the Messiah.

Some one of a lower rank would shake hands and fake to kiss the right hand, but the higher ranked person would fake a kiss on the cheek. Judas was using a custom for greetings that was used as a sign for the soldiers to get hold of the leader.

Who are the Israelites?  Origins of Jesus Christ; Chapter two, (March 20, 2009)

Joachim (Youwakeem) Omram and Hanna, the parents of the Virgin Mary, were from the village of Qana (10 kilometers south of the city of Tyr and at an altitude of 85 meters; this Qana was called Qana of Upper Galilee and was within the district of Phoenicia during the Seleucid and early Roman Empires in the Near East (Levant). The administrative district of Upper Galilee extended from Tyr to Acre).

Joachim was one of the eminent personalities in the town of Qana and the neighboring region and was an Essenes high priest. He had been frustrated because he could not secure any descendents. Joachim took his sheep to a remote area and fasted and prayed for 40 days. Hanna was also frustrated with this extended absence and decided to take off her black cloth and washed her hair and went out in the garden.  Hanna received an apparition that she will soon get pregnant and that Joachim is on his way home.

Mary was born in Qana and her parents dedicated her to the Great Temple on Mount Carmel (Mount Carmel was also in the district of Phoenicia).  When Mary was 3 years of age she was interned in the monastery of the Great Temple of the Carmel.  Mary was one of the 12 virgins of the elite families in the region to be dedicated to serve in the temple and she was named “The Pigeon of God Eil“. (The Hebrews in Judea never allowed girls to serve in temples).

Joseph was also from Qana and one of Mary’s relatives; he was one of the superintendents at the temple and he cleaned, painted and did the various tasks of maintenance. Mary received the “Good Tiding” from the Archangel while serving in Mount Carmel.

Mary and Joseph got married and Jesus was born in the village of Bethlehem Tifone by the Carmel, close to the famous city of Dora by the seaside and north of current Haifa within the district of Phoenicia (not in the Bethlehem of Judea).  Mary visited her aunt Elizabeth in Galilee who was 6 months pregnant.  Jesus was presented to the Great Temple of Mount Carmel for sanctification; Jesus was lost in the same temple discussing with the priests when he was 12 of years. Jesus studied in the schools of Mount Carmel.

Joseph and Mary lived in Bethlehem by the Carmel. The town of Nazareth did not exist yet and the area was called Nazareth. When Joseph died, Mary returned to her hometown of Qana where her father and grandparents were buried; Jesus spent his youth in Qana. 

Jesus was called “Jesus of Mary” after the death of Joseph to distinguish him from the other people named Jesus. (The Hebrews of Judea never referred a son to his mother). Mary was also called “the sister of Jacob”.  Hanna had remarried after the death of Joachim and gave birth to many offspring; the eldest son of Hanna was apparently named Jacob

Jesus was also called Emanuel (Amanoueel) which means (The God El is among us),  thus, God was made human.  All the names that start with El or finish with El refer to the God El, the all-encompassing God of the Land.

In the wedding of Qana, where Jesus showed his miraculous power of transforming water into wine, Mary was in her own town and it is Jesus who was invited.  Jesus came up from Lake Tiberias to join the wedding.  After the wedding, Mary and the brothers of Jesus (Jacob, Joseph, Simon, and Judah) followed him down to Capernaum by the Lake and stayed there for a few days and then were part of Jesus’ party from then on.

Jesus was highly educated.  He could speak Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek and Latin. The folk tales and early manuscripts demonstrate that Jesus studied Law and taught Law at the university in Sidon (Lebanon).  Jesus was born in the year 7 BC and Caesar’s census started in the year 10 BC. Jesus was also called Rabbi (Rabuny) which means teacher in Aramaic.  Jesus said to his disciples: “Do not let anyone call you Rabbi since you have only one teacher in Christ and you are all brethren”

Jesus dressed in the same long white robe that the Essenes sect of Mount Carmel wore; the consecrated members were called “The White Brethren” and they were famous as healers.  The Essenes had many branches in Galilee and a prosperous one in Alexandria (Egypt) and had places for welcoming travelers and the sick. 

