by Adeeba Folami

The fall of ancient Rome and the moral decline of America are often compared by those either predicting the eventual Fall of America or hoping the U.S. can learn from history and avoid Rome’s mistakes. In “Are We Rome? The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America,” (2007), Cullen Murphy highlights how the two great powers are more unalike than alike, however, they are disturbingly similar in ways not usually considered.

Cullen asserts it is not rampant immorality that most parallels American society to Roman, it is things like: loss of control of the country’s borders; the arrogance of the citizenry who view themselves and their way of life as the center round which all other nations revolve; the erosion of civil liberties, and a swing toward privatization in various arenas, but most significantly in government. Of the latter, Cullen writes: “Privatization, whether legal or corrupt, is how the gears of government come to break.” Privatization, (or “the externalization of state functions”), manifests as the increasing number of: private colleges, charter schools, hospitals and health programs, and private companies performing tasks such as nuclear waste cleanup, meat inspection, mail delivery and offering insurance coverage. Even the new Medicare prescription plan, Cullen notes, is now controlled by private companies rather than the government.

The field of private security and policing is one where privatization has crept in at an alarming rate. Cullen says individuals have some level of loyalty to their cities “but their true oath of fealty is to Securitas or Guardsmark,” two of the largest private security firms. He adds that, in America, police officers greatly outnumbered private guards in 1960 but now there are 50% more guards than police persons. Private prisons continue to be built countrywide because they offer a less expensive way for government to deal with the ever expanding prison industrial complex. Similarly, “In Rome, private companies sprang up to provide for the torture and crucifixion of troublesome slaves, relieving estate owners of the need to deal with the matter,” Cullen writes.

Many have criticized the role private contractors have been granted in the “rebuilding” of Iraq, that conflict described by Cullen as “the most privatized since the Renaissance,” but as with Julius Caesar in Rome, so in America, those in power grant favors to associates or cronies who profit at the expense of public interest. In Rome, the people, nor government, saw their actions as detrimental but history students – centuries later – are able to use 20/20 hindsight to conclude that this prolonged reliance on outside sources is a “misdirection of government.”

Over time, the Roman army began to allow “barbarians” – the term used to describe people from neighboring nations whose language they could not understand – in their armed forces and empire, similar to America now labeling Mexicans as “immigrants” and allowing them into the country in large numbers. Militarily, because of the poor recruitment rate for the armed forces and the “wars” America is involved in, some Mexican citizens in this country are now offered citizenship if they serve a certain amount of time in the military. As more and more “barbarians” began to pour into Rome it, of course, began to change the empire, the same way the (Caucasian) face of America is greatly changing from what it started out as.

“America’s population would be in decline were it not for replenishment from the outside,” Cullen said, explaining that California – which now “has the demographic character of a Roman frontier province” – is home to 40% of the U.S.’ “immigrant” population. He suggests that during the fourth century, more than one million non-citizens settled in the Roman empire. Eventually, in 476 A.D., a German “barbarian” named Odoacer defeated Romulus Augustus, the military commander and chief over Western Rome, (the empire had been divided in the late third century because it was too large for one ruler to oversee), which is seen as the official end of that empire – even though life continued on as normal for some time and the Eastern empire remained a ruling power for another 1000 years.

The rise of a non-Roman to the highest position in the empire, “over a people who had once asserted their just superiority above the rest of mankind,” apparently was a blow from which the ego of Rome never recovered. It is interesting to parallel that to the current presidential race in which a Black man is being cheered and supported by a large number of Whites as the best candidate to take over the White House. This in a government initially founded under the premise that Blacks were only 3/5 human and in a land where Blacks were once sold as property.

Cullen specifically mentioned another interesting parallel between Rome and America. “The historical symmetry is almost too good to be true – that the last emperor’s name, Romulus, should also be that of Rome’s founder. (Imagine if the demise of America were to occur under a president named George.)”  Has this already happened?  Some suggest that America will never recover from eight years of George W. Bush’s policies and worldwide bad PR and say Bush will go down as the worst president of all who held the office since George Washington.

