Thread: Ulrich Bretscher's SMOKELESS BLACK POWDER & HANDGONNE web page. Re-found!

@mimms2

Groucho said it, I am but his imperfect follower! (-: He heh.

I admire your fortitude in boycotting everything Israeli, but if consistent one should really boycott China too, given they annexed the Tibet just a couple years out from the announcement of Israel and have a generally atrocious record re human rights. But at least they are better at making victims disappear and not turn up on BBC World to complain about their lot.

Much scholarship became outdated with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, documents that were thought to be late compositions were found among the DSS dating several hundred years BCE in some cases. Even older, the Hinnom scrolls were from the pre-exilic period (1000-600BCE), so whatever Mitchener based his 400BCE date on, even if a qualified guess he is since then shown to be demonstrably wrong, at least as far as Mosaic Judaism religion is concerned. Mitchener was not stupid, but just did not have the benefit of the Dead Sea scroll evidence, or the Hinnom scrolls -- all come to light of day since the 1960s when he wrote his novel. That said, Judaism has clearly changed over the years and there is no doubt the Exile period was a period of consolidation and reflection within Judaism, so and the present form of Judaism is very much shaped in the Babylonian exile (cf. much of the Talmud, fatter then the entire bible as we know it), and at least in that way the 400bce date is correct insofar it was a watershed period for Judaism.

I've not seen that wall in person. Sure it's not a perfect solution, but the solution is shaped by the problem it solves. We both recall why they ended up having to build it after Ariel Sharon let the PLO back in from the Lebanon and elsewhere -- something he was criticised for, especially later when things turned nasty, intifada, etc.). But when Sharon did it I thought (and I still do) that he did the right thing by them.