21 Jul 14
Originally posted by C HessThe problem with this line of argument is that you are building a moral system where anti-racism is dependent on the literal truth of the Bible. Which strikes me as problematic for those of us who don't believe in its literal truth.
Seems to me you've got at most three ethnicities/races on the boat.
As it happens it is believed there was a bottle neck in human history around 70,000 years ago when the world population dropped to a few thousand people, coinciding with a super-volcano eruption in Indonesia (Toba lake). This comes under the heading of "just a theory" but does have the merit that the resultant population was plausibly genetically viable. Populations of less than 100 aren't.
21 Jul 14
In the Hebrew Scriptures, there are several covenants. The “Noahide” is one; another is the Abrahamic covenant; etc., etc.. Jews generally think of the giving of the Torah at Sinai to be the one to which klal Yisrael trace the specifically Jewish covenantal (“religious” ) heritage. The cultural/ethnic (whatever) heritage is traced to Yakov (Jacob/Israel) - and the reference in the blessings in the Jewish prayer book(s) is ben/bat Yisrael: son/daughter of Israel.
In terms of Semitic ethnicity, I will defer to the geneticists.
NOTE: “Jew” though, originally referred to those who lived in Judea, the Southern Kingdom.
