Ancient Hebrew biblical martial arts!

Greetings. I do stand by the fact that I don't know what your definition is for an accurate source on Jewish texts, history, etc. That is why I asked earlier what the definition being used is. A couple of people have been willing to give that standard to some degree and I am thankful for that.

 

Giborim as in children of the Nephilim, or general heroes?

 

A little hasty with the anti-semetic angle there. I don't know of anyone here judging sources based on religion or ethnicity.

 

No the Hebrew word "Giborim" like many Hebrew words has more than one meaning, based on the three letter root of the Hebrew word. (This requires some Hebrew. If the admin permits I can write a few words and then explain them)

Okay, so the Hebrew root (ג-ב-ר) (Gimel-Beth-Resh) as a basic root, not a word, means "strong" to be mighty", etc. Sometimes the word (גיבורים) is pronounced Giborim and sometimes Giburim, depending on which ancient dialect of Hebrew you use. What you are describing is what the Torah uses as a general description of strong people. The same way Nephilim is also a general term for those who stray from something or fall away from something. In both cases in that part of the text it is not used as a specific name but as general titles.

During the first commonwealth of Israel, about 2,500 years ago there was a part of the Jewish army known as the "Giborim;" they were called that based on the meaning of the word. In modern English one would call that a military unit or a division of the army that was active duty. Most of the rest of the Jewish army at that time was on call or in reserves so to speak. A part of that unit, known as the Giborim, trained in part of Jerusalem known as the Qonfon. There are Jewish sources, in both the Mishnah and among other historical analysts that state that a part of the Giborim went into Arabia before the end of the 1st commonwealth. This is where the mesorah (tradition) of certain Yemenite Jews sources picks up, as well as Islamic sources.

 

I think you misunderstood what I was getting at. There was an earlier comment that did suggest that there was no fighting techniques from ancient Jewish armies. This is not a religious point or an ethnic point. My entry into the forum was on the basis of sources that are ancient and authoritative. It is a valid point to make if someone doesn't know Jewish sources in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Judeo-Arabic and based on what little they do know they have never seen said sources. Because the most ancient and authoritative sources for Jewish history and culture were written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Judeo-Arabic this may prove a challenge to someone who knows very little about them.

Further, I may post a source that you may decide to reject for reasons known only to you. There are some people in the world who do not accept Jewish sources on anything. There are for example people dismiss Jewish sources on Jewish texts for a whole lot of reasons, some may be their own personal bias.

In order for me to provide a source for something, I have to understand what someone is defining as a valid source. Otherwise we chase our tales and get no where because we can't agree on the basics.

It goes back to how one wants to define a martial art. One could easily look at an ancient Jewish army and say, "I don't consider what they were doing a martial art." Depending on what your definition of what the statement "martial arts" means Jewish sources may also agree with you that what they were does not meet your definition of a "martial art." Besides, there are some people who unequivocally say that the term martial arts is inappropriate in some situations.

 

BTW. Based on a recent comment from SCA. I think I must make it clear. I have not claimed and do not claim that anyone on this forum is a anti-semite for disagreeing on something.

Maybe, I haven't made it clear enough but it is possible that in some of the historical areas we have different ideas of what is considered a valid source. For example, I am not Japanese and I may have a view of elements of Japanese history that don't align with native Japanese sources. If a Japanese person were to ask me what I consider a valid source of information on Japanese history my response would be, "A source in the Japanese language that can be shown to be ancient and authoritative." Not being Japanese that is all I would have to go on and if such is provided I would have to stand on the fact that I don't Japanese and I don't know ancient and authoritative Japanese sources on their history. I only know what western scholars have told me about it and my short lived experiences during two trips to Japan.

I hope that makes sense.

 

So it's practices are meant to develop skills you can utilise in a combat situation? It's therefore really only a semantic argument relating to the semantic representation and associated value judgement you hold around the term martial art?

I'll bow out of this one I think. Anyone who trains effectively can see the flaws in the method and for most it's likely plain to see what the factors are around the choice/discarding of certain terminology.

 

"

The main reason that non-Torah based individuals find Abir to be a joke is because it is Jewish and thus all of their issues with Jews come out in their comments - the same type of people would also claim that Krav Maga, because of its Jewish origin, is useless. Here a few examples of these types of claims. Claim Against Krav Maga


The same people, if given the opportunity, would level the same statements against the Torah and any other aspect of ancient Jewish culture. Given that the Torah and Jewish culture predates any written record of the cultures these individuals practice in their day to day lives rest assured that a Jew who trains in Abir has nothing to be concerned about with these types of people. "

From your faq section of your website.

So your saying any criticism is anti semetic.

Want to explain that away?

 

Yes, the practices of Abir historically were used in combat to avoid it or to survive it. It can be a semantics from an English point of view but not one from the Hebrew language itself and history in this part of the world. I think everyone here agrees that it is not a martial art, and I agree. There seems to a problem that I agree with it not meeting the criteria set for for a martial art by those who decide what is and isn't or a martial art and what is defined as an effective martial art.

As I mentioned before, the semantics were not the issue I brought up. I brought up the accurate information about Abir historically. In terms of discarding terminology. My point is the terminology historically was never on the table to begin with. The idea of defining it as a martial art came from those making video outside of the system. For example, if someone wants to call it a theater or dance, I don't have a problem with that being how it is defined on this forum. My issue is that the current web-site best defines what historically has and has not been.

As I mentioned before the discussion or view of the forum that what they have seen in video is not effective is up to the forum.

