Woodznutz
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- Dec 9, 2021
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The woman was carried into the 'wilderness' where she would remain hidden from the dragon for 1260 years (time, times, and a half time). So says Revelation 12.
Beyond the 'frontier' of early America lay "the wilderness", lair of 'wild animals and wild men' as one historian put it. Early maps even named the vast expanse of unexplored woodlands "The Wilderness". The woman was certainly safe here from persecutions and inquisitions, but was she safe from the 'wild men', the native Indians?
My readings on the subject reveal that many settlers were surprised to find vast areas that once were home to large numbers of Indians now strangely absent of them. They occupied these areas with little or no danger. Many yielded already developed agricultural land and building sites for homes and villages. What happened to the natives that only recently populated huge regions, now left vacant and inviting. The answer, disease.
Recent research into the vanishing Indian tribes, which researchers now believe numbered in the millions, were cut down by an enemy they had no defense against. It was widely believed that they were deliberately infected by the white settlers, a notion that has been debunked by several historians.
The sheer number of deaths and the breadth of the infections cannot be explained by the interaction with white people alone. The diseases likely were spread by the interaction of the Indians themselves. As they spread the word of the disease, they unwittingly spread the disease as well.
Also revealing is that the deaths and abandonment of Indian villages far from the frontier of white expansion took place well before the incursion of the settlers. The disease therefore 'went before' the settlers and virtually cleared the land of the Indians.
Upon reading this I immediately thought of God's words to Joshua, that he would send his 'hornets' to drive out the inhabitants of the land 'before' the Israelites so they wouldn't have to do battle with them. I then immediately went to the Hebrew dictionary and looked up the word "hornet'. The term on its face means "hornet, or, "stinging insect". However, when I searched the root word from which hornet was derived, I found what I had been looking for, but really didn't want to find. The root word is disease, specifically disease of the skin, and in Bible usage specifically leprosy. But it could just as well have said smallpox.
Many Christians have compared the native Indians to those Canaanite tribes that the Israelites fought for possession of the land. "Manifest Destiny" was mixed with this belief to justify the extermination of the native peoples. But what if God sent his "hornets" to drive out from before the settlers, with whom was "the woman", those tribes so His people could possess the land.
Beyond the 'frontier' of early America lay "the wilderness", lair of 'wild animals and wild men' as one historian put it. Early maps even named the vast expanse of unexplored woodlands "The Wilderness". The woman was certainly safe here from persecutions and inquisitions, but was she safe from the 'wild men', the native Indians?
My readings on the subject reveal that many settlers were surprised to find vast areas that once were home to large numbers of Indians now strangely absent of them. They occupied these areas with little or no danger. Many yielded already developed agricultural land and building sites for homes and villages. What happened to the natives that only recently populated huge regions, now left vacant and inviting. The answer, disease.
Recent research into the vanishing Indian tribes, which researchers now believe numbered in the millions, were cut down by an enemy they had no defense against. It was widely believed that they were deliberately infected by the white settlers, a notion that has been debunked by several historians.
The sheer number of deaths and the breadth of the infections cannot be explained by the interaction with white people alone. The diseases likely were spread by the interaction of the Indians themselves. As they spread the word of the disease, they unwittingly spread the disease as well.
Also revealing is that the deaths and abandonment of Indian villages far from the frontier of white expansion took place well before the incursion of the settlers. The disease therefore 'went before' the settlers and virtually cleared the land of the Indians.
Upon reading this I immediately thought of God's words to Joshua, that he would send his 'hornets' to drive out the inhabitants of the land 'before' the Israelites so they wouldn't have to do battle with them. I then immediately went to the Hebrew dictionary and looked up the word "hornet'. The term on its face means "hornet, or, "stinging insect". However, when I searched the root word from which hornet was derived, I found what I had been looking for, but really didn't want to find. The root word is disease, specifically disease of the skin, and in Bible usage specifically leprosy. But it could just as well have said smallpox.
Many Christians have compared the native Indians to those Canaanite tribes that the Israelites fought for possession of the land. "Manifest Destiny" was mixed with this belief to justify the extermination of the native peoples. But what if God sent his "hornets" to drive out from before the settlers, with whom was "the woman", those tribes so His people could possess the land.
