ORIGINAL ARTICLE
NEVES, Milton Carlos [1], RODRIGUES, Ana Paula [2]
NEVES, Milton Carlos. RODRIGUES, Ana Paula. From religion to artificial intelligence: struggles and conquests of the Jewish people in human history. Revista Científica Multidisciplinar Núcleo do Conhecimento. Year. 06, Ed. 08, Vol. 02, pp. 131-142. August 2021. ISSN: 2448-0959, Access link: https://www.nucleodoconhecimento.com.br/theology-en/jewish-people
ABSTRACT
This article aims to demonstrate that Jews, a group of people generally identified by their religion, relatively small, when compared to the world population, exercised and still exert an influence above the common in virtually all important areas of human life, both in the remote biblical periods, and today, thus attracting the fury of various social groups, in the most diverse parts of the world. Using a diversified bibliographic research, this work will relate victorious events to the Jewish people, but which have always been preceded by catastrophic moments, both in antiquity and in today’s periods. The insertion of the ancient period in the research, despite being based on the accounts of the Jew Flávio Josefo and not on the Bible, will reveal great Jewish battles, in which by very little this people escaped a great genocide. After the Middle Ages, with Jews already scattered around the world, persecution shrunve, culminating in the year 1945 with the death of six million of them. The statements considered historical do not receive consensual support, even as being evaluated as true by some, partial by others, and even absurd by international opinion, as some disagreers of the Jewish community itself. Despite the suffering experienced, many Jewish intellectuals have been and are respected by ingenious discoveries in the fields of science, philosophy, religion, economics, politics, technology, artificial intelligence and other areas of human knowledge, influencing the development of the nations through which they have passed and still perish.
Keywords: Jews, Religion, History, Thinkers, Technology.
1. INTRODUCTION
The world’s most famous and renowned writers, historians and critics have said something at least interesting about Jews, including Fiódor Dostoiévski, William Shakespeare, Tácito and others, yet not always making use of the commitment to what is true or free of racist sentiments.
What do you have in common, today’s famous personalities like Sergey Brin, Google founder, Uri Levine of Waze, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, Travis Kalanick of Uber? Or even figures of history as David Ricardo father of modern capitalism, Karl Marx of communism, Ferdinand Lassalle of socialism, Émile Durkheim of sociology, Sigmund Freud of psychoanalysis, Albert Einstein of the theory of relativity, Isaac Asimov of science fiction, Franz Boas of modern anthropology and Robert Oppenheimer of the Manhattan project? The answer is, they’re all jewish descendants.
The historical trajectory of this people, however, is not surrounded only by successes, sincere praise and peace. Words to the most scathing and far-sighted writer would lack words to express the suffering and extraordinary power of overcoming this people, which is revealed to be one of the most tenacious in the history of mankind.
With information obtained from a bibliographical research, the present work will demonstrate that after terrible and bloody battles, the Jews have always enjoyed a certain period of tranquility, always preparing for new attacks by different peoples, due to envy, followed by slander and defamation, practiced by exponents of the world elite, making use of literature of great circulation for this.
The justification of this work rests on the motivational inspiration in which the legacies of triumph of this people are constituted in the face of the main periods of tension suffered, according to the history of humanity. According to chronological research, from slavery under the Egyptian Empire, the threat of extinction in Persia, the diaspora promoted by the Roman emperor Titus, the persecutions in the medieval period to the attempted genocide practiced by German Chancellor Adolf Hitler, jews follow through the centuries displaying extraordinary examples of faith, courage and overcoming.
2. DEVELOPMENT
There was a time when a future world was imagined dominated by the merciless dictatorship of capitalism postulated by David Ricardo. A few decades later, a theorist, Karl Marx with his Communist Manifesto, suggested the liberation of the bondion caused by the holders of capital through the dictatorship of the proletariat. Finally and in today’s period there is little doubt that a dictatorial regime will be headed by artificial intelligence, a scientific field widely explored by Isaac Asimov and Norbert Wiener. Both David Ricardo and Karl Marx and Asimov and Norbert Wiener are Jews.
