Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

It is my impression it is too early to state this is the beginning point. We are talking the approximate time of Darius, Cyrus etc, and there were excellent roads around there. Why might this not be a major centre of Zoroanstrianism further East??

and when the Byzantines receeded from the region, the Arabs just filled the power vacuum. No conquest needed. They just took over. When why? I agree they were hit very hard by various plagues, but that was normal and they recovered quickly. Are you arguing for an Eastern Dark Ages? Climate? Volcano...

And should this sub forum be Hebrew texts? Jewish emphasising one tribe?

I am being thick here, but are the words Saracen and Samaritan related?

Kalisch is correct - the koranic Mohammed from Mecca and Medina is fiction and never existed.

But someone did push start this religion and its empires form the Levant area - not Arabia.

I go with Tom Holland here - there was a war lord from the Jerusalem Damascus area with end of the world and messianic ideas who did lead "Arab" armies - but not from Arabia, who may or may not have been called Mohammed - was it a name then? He was probably some form of xian, or an interes...

Although the majority of the relevant sources are of Christian origin, collectively they reflect the religious diversity of the early medieval Near East, including witnesses from each of the major Christian communities as well as a Jewish, a Samaritan, and even an Islamic witness to this discordant...

The first kibbutzim[edit] The kibbutzim were founded by members of the Bilu movement who emigrated to Palestine. Like the members of the First Aliyah who came before them, most members of the Second Aliya wanted to be farmers. Joseph Baratz, one of the pioneers of the kibbutz movement, wrote a book...

For those interested in early Christianity, the Jubilee year is completely meaningless. All we know about first century Judaism comes from Josephus, and maybe a little for Philo. They don't mention it at all. It is pointless to spend time on it. Fascinating! What is pointless about looking in detai...

Well well!

The Lord said to Moses at Mount Sinai, 2 “Speak to the Israelites

Now why would the Judaic rabbis want to abolish Jubilee? Self interest? Writing Israel out of their history?