Dear David F

I'd be interested in your source for "The Christians changed the Hebrew Bible" :)

Here is an alternative view.

After the coming of Christ, the JEWS changed the hebrew bible to minimize the basis for understanding the Messiah to be Jesus, and specially that he would be the 'suffering servant' of Isaiah 53.

EVIDENCE.
Some of the terms in the masoritic (Jewish post Christ) text simply don't make much sense in context. (for Isaiah 53) but the SEPTUAGINT which is a Greek translation from a much EARLIER time, shows the Hebrew it came from had a different meaning to the Post Christian Masoritic text.

This explaination appeals to reason and logic.

Steven,

That you can confidently proclaim that neither you nor I don't know the answer to the question
"Is there sufficient DNA distance between Jews and Arabs to make an ethnic bomb feasible?",
means that you don't think that anyone knows, or even could know yet.

And yet you say you "suspect EVERYONE is doing research into ethnic weapons" and that ask questions like,
"So could the Israelis develop an "Arab bomb?" "
and "Are the Israelis IN FACT working on such a weapon?"

What purpose did you have in asking these questions when you were confident in already knowing the answer?

I suspect that actually, noone is working on such a weapon (at least not effectually), because if you could design a disease that could affect a person with a particular gene or genes at will, you would have to understand so much more than we do now about disease generally, that noone, especially Al-quaeda or Israel has the resources to put into such an enterprise.

And just out of interest:
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=18733
This paper tells me that 'designing' a disease that only affects Arabs, but not Jews would be a much much harder task than designing one that only affects sub-Saharan Africans as opposed to say Europeans. While AIDS leaps to mind and may be affecting more sub-Saharan Africans, we all know that this difference in infection rates is not primarily because of genes, it's because of behaviour and the fact that the disease seemed to have originated there. This is something that is not usually commented on by the conspiracy theorists.

Lastly, while I did not actually ask what you know about genetics, but it is clear to me that most of what you know is what you glean from media release articles. I am pretty confident that the science isn't there yet, and is unlikely to be in the near future, so don't worry about it there's far worse to worry about.I stand by my opinion of this being in the realms of science fiction, as opposed to science fantasy, a distinction you seem to have missed.

Oh, and Steven: we already have an "all of DNA" approach, it's called GENOMICS. Surprisingly it's been going on for years!
Do try to keep up.

BUGSY

What I know about genetics I get in the first instance from talking to people who are active in the field Secondly I get what I know from what I read in refereed journals such as Nature, PNAS, Cell and Science as well as popular journals such as Scientific American and New Scientist.

However all these publications require subscriptions. I posted links to articles that could be read online.

Designing a disease that affects Arabs – not Palestinians but Arabs generally – but does not affect Jews would manifestly be more difficult than designing one that affected, say, Europeans and not sub-Saharan Africans. This is especially so since almost half the population of Israel is made up of refugees from Arab countries and their descendants. There would have been some inter-marriage.

And, yes, I am also aware that Ashkenazi Jews are, anti-Semitic canards to the contrary, at least partially descended from people who lived in what is now called the "Middle-East."

As I am one of the people who helped compile forecasts of the rate of spread of HIV in South Africa I am well aware of the link between behaviour and HIV infection rates. In fact back in the 1980s we found that the most reliable leading indicator of the rate of spread of HIV was reported cases of syphilis. (In retrospect we grossly underestimate the extent and speed of the spread of HIV).

I avoided the use of the word genomics because many people think it refers only to genes. But you are right. I should have used the term and explained what I meant.

However, I repeat what I said. Right now neither you nor I can know whether it will be possible to develop an ethnic bomb that strikes mostly at Arabs and leaves Jews relatively unscathed. Like you I suspect it is unlikely but I don’t claim to know.

Why do I think people are working on it?

Because it seems to be in our nature to research all possible weapons technologies.

Boaz_D wrote:

"I'd be interested in your source for "The Christians changed the Hebrew Bible" :)"

From Wikipedia:

"Note: Judaism commonly uses the term Tanakh to refer to its canon, which was later adopted as the Christian Old Testament. In academic circles, the term Hebrew Bible is commonly used to refer to the Tanakh or Old Testament.
See also: New Testament
The Old Testament (sometimes abbreviated as OT), in Western Christianity, refers to the books that form the first of the two-part Christian Biblical canon. These works correspond to the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), with some variations and additions. In the Eastern Orthodox Church the comparable texts are known as the Septuagint, from the original Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures. The term "Old Testament" itself is credited to Tertullian, who used the Latin vetus testamentum in the second century."

Different branches of Christianity use different Bibles as the above indicates. Orthodox Christians use the Septuagint - the Greek Translation. The King James is taken from the Masoretic Text with variants as I mentioned before in the translation of the Hebrew word, alma.

From Wikipedia on the Apocrypha:

The biblical apocrypha (from the Greek word meaning hidden) are texts which are often printed as part of the Bible despite their perceived status of being outside of the biblical canon. They are typically printed in a third section apart from the Old and New Testaments. These include texts written in the Jewish and Christian religious traditions that either: were accepted into the biblical canon by some, but not all, Christian faiths, or whose canonicity or lack thereof is not yet certain.

A comparative list can be found in the article on books of the Bible. For extra-biblical works sometimes referred to as apocrypha, see the article on apocrypha.

The biblical apocrypha are sometimes referred to as "The" Apocrypha. Although the term apocrypha simply means hidden, this usage is sometimes considered pejorative by those who consider such works to be canonical parts of scripture."

The Apocrypha is in whole or in part in various Christian versions of the Old Testament.

Boaz_D wrote:
"Here is an alternative view.
After the coming of Christ, the JEWS changed the hebrew bible to minimize the basis for understanding the Messiah to be Jesus, and specially that he would be the 'suffering servant' of Isaiah 53."

The above is one of the many myths without proof that Christians believe about Jews. Jews have too much respect for their Bible to change it.

The idea of a messiah is a myth that has grown in Jewish circles and eventually was copied by Christians who took the Jewish myths as their own. The idea of a messiah was like the idea of the cargo cults that some Pacific islanders have. Some magical figure is coming to solve all your troubles. The idea of a messiah started when the ancient Jewish kingdom split into two parts: Israel and Judah. Jews hoped for someone who would unite the kingdoms. It never happened, but the myth grew and grew. The messiah would be a figure who would usher in the messianic age where there should be a reign of peace over the earth. That has obviously never happened, but people wanted it to happen. The messianic myth of the Jews has it happening. Since Jesus did not bring a reign of peace, Christians invented a Second Coming where he would do the job he failed to do the first time.

Boaz_D also wrote:

"EVIDENCE.
Some of the terms in the masoritic (Jewish post Christ) text simply don't make much sense in context. (for Isaiah 53) but the SEPTUAGINT which is a Greek translation from a much EARLIER time, shows the Hebrew it came from had a different meaning to the Post Christian Masoritic text.

This explaination appeals to reason and logic."

The first translation called the Septuagint did not include the Prophets. That translation was made later.

The word is Masoretic not Masoritic. If a translation varies from the original maintain the original has been changed if you don’t like what it says. If one wants reason and logic the Bible is not a place to find it.