life that time in northern and western regions bordering on Mesopotamia. But who needs today this truth?”
Nikolai Andreevich grinned, “Well, the more I live in this world, the more I get convinced that though science as a faithful dog goes ahead of its master, Politics, it’s still bound with the short dog’s lead and muzzled.
“But why did the Archons need that Khana…, to say briefly, that region?” Andrew asked.
“That region was the most significant in the ancient world. Actually it was located on the borders of Africa, Asia and Europe, and correspondingly, main trade ways by land which connected ancient states of these parts of the world. It was the golden crossroads of the trade ways.”
“Hem, the crossroads of trade ways? I lost sight of it,” Volodya uttered puzzled. “Now it’s clear. The trade means income. And big trade means big income. If you control it, you have power and influence.”
“Exactly. It’s politics… So, Abram went there together with his family, his nephew Lot, with his rich property, with many people, slaves, cattle. And quietly but not always peacefully he tried to strengthen his influence in this region, as it will be written ennobly later, he led there the life of a ‘patriarchal head of the clan of cattle-breeders and nomads’.”
“It looks like a ‘reconnaissance operation’,” Volodya commented it with a smile.
“Almost… Later, in the religious version, such a sudden campaign of Abraham will be motivated by trust and devotion to the deity who required from his as it is written in Genesis (12-1), ‘go to the land I will show you’. It will be decorated with the legends how Abraham, the chosen one by Jahweh, searched for the highest and the strongest power in the world of elements and how he was finally convinced, in the light of highly spiritual truth that everything has its limit except for God-Creator. “
“It’s quite convincing,” Nikolai Andreevich uttered shrugging shoulders.
“However one should note that Jews started to worship Jahweh as God much later, almost in five hundred years after Abraham,” Sensei went on. “And the figure of Jahweh evolved in these tribes from the cult of god Jew who was commonly worshiped in Phoenicia. Abraham and his offsprings who moved to Khanaan tried to get closer to the local population and began to worship the local god of Khanaaneans called El Shaddai as he was called in the city of Khevron. The Khanaanean god El (‘Almighty’) headed all gods according to belief of the local population and was considered to be the highest authority in all divine and human affairs. In different Khanaanean cities he was called in various ways, for example, El Shaddai (‘Almighty’), El Olam (‘Eternal’), and in the city of Salim (which was later called by Jews as Shalem and afterwards Jerusalem) El Elion (‘the Most High’).
“But that’s even not the point. Jewish priests told everybody in the religious legends about highly spiritual truth but they taught their disciples completely different things, in particular, that all means are good for reaching the set goal. If you have time, read in the chapter 12 of Genesis the typical examples. When people began to suffer from hunger in Khanaanean lands, Abraham moved to Egypt. There he posed his wife Sarah as his sister and for selfish ends actually sold her to the harem of the pharaoh. And due to it he carelessly lived in Egypt all these years of hunger in Khanaan. Or read further about his grandsons, when the younger brother Jacob suggested to his elder brother Esav, when he was hungry, to buy from him a apiece of bread and a plate of lentil for the primogeniture of Esav. Or how that very Jacob received by cunning a blessing from his father which was predestined to Esav. Or how in the chapter 32 of Genesis the legend tells about Someone who fought with Jacob in the night and having blessed him called him with the name of Israel, what means ‘God contended’. It is emphasized in the legend that it was namely Jacob who became the forefather of the Jewish (Israelitish) people… By the way, do you know what the word ‘Jews’ mean?”
“’Jews’? Well, I have never thought about it,” Nikolai Andreevich answered for all. “And what does it mean?”
“This word originates from a word-combination meaning ‘to pass through’, and not ‘arrived from a strange land’ as they try to present it today. The supreme Jewish priests who belonged to the caste of Archons called themselves as ‘passing through the bridges of time’. Briefly it sounded as ‘Jews’. And ‘Jewish people’ is considered as the people which belonged to those ‘Jews’, that is priests.”
“How come ‘belonged’? Like a thing? They were their slaves or what?” Stas asked.
“Well, something like that,” Sensei answered.
“Here you are!”
“So… Or read as Jacob’s sons after the hint of one of their brothers, Judas, sold their brother Josef for twenty pieces of silver to the merchants for further reselling as a slave to Egypt because he was a favourite son of their father and told him about smearing facts about them.”
“Well, all of them were ‘good’!” Volodya smiled.
“Judas?! The brothers sold for twenty pieces of silver?!” Victor got surprised. “The history repeats itself!”
“That’s why it’s the history,” Sensei uttered. “By the way, what is Josef concerned… Coming back to our conversation about Jews adopting knowledge of ancient peoples. Even if not to mention not the best political reality of that time but to be guided exclusively by the legends, the very biblical Josef, the son of Jacob, when he was in Egypt in the city called in the Bible as On, he married the Egyptian Asenef, the daughter of a priest called Potifer who was known in the city. And the biblical city of On is the famous in the ancient world Egyptian city of Iunu, or as it was called by Greeks, Heliopolis (‘the City of Sun’). For that time it was one of the biggest centres of Egyptian religion. It was a place where the cult of Ra, the god of Sun, originated as well as the widespread cosmology describing genesis of the world.”
“Where was this city located in Ancient Egypt?” Kostya asked.
“Today this place is a suburb of Cairo.”
“I see.”
“And the prototype of Josef, is that a real figure in history?” Nikolai Andreevich asked.
“Yes. But it was all much simpler. Of course, nobody sold this man as a slave. It was just an epoch when the Hyksos reigned in Egyptian state. And he was one of the Habiru clan, foreigners of Semite origin who started to gain political weight in this country. So the historical character was written from this man. The rest was supplemented by different fairy-tales, including by the way an Egyptian fairy-tale about two brothers (Bata and Anubis) and the infidel wife, besides, by the symbols of Sumerian cryings of goddess Inanna about Dumuzi etc. So a lot of things were adopted by Jewish priests from Egypt.”
“And the story about Moses?”
“This one, too… But it was not so colourful as it is presented today. Despite the fact that I wearied you a little bit with this topic, I will tell you this story in details, since it is quite illustrative and similar to another story which I will tell you a bit later. I do it for you to understand how the history is written and the religion is founded, how it was in that times and the most important, what is going on today… Moses (Moshe) was born in the east of Egypt, not far from the Red sea. The religious legend that he was brought up by the very daughter of pharaoh after she pulled him out from the water, or rather after she had found him in the crib near the water, it was of course a figment in order to ascribe more significance to the main character in the light of religion. And this figment appeared due to the different interpretation of the name of Moses: the Jewish verb mašah means ‘pull out’, whereas in Egyptian language, in that very