A curiosity will arise to the reader, who in a particular way analyze the present work: in fact there is this preponderance or Jewish supremacy, and if so, what would be the justification of the success of this people? The present work is not intended to answer the first question, since it is not possible to officially prove jewish preponderance or supremacy, although there are several conspiracy theories, with manipulated information. They are a people of great global influence and it was within the Jewish community that the two greatest religions of renowned and outspoken rise emerged, which are Islam and Christianity. Jesus of Nazareth, the best-known man in history, and also the founder of Christianity is unquestionably Jewish. The cultural elements of Judaism present in the Christian religion are so remarkable that Kreeft and Tacelli claim:
The only other religion that Christians accept as fully biblical is biblical Judaism, for the simple reason that it is not another religion, but the foundation of Christianity. Christ said, Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; i have not come to abolish, but to comply (Mt 5:17). Christians believe in everything the Jews believe in. But Jews criticize Christians for believing in many things, just as Protestants criticize Catholics for believing in too many things. (KREEFT, 2008; TACELLI, 2008 p. 531)
The fact is that the Jews are unquestionably an influential people, of success and high power of overcoming since their historical establishment as a civilization, and throughout their history, depending on the solutions demanded by the needs of different times, they have employed every effort needed overcoming great challenges.
The greatest challenges of the Jews have always brought with them new opportunities, which were taken advantage of in a positive way after great impacts. In this work stand out four troubled moments, but which resulted in spectacular and indispensable advances for cultural, intellectual, social and finally technological development: oppression of the Egyptian empire, persecution in the Persian empire, diaspora promoted by the Roman Empire, the infamous Holocaust of the nineteenth century.
2.1 THE BATTLE OF PHARAOH AGAINST ISRAEL
The first great persecution against the Jews, for the purpose of promoting genocide, was promoted by the Egyptians, according to the two main historical sources available, and who enjoy renowned credibility, which are the Holy Bible and the writings of Flavius Josephus, a Jewish historian who lived in the first century. Initially in Egypt, the Jews enjoyed some peace and prosperity in a ghetto called Goshen, due to the considerations the Egyptians had for Joseph, a Jew who achieved benevolence and respect before Pharaoh Apopi I of the Hicsus lineage. After Joseph’s death, Pharaoh Amenófis, son of Ramses II, imposed harsh servitude on the Jews who came to be treated as slaves. On the supernatural interpretation of slavery and liberation of the Jews in his unfortunate relationship with Pharaoh, describes the Jewish writer converted to Christianity Myer Pearlman:
The events recorded in Exodus span a period of 216 years, about 1706 to 1490 bc. It begins with an enslaved people inhabiting the presence of Egyptian idolatry, and ends with a redeemed people inhabiting God’s presence (PEARLMAN, 1985, p. 23).
