FailedMessiah.com

Today in History: The First Philo-Semitic Novel Is Published

Exactly 140 years ago today, the first installment of George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda, the world’s first great philo-semitic novel was published – by a lapsed Christian who had more in common with Baruch Spinoza than she did with any priest, vicar or rabbi.

Leading Israeli Right Wing Activists Praise… US Senator Joseph McCarthy

"[I'm] not familiar with the exact historical details regarding Joseph McCarthy, but you see who is coming out against him currently and you can't help but be in his favor."

Is Tu B'Shvat Really A Jewish Holiday?

Is Tu B'Shvat (which we celebrate today) really an ancient Jewish holiday? Or is it simply a tax day, the day that marked the start of the new tithing cycle for fruit in which Hebrews paid their fruit tax (so to speak) to Temple authorities? And why is the greatest Jewish false messiah of all time so closely linked to the day?

The Earliest War

Archeologists have found massacred human remains that point to ancient warfare – the most ancient warfare ever known. 

Rabbis Again Claim King David’s Tomb Threatened By Government, Say Temple Artifacts And Davidic Kings’ Graves In Danger

"In the history books about King Herod, it is written that, at the time, he and his soldiers tried to enter the tombs of King David and a heavenly fire consumed them. How is it that there is no protest? This is a scandal and a disgrace to dig among the tombs of the Davidic kings. There is a hidden hand here that is trying to hide it all - maybe someone is trying to win favors with the Christians."

Misrepresenting The Holocaust Yet Again

"A…point of contention is the gross underrepresentation of Orthodox survivors among the videotaped testimonies that appear throughout the museum. There are approximately 50-60 video monitors of varying sizes in the Holocaust History Museum, which continually play prerecorded personal testimonies of survivors. When the Holocaust History Museum first opened in 2005, only one of the dozens of men, and none of the dozens of women, speaking on these videos were identifiably religious. Chassidic and Chareidi survivors were not represented at all. This denied visitors the opportunity to hear from survivors who view the Holocaust from a Torah perspective. After all, the purpose of a museum is to present an honest and complete picture of its subject. If any museum omits a significant segment of its theme, it is simply not doing its job."

Roman Toilets Gave No Clear Health Benefit; Romanization Actually Spread Parasites, Researchers Find

The study found fish tapeworm eggs to be surprisingly widespread in the Roman Period compared to Bronze and Iron Age Europe. One possibility suggested for the rise in fish tapeworm is the Roman love of a sauce called garum.

Video: Outreach Rabbi Who Said Fewer Than 1 Million Real Jews Died In The Holocaust Is Also A Racist

Rabbi Yosef Mizrachi (also spelled "Mizrahi") claimed fewer than 1 million actual Jews were murdered in the Holocaust. He retracted that claim after being confronted with evidence. But that isn't Mizrachi's only controversial statement by far. Take, for example, what he says about African-Americans.

Earliest Irish Population Had High Percentage Of Middle Eastern Origin, Scientists Find

The early farmer woman, who lived 5,200 years ago, has a majority ancestry originating ultimately in the Middle East, where agriculture was invented. She had black hair, brown eyes and resembled today's southern Europeans.

Sefardi Haredi Rabbi Says Fewer Than 1 Million Jews Were Killed In The Holocaust

 Brooklyn's own haredi village idiot Rabbi Yosef Mirzrachi (sometimes spelled "Mizrahi") says less than 1 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust, not 6 million, because 80% of European Jews were assimilated and most were the non-Jewish offspring of intermarriage – an insane claim if there ever was one. But Mizrachi also thinks Theodor Herzl (b.1860,d.1904) lived 120 years before the Holocaust.

Chinese Bone Points To Mysterious Species Of Pre-Modern Human

A 14,000 year-old thigh bone found in China suggests an ancient species of human thought to be long extinct may have actually survived until as recently as the end of the last Ice Age and coexisted with modern humans.

Ancient History? Religion And Politics Leads To Social Tension And Conflict, Both Then And Now

New anthropological research appears to show that in the ancient world, religion was the great divider – not  the great uniter as previously proposed.

Archaeologists Find Shocking Ancient Hebrew Letter Inscription Carved On Marble Slab

Excavations at the Kursi site on the shores of the Sea of Galilee have uncovered an inscription in Hebrew letters engraved on a large marble slab, dating back ca. 1,600 years. No similar artifact has been previously found. “The presence of a Jewish site on the eastern shores of the Sea of Galilee is a very rare phenomenon. Until now we have not had any proof that Jewish settlements existed during this period along the eastern shores of the Sea of Galilee.”

