AND SO, THE TIME FOR MYTHS IS AT AN END.

These articles supports the theme of "Death of an Evil God" which I wrote over 10 years ago.

Article One: From the Konformist Newsletter:

Questions Raised in Bible's Accuracy

As the millennium is upon us, at last the truth is coming out . . . Three cheers for Zeev Herzog - a brave and honest man!

Questions Raised in Bible's Accuracy By Sari Bashi Associated Press Writer

JERUSALEM -- There was no exodus from Egypt, Joshua didn't bring down the walls of Jericho, and Solomon's kingdom was a small, tribal dynasty, an Israeli archaeologist says in a new article.

Colleagues and critics accepted some of Zeev Herzog's evidence, and questioned some of it - but warned that by targeting the accuracy of the Bible the research undermines the national myths that are the basis of Jewish claims to the land of Israel.

Archaeological findings do not support and in many cases directly contradict Biblical stories describing the birth of the Jewish people, Herzog of Tel Aviv University wrote in Thursday's Haaretz daily.

He reviewed evidence now commonly accepted by most archaeologists showing that there was no exodus from Egypt at the time the Bible says Jews left Egypt en masse, and that Jericho fell in stages over an extended period - and not in a single raid led by Joshua.

More controversially, Herzog argues that the seeds of the Jewish state are to be found in the 9th century B.C. when groups of shepherds who had settled in hilltops established two rival states, Judah and Israel.

Excavations of cities from the supposedly majestic time of Kings David and Solomon a century earlier, he said, revealed that the "cities" consisted of scattered buildings and the kingdoms were small, provincial dynasties that exercised no real claim over the land.

Herzog said Jerusalem, the majestic capital built by King David to rule over an empire that spanned much of the Middle East, was at best a small fiefdom.

Fellow archaeologist Amnon Ben-Tor of the rival Hebrew University, a top critic of Herzog and his post-modernist school of thought, said Herzog uses archaeology to satisfy a political agenda, namely debunking the legends upon which the Jewish state was founded.

Ben-Tor agreed that "there is a large measure of glorification in the Bible," but said that inscriptions and excavations from the 10th century B.C. show the ancient Hebrews had established a state ruled by David and Solomon, that was substantial if not magnificent.

Lawmaker Tommy Lapid, a secular rights champion who believes human authors wrote the Bible, accused Herzog of trying to undermine the educational and ideological basis of the state.

Herzog is "feeding propaganda to Israel's enemies who want to negate our right to be here," Lapid said. He said the Bible contained many myths, but that its basic historical facts document Jewish claims on Israel and form the basis for Jewish history, culture, language and literature.

Herzog's article addressed archaeological discoveries from the last few decades, when archaeologists in Israel broke away from seeking out physical evidence for Biblical events. Their findings have not entered the public consciousness, said archaeologist Moshe Kochavi of Tel Aviv University, because Israelis are not ready to abandon their national myths.

Kochavi said books publishing these findings have met with particularly vehement opposition from the 30 percent of Israeli Jews who define themselves as in some way religious, many of whom believe the Bible is the word of God.

"The religious scream out when books like these, saying there was no conquest and that David's period was not majestic, are written," he said. Israeli adults and schoolchildren regularly tour archaeological sites that guides say prove the Bible was right, and the state devotes substantial resources to excavations thought likely to reveal evidence of Biblical footsteps.

Liberal Education Minister Yossi Sarid, who recently stirred controversy by expunging from textbooks what he says are myths of modern Israeli history, said Herzog's work deserved consideration. "If it's interesting and well-founded, I don't see why it shouldn't be presented in schools as an option," he told Haaretz.

c Copyright 1999 The Associated Press
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/19991029/aponline013030_000.htm

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Article Two demonstrates the exposure of Zionism, and the path to its weakening and eventual self-destruction, as prophesied.

From Yahoo's Asia - News Monday, January 31 10:23 PM SGT

Syrian government daily says Israel created "myth of Holocaust"

DAMASCUS, Jan 31 (AFP) - A Syrian government newspaper accused Israel Monday of creating "the myth of the Holocaust," enraging Israeli leaders who warned that the tirade could hinder efforts at forging peace between the two arch-foes. The official newspaper Tishrin accused the Jewish state of using the "myth" of the murder of millions of Jews by the Nazis during the Second World War to "blackmail and terrorise politicians and intellectuals around the world."

Israel's Minister for Diaspora Affairs Michael Melchior, a rabbi who chairs a forum for coordinating the struggle against anti-Semitism, expressed his revulsion at the remarks.

"It is not possible to show restraint over these unbridled statements which deny the Holocaust and compare Israel to the Nazis," he said in a statement.

"The Syrians know no bounds in anti-Israel incitement, both morally and diplomatically; this makes continued dialogue with them more difficult."

The two neighbours resumed negotiations in December after a lapse of almost four years but their talks broke off three weeks ago over Damascus's demands that Israel make a commitment to return the Golan Heights which it occupied in

The deadlock has seen an upsurge of fighting in Israeli-occupied southern Lebanon between Israeli forces and the Syrian-backed Hezbollah guerrillas.

Three Israeli soldiers were killed on Monday and the number two of Israel's proxy militia Sunday, sparking Israeli leaders to accuse Syria of abetting the attacks in an effort to bring pressure to bear on the stalled talks.

Tishrin accused Israel and the Zionist movement of deliberately fostering the "myth" of the Holocaust so as to "continue to extract money from European countries on the pretext of compensating the victims."

"Individuals and the media in Europe are beginning to ask questions in order to know the truth which has been altered by the Zionists, which is why the latter staged an international congress in Stockholm recently to prop up their lies and give them sense."

Representatives of 46 countries, including heads of state, joined an international conference in the Swedish capital last Wednesday to highlight the Holocaust and press for continued efforts to fight anti-Semitism and racism.

"There were more than 50 million victims of Nazism during the Second World War, including Russians, Poles, French and Italians ... but the Zionist movement wants to efface all memory of the deaths of all these other victims and concentrate solely on the plight of the Jews," Tishrin said.

"Zionism ... embroiders stories about the Holocaust by exaggerating it out of all proportion ... in order to trick and blackmail international public opinion," the paper charged. It accused Israelis of seeking to silence "those voices which speak the truth .. and which are beginning to influence public opinion in Europe," and cited as examples the controversial British revisionist historian David Irving and French philosopher Roger Garaudy.

They deny the existence of the gas chambers which almost all other historians say the Nazis used to exterminate millions of European Jews.

Tishrin accused Israeli leaders of "using the myth of the Holocaust as a sword of Damocles against all those opposed to Zionism and its aggressive, expansionist policies by describing them as anti-Semitic."

The paper slammed this "intellectual physical terrorism" and insisted that it was in fact Israel which "despite presenting itself as the heir of the victims of the Holocaust commits crimes against the Arabs more horrible than those committed by the Nazis, who never expelled a whole people from its country."

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