10. The View From Prindle's Head

10.  The View From Prindle’s Head

3. Unintended Consequences

5.  The Jews (continuation)

by

R.E. Prindle

 

The arrival of Aryans into the Middle East, the Greeks, in the Peninsula, the Hittites in Anatolia (today’s modern Turkey), and the Persians in Persia (modern day Iran) which would soon be followed by the irruptions of the Macedonians of the Northern Peninsula and finally the Romans completely unsettled the area plunging the Eastern Med into a thousand years of warfare.  For a nice historical sketch of this period see Mika Waltari’s fabulous novel, The Egyptian.   A wonderful lovely book which portrays the period in human terms, a sort of social history.

When the Greeks arrived, they smashed the Thalassocracy of the Minoans centered on the island of Crete.  These activities displaced many peoples who became the Sea Peoples who conquered Lower Egypt- the Nile Delta.

The activities of the Hittites against the Semitic kingdoms of Mesopotamia sent shockwaves to the South and Palestine.   The Jews, who having filched some cattle from Haran on their wanderings,  Haran being another great religious center, you can see the Jews building up their portfolio, drifted down into Palestine where they led a nomadic wandering life, driven to the edge of the Eastern desert where they eked out an existence.  Finally about sixteen hundred BC they followed the hordes down into Egypt, then a disordered State because of the Sea Peoples who temporarily established themselves as counter-Pharaohs in the Delta.

According to Jewish accounts they were to remain there in the Land of Goshen for four hundred years until Moses changed their faces and gave them brand new names.   One is not to believe that the whole nation fled the fleshpots of Egypt, many remained behind, finally forming a substantial population in the Alexandria of Roman times.

In about 1200 BC having returned to Palestine through the back door according to their own account, they set about exterminating various peoples to make lebensraum for themselves.  But still they made no historical ripples.

Their greatest disaster, before the Hitler-Stalin debacle, happened in 586 BC.  That was when the Assyrians came down upon them like a wolf upon the fold and transported the two tribes, Benjamin and Judah, to Babylon.  The other ten tribes of the Samaritans had been carried off earlier and disappeared from history but became a legendary mystery.  According to various legends the ten tribes have shown up everywhere including the Indian tribes of the Southwest US.

A portion of the transported Jews of 586 returned to Israel when the Persians ended Babylonian history and assumed control of Mesopotamia 50 years later.  Only a minority of fanatics wished to return to Jerusalem, the rest of the Jewish colony preferred the fleshpots of Babylon.  Having been absent for fifty years or so the Jews were not welcomed back with open arms.  Having been always troublesome they were received with open hostility.  As they set about to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem they were forced to work with a trowel in one hand and a spear in the other.

They were able to reestablish themselves but trouble was brewing in the North.  All woe seemed to come from the North.

Philip of Macedon was drilling his troops to invade Anatolia.  While Philip died before he could realize his plans, his son, Alexander, surnamed The Great, formed the army and marched to battle.  Darius, the last Persian monarch marched forth to defend his domains.  While Darius was an Aryan, as were his Persians, his style had been Semitized by immersion in the Semitic East.

With Alexander the Western Aryans arrived in force conquering not only Persia but the whole of known Asia as far apart as the Indus valley and Egypt.  Somewhat given to riotous living Alexander partied too hardy on his return from India and expired.  The Empire was divided three ways.  While Hellenic customs temporarily displaced Oriental mores.  The Greeks demanded obeisance to Hellenic ways to transform Asia as quickly as possible, the Jews refused to commit themselves to such fashions. Or at least some of them.  The Sadducees had no trouble Hellenizing however the Maccabees refused to, threw down the gauntlet and were successful in rejecting the Hellenes.  This was Israel’s golden hour as an independent country.

Behind the Hellenes emerged the Romans and the Romans were nothing like the Hellenes.  They had much better system and organization.  They subjugated the Jews  and by so doing the current phase of history had its origins.  By this time the Jews were recognized as Jews according to modern standards.  The Jewish diaspora had begun some time before.  In addition to having large contingents that stayed behind in Babylonia after the return, the Jewish colony in Egypt, Greek Alexandria, was now very large.  The island of Cyprus was heavily Jewish while there were large Jewish settlements in the various cities, more especially in Rome.  So the modern organization of the Jewish people already existed at the beginning of Pisces which was now dawning.

Revolution seethed constantly in the Jewish brain.  Their successful revolt against the Hellenes was not forgotten and what had succeeded with the Greeks would work against the Romans they hoped.  Thus the devastating Jewish Wars that would begin in 70 AD shortly after the death of Jesus and would continue to 115 AD were already incipient.

With the Romans however came a New World Order.  The world had changed since the Hellenes.  A New Age was dawning.  The Age of Pisces was on the horizon; the Age of Aries was nearly over.

Within the Roman Empire a counter Jewish Empire existed.  According to Jewish traditions as explained in their Bible the Romans built the Empire but the Jews would inherit it.  The population dispersed throughout the Roman Empire all owed obeisance not only to Rome but, more importantly they owed obeisance to Jerusalem.  An asymmetrical war was being waged by Jerusalem in Rome.  This same asymmetrical war would be fought against any  host country resided in over the centuries including today in the United States of America.  The pattern was forming from which there would be no deviation.

In order to maintain their sub rosa empire the Jews needed money.  Hence every Jew, that is Jewish citizen, throughout the Roman Empire paid taxes to both Rome and Jerusalem.  The Romans tolerated this flow of money from Rome, the Roman capital to Jerusalem, the Jewish capital.  It is important for the future to keep this differentiation in mind, because it was standard practice wherever the Jews resided.

In order to placate the Jews they made many concessions that they didn’t make to others rather than undertake what would have been a ruinous war.  The Jews were not so reticent.  They longed for war remembering the Maccabee successes against the Hellenes and projecting them on the Romans.  The Roman tax became a fixation, a problem; the Jews did not want to pay their tax to Rome, Caesar as they personalized it.

Now, the year zero arrived, literally, the dividing line between the past and present.  Jesus of Nazareth was born.  Some thirty-three years later Jesus, with more mental clarity than the Jewish Zealots and Sicarii, was preaching that  it wise to render unto Caesar what was Caesars’s (Rome) and onto God (Jerusalem) what was God’s.  In other words pay the double taxation and shut up.

For this and many other subversive activities Jesus had to die.  Be removed from the scene and in their rebellious frenzy gripping the Jewish people he did.  The Jews willed Jesus’ death although they fobbed his execution off onto the Romans.  Here a pattern of denial was forming.  Even today the Jews refuse to accept their responsibility for the death of Jesus.

The resolution of the political problem began a couple decades later when what is known as the Jewish Wars began that lasted for fifty years and  ended with the removal of the Jews from Israel.  This event is what most people think of as the diaspora.

11. The View From Prindle’s Head follows.