‘Virtual Fossil’ Reveals Last Common Ancestor Of Humans And Neanderthals

We know we share a common ancestor with Neanderthals, the extinct species that were our closest prehistoric relatives. But what this ancient ancestral population looked like remains a mystery, because fossils from the Middle Pleistocene period, during which the lineage split, are extremely scarce and fragmentary. But for the first time researchers have now applied digital “morphometrics” and statistical algorithms to recreate a 3D skull of the last common ancestor of Homo sapiens and Neanderthals. And this is what our common ancestor looked like.

A BBC Documentary On The Rescue Of Ethiopian Jews Lies

A BBC documentary on the rescue of Ethiopian Jews lies, not because the BBC is anti-Semitic or any of the other canards normally thrown at it, but because a former Mossad agent, intentionally or not, has tried to sell the world a story that isn't completely true.

Jews Again Try To Get Excommunication Of Spinoza Lifted, Rabbi Again Refuses To Do It

Orthodox Rabbi Natan Lopez Cardozo argued the ban should be lifted, even though Spinoza's ideas about Judaism were wrong. Cardoza blamed Spinoza's supposed theological errors on Spinoza's purported lack of familiarity with the Talmud and said when he was growing up, the Lopez Cardozo family only had one rabbi – Baruch Spinoza.

Another Post On Chabad's Straight-Armed Menorah

The idea that something found that dates to the era when the Jerusalem was controlled by Christians and pagans, an era in which Jews were almost always banned from living in the city, could somehow prove something about a Temple that was destroyed hundreds of years earlier is bizarre. But that is exactly the claim some Chabad hasidim are making.

Does Chabad Mistranslate The Torah And Misrepresent Rabbinic Opinions In Order To Promote Its Last Rebbe As the Messiah?

For a Jewish religious group to intentionally misrepresent or mistranslate a biblical text is an awful thing. Artscroll has done this, most infamously with its translation of the text of Shir HaShirim (Song of Songs). But Chabad has done something arguably worse – it misrepresents centuries of rabbinic opinions, known history and the mistranslates the Torah itself, all in a quest to promote its late rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson (d. 1994) as the messiah.

What Did That Menorah Look Like, Anyway? Why Chabad's Late Rebbe Was Completely And Totally Wrong

The late rebbe of Chabad-Lubavitch, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, insisted the Temple menorah had straight branches coming out from its trunk at sharp angles. Schneerson's claim – which is not backed by any historical or archaeological evidence at all, has become a Chabad totem anyway – hence the strangely shaped giant menorahs Chabad uses on Hanukkah to represent "authentic Judaism" to the public. Here's proof Schneerson was completely, totally and spectacularly wrong.

New Research Differentiates Facial Growth In Neanderthals And Modern Humans

"This is an important piece of the puzzle of evolution. Some have thought that Neanderthals and humans should not be considered distinct branches of the human family tree. However, our findings, based upon facial growth patterns, indicate they are…"

Why Jews Should Be Fearful Of Today's Anti-Refugee Bias

Anti-refugee bias is strong in the US and Israel. But history shows this type of anti-refugee fear-mongering has very negative consequences – consequences you didn't learn from your rosh yeshiva or Rush Limbaugh.

Why Is Hanukkah An 8-Day Holiday Based On A Miracle That Never Happened?

If there wasn’t an eight-day oil miracle why does Hanukkah last eight days and why is it celebrated with candle-lighting?

Food History: The Origin Of Ketchup

Where did ketchup (or catsup, or katchup) come from and why do some brands, like Heinz, specify they are "tomato ketchup"? Is there any other kind? And what's with those names?

Seal Of King Hezkiyahu Found Next To Temple Mount In Jerusalem

The Ophel excavations at the foot of the southern wall of the Temple Mount, conducted by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Institute of Archaeology under the direction of Dr. Eilat Mazar, have unearthed an impression of the royal seal of King Hezekiah (727–698 BCE).

Human Nature’s Dark Side Helped Us Spread Across The World

New archaeological research suggests betrayals of trust are the missing link in understanding the rapid spread of our own species around the world. As commitments to others became more essential to survival, and human groups ever more motivated to identify and punish those who cheat, the ‘dark’ side of human nature also developed. Moral disputes motivated by broken trust and a sense of betrayal became more frequent and motivated early humans to put distance between them and their rivals.