Moses is born in this context, providentially educated in all Egyptian art, culture and intelligence, but revolts at the treatments given to his people, the Hebrews. Moses asks Pharaoh to let his people go free, to which the sovereign fiercely opposes it. After several dealings, pleas and efforts, the majority of Egypt authorizes the departure of the people, in order to destroy them on the edge of the Red Sea. What Pharaoh did not expect was an opening at sea, releasing passage for the people of Israel to dry. Seeing the entrance of the people of Israel into the sea, the Egyptian sovereign hurried with his army in an attempt to reach his fugitive subjects, to finally destroy them by setting an example to others about the consequence of rebelling against Pharaoh. The people of Israel came out unscathed, and more confident in their religiosity, guided by the spiritual and military leader. The victorious population was now moving towards the promised land, and their religious convictions were consolidated mainly after they received the famous Mosaic Decalogue, a legal code of conduct summed up in ten commandments. This writing has been culturally written and still serves as a moral parameter for religious Jews. In a world in constant change, one of the tonics of the pentateuch is the principle of conservation. The God of Israel does not change, so their customs cannot be fickle. The Hebrew, language and writing code used by the Jews was initially influenced by other ancient languages and cultures such as Phoenician and Canaanéia. Its great differential is that even though many centuries have passed, the linguistic and writing essence remain intact. It seems to be a true miracle, and this is one of the secrets of the constant, conservative, resilient and enduring strength of this virtually immutable people, with rare exceptions. On the fidelity of the Hebrew language, expose Stephen M. Miller and Robert V. Huber:
The possible reason for this unusual constancy in the Hebrew language is that, after some time, it ceased to be a living language in the strict sense. From the fifth century to.C on, the Israelites began to speak Aramaic, the language of their Persian conquerors. Over time, Hebrew came to be used only for worship and in Holy Scripture. Because of this, the language has become less subject to change than a language that is used for day-to-day conversations and negotiations. (MILLER, 2006; HUBER, 2006 p. 17)
At this time, Jewish culture has made a great advance, and proof of this, is the unquestionable legacy for both Eastern and Western religious culture.
2.2 THE PURSUIT OF HAMÃ, THE AGAGITA IN PERSIA
Approximately a thousand years after the great Egyptian threats, and in the recovery of the traumatic resulting from the exile imposed by Nebuchadnezzar, the Jews dweled in Persia. At this time the desperate appeal of Haman the Agagita, descendant of the legendary opponents of the Jews and one of the nobles of the palace of the sovereign King Ahasuere, stands out for the extermination of the Jewish people throughout the empire. His concern and revolt were sustained in the pride of Mardoqueu and the other Jews who did not bow before his nobility. Consulting his wife and his coreligionists, Haman comes to the conclusion that the best way to deal with the problem is to kill the Jews in totality, a true genocide. To begin his work, Haman prepared a force of twenty-five meters for Mardoqueu, the first of all other Jews. But his own strength killed him, for all circumstances as if they were favorable winds benefited the Jews. On the victory of the Jews and the defeat of Haman writes Flávio Josefo:
Markwrote to all the Jews subjects of King Artaxerxes to spell those two days and command their descendants to do the same so that the memory of that fact could be preserved, for it was very just that, having haman’s mortal hatred cause them to run the great danger of being exterminated, they would always thank God not only for having saved them from the fury of the enemy, but for providing them with a way to get back at them. The Jews gave that same day the name of Purim, that is, conservation day because they had been miraculously preserved. The prestige of Mardoqueu grew ever, and the king elevated him to such a degree of authority that he ruled under the dependence of the sovereign the whole kingdom and also had all power before the queen, so that the happiness of the Jews went far beyond what they could desire. (JOSEFO, 1990, p. 530).
Again after a sorrowful and sensational battle, the Jews were victorious, especially with the hanging of those who intended to hang them. As a consequence, they enter the administrative elite of the Persian region, as if it were a historical determination, occupying the highest political, intellectual and financial posts in the reign of emperor Ahasuero, who was not Jewish.
2.3 THE JEWISH DIASPORA
After Roman world domination and the resistance of the Jewish people to the impositions of Emperor Titus, hundreds of Jews were killed and finally scattered around the world, in the event historically called the Jewish Diaspora. The courage of these people is still at this emblematic unquestionable moment. Around the year 70 D.C and after the Masada incident, the Jews were dispersed around the world, mainly by the surrounding countries currently known as Portugal, Spain and other parts of today’s so-called Europe. What seemed to be a negative factor eventually became the cause of the expansion of influence of a seemingly divided but cohesive and strategic people as thetheologian Russel Norman Champlin maintains:
The diaspora, or dispersal of the Jews, as unpleasant as it was for them, was a force that universalized Judaism. The destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem caused decentralization. Rabbi Johanan ben Zakkai’s school was important in developing a legal system. The Talmud, among other things, ended the universalization of Judaism. (CHAMPLIN, 2018, p. 909).