The fall, decline and transformation of ancient Rome was gradual, just as the decline of American influence and power has occurred over many decades and continues to this day. Cullen holds out small hope that the U.S. can reverse the trend but acknowledges that the two powers share dangerous characteristics. “Are we Rome?” he asks. “In important ways we’re clearly making some of the same mistakes.”

© 2008 – All Rights Reserved – The Black House News
Unlimited online distribution allowed with acknowledgement of bhonline.org as the source

Book review by Adeeba Folami

Is the King James Version (KJV) of the Bible little more than a masterpiece of Olde English literature? This question, many may ask after reading “God’s Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible (KJB),” by Adam Nicolson, (2003). In the 200+ page book, the author tells the story of how England’s King James I, who ruled from 1603-1625, commissioned a team of 50-some Translators to put together a Bible Translation which would unify the country. This team was broken down into nine “companies,” each assigned to translate certain sections from original Hebrew and Greek texts and also in comparison to previously translated Bible versions, (Tyndale’s, Bishops and Geneva).

The Translators worked from 1604-1611 at which time the Bible was ready for print, yet why did it take all those men seven whole years to work considering the final product drew much from already translated texts? Nicolson writes, “…some say 94% of the [KJV] New Testament is unchanged from Tyndale’s.” The answer to the question appears to be that the Translators were doing more than translating, they were out to create a written work which would rival the writings of the great poets and authors of that time period.

“The [KJB] gave the English, more than any other book, a sense of the possibilities of language, more approachable than Shakespeare, more populist than Milton, a common text against which life itself could be read,” Nicolson writes. The Translators were religious and linguistic scholars and although working on what would become the “Holy” Bible, many of them, and also the King himself, led lives and exhibited behaviors which were far from “holy.”

Regardless, the King’s focus was on uniting his country and its religious divisions in particular. His predecessor, Queen Elizabeth, was strongly opposed to Roman Catholicism and those called “Puritans,” (who believed in separation from and reformation of England’s church). The Queen and her representatives oppressed, jailed and executed adherents of these faiths during her term creating a society in which there was little religious tolerance and such was the atmosphere when James I took over the throne.

In seeking to heal divisions he included moderate reformists and “politically radical” Puritans on his team of Translators. Those considered too extreme and wanting the state church abolished, were not invited to participate, however, later in James’ reign, he too – like Elizabeth – began persecuting, imprisoning and fighting against any who held religious convictions that disagreed with the Church. Some separatists, including those later called “Pilgrims,” eventually fled England for other countries – the Pilgrims finally landing in North America.

Meanwhile, attendance at church services remained mandatory for English citizens, some of whom could claim one of the many Translators as the bishop who preached to them every Sunday and who devoted much of his spare time to the King’s project. When it came time for the nine company directors to review together their completed manuscripts, being advocates of “lexical enrichment,” they were most concerned about how the Bible verses sounded when read aloud which is why they rejected translating in a word-for-word manner and took certain liberties by adding to the text, altering punctuation or in other ways embellishing in their desire to achieve “grandeur of statement” – and these changes are to be found throughout the 66 books included in the version.

“One of the [KJB's] most consistent driving forces is the idea of majesty,” Nicolson said. “Its archaic formulations, its consistent attention to a grand and heavily musical rhythm are the vehicles by which that majesty is infused into the body of the text.” As an example, Gen.1:1 is compared in three versions:

Tyndale – “In the beginnyng God created heaven and erth. The erth was voyde and emptye, and darcknesse was vpon the depe, and the spirite of God moved upon the water.”

Geneva: “In the beginning God created the heauven and the earth. And the earth was without form and void, and darknesse was upon the deep, and the Spirit of God moved upon the waters.”

KJV – “In the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth. And the earth was without forme, and voyd, and darknesse was vpon the face of the deepe: and the Spirit of God mooved vpon the face of the waters.”