John the Baptist, close relative of Jesus and just 6 months older, never left the region of Galilee, baptized with water as of the Essenes traditions and baptized Jesus.


 
Note 1: Jesus was elevated to Heaven on Mount Carmel. The first church was built on Mount Carmel and dedicated to the Virgin Mary while still alive.  A church was built within the town of  Qana by the disciples and excavations showed a church from the first century.  The Moslems had veneration for the tomb of Joachim called “The tomb of the prophet Omran”.  When Israel bombarded south Lebanon in 1996 for 15 days one of the missiles made a large crater, 4 meters off the tomb of the prophet Omran.  The excavations uncovered a buried church and the tombs of the family of Omran.

Note 2: Qana is famous today because Israel massacred over 100 civilians and gravely injured 120 when her bombs targeted a UN compound in Qana in 1996 and then hit that same town in 2006 and killed 50 more civilians.  Qana was an important town for many centuries before Christ and the main resting place of the disciples before venturing any further. Qana of Upper Galilee (The Galilee of Nations or the Gentiles for the Hebrews) was the location where the disciples gathered for a while after the lapidation of the first martyr Etienne (Estefanos).

Note 3: I may conjecture that Mary retained the title of Virgin because she earned it serving as one of the virgins in the Great Temple.  There is this tradition in the Levant to bestow the title of nun and priest for even those who later relinquished their sacerdotal duties.

Note 4: The astrophysicist Reznicoff confirms that the Comet Halley that showed the way to the mages crossed Galilee and not Judea.

Note 5:  There are indications that Jesus entered Jerusalem for the first time when he was to be crucified.  No wonder that Jesus experienced a cultural chock when he witnessed business and usury transactions within the temple. Jesus got hold of a whip and chased out the merchants and turned their tables over and declared: “It is said that the temple is the house of God and not a cavern for thieves”.

Foundations and history of the monolithic religions (written on May 15, 2008)

Discovering the mysteries of life and the Universe might not be attainable: for the simple reason that any paradigm would not stick long enough to capture the mind of any generation.

This article is intended for those who accept the validity of the hypothesis that

1. earth is billions years old and that a form of mankind emerged over at least more than one million years ago;

2. that human kind was on the verge of extinction several times due to drastic climatic changes and the eruption of monster volcanoes.

Thus, prior civilizations, which may have been as developed as today, could have vanished with no traces left.

We need to accept the fact that if the number of the world population was far less than it should have been at the beginning of the 19th century, from simple mathematical computation in the last 2,000 years, it is because most of our ancestors were the product of incest and not from couples of different families, even after accounting for the casualties of wars, pestilence, famine and climate calamities.

I also would like to state that mythologies were based on real events and the transmitted verbal stories accounted for their longevity:  the verbal communication of these stories extended the imagination and gave the various mythologies the religious power and the dimension that are interpreted nowadays.

When dealing with religions, people feel the need to contrast faith versus facts and logic.

People who have sincere faith must have experienced supernatural revelations or gone through a moment of irrational state of out-of-body exposure.

I believe that faith cannot be acquired by reason or logic and those who repeat frequently the word “truth” in their conversations are not sincere in their belief because truth is plainly, simply and absolutely a subjective attitude and it means “do not bother using facts, science or logic. All those reasoning principles do not mean a thing and would not change my mind”.

Truth is for me the most dangerous term that man has invented:  Truth blocks any consensus or negotiation or meaningful conversation and it connote an extremist disposition based on ignorance and lack of intellectual interactions.  Thus, the concept of truth is practically opposite to faith, although people positively correlate it with faith.

            Logic is a construct, a system of the mind used to expose a coherent hypothesis, hopefully based on some facts, or a story that hold a convincing alternative.  Logic can be used in science, in rhetoric and as well in religion.

Institutionalized religions heavily make use of logic, though they hammer out the concept of faith because its concept is not founded on anything tangible or can be proved rationally.

Religion is basically a theological philosophy that has been manipulated to be grounded in myths, symbols, and secrecy to satisfy the initiated High Priests and generates its power through scare tactics within the psychic of man.

