Ancient Hebrew and conservative Christian revisionism

Greetings.

Jewish date:  27 Ṭeveth 5770 (Parashath Wa’era’).

Today’s holiday:  Feast of Hilary (Roman Catholicism).

Worthy causes of the day:  “Sign the Petition | UANI:  Support Human Rights in Iran”, “Portect Children From Toxic Pesticide Clouds - The Petition Site”, “Take Action: Don't let polluters strip the Clean Air Act”, and “Repower America | Save our clean air”.

Topic 1:  “Most ancient Hebrew biblical inscription deciphered”.  Thus is it written:

Prof. Gershon Galil of the University of Haifa who deciphered the inscription: "It indicates that the Kingdom of Israel already existed in the 10th century BCE and that at least some of the biblical texts were written hundreds of years before the dates presented in current research."

And this article goes on to further discuss other violations of common scholarly assumptions which will be pretty much expected by anyone with orthodox Jewish beliefs who knows what he/she is talking about.  I know I still need to do a lot of research on the Documentary Hypothesis and Higher Criticism for the Divine Misconceptions project, but something like this does not assure me that Biblical criticism has much predictive (or in this case, postdictive) power.

Topic 2:  “Revisionaries:  How a group of Texas conservatives is rewriting your kids’ textbooks.”  This article deals with the wrong way to get one’s ideas accepted.  The right way is to give people sound, rational reasons to believe that one is right.  The problem is that creationism, pushed by conservative Christians, is implausible.  It has been soundly defeated and is considered false even among scientists who are serious Christians.  Creationists have taken to legal maneuvers to coerce people into accepting their ideas, but this has only met with at best mixed success.  This article deals with efforts by conservative Christian creationists to foist their ideas on the United States at large by using dirty political maneuvering to get their ideas, on creationism as well as history and politics—and regardless of whether or not there is any reason to believe they are correct—into textbooks used in Texas and by extension the rest of the country.  Shame on them!

Topic 3:  For today’s religious humor:  “Yup”.


Peace.

Aaron