Friday Five on a Sunday

[missdiane]

With the cuts and pictures, easier to put the link to LJ for the Friday five

https://missdiane.livejournal.com/1426083.html

Comments

[threecee]

The plate looks very pretty and a lot easier than trying to get everything set up on your own. Do you also have the Cup for Elijah? There are a lot of fancy ones, but I'm sure any nice goblet you already have would work. (I doubt Elijah is to going to show up at the house of some shiksa offering him grape juice anyway.)

[missdiane]

Hm...I didn't know about the cups. I need one for Miriam too. I do have plenty of pretty goblet-type glasses around the place so I'll use that.

I guess just laying out extra juice boxes would be rather crude ;)

[threecee]

I never heard of Miriam's Cup, but sounds like a great idea to recognize the women.

Well, if the juice boxes are Kosher for Passover... Nah, spring for a bottle of Kedem grape juice, it is really good.

By the way, don't invite any Egyptologists if you are going to talk about the Israelites building the pyramids. There was no evidence of any of the Semitic peoples in Egypt during the time when the pyramids were built. The famous pyramids at Giza were built by the pharaohs Khufu, Menkare, and Khafre in the Old Kingdom (2700 -2100 BCE) and were made of stone using the labor of peasants who were idle during the annual flooding of the Nile, (sort of like CCC during the Depression). There are records of the workers going on strike for better pay so they weren't slaves. Skilled workers were employed year round, but the heavy stuff was done by peasants.

Semitic names began appearing in Egyptian records during the New Kingdom (1570 to 1544 BCE), including some high officials and several notes about the problem of foreign nomads roaming around being a nuisance. It also corresponds to a major famine in the area of modern Israel and Palestine, so it fits with the story of Joseph. A group of these people were eventually used as slaves/forced labor to build the new capital city of Pi-Ramses in the delta under Ramsses II who is identified by most Egyptologists and Biblical historians as the pharaoh of the Exodus. Building the city of Ramsses is also mentioned in Exodus 1:11. They used clay brick for most of the city which ties in with the "bricks without straw" stuff.

The whole "we built the pyramids" thing isn't upheld by rabbinical interpretations either, but you will hear it every Passover from Jews who aren't scholars. Sounds more impressive than "we built some city no one has ever heard of." It was actually a major undertaking to build a capital city from nothing.

That is way more than you ever wanted to know, sorry for the lecture. I worked for the Egyptian Section of the museum when I was in college and the Egyptologists and Biblical Historians both threw fits about that myth every Passover.

[missdiane]

*modifies Stop & Shop order to put on Kedem* Thanks! I hadn't tried it so I didn't know what to get. I'll probably have to water it down some, though, since I have to do that with most juice as it tastes way too sweet for me. Especially if I'm going to have to drink so much.

Love the history lesson - thank you! I never turn my nose up at learning new things. Yeah, that is a pretty HUGE gap of time between two things. I'm sure it's more impressive to say you built the pyramids but building an entire capital city is also impressive and should be bragged about/educated on. I mean it parallels the lack of knowledge about who really built Washington DC here.

[threecee]

Kedem is pretty sweet, so I would water it.

I just remembered I have some Welch's sparkling grape in the fridge. It makes a tolerable substitute for wine, since I don't quite trust myself to drink alone. Humm, maybe I can make a real meal and have some of that with it. Maybe not, just not hungry. I had spinach and mushroom salad last night, but the mushrooms tasted odd. They were fresh and had good texture, just the flavor was unpleasant. (No I dd not pick them myself.) I ate enough that I'd be sick if there was anything wrong: things just don't taste right.

[missdiane]

Geez, even your taste buds are betraying you! I hope you can find something good to eat. I can't do fizzy drinks anymore which is a bummer.