Jews, Usury, And The Birth Of Modern Finance

"…Anxious to catch the Italians and lured by interest rates as high as 43 percent, German cities cleared the field of incumbents. Augsburg expelled its Jews in 1438 and used the gravestones from the Jewish cemetery to build a new city hall. A textile trader named Hans Meuthing became the first Augsburger to try finance on a major scale. He made a large loan to Archduke Sigmund of Tyrol, which was backed…by the output of the Schwaz silver mine. Others jumped in, replacing Jewish lenders on transactions, large and small. The German satirist Sebastian Brant noted the development in his best-selling Ship of Fools (1494): 'You borrow ten, eleven's due. They're more usurious than the Jew. Their business now the Jews may lose, for it is done by Christian Jews.'…"

“Fourth Strand” Of European Ancestry Originated With Hunter-Gatherers Isolated By Ice Age

The first sequencing of ancient genomes extracted from human remains that date back to the Late Upper Palaeolithic period over 13,000 years ago has revealed a previously unknown “fourth strand” of ancient European ancestry.

An Almost Unknown Holocaust Anniversary

Today is the anniversary of a sad day in world history, a Holocaust anniversary most of us likely have never heard of.

Early Farmers Exploited Beehive Products At Least 8,500 Years Ago, Scientists Show

"The most obvious reason for exploiting the honeybee would be for honey, as this would have been a rare sweetener for prehistoric people. However, beeswax could have been used in its own right for various technological, ritual, cosmetic and medicinal purposes, for example, to waterproof porous ceramic vessels."

“Stunning” Ancient Judean Seal Found – In Non-Jewish Grave In Southern Russia

A 2,700-year-old seal from ancient Judea was found in a 2,000-year-old unlooted grave this summer. The find is spectacular for several reasons, not the least of which is that the grave is located in southern Russia near the Black Sea, and the woman warrior buried in it does not appear to have been Jewish.

Plague In Humans “Twice As Old” As Previously Thought, Ancient DNA Reveals

New research dates plague back to the early Bronze Age, showing it had been endemic in humans across Eurasia for millennia prior to first recorded global outbreak, and that ancestral plague mutated into its bubonic, flea-borne form between the 2nd and 1st millennium BC. (It was an outbreak of this plague and the false belief that people were dying because the "Jews poisoned the wells" that led to the first European pogroms and other forms of persecution against Jews.)

Life On Earth Started Much Earlier Than Previously Believed, New Discovery Shows

Geochemists have found evidence that life likely existed on Earth at least 4.1 billion years ago — 300 million years earlier than previous research suggested. The discovery indicates that life may have begun shortly after the planet formed 4.54 billion years ago (roughly 4.54 billion years before Adam and Noah, in haredi and fundamentalist Christian terms).

Israel's Prime Minister Says Holocaust Was All The Idea Of Palestinian Leader

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu falsely claimed this week that all Hitler wanted to do is expel the Jews from Europe. But the Mufti of Jerusalem convinced him to murder them all.

The History You Didn't Learn In Yeshiva: The Taboo Against Eating Pig Predates The Torah And Predates Jews

Many Middle Eastern societies had strong taboos against eating pork, taboos that predate the giving of the Torah. Here's why.

How Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak HaKohen Kook Unintentionally Helped Provoke Anti-Jewish Violence

"…[Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak HaKo[h]en Kook’s] greatest strength — the lucid vision of his mysticism that encompassed both the sanctity of the Jewish people and that of the Temple’s location — was also his great blind spot. Two days before the [1929] massacre in Hebron…the British turned to the leaders of the Arab and Jewish communities in Palestine, asking them to call on their respective communities to exercise restraint and refrain from further inflaming the situation. The Arab leadership took upon itself to do so, even if perhaps only perfunctorily. Rabbi Kook, however, [refused].…"

Israel Likely Had The First Hummus In The World, But It Wasn't Jews Who Ate It

Inhabitants of the Land of Israel likely ate the first hummus in the world, but those inhabitants weren't Jews – and they also weren't Arabs. So who were they?

Ancient Genome From Africa Sequenced For The First Time

The ancient Ethiopian genome reveals previously unknown extensive Eurasian population admixture – i.e., what we might call intermarriage and populations shifts today – throughout the African continent that took place about 3,000 years ago, approximately the time King David and his son Solomon supposedly lived. “Roughly speaking, the wave of West Eurasian migration back into the Horn of Africa could have been as much as 30% of the population that already lived there – and that, to me, is mind-blowing.…"

The Benefits Of Intermarriage

By almost any measure, Genghis Khan was the most successful warrior in history, amassing the largest contiguous empire the world had ever seen. (Only the British Empire was larger). His success was in large part due to his ability and willingness to innovate. As an example, he developed a way to successfully integrate a large contingent of conquered people into his nation. Before Khan, conquered enemies had been slaughtered or taken strictly as slaves. But not anymore.

