Brit-Am Research Sources
# The secret of the LORD is for those who fear Him, And He will make them know His Covenant" (Psalm 25:14).
BARS-156
Brit-Am Research Sources
https://hebrewnations.com/features/bars2r2/bars156.html
Contents:
1. Britain, the Bible, and Balfour: Jonathan Immanuel's new book
By NEVILLE TELLER
2. Who Were the Philistines, and Where Did They Come From?
3. Pipes, 'The Great Inquiry into National Character' Academic Questions (long), #1755
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1. Britain, the Bible, and Balfour: Jonathan Immanuel's new book
By NEVILLE TELLER
Published: MARCH 12, 2020 13:25
https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Britain-the-Bible-and-Balfour-Jonathan-Immanuels-new-book-620701
Extracts:
The title of Jonathan Immanuel's new book 'Britain, the Bible and Balfour, provides in summary his original, insightful and persuasive thesis. With impressive scholarship, and supported by a wealth of historic and literary sources, Immanuel demonstrates how and why Great Britain reached the point in 1917 of declaring to the world that it favored the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.
As his title suggests, Immanuel traces the influence played by the Bible in shaping Britain's attitude to Jewish restoration, until its culmination in the Balfour Declaration. The fact not included in his title is that it is the Hebrew Bible he is referring to the Old Testament.
The seminal event in the long story, the seed that took root, was Henry VIII's search in 1525, which became increasingly desperate, for a theological justification for divorcing his first wife Catherine and marrying Anne Boleyn. In his struggle to obtain Pope Clement VII's agreement to annul his marriage, Henry turned to the Old Testament and to Bible scholars, some of them Jewish. He and his advisers argued his case by reference to Mosaic Law.... So Henry broke with Roman Catholicism and established the Protestant Church of England, with himself as its supreme head..... English Protestantism was linked to the Old Testament and to Judaism. The subsequent rise of Puritanism in the 17th century, its strong belief in a Jewish return to Zion, and Oliver Cromwell�s philosemitism, was a natural consequence. The Hebrew Bible had become embedded in English thought.
.... Immanuel draws on a wide range of political and literary sources that demonstrate how deeply, despite its various opponents over the years, the theo-political vision of Zionism permeated English national thought.
A cavalcade of eminent personalities throng Immanuel's pages, from Machiavelli to Napoleon Bonaparte, from Sir Walter Raleigh to Sir Isaac Newton, from Francis Bacon and John Milton to William Wordsworth and his contemporaries Byron, Shelley, Coleridge and Blake.
Each acted as a milestone of varying significance in England�s long journey toward Balfour. Beacons on the route were Benjamin Disraeli, both as novelist and as prime minister, and the philosemitism of the eminent Victorian woman novelist, George Eliot, whose Daniel Deronda seemed to many like a clarion call for the establishment of a Jewish nation state in Palestine..... Balfour was the logical outcome of discernible influences stretching back centuries into British history.
.... In his introduction, Immanuel maintains that the idea of Jewish restoration as promulgated in the Balfour Declaration 'was only possible in Britain.' A little known side-track in history's winding road is that Britain's Balfour Declaration was preceded by a letter from the head of France's foreign office, Jules Cambon, issued on the authority of French prime minister, Alexandre Ribot.
On June 4, 1917, Nahum Sokolow, secretary-general of the World Zionist Organization, received the following: 'You kindly explained to me your project to develop Jewish colonization in Palestine. You believe that... it would be an act of justice and reparation to help in the rebirth, under the protection of the Allied Powers, of Jewish nationality in the land from which the people of Israel were exiled so many centuries ago. The French government, which entered the current war to defend a people unjustly attacked... can feel nothing but sympathy for your cause, the success of which is linked to that of the Allies. I am happy to give you such an assurance.'
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2. Who Were the Philistines, and Where Did They Come From?
https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/people-cultures-in-the-bible/who-were-philistines-where-did-they-come-from/
Investigating the biblical and archaeological evidence for the Philistines' origins
Megan Sauter March 23, 2022
Who Were the Philistines, and Where Did They Come From?
.... In the Spring 2022 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, Daniel M. Master of Wheaton College looks at the biblical and archaeological evidence for the Philistines' roots in 'Piece by Piece: Exploring the Origins of the Philistines.'
... In the Bible, the Philistines are remembered as an uncircumcised people with advanced technology and a formidable military (Judges 14:3; 1 Samuel 13:19�20; Exodus 13:17). The Philistines frequently encroached on Israelite territory, which led to some battles, including the famous clash between David, the Israelite, and Goliath, the Philistine (1 Samuel 17). They were condemned for being idol worshipers (1 Samuel 5:1=5) and soothsayers (Isaiah 2:6). In short, the Philistines are portrayed quite negatively in the Bible.
They lived in the cities of Ashdod, Ashkelon, Ekron, Gath, and Gaza� the heartland of ancient Philistia on the Mediterranean Sea's southeastern shore..... The findings from these cities show that the Philistines had distinct pottery, weapons, tools, and houses. They also ate pork and had vast trade networks.
Philistine culture flourished during the Iron Age (12th through sixth centuries B.C.E.). Similar to the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, the Philistines lost their autonomy toward the end of the Iron Age. They became subservient and paid tribute to the Assyrians, Egyptians, and then Babylonians.... the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar destroyed disloyal Ashkelon and Ekron and carried off many Philistines into exile.