King James’ version is called “more three dimensional, operatic, larger,” and the changes are described as “slight, marvelous and purely rhythmic.” It was not discovered until the 1870s that the Translators had made many errors in their work but by then (270 years later) the “Holy Bible” was viewed as truly God-ordained and its language had “come to seem like the language spoken by God.” Prior to that, in 1660 the book had been made the “national text and symbol of England as God’s country” and later became a meaningful part of the tradition of others who spoke its language.

Nicolson is seemingly completely sold on the high status of the KJV proudly claiming that nothing in the English culture can match it – unless it’s the “great tragedies of Shakespeare.” On a shelf with those revered tragedies may be the best place for the KJB as even Nicolson goes on to say that many religious people have concluded that the version, “particularly the Gospels,” are not valid historically or authentically. So in the end, the words found in the book of Ecclesiastes, in its ‘Thus saith the Lord’ lingo, might best sum up what King James’ Bible stands for and is full of: “Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.”

 © 2007 – All Rights Reserved – The Black House News
Unlimited online distribution allowed with acknowledgement of bhonline.org as the source

Archeology Challenges Bible’s Accuracy/Authenticity

 - Adeeba Folami -

Do secular historical records and archaeological evidence confirm the existence of legendary Biblical kings David and Solomon? If they do not, how did the stories of these two figures gain the status, renown and spiritual significance they hold today? These were a few of the questions tackled in “David and Solomon: In Search of the Bible’s Sacred Kings and the Roots of the Western Tradition,” (2006), by Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman.

The authors make the case that archeology and history lead to the conclusion that the two men would have lived and reigned, based on biblical genealogy, around the 10^th century BCE. At that time, however, there was no grand, united kingdom of Israel and such did not exist until the reign of kings who appeared decades later.

“From both archaeological and historical perspectives, we can recognize the emergence of the first true kingdom of Israel in the early 9^th century BCE,” the authors wrote of King Omri and his dynasty mentioned in 1 Kings 16:15-24. “Contemporary inscriptions” verify the rule of a king by that name and are the earliest documents to substantiate the existence of persons mentioned in the Bible.

Finkelstein and Silberman (F&S), despite long-held traditional beliefs about David and Solomon, show that – historically – the Bible’s narrative is, for the most part, unreliable, having been transferred from oral to written transmission 300 years after the two famed kings were said to have lived. Archeology is said to dispel a number of “myths of antiquity” including many famous Biblical episodes involving David and Solomon which are called “fictitious, historically questionable, or highly exaggerated.”

Specifically dealt with is the story of David slaying Goliath, which may be the most widely recognized and oft-repeated story of David in the world. Yet, the Bible itself appears contradictory about who actually slew the giant as David is given the honor in 1 Samuel 17:49 while someone named Elhanan is given the credit in 2 Samuel 21:19. Whichever way the story goes is irrelevant, according to F&S, because the Bible description of Goliath’s armor places the setting in the late 7^th century BCE some centuries after David’s death. This raises the question of whether the “composition” was added to the overall text hundreds of years after the 10^th century BCE, or whether the tale is a mixture of truth and falsehood.

The morphing of fact into fiction

The historical David figure, the authors say, was never a king but was more a “bandit-chief” who rose to become clan leader of a local “highland polity” in the southern highlands near Jerusalem. This being the case, it is unlikely that such a leader would be faced with many of the scenarios in the Bible narrative, such as having a son defecting from the royal court as pictured in the Old Testament; having a commander taking a detailed census of the kingdom, or having a “diplomatic” marriage with the daughter of another nation’s ruler. Not to mention, there would, of course, have been no kingdom for David to pass to his son Solomon who, not being the eldest living son, was not the throne’s rightful heir anyway. The authors go on to explain that the biblical stories are little more than “dynamic propaganda” crafted with specific aims in mind.

“In their legendary transformation of the rugged founder of the dynasty into a great monarch …. the bards of 9^th century BCE Jerusalem provided later western kings and princes with a vivid, poetic justification for their own human weaknesses and unshakable right to rule.”

The evolution of the propaganda did not stop in 9^th century BCE as the present Bible was not put into writing until the late 7^th century BCE when literacy first appeared in Judah. Prior to that, histories were transmitted orally and became more elaborate and less accurate over time.

