Spanish scholars have speculated that Columbus was a crypto-Jew. The DNA analysis could have potentially ruled out that theory.
https://www.cnn.com/2012/05/20/opinion/garcia-columbus-jewis...
Christopher Columbus may have been Spanish and Jewish, documentary says
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Re: Christopher Columbus may have been Spanish and Jewish, documentary says
#212Spanish scholars have speculated that Columbus was a crypto-Jew. The DNA analysis could have potentially ruled out that theory. https://www.cnn.com/2012/05/20/opinion/garcia-columbus-jewis...
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Re: Christopher Columbus may have been Spanish and Jewish, documentary says
#213Earlier quoted context omitted.
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I see what you're saying. I tried feeding this into ChatGPT and it seems like better use of commas would make all the difference. "While that may have been true in the 1400s, when ex-Jewish Conversos sometimes held significant economic and even political power, by the 1500s things had changed. Antisemitism (and the same applied to Muslim converts) became much more focused on race rather than just religion. Conversos…
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Re: Christopher Columbus may have been Spanish and Jewish, documentary says
#214Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Columbus must not have been very religious. He was incredibly religious. In his Catholicism. If anything this is just proof that reading too deeply, and especially solely, into anyone’s DNA history is a mistake. Plenty of people have a background unrelated to their lives or the way they perceive themselves.
Agreed that it's important not to read too much into this about Columbus as a person, but if this is true there are plenty of interesting things to draw from it. It would suggest that he probably came from a family that converted to Catholicism (given the time period, probably under duress). Had his ancestors made a different choice Columbus himself may have been expelled from Spain shortly before he sailed on August…
is it so rare to think that maybe he did it himself rather it being passed down?
Re: Christopher Columbus may have been Spanish and Jewish, documentary says
#215Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Closer to "genocidal" would be Hernan Cortes, who pretty much took down the Aztecs. Well that's what you get when you go about enslaving and committing genocide against your neighbours for centuries prior. Cortes didn't even have to try - all the neighbouring nations eagerly joined the Spanish to wipe out the Aztecs. Even after that, the Aztecs weren't wiped out - they were just converted hard to Christianity and a…
The Maya suffered for sure, but they survived in numbers that exceed all of native American population in the US, for example, and kept their language. Others had it much worse.
But not their history, literature, wealth, or power. They were reduced from an empire to a group of often landless peasant farmers.
Re: Christopher Columbus may have been Spanish and Jewish, documentary says
#216Earlier quoted context omitted.
All of Jesus’s original disciples were Jewish. And you can be certainly be Jewish without having Jewish DNA, but there’s some controversy as to whether the reverse is true.
David Cross has a funny [bit][1] about whether the reverse is true. [1]: https://youtu.be/z09So1j4kpk?t=378
I like his work, but his bits on religion and Jewish identity in particular really miss the mark. He comes off as quite ignorant.
Re: Christopher Columbus may have been Spanish and Jewish, documentary says
#217Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Jewish DNA is that which has descended from Abraham, through Isaac, to Jacob and the Jewish nation. Gravity is an attraction between masses. These things exist – regardless of your machines’ proclivities. Including the term "DNA" in that statement is an anachronism. Cultural identification isn't a physical law like gravity, regardless of how aggressively or emphatically that may be stated. That doesn't make it unim…
Are you specifically claiming that a common ancestor does not exist, or that genetic information does not spread to offspring?
Even if Abraham _did_ exist, at this point in time it's like trying to distinguish a drop of water from the ocean it's now living in. That's how little would have remained of Abraham's DNA so much later.
Re: Christopher Columbus may have been Spanish and Jewish, documentary says
#218Earlier quoted context omitted.
From the Google translate of that article: > The concept was born from the chroniclers of the Christian kingdoms “when they recovered what is called the neo-Gothic ideal ” by which “the kings of Asturias, then of León and then of Castile proclaimed themselves descendants and legitimate heirs of the Gothic kings,” > ... > the idea of Reconquista “was a myth that only began to take shape from the 11th century as part o…
You kind of cherry-picked two paragraphs and butchered the article. The article's point is that Reconquista, with capital R, is not a good designation for the historical events that took place. It does use the term throughout the article, though, which maybe is a bit confusing. But if you read a couple paragraphs past the one you quoted, you'll see it restated that the term Reconquista is a 20th century invention. "T…
You're ignoring what I actually said about the quotes—I read all of that and I don't care when the term originated, that's pointless pedantry. The medieval kings thought of themselves as reconquering, so reconquista is a decent word to describe what they thought they were doing, regardless of its origins.
Re: Christopher Columbus may have been Spanish and Jewish, documentary says
#219Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I don’t understand boners Well, he literally got into a 70-ft wooden sailboat and crossed the Atlantic ocean with no certainty of landfall, basically sailing on spec, and because of that voyage, opened up a new hemisphere of the planet to development, and (with unfortunate but inevitable awful consequence) brought humanity together again after a substantial period of isolation. We admire the Pacific Islanders for s…
> brought humanity together again This is such a culturally insensitive thing to say. And very ironic considering all the Americans that died during that "bringing humanity together" period and all the segregation imposed by the invaders that has been in place until not that many decades ago
GP quite literally acknowledged the injustices that happened in the sentence before the one you quoted.
Saying the Columbus' expedition brought humanity together is a descriptive statement because it did in fact permanently connect groups of humans who had lived separately for thousands of years.
Also if you think it's culturally insensitive to describe the effects of European colonization (positive and negative), then I think you'll find it hard to discuss almost any historical events because cruelty has existed everywhere. This isn't whataboutism btw, my point is that sensitivity should not be a primary concern in a rational discussion about history because history is harsh subject.
Re: Christopher Columbus may have been Spanish and Jewish, documentary says
#220Earlier quoted context omitted.
Converting to Judaism can be easier than many people assume, sometimes even simpler than earning a high school degree. It's important to note that Judaism is not a proselytizing religion, meaning it doesn't actively seek to convert others. Instead, conversion is a deeply personal choice, and those who pursue it are welcomed after a meaningful process. Judaism is actually one of the major world religions, though it's…
Islam requires reciting a short sentence with conviction.[ https://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/~msa/tour/ch3-6.htm ]. Christianity requires (depending on who you ask/sect) - believing in Christ as your savior, or baptism, or being confirmed. Generally not an arduous process. Hinduism, you believe in the Dharma, and as long as you aren’t angering people enough they kick you out, you are Hindu. Some would argue, as long as…
> depending on who you ask
> Generally not an arduous process.
Why not ask Jesus? He said it requires giving everything you have to the kingdom, following the spirit of the Law more fully than the Jews themselves do, and loving the Lord and your neighbor with all your heart. He additionally said that many who claim to be Christian are not, and will be judged accordingly.