Oh my Lord, the stories we make up to kid ourselves…!
Isn’t it ironic? The Holy Land. So-called. Just having hosted one of the planet’s most horrific and Unholy shit-shows ever seen. And to be continued, you can bet. All that stuff about Peace on Earth, Goodwill To All Men, Love Your Neighbour, etc… Doesn’t stack up, really. Beggars belief, with the beggars bombed to hell and back. More bomb tonnage on Gaza, in fact, than was dropped on London, Dresden and Hamburg combined in WWII.
Where were the good Samaritans? A bit thin on the ground. But no shortage of Philistines. Philistine? Isn’t that how this trouble-spot called Palestine got its name? And wasn’t that nasty big bugger Goliath a Philistine? Who got his comeuppance from that brave little Israeli shepherd boy, David, whose sling-shot pebble wasted the big guy with a kill-shot right between the eyes? Or so the fairy tale goes. What were Ira Gershwin’s great lines from ‘Porgy and Bess’..? The things that you’re liable, To read in the Bible It ain’t necessarily so.. Little David was small, but oh my, He fought big Goliath, Who lay down and dieth…
It’s a manure show that’s been on the road for literally millennia, now become legend. But as with many legends, perhaps with a few grains of truth behind it. As ever, inter-tribal warfare was rife. Sometimes, affrays were decided by nominating ‘champions’ to fight it out one-on-one – winner take all. So it’s possible that Little David and Big Goliath were indeed nominated ‘champions’.
But around the era the Bible is referencing, what we now know as a boy’s ‘slingshot’ was an entirely different beast: it was an acknowledged lethal weapon of choice, used by troops of trained specialists. The missiles slung weren’t mere pebbles but grenade-sized rocks that a practised slinger could propel with formidable force over substantial distances – and woe betide whatever they happened to impact.
So it’s certainly credible that war-weary Israelis and Philistines at one point decided to settle things via nominated champions. Yet it’s a fair bet the Israeli champion wasn’t a random shepherd boy, but a trained ‘slinger’, whose well-aimed missile could easily waste an opponent no matter how big.
Back then, extreme violence was as common as chips. The Old Testament, for example, absolutely oozes mass slaughter – somewhat at odds with its purported role as a holy manifesto. It’s full of over-the-top stuff you couldn’t make up. Except someone has.
Take the Ten Commandments tale as the Book of Exodus tells it. Moses descends Mount Sinai after forty days and nights of privations, clutching the precious Tablets inscribed by God himself, listing the ten major Do’s and Don’ts for all future mankind.
But ho..! What greets Moses on his return to the Israeli camp?! No less than the sight of many thousand happy campers dancing naked around – and paying obeisance to – a golden calf! Naturally, this seriously pisses Moses off – especially after all his privations.
Now you’d think that when Moses was making his way back down the mountain clutching the sacred Tablets, he would have snuck a peek at the Good Lord’s pick for the ten big Goods and Bads. And if so, he would have seen right up there at No. 5 – just after “Honour Thy Father and Mother” – the injunction: “Thou Shalt Not Kill”.
So what’s the very first action the top prophet takes after getting the Do’s and Don’ts checklist? He promptly trashes Commandment No. 5 bigtime by having his faithful Levites put three thousand or so of the happy campers to the sword merely for a spot of skinny dancing and calf-worshipping! Weird. And probably bad karma, too!
But Moses came out of Egypt with at least one souvenir – his name. Variations of ‘Moses’ were simply Egyptian words for ‘son’. Thus, pharaohs’ names such as Thutmose simply meant ‘son of Thut’, or Ramses – son of Ra. Just one small example of the smorgasbord of interrelated ‘Middle East’ cultures since time immemorial. All brother and sister Semites.
The major religions of Christianity, Islam and Judaism even share the same so-called Abrahamic prophets such as Noah, Abraham, Moses and Jesus. You’d think it would be a pretty cosy club. Love and harmony. But no such luck. Even schisms within the individual religions disturb the peace to no end.
So, purported religious texts like the Bible have a lot to answer for. As with the David and Goliath tale, there may be snippets of truth, but also no shortage of generous embellishment, not to mention outright fantasy and serial criminality.
The proverbial really hits the fan, though, when zealots start waving these texts around as if they were indeed literally dictated by some sort of father figure on high, and using them to justify all manner of deranged behaviour.
Throw in extra complications like the Hitlerian horrors that turbo-charged the Zionist dream of reclaiming an exclusive ‘homeland’, using decidedly dodgy 2000+ year old documents such as Bibles for land deeds, when other peoples have been inhabiting the same land for equally long, then it’s a recipe for grief. Add Big-Power involvement for good measure, and next thing it’s mega-grief.
It’d be interesting – and somewhat miraculous! – to return in another couple of thousand years and see what tales are being told about the present Middle Eastern conflicts.
A few years after the great Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen and his crack team first reached the South Pole in 2011, Amundsen accepted an invitation to address the Royal Geographical Society in London. He also accepted an English friend’s offer of accommodation while in the country. Over dinner one evening, his host’s schoolboy son – unaware of the guest’s achievements – asked the great man what he did for a living.
When Amundsen tried to briefly summarise his astounding career, throwing in a brief mention of his recent South Pole exploits, the son brashly accused him of being an imposter and cad. Why, he – the son – had just the other day read in his school textbook how the valiant Briton Captain Scott and his four staunch companions had been first to conquer the Pole, but tragically perished on the return journey.
Just a few years after the event, the story already all depended on which history book was being read.
Frank Greenall has been a copywriter, scriptwriter, artist, political cartoonist, adult literacy tutor and administrator, and Whanganui Chronicle columnist for many years, amongst numerous other sundry occupations. His cartoons and articles have appeared in most major NZ newspapers at various times. He has a BA in politics and a Masters in adult literacy/numeracy. https://stevebaron.co.nz/author/frankgreenall/
Warhater says:
Maybe the horror in Gaza is finally over. I doubt it will ever be rebuilt. Israel should hang it’s head in shame. Sure, they were provoked… but Armageddon?!