Which details to include in the written story increasingly became a battle between 8^th century BCE defenders of David and supporters of Saul – whose existence is not confirmed in any secular records. By this time, say F&S, the southern kingdom of Judah had become a vassal state of Assyria, a powerful empire which also defeated the northern kingdom of Israel causing Judah to become the “only autonomous state in the highlands.” Many from the northern kingdom were forced into exile and were replaced in their land by Assyrian deportees. This chain of events is not only in secular records but also in the Bible, 1 Kings 17:22-24. Historical records additionally show a population explosion in Jerusalem toward the end of the 8^th century BCE and Israeli archaeologist Magen Broski is referenced in “David and Solomon” along with her suggestion that the rapid growth stemmed from a massive return to Judah of many of the exiles who fled Assyria to “avoid conscription.” With the influx, Judah’s population became mixed with members of both the southern and northern houses of Israel, the southerners retaining their legends and tales of David and Solomon, while the northerners held to what had been passed down for years about Saul.

Historical records altered to increase national unity

The Bible shows that Saul and David had a turbulent relationship with Saul sometimes filled with praise for David and other times seeking to kill him. David was always portrayed as the chosen king of God’s favor despite the many unwise and even scandalous choices the narrative has him making. The same friction that existed between the two men in the centuries-passed-down tales also existed between members of the two houses of Israel in the state of Judah in early 7^th century BCE.

In order to promote unity amongst the area’s mixed population, bits and pieces from the legends of both men were combined, F&S explain, to create a new version of history that both houses of Israel could relate to. “The earliest version of the Biblical story of Saul, David and the accession of Solomon … was created not solely or even primarily for religious purposes, but for a now-forgotten political necessity – of establishing Temple and Dynasty as the twin foundation stones for the new idea of a united Israel.” It is unclear exactly what individuals were responsible for changing and adding more fiction to the ancient histories, but the emphasis placed on Jerusalem’s temple and its sanctity indicate that Judah’s priests played key roles in the process.

As time marched on, the fall of Judah as a localized government occurred when it was conquered – as was the Assyrian empire – by a Babylonian ruler who carried the residents of Judah away to exile in Babylon in the 6^th century BCE. Even there, however, the tales of David and Solomon continued to evolve and expand to include “passages foretelling the exile.” After the capture of Judah, the Babylonian territory they occupied became known as “Yehud” and the people were called “Yehudim” or “Jews.” F&S say that scholars suggest Jewish priests continued to revise the histories to “secure their position within Yehud.”

The religious leaders continued taking liberties by placing new interpretations on the story of David and Solomon into the 1^st century BCE, just prior to the birth of Jesus and the subsequent start of what became organized Christianity. After that time it was Christians who adopted the histories of the two famed kings for their own use and as the basis of the prophetical doctrine of a future king to come and save his spiritually chosen people.

“Just as the significance of David had been shifted to the Temple and its rituals in the era after the Babylonian exile and to Hellenistic [Greek] kingship in succeeding centuries, early Christians shifted the focus of Davidic expectations to become the foundation of their own faith,” F&S wrote.

Hundreds of years after the death of Jesus, Christian leaders had concluded – and taught their faithful followers – that many of the Psalms said to have been authored by David were prophetical and foretold the life of Jesus, the prophesied king and savior of Israel. The roles of David and Solomon went through more changes which came as the church increasingly viewed them as “inspired metaphors” from God for the followers of Christ.

So now, even in the 21^st century, the fictitious legends and fables about David and Solomon – mixed with some truths of their histories – survive and, F&S say, continue to hold modern generations of Christians and Jews in their grasp because of their “need for historical identity and continuing quest to believe that noble leadership is possible.”

