How the Bible Is Like ISIS and HAMAS or Vice Versa

In the Middle East, the tragic news keeps getting worse and more of the same (Is that insane?!).

Consider how so many of the current horrific stories are very similar to stories in the Hebrew Bible of thousands of years ago!

This morning's reading was Genesis 34. Check especially verses 25 to 31, the story of Simon's and Levi's slaughter of a whole town of male civilians, then their theft of all the town 'loot'--including flocks, cattle, donkeys,children, women, etc.

Sound familiar?

And the central reason for the slaughter by the 2 sons of Jacob has to do with honor versus dishonor and sexuality (a rape by one individual).

Sound familiar?

Oh, there are a few differences between then and now:
while the Genesis narrative was an oral tradition which finally got written down after hundreds of years about 700-500 BCE, all the gory daily news at present is posted immediately on Twitter, the Internet, YouTube, and so forth.

Of course, I suppose all of this really is old hat if we remember as kids hearing many sermons about the suicide-bomber, Samson, who slaughtered a whole temple of civilians--men and women.

Still that was at least 1100 BCE. A long time ago. Why is HAMAS still killing civilians--such as driving cars into innocent Jewish civilians, murdering Jewish hitchhikers and then celebrating their killers as martyrs?!

The Israelis, also, are doing their part with lying, stealing, and slaughter. But at least they didn't glorify the Jewish individual who murdered the Palestinian teenager in Jerusalem several months ago.


Etymology from Latin: "in-turned position"

Vice in Latin means "a change..."

No change from thousands of years ago that I can see.

Or in the modern word: vice
"moral fault, wickedness," c.1300, from Old French vice "fault, failing, defect, irregularity, misdemeanor" (12c.), from Latin vitium "defect, offense, blemish, imperfection," in both physical and moral senses (in Medieval Latin also vicium; source also of Italian vezzo "usage, entertainment"), from PIE *wi-tio-, from root *wei- (3) "vice, fault, guilt."
Online Etymology Dictionary

What happened to the new millennium?

Why are we drowning in an Ocean of Darkness?


Daniel Wilcox

BAN HAMAS and all other religious and political thugs...GAZING ON GAZA

BAN HAMAS, and all other religious and political thugs who treat humans as cannon (er I mean rocket) fodder!


Gazing on Gaza

Like Samuel, Vonnegut gets called up from the grave

to say—
Judge for yourself,
No one’s got eyes
To see, no one with a Kingly, Martin sort of vision/dream;
Only strident martinets
Now heaving/hurling—ethically sick,
While UN diplomats ‘jawbone’ us to death
With nice resolutions; Samsonlite…

Where has their gaze gone
(I mean gaza)?
Samson’s at it again
Bringing the building down

Because he’s lost his gaze or gaza;
Only covered women (and children)
Walking wounded,
Or buried, burned, abandoned

Like the 4 youths (3 versus 1),
Or cowering from the rockets
In Tel Aviv and Gaza City

No Delilah here;
Just Philistine rage and Samson’s might,
And many less hairs,( er I mean heirs)…


Judges 15-16

--

Side note:

As you can imagine, since I lived there, knowing both

Palestinians and Israelis, this tragedy gets to me and

brings out the sarcastic.


Brief Bio:

Daniel Wilcox's wandering lines have appeared in many magazines

including Word Riot, Write Room, Camel Saloon, Dead Snakes,

and Unlikely Stories IV. Three large collections of his published

poetry are in print.


Before that, he hiked through Nebraska, Cal State University Long Beach

(Creative Writing), Montana, Pennsylvania, Europe, Palestine/Israel,

Arizona...Now he resides with his wife on the central coast of California.