Let me offer a logical story, one of the alternative stories, of the monotheist religions of the Jewish, Christian, and Moslem religions.

The root of these three religions is the religion practiced in the Kingdom of Sumer, in southern Iraq, 6,000 years ago.  This ancient religion believed in a trinity and its mythology stated that out of space creatures, arriving from the tenth dying planet, landed on earth to exploit gold and oil because the environment of their planet required abundant quantities of gold to be pulverized and injected in their outer atmosphere to rejuvenate the deteriorating environment of their planet.

These creatures created human artificially (test tube for example) to serve as cheap and mechanical slaves in the mines.  After many centuries, the created human revolted against their masters and fled from the Eden of the super cruel creatures and had to fend for themselves to survive and develop their intelligence.

            The Kingdom of Sumer and its far developed civilization that discovered the existence of ten planets (there is nine in our solar system so far, and lately this year the tenth planet was discovered) and their rotations; the Sumerians divided the day into 24 hours, the hours into minutes and minutes into seconds.

Ancient mythologies mention that this kingdom was destroyed by a natural calamity (resembling to an atomic explosion used by the outer space creatures). The Sumerian mythology had ramifications into all the neighboring civilizations that came after it when it was weakened.

It is narrated that Abraham left the Kingdom of Sumer with his tribe during a period of famine and carried with him the verbal mythology of the country.

Moses was a High Priest in Egypt and fled persecution because he adhered to the Akhenaton new religion of the one God the Sun and carried with him the ten laws and the secrets of the Egyptian religion.

Jesus was initiated by the Essen sect (indirectly related to Jewish religion), located in upper Galilee by Mount Carmel and had their Great Temple on the Mount.

The members of the Essen sect believed in knowledge and spirituality and shared the resources in common.  It is also narrated that Jesus lived for a time in Sidon teaching in its famous law school.  Mary, his mother and part of her family were from the town of Qana (closer to the main port of Tyr that was the administrative district of Upper Galilee) and lived there when Jesus was a lecturer in the law school.

It is no fluke of an incident that Jesus and Mary attended a wedding in Qana; it is also very rational that Jesus decided to start his message after Qana when his mother removed the cover of secrecy and exposed his supernatural gifts of turning water to wine.

Jesus was a high priest in the Essen sect and preached a message based in symbolism and fables and was highly spiritual and staunchly anti-Pharisee, this Jewish sect that believed that adhering to the Laws was sufficient to be saved.

The Jewish cabala sect is a branch of the Essen sect and is founded on the Sumerian theology and myths.

Albert Schweitzer, a theologian, physician, thinker, organ player and Nobel Peace laureate offered his version on Jesus.  He said, based on the first two testaments of Mathew and Marc, that Jesus preached his message to the general public in the last year before his crucifixion.

Just six months, all in all, Jesus was accompanied with the public and the remaining months he spent them among his close disciple around Caesarea of Philippi.

In the beginning, Jesus accepted the label of a prophet among the prophets but then he reached the belief that he is the Messiah of the Jews.  Thus, he sent his disciples two by two to preach the message of the end of time.  Jesus was very surprised when all his disciples returned safe and sound; he expected his disciples to suffer terribly and be put to death in order for the prophesy to be accomplished.

Jesus then decided that God would accept his sacrifice and save his close disciples from atrocious deaths before the first coming of the Messiah.

The apostles and disciples of Jesus believed that Christ would return to Jerusalem during their life time and thus they stayed in Jerusalem for as long as they could before they were forced to leave that city out of persecution by the Jews.

The Christian-Jews would not relinquish the Jewish Laws and they harassed and even persecuted St. Paul for preaching to the gentiles and establishing Christian communities based on faith in Christ who came to absolve our sins and who was resurrected from death.

St. Paul insisted that without the belief that Christ resurrected there would be  no foundations for Christianity.  That is true because Christianity would be another extremist and salafist Orthodox Jewish sect.

The Council of Nicea in 325 adopted only four out of the hundreds of testaments that were written and accounted for more credible eye-witness testimonies before four testaments were adopted as not apocryphal (teaching of wisdom).

The authors of the four testaments were biased toward the message of their respective gurus.

