January 26, 2010

Harold Bloom gravely ill

79-year old Harold Bloom has cancelled all his classes; he is described as “gravely ill” and has been in the hospital since December.  I have a love-hate relationship with Bloom – his writings are sometimes insightful, although more often than not I disagree with him, particularly on his comments on Biblical sources.

I hope he makes a full recovery and returns to writing and teaching.

January 19, 2010

Hitler’s Bible

HT:  Tzvee

Pravda: Hitler rewrote the Bible and added two commandments

An institute, founded on Hitler’s command, rewrote Bible texts, eliminating all mentions of the special role of the Jewish people. According to Hitler’s version, Christ was an advocate of Aryan ideas. Sections from the Nazi Bible will be published by German publication Bild on Thursday.

In May 1939, on the Furher’s command, a theological institute was founded in Eisenach with the purpose of contributing to “dejewification”. Its employees edited biblical texts, removing non-Aryan passages. Dozens of works printed by the institute were published in over 100 thousand copies of the new Holy Scripture. It was assumed that this work would become a standard household book amongst Germans.

For a long time, almost nothing was known about Hitler’s Bible, since believers burnt almost every copy. However, a few copies were discovered in German churches at the end of the 1980s, but this was kept hidden from the general public at the time, writes Izvestia.

German biblical archivist Hansjorg Buss has summarized the dubious achievements of Hitler’s myrmidons for Bild newspaper.

“Germans with the Lord – the German book of faith”: the renewed version of the Holy Scripture contained 12 edited commandments instead of 10, as follows:

  1. Honor your Fuhrer and master.
  2. Keep the blood pure and your honor holy.
  3. Honor God and believe in him wholeheartedly.
  4. Seek out the peace of God.
  5. Avoid all hypocrisy.
  6. Holy is your health and life.
  7. Holy is your well-being and honor.
  8. Holy is your truth and fidelity.
  9. Honor your father and mother -- your children are your aid and your example.
  10. Maintain and multiply the heritage of your forefathers.
  11. Be ready to help and forgive.
  12. Joyously serve the people with work and sacrifice.

In the new edition of the psalms, words of Jewish origin, such as messiah and halleluiah, were altered and the city of Jerusalem was referred to as Eternal City of God. The crucifixion of Jesus Christ was presented as resulting from a battle he fought against the Jews.

In the 1940 edition, the following words can be found: “The Evangelical Jesus can only become the savior of our German people, because it does not incarnate the ideas of Judaism, but fights against them mercilessly.”

“The German people fought against the destruction of their life and essence by the Jews”, wrote the director of the institute Walter Grundmann. Hitler personally signed the decree on the appropriation of the awarding of the title of professor to him.

And finally, Jesus’ ancestors, according to the Nazis, came from the Caucuses, therefore there was no way that the savior could have been Jewish.