Did the human race start in Israel?

The chosen people
Might the human race have started in Israel?
Sunday, January 02, 2011
By Jack Kelly, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Archeologists digging in a cave in central Israel said Monday they've found teeth 400,000 years old they think belonged to a Homo sapiens.

If they're right, then modern man is roughly twice as old as previously thought and didn't originate in Africa, as contemporary scientific theory postulates. The oldest Homo sapiens remains found in Africa are about 200,000 years old.

Teeth are often unreliable indicators of origin, Sir Paul Mellars of Cambridge University told the Associated Press. He thinks these belong to a Neanderthal. Both Homo sapiens and Neanderthals are thought to have descended from a common ancestor in Africa about 700,000 years ago.

If man did originate in what is now Israel, could that be one reason the God of the Torah made the Jews his chosen people?

We know tooth guy wasn't Jewish. Abraham, the father of the Jewish race, didn't come to the region from Ur in what is now Iraq until about 4,000 years ago.

God didn't choose the Jews because they were powerful or numerous. Ancient Israel was to the great powers of its time what Costa Rica is to the United States or China today.

Nor did he choose this "stubborn, stiff-necked" people because they were virtuous, or obedient. So why?

Most theologians think God chose the Jews to honor Abraham, apparently the world's first (post-flood) monotheist.

I don't doubt that. But I don't think it escaped God's notice that Israel was smack dab in the center of the ancient world. You couldn't get to Assyria or Babylon or Persia from Egypt without going through Israel. If God wanted to tell his story through history, what better way to do it than through a small nation in the middle of the action?

If Israel were also where human beings began, it would be all the more fitting. Geography must have been a consideration because God told Abraham to go there.

Being God's chosen people hasn't been a picnic for the Jews. They've been reviled and persecuted virtually everywhere.

The first noteworthy instance of anti-Semitism was when Haman, prime minister to King Ahasuerus (Xerxes), who reigned from 486 to 465 BC, plotted to kill all the Jews in the Persian empire, which then included Israel.

Haman had a reason for his beef. He was a descendant of Agag, king of the Amalekites, a people nearly wiped out by King David (1010-970 BC).

But for most, anti-Semitism makes no sense. Ancient Israel was, and modern Israel is, a small nation, more oppressed than oppressor. There are no Jews among history's great tyrants and mass murderers. Jewish aggression, such as it was, stopped with King David 3,000 years ago.

Despite the prejudices and, frequently, legal barriers against them, virtually everywhere Jews have lived they've been over-represented in science, medicine, business, the arts. Twenty-two percent of recipients of the Nobel Prize since 1901 have been Jewish.

Jews are under-represented on welfare rolls and among violent criminals. Compared to most other ethnic groups, they've been model citizens.

The term "anti-Semitism" also makes no sense, because the people today who hate Jews most, the Arabs, also are Semites (children of Shem). The term was coined by the 19th-century German journalist Wilhelm Marr, who wanted a more gussied-up name for his prejudice than Judenhass (Jew hate).

Anti-Semitism is popular these days in tony left-wing circles in Europe and America. Tiny Israel, alone among the nations of the world, is condemned for having the temerity to defend herself.

Prime Minister Golda Meir (1969-1974) was asked once how Israel has managed to prevail despite the huge numerical advantage of her foes.

"There's the natural way and the miraculous way," she responded. "The natural way is that God sends a miracle and we win. And the miraculous way is that somehow we do it by ourselves."

The most remarkable thing about the Jews is that 2,000 years after having been scattered to the four winds, they still exist as a distinct people, while all the great empires mentioned in the Bible have long since passed into history. I doubt this could have happened without divine protection.

So if I were an anti-Semite, I would worry more than they do about peeving the Almighty.

Jack Kelly is a columnist for the Post-Gazette and The (Toledo) Blade (jkelly@post-gazette.com, 412 263-1476). More articles by this author
First published on January 2, 2011 at 12:00 am


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