For example, Marc followed Paul for a while and then he proselytized with Peter and wrote the biography of Peter; Luca stuck with Paul for the longest parts of his trips and the foundations of Christian communities.  The Talmudic Mathew outdid himself forcing the genealogy of Jesus to descend from David.  The educated Jean was of a noble family and wrote his testament when he was already senile at the age of 95; he had acquired the Hellenistic culture and symbolism.

It is unfortunate that Jean had to write the apocalyptic hallucination that is wrecking havoc at the beginning of every millennium.  Apparently, the apocalypse is not from the same Jean the disciple.

The Arab Prophet Mohammad was not illiterate and he was initiated to the Jewish-Christian sect (the Ebionites) located in Mecca with his uncle as Patriarch of the sect.

Mohammad read the Books and listened to the proselytism of the Eastern Christian sects during his caravan commerce to and within Syria.  These Christian sects believed in the monophysism of Jesus (no divine spiritual identity, in contrast to other monophysism sects that believed Jesus was spiritual, for example the Orthodox Church of Byzantium) and were staunchly adhering to the Jewish Laws, the Jewish prophets and their books.

Consequently, the religion of Mohammad during its first 13 years was almost a duplicate of these Christian sects with strong Jewish foundations in their religions.

At that period of his message, Mohammad had decreed that Moslems should face toward Jerusalem for prayer; when Mohammad had to fight the Jewish tribes in Yathreb  he changed the direction for prayer to facing Al Ka3ba (the Black Stone) in Mecca. Mohammad had to flee to Medina after the Kureich tribe decided to terminate him; he then endeavored to establish firmly his community of Moslems in Yathreb (Medina).

The next phase of taking up the civil social responsibilities and politics for maintaining this community forced upon Mohammad to linking the spiritual dogma with the civil laws and regulations. It was while strengthening the community of Islam in Medina that Mohammad had to wage many wars against a few Jewish communities who ended siding with Mohammad’s archenemy the Kureich tribe in Mecca.

Mohammad thus learned to discriminate between the practices of the Jews and the Jewish religion and hundreds of Jews were displaced.

After Mohammad showed clemency twice with Jewish rebellions he finally ordered the beheading of 700 members of the Jewish Khyber tribe.  For some reason, Mohammad selected his nephew and son-in-law Ali to have the honor of the decapitation; it is no wonder that the Jews have an animal hatred for Ali and his followers.

To comprehend the nature of Islam it would be beneficial to collect the revealed verses before relocating to Yathreb or Medina.  Most of the verses generated in Medina were generally rules and laws designed for managing the daily lives of the believers.  You will realize that most of these laws are identical to the desert and Bedouin customs of the Jews before and long after they got established in Palestine.

Personal hypothesis:

The ancestor of all the Gods that were created since antiquity is this scary total Silence before a coming major natural cataclysm.  It is the silence of death when the whole earth is still and the atmosphere suffocating, no breezes of any kinds, that generates in all living creature a terrible reaction of wholesome anger of pure revolt against the sense of death in this universal silence.

It is the silence and quietude before tornadoes, cyclones, sand desert storms and all the kinds of whirling at great magnitude in the atmosphere, the seas, deserts and the bowel of earth in volcanoes. There is no avoiding the silence of coming cataclysms as there is no avoiding death, a correlation that people noticed and prayed for their own God of Total Silence to keep chatting through winds, birds, animals, rains, thunderstorms, shouting, crying and anything that can be heard lest miseries, devastations and evil spirits hovering over the land befall their region.

The same behavior is applied to the starting of wars and their ending. It is no wonder that men shout stupid songs, curse loudly at fictional enemies like if drunk, bang on batteries and metals, light and heavy metals, blow on air instruments and all the hysterical trepidation at the announcement of a major war, an ancient psychic custom within our deepest pre-historic brain to ward off the cataclysm wrapped into maddening songs of patriotism and cursing at the evil enemies.

Indeed, heavy silence is the root of our fundamental fear and dealing with fear should pass through learning to accept silence as a necessary step to investigating our soul.


adonis49

adonis49

adonis49

June 2023
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