Posted on 09/26/2017 5:32:30 PM PDT by SJackson
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Nachmanides wrote that the devastation constitutes a good tiding, proclaiming that during all our exiles, our land will not accept our enemies... Since the time that we left it, [the land] has not accepted any nation or people, and they all try to settle it... This is a great proof and assurance to us.
I'll search for the article, but I once read a very detailed piece on how the weather patterns in Israel changed since 1917, through 1948, to today.
The amount of rainfall increased incredibly, and allowed a once arid and desolate land to bloom again.
That, combined with ingenious Israeli irrigation techniques, have turn Israel into a literal garden.
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Clemons was a bit of a sourpuss.
Thanks for the post.
What is striking about his comments is his obvious contempt for historical places, and what took place in them.
Even if your an agnostic, the Biblical stories did take place. The sites where they took place add perspective to the stories. So even if you don’t believe in God, the people who wrote those stories did. They did exist. They did have lives in these places. They did document things that took place there. You can find interest in that.
People over there could come to Twain’s (Clemens’) home in the states and find nothing of value there. The fact that a well known person lived there, would be of note, and cause them to picture that setting whenever they thought of him.
The same could be said of places and things he touched on in his writings.
Some times folks are too cute by half, and tell others a lot more than they might wish to have.
Twain seems a bit of a jerk in this presentation.
Yes, but he was also a big fan of...
Samuel Clemens.
Of all of Twain's travel and/or reminiscence books, I like "Roughing It" the best, "Innocents Abroad" vying with "Life on the Mississippi"* for second place. I would never have expected anyone to tie Twain to prophecy vis-a-vis Israel... I suspect he would probably be offended by the idea of being mentioned in connection with religion, yet so delighted that someone was paying attention to him that he would take whatever credit was vouchsafed.
Mr. niteowl77
*A writer (and fellow Iowan) named Richard Bissell once wrote an interesting little autobiography coyly entitled, "My Life on the Mississippi- Or Why I Am Not Mark Twain," wherein he was a bit uncomplimentary about Sam'l.
Devoid of Arabs, who came in droves only much later, AFTER the Jewish immigrants turned the desert into an oasis.
It was just Twain's style. When he wrote about the area I live in Roughing It in 1861 when he commented that "[the area is so desolate] that even the birds carry provisions." Actually it is spectacular scenery here with 14,000' mountains and miles of beautiful open landscapes. People from all over the World come to visit this area now. He was near what later became Yosemite Nat'l Park when he wrote those comments.
Satire is so often wasted on the educated! Thin-skinned Christians are no better at judging his work than those idiots who call him a racist because Huck Finn repeatedly uses the term nigger.
Though Twain was a misanthrope, there are glimmers of respect for true faith in his writings though he openly called out the hucksters and the fools. If you really think his judgement of the trinket salesmen harsh, how do you view another’s anger that drove Him to pick up a whip?
He was a jerk I suppose, but an entertaining one. My recollection he liked nothing on that cruise. About the best thing he had to say about anyone is that the Brits had the good sense to carry their own soap, knowing no one else in Europe used soap. Funny what you remember.
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OK smart-a$$!
150 years ago, it was more desolate then it is now.
Thanks for the mention. There’s some truth to the view you presented.
I liked roughing it too, it being America he did find virtue there in some pretty unsavory characters. He would be surprised. I'd never heard that Nachmanides quote. Does make one think.
Sometime satire is wasted because it’s just wasted.
Thanks.
I think you mix satire and humor with some appreciation for what you’re reviewing.
In all fairness, I’m sure the offering was more extensive than what I read. Perhaps he did allude to more consequential things.
I’ve liked things he has written, so this shouldn’t be taken as an overall judgment of the man and his works.
But, but the Palestinians claim that they populated the land until the Jews came and occupied it.
That looks like the Bahai temple in Haifa
Israeli “drip technique” for watering a forest or valley full of growth.
I’m really looking forward to Zechariah 8:22-23 being fulfilled!
Maranatha!
In “Innocents Abroad”, Twain spoke of the Sea Of Galilee. He wrote that the price that the Arabs were charging, for a ferry ride, was so exorbitant, that “it’s no wonder Christ walked!.”
Read later.
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