In ancient and medieval Europe, Jews became major traders in the banks of cities, including on the stalls covered by tents, the first successful bankers who were Jews emerged. They supported the great navigations, as well as the great revolutionary events of world history. Its prominence as always, continued to cause envy to the Gentiles or goyn as it is pronounced in Hebrew. In this list of enemies lie several names as for example Martin Luther, considered by the Germans as the father of German culture. It is remarkable a great dissatisfaction with the prosperity of the Jews on his part, including his own expressions prove anti-Semitic, and this in the sixteenth century. The veracity and motives of the Jewish Holocaust, which did not begin in Adolph Hitler, nor in Luther, nor in Europe, is a much older phenomenon. Despite the persecutions, pogroms and great Jewish casualties in these great wars, in the most diverse fields of science, the Jews did not succumb to the obstacles imposed by the history of mankind.
2.4 THE NAZI HOLOCAUST: TRIGGERING AND RESULTS
Widely regarded as the largest of all attempts at genocide against the Jews, Adolf Hitler’s holocaust resulted worldwide in the deaths of six million of them. Far from being the forerunner of antisemitism, the German Chancellor who was negatively famous for being blamed for the deaths was certainly inspired by European names such as Frederick II of Prussia, Empress Maria Tereza of Austria, philosopher Voltaire, and composer Richard Wagner among many others. The Jews already predicted attacks promoted by envy, in the exhortations of their rabbis, as the religious writer founder of the American synagogue Young Israel Irving Bunim recounts after the Holocaust:
When things go wrong between nations, when a country suffers a defeat or an economic depression, the powers constituted can seek a scapegoat. And the Jew has a long-standing tradition of playing this role perfectly. Weak and helpless the Jew seems “different and mysterious”, and being generally in a position to provoke envy, he has been the most “hand- to hand” target for the hostilities and frustrations of the majority group. (BUNIN, 1998, p. 222).
Hitler even reproduced his thought in a book, which was later seen as the outline of the greatest genocidal plan known. It is undeniable, however, in such a work, the confession of a feeling of envy, common to Haman, Pharaoh and all the declared enemies of the Jewish people. The chancellor’s ideas explicit in the book reascended in the Germans a state of mind so clothed with pride, wickedly and arrogance that the book was called the Nazi Bible. Hitler, with the support of his subservient patriots and other allied countries, began a war of world proportions. Taking advantage of the war, he killed thousands of Jews. The accounting that contemporary history uses denounces 6 million human lives reapersed in the name of totalitarianism, arrogance and envy against the most suffering people that have been reported in the history of humanity. After World War II, defeated Germany was devastated by crises and relegation, and in 1948, three years after the end of the war, with airs of rematch, a new state with country status emerges in the Middle East: Israel, the largest military, economic and intellectual power in the region. In the general history of mankind there are some constants, and as far as the Jews are, there are always two: success and envy. The success on the part of the Jews and the envy on the part of their opponents, these military or ideologues of the most diverse religions, countries and races. There are many theories explaining the phenomenon of the Jewish Holocaust, the rise and defeat of Hitler. Judaism has its religious explanation and Christianity as well, mainly due to the terror associated with the fact. Comparing Hitler to the devil, or even categorically claiming to be the dictator a faithful servant of Christianity’s greatest adversary, a prototype of the antichrist himself, thus evaluates the Christian writer and self-confessed Zionist Dave Hunt:
Hitler promised, “Give me five years and you won’t recognize Germany.” First came the rapid emergence of an incredible military power, rampant inflation was overdue. Organization, discipline and expansion have ended unemployment. But seemingly unaware that he was bringing the wrath and judgment of the God of Israel upon his nation, Hitler ordered the murder of 6 million Jews. This was certainly the main reason why, instead of “saving Germany”, he destroyed it, and with it much of Europe. (HUNT, 1999, p. 37).
