{"id":7450,"date":"2015-08-20T09:54:09","date_gmt":"2015-08-20T15:54:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7450"},"modified":"2015-08-20T09:56:08","modified_gmt":"2015-08-20T15:56:08","slug":"khalid-al-asaad-and-the-war-on-pagan-idolatry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7450","title":{"rendered":"Khalid al-Asaad and the War on Pagan Idolatry"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Wouter Hanegraaff, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.uva.nl\/over-de-uva\/organisatie\/medewerkers\/content\/h\/a\/w.j.hanegraaff\/w.j.hanegraaff.html\">professsor of Western esotericism<\/a> at the University of Amsterdam, has written <a href=\"http:\/\/wouterjhanegraaff.blogspot.nl\/2015\/08\/on-death-of-khaled-asaad.html\">a moving blog post on larger implications of the death of Khalid al-Asaad, the Syrian archaeologist recently beheaded by the Muslim fighters of the so-called Islamic State<\/a>. (He was a Muslim too, of course.)<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/news\/world\/middle-east\/isis-executes-palmyra-antiquities-chief-khaled-asaad-and-hangs-him-from-ruins-he-spent-a-lifetime-restoring-10461601.html\">We are told <\/a>that Khaled Asaad was murdered for the crime of &#8220;overseeing &#8216;idols&#8217; in the ancient city&#8221; and &#8220;attending &#8216;infidel&#8217; conferences as Syrian representative&#8221;. This makes him one of the most recent casualties in a culture war that has been raging for thousands of years: that of exclusive monotheism against its mortal enemy, &#8220;pagan idolatry&#8221;. We should not delude ourselves: historically, our &#8220;own&#8221; dominant Western culture has not been on Khaled Asaad&#8217;s side but overwhelmingly on the side of his murderers. The idea that paganism and idolatry is the ultimate abomination that must be rooted out and destroyed, along with anybody who practices or sympathizes with it, goes to the heart of Jewish, Christian, and Islamic identity. And moreover, (<i>pace<\/i> <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Peter_Gay\">Peter Gay<\/a> c.s.) it goes to the heart of Enlightenment rationalism as well, which inherited the Protestant view of paganism and idolatry.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/wouterjhanegraaff.blogspot.nl\/2015\/08\/on-death-of-khaled-asaad.html\">Read it all<\/a>. For the news story, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2015\/08\/20\/world\/middleeast\/isis-palmyra-syria-antiquities-scholar-beheaded.html\">here is the <em>New York Times<\/em> version.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wouter Hanegraaff, professsor of Western esotericism at the University of Amsterdam, has written a moving blog post on larger implications of the death of Khalid al-Asaad, the Syrian archaeologist recently beheaded by the Muslim fighters of the so-called Islamic State. (He was a Muslim too, of course.) We are told that Khaled Asaad was murdered [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[20,164,15],"class_list":["post-7450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-archaeology","tag-idolatry","tag-islam"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-1Wa","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7475,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7475","url_meta":{"origin":7450,"position":0},"title":"Responding to Attacks on Pagan Shrines","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 2, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"On the 20th of August, I posted about \"Khalid al-Asaad and the War on Pagan Idolatry.\" He was the Syrian archaeologist beheaded by the Muslim fanatics of the Islamic State, their reward for his devoting his professional life to preserving and studying the ancient (and Pagan) city of Palmyra. On\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"archaeology\"","block_context":{"text":"archaeology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=archaeology"},"img":{"alt_text":"_85298986_palmyra_before_after_624","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/85298986_palmyra_before_after_624.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/85298986_palmyra_before_after_624.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/85298986_palmyra_before_after_624.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":2405,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2405","url_meta":{"origin":7450,"position":1},"title":"The Pomegranate 12:1","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 26, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"I have let weeks go by without mentioning the latest issue of The Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies! Here is the table of contents. All book reviews and article abstracts are free. Articles \"Franz S\u00e4ttler (Dr. Musallam) and the Twentieth-Century Cult of Adonism\" Hans Thomas Hakl \"Walk Like\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"scholarship\"","block_context":{"text":"scholarship","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=scholarship"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6519,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6519","url_meta":{"origin":7450,"position":2},"title":"Around the Blogosphere: A Pagan Cat, Multiple Souls, and Idolatry","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 9, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00b6 \"I don't want to be rude, but what religion are you?\" A Pagan pet's name produces confusion at the veterinary clinic. \u00b6\u00a0\u00a0 \"The Three\/Four Souls and Their Afterlives.\" Heather at Eaarth Animist\u00a0looks at different traditional accounts to learn what might explain her own experiences: \"It has baffled many Western\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"animals\"","block_context":{"text":"animals","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=animals"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2050,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2050","url_meta":{"origin":7450,"position":3},"title":"Idolatry as a Category in Pagan Studies","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 29, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"I have spent all afternoon squeezing out a thousand words on the topic of idolatry, a sort of cross between an encyclopedia entry and a summary of four essays appearing in the upcoming issue of The Pomegranate (which is almost finished, thanks be!). In a paper given during one of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"scholarship\"","block_context":{"text":"scholarship","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=scholarship"},"img":{"alt_text":"Michael York","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/MichaelYorkMug21-102x150.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3475,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3475","url_meta":{"origin":7450,"position":4},"title":"The I-word: Idolatry","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 16, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Two years ago at the American Academy of Religion, we had a Pagan Studies session with \"idolatry\" in the title. Sessions are described by posters on easels outside the meeting rooms, and I heard a few snickers from people passing in the corridor. Inside the room, people were talking about\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Christianity\"","block_context":{"text":"Christianity","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=christianity"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":70,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=70","url_meta":{"origin":7450,"position":5},"title":"Idol Thoughts","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 27, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"After three days of hearing papers and networking at AAR-SBL, our brains were full, so half a dozen friends and I headed for the traveling Etruscan exhibit at Atlanta's Fernbank Museum. It was wonderful to get away from the convention-hotel district. The exhibit on ancient Etruscan life was organized by\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"academia\"","block_context":{"text":"academia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=academia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7450"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7450\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7454,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7450\/revisions\/7454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}