The Lubavitcher Rebbe's Esrog

Chabad's paradigm for moshiach never asked the US Government to save Jews from the Holocaust. He used money he raised to rescue Jews and instead used it to start his Brooklyn yeshiva while thousands of Jews were being incinerated in Hitler's ovens every day. But there was something special the Lubavitcher Rebbe wanted the US to do for him just before Sukkot 1944.

Poll Asked Americans: Would You Have Hidden Jews During The Holocaust?

1,000 Americans were asked the following question: "Think back to World War II when Jews in Europe were forced into concentration camps and many were killed by the Nazis. If you were living in this time period, would you have risked the possible imprisonment and death of yourself and your family to hide Jews?" But what's surprising about the results isn't the answers – it's how a haredi news website reported them.

The Chofetz Chaim Then And Now

A bit of historical revisionism is now on sale and ready to be hung in your sukkah.

Has The Tomb Of The Maccabees Been Found?

"…The archaeological evidence currently at hand is still insufficient to establish that this is the burial place of the Maccabees. If what we uncovered is not the Tomb of the Maccabees itself, then there is a high probability that this is the site that early Christianity identified as the royal funerary enclosure, and therefore, perhaps, erected the structure. Evidently one cannot rule out the assumptions of the past, but an excavation and a lot of hard work are still required in order to confirm that assumption unequivocally, and the riddle remains unsolved–the search for the elusive Tomb of the Maccabees continues".…

Did King David Celebrate Yom Kippur?

Probably not. In fact, Yom Kippur likely originated with a murder in the Temple committed by a High Priest against his rival hundreds of years after David died. Here's the story you didn't learn in yeshiva.

DNA Science Now So Sophisticated, It Can Be Used To Recover "Lost Bits" Of History, Researchers Say

If you go back far enough, all people share a common ancestry. But some populations are more closely related than others based on events in the past that brought them together. Now researchers have shown that it's possible to use DNA evidence as a means to reconstruct and date those significant past events. The findings suggest that evidence in our genomes can help to recover lost bits of history.

Video: New Species Of Human Ancestors Found

Buried deep underground in a cave whose opening is so narrow special small stature archaeologists had to be recruited to excavate it are thousands of ancient bones from two previously unknown ancestors of modern humans. With small chimp-like heads and very small brains, they resemble apes. But one of two newly-discovered species, Homo naledi, has human-like feet, long legs (for the size of its body), walked upright – and apparently buried its dead, all things similar to humans. Watch the full PBS Nova / National Geographic report, Dawn of Humanity, here now.

New Species Of Human Ancestor Found In South African Cave

The discovery of a new species of human relative that buried its dead and had other rituals despite having a brain about the size of a chimp's was announced today, 10 September 2015, by the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits University), the National Geographic Society and the Department of Science and Technology (DST) and the National Research Foundation of South Africa (NRF).

Shouldering The Burden of Evolution

As early humans increasingly left forests and utilized tools, they took an evolutionary step away from apes. But what this last common ancestor with apes looked like has remained unclear. A new study led by researchers at UC San Francisco shows that important clues lie…in the human shoulder.

First Ancient Genome Recovered From The Mediterranean Area

The first farmers entering Europe about 8,000 years ago coming from the Near East spread through the continent following two different routes: one to Central Europe via the Danube, and the other towards the Iberian peninsula following the Mediterranean coast.…Analysis of the genome from Cova Bonica has allowed us to restore the appearance of these pioneer farmers, who had light skin and dark eyes and hair. This contrasts with previous Mesolithic hunters who…had blue eyes and a darker skin than current Europeans.

Satmar School Teaches 5-Year-Olds To Hate "Goyim"

“What have the evil goyim (non-Jews) done with the synagogues and cheders [Jewish primary schools]?” The answer in the completed worksheet reads: “Burned them.”…“What did the goyim want to do with all the Jews?” – to which the answer, according to the worksheet, is: “Kill them.”

Bid To Rename Street Named After IDF Hero For Haredi Rabbi Fails Amid Outrage

“My father defended the entire valley including Afula and the surrounding area during the War of Independence. This is unprecedented chutzpah. I think everyone has gone crazy and landed on their heads. It is not sufficient for us that the matter has been frozen. We are requesting from City Hall to formally file with the Interior Ministry to have the request removed and that the street remains in the memory of our father."