This is a carefully woven diatribe, Jana. But I don't think you should lay the blame at Joseph's feet. For a few shekels, he turned out to be a pretty good prognosticator. And he was betrayed by his own flesh and blood.

Also, to address another issue you raise, if an Egyptian or a Persian had been chosen instead of Abraham, what then? Would it have been any different? Is there any group of people on earth today wholly immune from nationalism and the compulsion to "lord" it over other groups, to grasp at their land and their resources? Is there any group without its empty idols and rituals?

Perhaps if it had been an American Indian who had received the word of God firsthand from a celestial being, things might have been different. (I don't know; this is just idle conjecture.) But at the time in which Abraham lived, they were isolated from other groups.

If you read Christopher Columbus's diaries, you will see that his unwitting, warm "hosts" received nothing but genocide and torture in return for their hospitality. And all because the Spaniards desired gold.

There are ignominous, brutish and murderous chapters in nearly every people's history, Jana. To vent your wrath on this single group of people — the Jews — is a mistake. Better to point toward the pit in each of us from which jealousy, power-tripping and deceit springs. These tragic flaws can't be corrected by races and nations or by singling them out for blame. It's not that simple.

Also, I don't think PatriotLad is at all representative of "herd" mentality. Quite the contrary. I would say that he has taken what he's needed out of a formal education and arrived at his own conclusions. This requires courage. Many of the greatest thinkers, revisionist and iconoclastic included, came out of the schools you revile. Most of them have managed to write pretty well, too.

As for tau, if words had wings ...

: Joseph's "sojourn" in Egypt just happens to be the
: key to understanding the world today. If you fail to
: understand what happened there you will also fail to

: understand what is happening today. World events have
: "seeds" just as an oak tree has an acorn. The
: "seed" of today is entirely contained in the
: story of Joseph.

: Few people understand what happened there because they fail to
: understand the nature of evil that Joseph represents. They
: also fail to comprehend the level of evil it takes to
: destroy an entire civilization because of jealousy. The
: spawn of Abraham, which is the spawn of satan, are a
: jealous people. Since their beginning they have become
: spiritually stillborn through braindead worship of ritual
: evil. They morbidly hate all who are spiritually alive and
: developed a formula for destroying all those who had the
: misfortune to "host" their parasitic presence.

: "You tell him to come in, sit down
: But something makes you turn around
: The door is open, you can't close your shelter."
: --Leonard Cohen "The Stranger Song"

: A nation tells a Jew to come in, sit down...'cause the nation
: is warm-hearted and open and wouldn't think of refusing
: hospitality to a "stranger". But something wierd
: begins to happen which makes that nation uneasy. When the
: nation turns around for a look, it finds the door open (aka
: a knife is in its back) and the nation is in the process of
: bleeding to death. The Jews have koshered the life out of a
: once friendly nation and now the nation cannot close its
: shelter because it is dying, overrun by parasites. That's
: the story of Joseph and that is why it is so important.

: (snip)

: I also find "tau's" method of describing things a
: bit confusing but that's not what this is all about. Your
: education is impressive but obviously inadequate because
: you are still missing the key. Unfortunately formal
: education is built on herd mentality and the herd is
: educated for the survival of the herd. Free thinkers are a
: threat to the herd, therefore they are not encouraged. You
: know this.

: (snip)

: The world itself is "anti-christ" and is coming and
: going all the time.

: (snip)

: With the key you'll understand that "ancient times"
: are today. The Bible is today's news. Since the appearance
: of the "serpent" in our midst, Human Beings have
: not been able to progress an inch. We have been caught in
: endless repetition like that early Twilight Zone episode
: where the characters keep arriving at the same roadhouse
: (with a jukebox?) over and over again. No matter what they
: did they could not avoid the return. That's the world
: today. Ah, but the truth shall set us free. The truth is
: very powerful.

: (snip)

: I agree with you there, but the "monsters" are the
: worshippers of the Old Testament "lord", the
: so-called "chosen ones" (aka the parasites). They
: are masters of hoodoo voodoo and hide themselves in secret
: organizations like the CIA. They are the real mass
: murderers, and they are definitely "slick liars and
: confidence men". I also refuse to turn my other cheek
: ever again.

: Jana