Ancient Hebrew biblical martial arts!

Discussion in 'General Martial Arts Discussion' started by idols11, Dec 15, 2015.

  1. Smitfire

    Smitfire Cactus Schlong

    Oy vey.
     
  2. idols11

    idols11 Valued Member

    There were also 300 hundred Spartans at the battle of Thermopylae. And according to Maccabees the Spartans and Jews are related. Perhaps elements of the story were shared between the cultures?
     
  3. Smitfire

    Smitfire Cactus Schlong

    I thought my "oy vey" post warranted a better response than that. :(
     
  4. Madao13

    Madao13 Valued Member

    Not a chance!
     
    Last edited: Dec 18, 2015
  5. aikiMac

    aikiMac aikido + boxing = very good Moderator Supporter

    Where do you get that idea?
     
  6. idols11

    idols11 Valued Member

  7. Madao13

    Madao13 Valued Member

    I know, and it's an interesting information, but it doesn't hold water.
     
  8. El Medico

    El Medico Valued Member

    from

    http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14209b.htm

    "Arius, who sought to maintain the independence of his country against the Syrian successors of Alexander by creating a diversion against them in Palestine, pretended to have found a writing relative to the Spartans, showing that they themselves and the Jews were two peoples — brothers both descending from Abraham. This assertion has little foundation, although perhaps there had been such a tradition."

    Anyway,Spartans were Dorian Greeks of the Indo-European language group.If they were descended from a Semetic speaking peoples prior to around 1200 B.C. then so were all the other Greeks of their era like the Athenians,Ithacans,Corinthians,Thebans,etc.
     
  9. idols11

    idols11 Valued Member

    I suspected it was probably not true...
     
  10. The Iron Fist

    The Iron Fist Banned Banned

    Without getting too naughty there is a pretty darn good reason why the Hebrews and Spartans (who seem like two discrete and separate units at first) did indeed eventually become intermingled..in the literal sense. Alexander invaded Judea, sacked Jerusalem, the Hebrews were persecuted by his successors, but over time there were conceived a great many Greek-Hebrew offspring, not to mention an ever growing Hebrew presence in Greece. The Romaniotes are the best example of this. Hebrews have lived in Greece since at least 300 BC. But after Alexander injected Greek culture back into Judea, there was truly a full two-way intermixing of cultures at a very intimate level and the two were forever intertwined. Whatever the case, I'm not why we're going down this route and reviewing Maccabees except for maybe Hanukkah just ended and tis the season! :D
     
    Last edited: Dec 19, 2015
  11. belltoller

    belltoller OffTopic MonstreOrdinaire Supporter

    I was thinking the same thing when I saw the Hebrew MA op. Why can't they come up with something of their own? Why do the recent spate of "long-forgoten, quickly-discovered" ethni-fu groups always end up resorting to Praying Mantis everytime?

    Is Praying Mantis the MA advertisement go-to equivalent of cleavage?

    Now, if instead, they'd taken the slingshot and developed the hell out of it - the best goat-skin to use for the pouch, the best types of rocks - maybe brought in a bit of trajectory science - as simple as it is - it'd been preferable to dusting off the ole Tiger Claw chestnut once again.
     
  12. The Iron Fist

    The Iron Fist Banned Banned

    That's just it brother, they did come up with some legendary according to various sources martial arts: they were extremely skilled in QESHETH which is why it has an ancient name: archery and slingcraft are of course the ancient Hebrew calling cards. The sling shot of David is one of ancient legends most famous 'missile' weapons. How else do you beat a huge opposing army but killing them all with arrows by crack shots before they stomp all over you. That's can easily explain 100 beating 1000...lots of arrows!! :)

    It's like those GEICO commercials..."if you're an ancient Hebrew warrior, you shoot people with rocks and arrows. It's what you do". Unfortunately the Romans had much larger ballista!! :D Bad jokes I know...sorry.
     
    Last edited: Dec 19, 2015
  13. belltoller

    belltoller OffTopic MonstreOrdinaire Supporter

    Not bad, actually. It made me crackle.

    No...sorry :eek: ........turned out to be a loogey in me lung trying to come up. :)p)
     
  14. Bozza Bostik

    Bozza Bostik Antichrist on Button Moon

    It looked a little like silat to be honest...all the crouching stuff with hands being wobbled in front of the face. Some of the other videos had some very dodgy looking chi sau / hubud-like drills.

    One of the best things about martial arts is the spirituality that is developed through training and how it will also make you a better person.

    BWAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!
     
  15. El Medico

    El Medico Valued Member

    There's already a large amount of overlap amongst the Mediterranean cultures-especially visible in surviving divine and heroic mythologies.

    However,Sparta contributed about 0% to the Hellenistic culture spread by Alex.Don't confuse Sparta w/overall Greek culture.

    As to a two way mixing,due to its insular culture,Judea was probably the least influenced by Hellenism of any of the subjected countries.

    Around a millenium before Alex tho',after the fall of the Achaean Greeks (the Trojan War folks) many of the Mycenean culture Greeks went and settled in the Middle East.

    I've never noticed that Judean armies were supposedly anymore skilled w/slings and arrows than anyone else.So no calling card.

    At that period except for ambushes or narrow passes 100 archers do not defeat 1000 foot in the field.These weren't British longbows or Hun recurves they were using.Sorry,man.
     