Hitler’s Germany was humiliated, repeating what happened to the Pharaoh of Egypt, the unfortunate Haman in Persia, and the failed Roman Empire. What have these great names in the Bible and world history had in common? It seems coincidental, but all were enemies of Israel, defying its religiosity, its customs and its capacity to overcome. While everyone’s fate was the same, the Jewish people developed and still greatly influenced the modern world with their undeniable contributions. Great names that will remain eternally in history deserve to be highlighted, even though such names and fields of action mentioned in this work are very far from the real Jewish scope. The Jews stood out in philosophy through Baruch Spinoza, Johann Strauss in music, Isaac Asimov, Anne Frank, Saul Alinsky were exponents of contemporary literature, Karl Marx, La Salle, Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, Von Mises and Durkheim reinvented politics, Norbert Wiener is the father of robotics, Robert Oppenheimer, Albert Einstein went so far that it is indisputable the projection and reputation they achieved in the international scientific community.
In a more modern setting, where artificial intelligence prophesied by Isaac Asimov and postulated by Norbert Wiener gains a relentless space, stand out the Jews Mark Zuckerberg owner of Facebook and Whatsapp, social media applications, Sergey Brin and Larry Page founders and creators of the world’s largest search engine, Google. It’s impossible to stay off the list, Uri Levine, founder of satellite-based navigation app Waze, Travis Kalanick, named father of the largest urban mobility app, Uber. Also worth mentioning are the thrusters of hollywood success Louis Burt Mayer, Marcus Loew, Carl Laemmle, the Warner Bros. brothers. Jewish resilience in the face of all its challenges, from antiquity to the present day, dispels any doubt that the combative, pertinacious, warrior and dedicated spirit present in the Jewish community has much to teach the world through history.
3. FINAL CONSIDERATIONS
As the research content already exposed, the Jews suffered and fought against death, persecution, discrimination and prejudice like no other people in the history of mankind, yet remain reasonably cohesive and prepared for future challenges. Antisemitism, like racial prejudice against blacks, still reigns in a veiled way in the most intellectualized circles of the world’s high society, in the East and in the West. In a historical assessment, it cannot be inferred when, from where or how new attacks on the Jews will arise, in an attempt to carry out the ancient purpose of genocide against this people. There are rumors of war and dissatisfaction on the part of the Arab community, which does not accept the establishment of the state of Israel, much less the country as a nation. Making a counterpoint, many voices come out in defense of the right to the existence and national freedom of Jews, like some Christian politicians, philosophers and writers.
The story itself, interpreted from the cyclical perspective, reveals that it will be difficult for Jews to avoid a future confrontation. What can be foretold, however, not only by israel’s expressive military and strategic might, but also because of the courage and individual combative spirit of the Jewish soul, it will not be easy to defeat this people with cultural aspects so strengthened and cohesive by their religious uses and customs.
REFERENCES
BUNIM, I. A ética do Sinai. São Paulo: Editora Sêfer, 2015.
CHAMPLIN, R. N. Novo dicionário bíblico Champlin: ampliado e atualizado. São Paulo: Hagnos, 2018.
HUNT, D. Hitler, o quase Anticristo: a sinistra conexão entre ocultismo, nazismo e a Nova Era. Porto alegre: Obra missionária Chamada da Meia-noite, 1999.
JOSEFO, F. História dos Hebreus. Rio de Janeiro: Casa Publicadora das Assembleias de Deus, 1990.
KREEFT, P.; TACELLI, K. T. Manual de defesa da fé. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Central Gospel, 2008.
MILLER M. M.; HUBER R. V. A Bíblia e sua história. Barueri: Sociedade Bíblica do Brasil, 2006.
PEARLMAN, M. Através da Bíblia. Belo Horizonte: Editora Vida, 1985.
[1] Graduated in Theology from FACETEN – Faculty of Sciences, Education and Theology of Northern Brazil, Postgraduate in Philosophy of Religion from FAVENI – College Venda Nova do Imigrante.
[2] Guidance counselor.
Submitted: June, 2021.
Approved: August, 2021.