© 2007 – All Rights Reserved – The Black House News
Unlimited online distribution allowed with acknowledgement of bhonline.org as the source

- by Adeeba Folami -

Many, if not most, American citizens view themselves as residents of the “greatest, most civilized country on earth” and cannot imagine forsaking such heaven to live elsewhere – least of all a less Westernized nation. Yet leave is what author, activist, attorney and lecturer Randall Robinson did when he relocated, with his wife and teenage daughter, to the Caribbean island of St. Kitts-Nevis in 2001. In “Quitting America: The Departure of A Black Man From His Native Land,” he makes the case for why he left after six decades of trying to fit his circular shaped African soul into the square-peg known as pro-Caucasian-anti-everyone-else American society. Robinson also authored best seller “The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks” (2000), and even though now departed, he still retains the American citizenship he calls “his hard-won property.”

At the end of “Quitting America,” Robinson says: “…I tried to love America, its people, the dominant majority, their depiction of me, their treatment of mine …. but America would not love the ancient, full African whole of me. Thus I could not love America. I had come to know too much of her work … Then I stopped trying to love America….” He then explained how his decision has brought him a surprising level of contentment.

Early in the attention-holding book he offered serious food for thought to those who so often and easily boast of the “greatness” of America, those who have adopted the arrogant, privileged, George W. Bush-ish attitude that (White) America is the standard by which all the world should be judged.

“Americans believe their country is the greatest in the world. I have never known what that was supposed to mean,” wrote Robinson prior to saying that such Americans would be “annoyed” to learn that Norway is the place voted as best to live – by White, non-Americans, of course.

He then continued, “I think when Americans say America is the greatest … they mean it is the richest and most powerful … that Americans have more stuff … and can shoot everybody else’s lights out…. I don’t think they can mean Americans are the happiest, most well-adjusted, moral people in the world….”

In the book’s more than 200 pages, Robinson went back in time to the conquests of Christopher Columbus who was filled with a mentality which also plagues many Whites today who accept the explorer’s “discovery” of “new” lands. Columbus’ actions led to the domination of indigenous people and commenced the many battles against colonialism that darker skinned peoples and governments have had to face ever since. Robinson noted that it seems to be in the nature of Europeans/Caucasians to set out to take over every arena of endeavor, only able to see what is best for them and not what is best for all peoples. Of course, G.W. Bush and his treatment of Iraq – the arrogance (and lies) with which the U.S. was led into war – were used as key examples of this White-privilege mentality. The government’s treatment of Haiti and its people during Bill Clinton’s administration also drew Robinson’s focus, as did injustices suffered in various African countries, Central America and other Caribbean islands. This ‘conquering the world for our exclusive control’ has progressed from Columbus slaughtering and enslaving in the name of Spain’s King and Queen to today’s destroyers, ordered by U.S. presidents, conquering under the banner of ’spreading democracy’ around the world, most recently in Iraq. Same game, different era.

Life in St. Kitts is much different for Robinson who had to adjust to the reality that people there do not ‘commoditize’ everything or put a price on every service they might perform, whereas, that is the standard, cold, bottom line in American society. Kittitian culture is more peaceful and free of the constant burden and associated stress of “racism” that weighs on the shoulders of Blacks in America, particularly males as researchers are now suggesting. Yet, even living in the place of his wife’s birth, Robinson has found that the tentacles of the octopus he thought he was escaping from are slowly spreading to the tiny island. The placement of the suction cups on the beast’s arm is being determined by individuals like the Texas developer mentioned in the book, an international banker, who came to increase American investment and presence on St. Kitts, i.e., came to conquer economically. As usual, however, the American dream he is selling is more to benefit (White) capitalists at the expense, in this case, of the island’s native residents.

The developer is quoted as saying, “….The New Yorks and Londons of the world are not as nice a place to live as [St. Kitts.] … You have a climate here for investors to come in and reap big rewards…”

Exactly what Columbus had in mind for the “new” world he “discovered” and also what Bush-n-Co. have in mind for Iraq – to reap BIG rewards. Robinson shows in “Quitting America” that although it is a blessing to live in a place that is more familiar and comforting to the Black spirit, unfortunately, even there you cannot escape the all reaching arms and blood sucking intents of those desiring to conquer in the name of democracy and the American way.

“Quitting America” is a must read for any who have ever considered leaving America for a homeland providing a solace of spirit their Black souls cannot find in the “greatest” country on earth.