 

Greetings. There is no mention in the FAQ about criticism of Abir being anti-Semitic. In what we quoted above we are addressing a particular type of Skeptic who is not concerned with techniques, or opinions about them, but simply state that the Jews don't have [add anything in the brackets]. As many of us know there are people who call out Krav Maga is being in-effective and fake. (Something discussed in the video link in the section you provided above.) That particular skeptic doesn't seem to be sensitive to us responding to them in particular and if we wanted to call them a name like anti-Semitic we would; not like it would matter nor is it necessary and it doesn't apply to that type of Skeptic.

As mentioned further in our Q&A.

"We have no problem with those who are skeptical, in whatever area that skepticism takes roots, our reliance on Hashem for confronting and the bad of life is something not found in any systems our detractors normally claim to represent. Thus, our ancestors passed on the methods they found useful to protect themselves, their families, and their communities without compromising our Torah based objectives. This is also at odds with the goals set forth by those who are found among our critics.

As mentioned before Abir Qesheth, as a system, does not offer any magic spells, death blows, mental tricks, or false expectations of strength as a solution to facing danger."​

The reason why we mention is this that some of those who have criticized Abir criticize specifically "our reliance on Hashem for confronting and the bad of life." We don't have a problem with that, it is just simply means that what they represent and what we represent aren't compatible which is what that type of critic seems to be saying from the start.

If you look at the previous sections of the Q&A to what you quoted what is being referenced is addressed, the inconsistency in what Abir is being claimed to be. Like mentioned before, some people claim it is KSW with a kippa, some say it was taken from Kung Fu, some claim that Jews never had a system of personalized training for combat, there are some who say that no source exists yet when we provide them they claim the source is invalid to them w/o any evidence to it being invalid, etc.. What we stated is well which one is it? It can't be all of these things at the same time if we are dealing with historical events; either they happened or they didn't. Further, we prefaced the statement about non-Torah individuals know earlier, when we stated:

"When talking about Yemenite Jews (Teimanim), most people's contact with Yemenite Jewish history is often limited to songs, dancing, food, or stereotypes about the community. Few Westerners think first of the scholarship that existed among Yemenite Jews or the historical content found in Yemenite Jewish writings. So when someone presents a picture of a community of Yemenite Jews different from the so called norm, this causes conflict from those who have styled themselves experts on all things Jewish. Some of the ignorance about Abir also stems from the fact many of the sources for it, and its history, are primarily found in Hebrew, Aramaic, or Arabic texts. To the English based westerner these languages are distant and obscure which is why we are proud to present them on our Hebrew "​

What is discussed is that some peoples view of Jews, globally, is that Jews don't have certain things "historically" and have never had certain things historically. For example, there are some people who think European Jewish history is all there is to Jewish history. It is not anti-Semitic for them to think so but is a view that is held by some people. Some people think that Yiddish is Hebrew because it uses the Hebrew script and they don't know the history of the Yiddish language. That doesn't make them anti-Semitic it just means that they don't know elements of Jewish history. There are some people who don't know anything about the Giborim that I mentioned above so if I were to describe them based on Jewish sources they would think I am pulling it out of the air when in reality it has always existed in ancient and modern Jewish text in Hebrew and Aramaic.

My personally belief is that no matter how the Q&A was written someone would feel that we are talking down to our critics or evading. Not much can be done with that if a person wants to feel that way. Besides, it is not like we exert some kind of power over our critics to where they should be sensitive.

 

Maybe I missed that, but if "you and your people"/ the people who run the site/ practice your system/ add something fitting... don't call it martial art, what are you calling it?

I mean, you write it is meant to "protect themselves, their families..." and that "...some claim that Jews never had a system of personalized training for combat..." something you obviously disagree and say "Here it is" so to speak.

Therefore it looks to me as if you are making sure that you have a.... "combat system", but it's not a martial art.
As if you're pretty much only switch some words, so it sounds more... I don't know, to be honest. Important? Mystical? Different?



On a side-note: I agree with Dead_pool.
The quoted text essentially says "You disagree? You're anti-semetic and dumb as well."
If it's not meant like that, my personal advise would be to re-write it.

 

If you read the Q&A on the site it says that it can't be a martial art, because the term "martial art" refers to pagan practices, and so cannot describe their fighting system, which is Torah-based:

- Abir Qesheth אביר קשת | Jerusalem | Abir-qesheth-israel

 

Oh wait, here comes the end of the thread... ready?

 

Oh my! You really were not joking!

 

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhaha!!!!

The official seal of fake!

 

That's is more proof, then has been offered by the school In question.


Also krav is generally terrible outside of Israel.

 

Is it a truism that anyone pictured posing with Dux is automatically and officially "clown-shoes" in perpetuity?

 

Pretty much - my own Sifu met him at an award show once and I got a months worth of urine extraction from it

 

To break it down a bit. We give several reasons that why Abir should not be termed as a martial arts. There are concepts found in Judaism against using terminology that is sourced from the practices of the nations such as the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, etc. According to some sources the term is derived from Latin, and means "arts of Mars", the Roman god of war. So the first problem is the term "martial" is describing something forbidden for Torah based Jews i.e. association in any way with concepts of Roman culture. We have several other reasons that I have already listed above. So you agree it is not a martial arts and should not compared with or categorized as such and so do you. So where is the conflict? We are saying the same thing for different reasons.

Like I mentioned before the assumption that some make that we are accusing them of Antisemitism is something someone is going to walk in with no matter what is written because of the fact that we are answering questions from our perspective that have been posed in the past. Besides, there are some Jews who believe that there was never a Jewish system of fighting and hold for by the exact reasons we gave. They are obviously not antisemitic for believing other did not have something. If someone knows they are not antisemitic it wouldn't matter since they know they are not. That is like someone calling another person a racist when they know they are not.

 

So you don't think it's a martial art because you don't like the etymology of the term "martial art"? Not because it's not a martial art?

What...like the word "terminology"? Which has Medieval Latin and greek roots?