.... The Peleset, whom scholars connect with the Philistines, was named as one of these tribes. On the way to Egypt, the confederation had traveled through the eastern Mediterranean and destroyed numerous cities, including Ugarit on the Syrian coast. Ammurapi, the last king of Ugarit, had written to surrounding kingdoms for help, when the 'seven ships of the enemy' had arrived to ransack his kingdom. By the time help had come, though, it was too late: Ugarit lay in ruins.
....
The biblical authors remembered the Philistines as coming from a foreign land, from �Caphtor� (Genesis 10:14; Deuteronomy 2:23; 1 Chronicles 1:12; Amos 9:7; Jeremiah 47:4). Scholars have long drawn a connection between Caphtor and Crete. This is largely based on Egyptian inscriptions and paintings of �Keftiu� from the 15th and 14th centuries B.C.E., wherein the Keftiu are linked to the Minoan civilization, which was centered on Crete.
.... Master notes parallels between some early Philistine objects, especially from the 12th and 11th centuries B.C.E., and Aegean and Cypriot artifacts. Elements of Philistine material culture, then, also hint at an Aegean or Mediterranean origin for the Philistines.
New evidence from Ashkelon further supports this connection..... they were able to analyze DNA from seven of these individuals. When they looked at the 12th-century infants� DNA, they discovered that the infants had some European ancestry. Crete proved to be one of the best matches for the infants' heritage, when considering all of their genetic material. Yet other places in the western Mediterranean, such as Iberia, also provided a good match.
.... in a seventh-century inscription from the Philistine city of Ekron. The inscription names Ekron's king as Ikausu, which means 'Achaean' or 'Greek.' The name Ikausu (or Achish) also appears in 1 Samuel 21:10 as Gath's king.
Master concludes that the new DNA evidence, coupled with the biblical and archaeological testimonies, suggests that the Philistines originated in Crete. That is not to say that the Philistines were a homogenous group, all coming from the Aegean world, but it seems that many Philistines did indeed migrate from there, bringing with them vestiges of Minoan culture.
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3. Pipes, 'The Great Inquiry into National Character' Academic Questions (long), #1755
by Daniel Pipes
Academic Questions
Spring 2022
https://www.danielpipes.org/20976/the-great-inquiry-into-national-character
Extracts:
Ascribing a national character, usually negative, to other peoples goes very far back; Hippocrates connected Europeans' martial qualities to their climate.[22] More broadly, the ancient Greeks developed the concept of nomos, meaning conventions, rules and customs people take for granted. The Egyptian priest Manetho was an early antisemite. Medieval Muslims spoke of "a cowardly Turk, a covetous Arab, an uncivilized Persian, or a choleric Negro."[23]....
As the disciplines of sociology, anthropology, and psychology developed, a great debate developed over the issue of external characteristics (climate, geography, type of government, etc.) versus heredity. The former, a minority opinion, won the support of the historian William Dalton Babington who averred that "there is no truth in the ancestral theory of national characters."[26] Or Sidney Gulick, an American professor of theology living in Japan, argued that "the more outstanding national characteristics are largely the result of special social conditions, rather than of inherent national character."[27]
German romantics and nationalists scrutinized their own and others' Volksgeist (national spirit) in a systematic way and hoped to make an exact science of it to discern a nation's unique attributes. Prominent figures in this endeavor included such luminaries as Johann Gottfried von Herder (1744-1803), Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859), and the co-founders of folk psychology (Volkerpsychologie), Heymann Steinthal (1823-99) and Moritz Lazarus (1824-1903). Over time, German scholars promoted the idea of the nation as a whole mystically bound through a shared racial heritage. Wilhelm Wundt, the founder of psychology, wrote a book in the midst of World War I which argued that wartime brings out national character more clearly than peacetime.[38] Inspired by Nazi ideology, German social scientists went on to develop a vast pseudo-science based on racial characteristics; the eminent psychologist Erich R. Jaensch used his prestige, his power, and the results of his research into vision and memory to draw up bio-psychological types and a purported scientific basis for Jewish racial inferiority,[39] thereby winning Hitler's favor. The Nazi regime, anthropologist Margaret Mead notes, even made "a systematic attempt to alter [the German] national character."[40] German efforts imbued the idea of national character, in the words of Austrian sociologist Frederick Hertz, with "a new and sinister significance."[41]
Appendix: Definitions
A roster of distinguished authors has defined national character; here are some. Key words are bolded:
Gordon Allport: "members of a nation, despite ethnic, racial, religious, or individual differences among them, do resemble one another in certain fundamental patterns of belief and conduct, more than they resemble members of other nations."[120]
Jahangir Amuzegar: "if a majority of people routinely display certain attitudes and behavior patterns not found as commonly or as frequently elsewhere, they may be said to possess a specific national character."[121]
Ernest Barker: it is "the sum of acquired tendencies built up by its leaders in every sphere of its activity, with the consent and co-operation � active in some, but more or less passive in others � of the general community."[122]
Morroe Berger: "the members of a nation, despite admitted differences among them, resemble one another in certain basic patterns of behavior and belief ... more than they resemble the members of other nations."[123]
Richard Chenevix: it is the sum of "prominent and leading features by which that nation is distinguished."[124]
Henry V. Dicks: "the broad, frequently recurring regularities of certain prominent behaviour traits and motivations of a given ethnic or cultural group."[125]
Alex Inkeles: "the dispositions built in the personalities of the individuals who make up a society" and national character is "the sum of such qualities across the individuals who make up a national population."[132]
Hans Kohn: "Life in a common territory, subject to the same influences of nature and ... history and legal systems, produces certain common attitudes and traits, often called national character."[133]
Richard Pipes: it "represents the spirit not of an entire nation, but only of that social group which at a given time happens to control the instruments of power and the organs of opinion."[13