    Last edited: Dec 21, 2015
  16. The Iron Fist

    The Iron Fist Banned Banned

    Thanks brother Greek history is not my strong point and I don't really know what to make of the claims regarding Sparta. But the insular culture of Judea was indeed heavily influenced by the invasion(s) if anything, Judaic culture was subject to a wide range of persecutory activities including the banning of various cultural and religious traditions and so forth (including certain matters relating to foreskin that were identifiers of Jewish heritage) so maybe I misspoke to suggest that Hellenistic culture was 'injected', more or less Judaic culture was simply oppressed and attempts at 'cleansing' were enacted by their occupiers (which is nothing unique to Hellenistic cultures, obviously if you examine the entire history of the Jewish people ;) ) On top of that, all invading armies as we know inject er how should I put this...DNA. Insular or not, babies happen and that's where I think what the 'brothers' comment above in Maccabees is referencing. To be quite honest, I'd never read that before (consanguinity between the Spartan and Hebrew people). What's far more likely is that by the last century BCE, there was probably a whole lot of Greek DNA in babies born in Judea, as well as the growing population in Greece itself (and honestly I don't know to what extent they were persecuted like the native Judaic people were after Alexander) :D

    But thanks to you for the lesson on Hellenistic cultural migrations, I will definitely make some notes.

    Well brother again my apologies that comment about 100/1000 was more or less off the cuff, but with regards to skilled archery the ancient 'calling card' I referred to is in their own writings, there are somewhere in the area of 3-4 dozen references in the various histories of the Hebrews of relatively advanced forms of bowcraft, and given the age of the documents it aligns ancient Hebrew culture right alongside many of the other ancient cultural 'masters' (Assyria for example).

    When I say calling card I didn't intend to suggest they were 'special' or exemplary but simply that their culture had mastered projectile weapons (as many advanced cultures eventually did). But it's indeed true that the ancient Hebrews wrote about their qesheth often in both their historical as well as spiritual works like the Torah (which goes back to Jacob's deathbed admonition to pass on those critical battlefield arts...so whereas there is zero evidence of a hereditary weaponless art, the Hebrew history specifically calls the weapon out (in quite a few places) as a cultural legacy to pass on.

    One very interestingly consistent reference to the 'qesheth' being a divine weapon of Yahweh is recurring theme of the bow being similar in shape to the rainbow (also qesheth) of the Great Flood. Qesheth in the ancient language can mean "bow", "rainbow", or merely a reference to great power (particularly in war, which is Milchamah Kehshet, 'bow of war' et cetera).

    One example from Chronicles:
    http://biblehub.com/ojb/1_chronicles/12.htm

    http://ancienthebrewlearningcenter.blogspot.com/p/ahyhs-bow-overlookedmeaning-hebrew.html
     
    Last edited: Dec 21, 2015
  17. Ben Gash CLF

    Ben Gash CLF Valued Member

    Actually boxing as we know it is from the 15th-16th century. There's no direct line from Greco-Roman fist fighting to early English pugilism.
    Again, while forms of wrestling have existed through history, modern Olympic wrestling bears little resemblance to them.
     
  18. The Iron Fist

    The Iron Fist Banned Banned

    This is something I thought for years that Greco Roman wrestling meant it had a discrete heritage connection to ancient Greece or Rome. And I was wrong! Greco Roman wrestling was invented by an Italian strongman very recently (mid 19th century), prior to his term for it, it was known colloquially in Europe as "French Wrestling". I found that hilarious that you've got Italy, France, Greece involved, almost like nobody can decide what country it belongs to, so it belongs to them all. That's the best way in my opinion...the concept of state ownership of martial art is a concept I think is relatively inaccurate when you consider how long many of these arts have been inter-mixing with other cultures. It's kind of like the DNA example above, once two nations war there is often a cross-cultural exchange of all sorts of ideas and art is no different. Greece and Rome along with their central Asian counterparts sort of led the charge in this regard. The king of cultural spread of DNA is I believe Ghengis Khan...funny article from National Geographic on just how prolific he was in that regard ;) http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/02/0214_030214_genghis.html
     
    Last edited: Dec 21, 2015
  19. The Iron Fist

    The Iron Fist Banned Banned

    Some interesting facts for everyone about QESHETH...I really do apologize for belaboring this point but ever since I saw that blog about qesheth being claimed as a weaponless art, by associates of Yehoshua Sofer, I have really wanted to set the record straight about what qesheth means. I feel they are misrepresenting the entire meaning. In fact given the clear historical connotation as to what qesheth is (both in religious terms as well as archaeological) I really am shocked anyone would be teaching that qesheth is something else. It literally flies in the face of history and is easily proven otherwise.

    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Dec 22, 2015
  20. belltoller

    belltoller OffTopic MonstreOrdinaire Supporter

    I did blink 3 times until opening the spoiler. Relief...the bands in my world have begun playing far too many different tunes as it is; this would have been the last straw.

    Not Praying Mantis? Were we looking at the same clip?

    [​IMG]


    :D

    Silat? Really?!? Don't know anything about that one except it had its origins in Malaysia. --> and I wouldn't bet the farm on that.

    Yeah, the whole "crouching stuff with hands being wobbled in front of the face" all look the same to me, I'm afraid. If it's not a jab-cross-hook-uppercut and maybe a right leg-kick ...

    Makes one wonder what I've been doing on a forum devoted primarily to Asian TMA's for the good part of 5 years, doesn't it?!? :eek:

    I've been having to ask myself that on more than one occasion, recently.
     
    Last edited: Dec 22, 2015

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