Traveller Manifesto
67. Los Angeles - Today

Los Angeles – Today.

Professor Rita DeMille – American Jewish University

Until recently, I have never had any reason to doubt the accuracy of the Transporter in sending teams back 1000 years. After all, the incredible mission to Saxon Aengland, then the disaster of New Zealand and the horrors of Constantinople and Mississippi have proven that Traveller missions do two things; they provide data that is a mixture of the expected and unexpected, and they shock when it comes to our ancestors’ apparent lack of any value of human life.

Yet, now we have completed a patrol in the time period we accept is circa 1000 BC, and though our astronomical observations indicate our timing is correct, we are beset upon by doubts.

For one thing, this is the first time we have ever used more than one Transporter to take our intrepid Travellers more than only one-thousand years back in Time. That in itself should be seen to be both a natural progression of the mission style and incredibly brave. Our replaceings have challenged us, indeed they have been so confronting as to have some experts question whether our replaceings have been of our history or an alternate timeline. Some, without any qualification to do so, have suggested that every jump in a Transporter sends a Traveller back to a timeline that is slightly different. Implement two, three or even four Transporters with these theoretical compounded errors and we send our brave Travellers back to a timeline that is indistinguishable from that which we know.

Yet how do we know this? Is this our own form of confirmation bias? That we only accept replaceings when they suit our beliefs or hypothesis? Are we questioning everything about the replaceings of our researchers in a millennium before the Christian era because they confront and force us to look outside of our narrow belief structures? Is this conclusion only forwarded because the timeline difference most significantly affects believers in the Holy Bible and the Torah, or because the observations threaten the very foundations of Judaism and Christianity and so challenge the global power structure? For if our replaceings affect these two great religions, then they also challenge Islam. What does this especially mean for the Nation of Israel who is managing this project we call Israel Traveller?

In our recent history, too many archaeologists worked in and around the ancient City of Jerusalem with preconceived notions that were unashamedly biased toward the Biblical narrative, for they unapologetically worked with a trowel in one hand and the Bible in the other. This acceptance of the Biblical narrative has led us to many assumptions, for to work against the narrative has, to many, been too horrifying to contemplate.

Did the City of Jerusalem, or as the Travellers to 980 BC found it called, the City of Jebus, actually become the City of David? Even with our brave Travellers engaged in a patrol to that very place and Time we still have no evidence of such. What is of most concern is how, according to the Biblical narrative, King Solomon built a substantive temple, the Temple of Solomon, at a location which the Book of Chronicles equates with David’s altar. Our Travellers found such an altar, but it was to a different God, indeed it was dedicated to a pair of Gods. This does not mean our view of history is flawed, for much can change after a few years, but to replace nothing of any real proof is galling. Solomon’s Temple is documented to have become a major cultural centre in the region and, particularly after religious reforms such as those of Hezekiah and of Josiah, the Jerusalem temple became a centralised place of worship at the expense of other, formerly powerful ritual centres, such as those in Shiloh and Bethel. However, according to K. L. Noll, the Biblical account of the centralization of worship in Jerusalem is a fiction. It is seen by some that by the time of Josiah, the territory he ruled was so small that the Jerusalem temple became de facto the only shrine left. Is this controversial view of the history of the Jews more correct? Solomon is also described as having created several other important building works at Jerusalem, including the construction of his palace and the controversial rampart or Millo. What is most significant is that archaeologists, the people on the very coalface of historical research, are divided over whether the biblical narrative is supported by evidence. Now we have seen a team visit to the Time before that of Solomon, how will that change our narrative? Eilat Mazar contends that her digging uncovered remains of large stone buildings from the correct time period, which fits in with our replaceings, while Israel Finkelstein disputes both the interpretation and the dating of the replaces. It seems this most controversial historian may, indeed, be vindicated. Yes, Finkelstein might actually be correct.

But while many historians might be tempted to be caught up in detail, the most significant question we must ask is: What do our replaceings mean to modern Israel? Popular history suggests the Kingdom of Judah split from the larger Kingdom of Israel (which the Bible places near the end of the reign of Solomon, c. 930 BCE) though Finkelstein and others dispute the very existence of a unified monarchy to begin with. In fact, Thomas L. Thompson questions if Jerusalem even became a city capable of acting as a state capital by the middle of the 7th century BC, which is over three hundred years after our Travellers inspected the small, walled town they found there.

We can only surmise that the Bible and regional archaeological evidence is correct in suggesting the region was politically unstable during the period 925–732 BCE. In 925 BCE, we do know that the region was invaded by Egyptian Pharaoh Sheshonk I of the Third Intermediate Period, who is possibly the same as the Shishak mentioned in the Bible as the first Pharaoh to capture and pillage Jerusalem. But now, as we examine the replaceings from Professor William Cowen, must we accept that his replaceings are inconclusive or, as some will suggest, that the proof as supplied by Israel Traveller in Camp Gamma, located circa 980 BC, that there was no King David, King Solomon, or Kingdom of Israel? Do we conclude that the Bible is merely a collaboration of tales and fanciful teachings cobbled together over the ages, with little real historical substance and truth?

But all is not bad news.

Our Travellers discovered a reference of the leader at the time, a Jebusite by the name of Elhanan who is believed by some to be the King David of Biblical records. Yet, their investigation and our analysis of the data so far fails to indicate anything grand or momentous in his presence. Our research has also failed to identify a people who go by the name of David which could be seen to be a nom de guerre, a pseudonym, an identity of a people allocated to as mythical a character as Britain’s King Arthur.

So, Israel Traveller has made some disturbing replaceings when one takes into account 21st Century power structures and rationale. Most significantly, what does this mean to religion, especially the religions who rely on the account of King David as true accounts of the people and personalities of the time, being Judaism, Christianity, and Islam? Are almost four billion worshippers to be proven wrong?

We are also faced with an issue that can be deemed particularly sensitive; what does this new data mean to the divine right of Jews to settle the land formerly known as Palestine? We all know the joke; that Zionists don’t believe in God, but believe God has given the land of Israel to them. But when faced with Traveller replaceings that risk dismantling any Zionist viewpoint, what does that mean to the current political climate in the Middle East?

What are the possible repercussions in light of current US foreign policy and Israel’s claim to Jewish self-determination?

When Professor Cowen’s papers describing the replaceings of Israel Traveller become public, what then?