Kevin MacDonald: Max Blumenthal has a post that he claims shows that “Biden should have known that Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu intended to upset his plans by Netanyahu’s appearance with John Hagee.” This refers to one of the oddest phenomena in American politics: The rabid pro-Israel activities of the Christian Zionists as exemplified by Pastor Hagee. Hagee is the ultimate Christian Zionist, using his speech before a who’s who of the Israeli government and other elements of the Israeli far right to state that Jerusalem is “the undivided, eternal capitol of the Jewish people.” He called Iranian President Ahmadinejad “the Hitler of the Middle East” and denounced the Goldstone Report as “character assassination by an unbiased and uninformed committee.”
In the audience was “Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, the chief rabbi of the illegal West Bank settlement of Efrat who gained notoriety for lobbying President Bill Clinton to pardon his friend, fugitive billionaire Marc Rich. Ayalon had stirred controversy days before when he refused to meet with a US congressional delegation brought to Israel by the progressive Jewish group J Street.”
What’s amazing to me is that the point of Hagee’s speech was to tout the $58,000,000 (!) that his group of Christians have donated to far-right causes in Israel since 2001, including settler groups and a group that aims to ensure” that students in Israel are on the right path, the path of Zionism, the love of Israel, the path of solidarity.”
As it was explained to me, Hagee, believes that God actually decreed not one, but two, plans of salvation: one for the church, which requires faith in Christ’s atonement, and another for the Jews, which does not require them to have faith in Christ at all, but is a parallel covenant that bypasses the Church and Christ completely. They regard the creation of the modern state of Israel as nothing less than the precursor of that heavenly kingdom, the fulfillment of prophecy, and the sign of Christ’s imminent return.
Christian Zionism is a very powerful force for philosemitism in the US. There is a fascinating history (see, e.g., here) that suggests but falls short of proof that early Zionists like Samuel Untermeyer were important in promoting and publicizing the work of C. I. Scofield whose annotated Bible, published by Oxford University Press in 1909, is the basis of Christian Zionism. In any case, the above source discusses footnotes to the Scofield Bible added in 1967 that emphasize Zionist aims. For example, “For a nation to commit the sin of anti-Semitism brings inevitable judgment.” ” God made an unconditional promise of blessing through Abram’s seed to the nation of Israel to inherit a specific territory forever.” “It has invariably fared ill with the people who have persecuted the Jew, well with those who have protected him. The future will still more remarkably prove this principle.” (Footnotes to Genesis 12:3)
Jews have not stood by idly on this but have actively supported the Christian Zionism movement. Beginning in 1978, the Likud Party in Israel has taken the lead in organizing this force for Israel, and they have been joined by the neocons. For example, in 2002 the Israeli embassy organized a prayer breakfast with the major Christian Zionists. The main organization is the Unity Coalition for Israel which is run by Esther Levens. It consists of ~200 Christian and Jewish organizations has strong connections to neocon think tanks such as the Center for Security Policy, headed by Frank Gaffney, pro-Israel activist organizations the Zionist Organization of America, the Likud Party and the Israeli government. This organization claims to provide material for 1,700 religious radio stations, 245 Christian TV stations, and 120 Christian newspapers.
Christian Zionism is a very powerful force for philosemitism in the US. There is a fascinating history (see, e.g., here) that suggests but falls short of proof that early Zionists like Samuel Untermeyer were important in promoting and publicizing the work of C. I. Scofield whose annotated Bible, published by Oxford University Press in 1909, is the basis of Christian Zionism. In any case, the above source discusses footnotes to the Scofield Bible added in 1967 that emphasize Zionist aims. For example, “For a nation to commit the sin of anti-Semitism brings inevitable judgment.” ” God made an unconditional promise of blessing through Abram’s seed to the nation of Israel to inherit a specific territory forever.” “It has invariably fared ill with the people who have persecuted the Jew, well with those who have protected him. The future will still more remarkably prove this principle.” (Footnotes to Genesis 12:3)
Jews have not stood by idly on this but have actively supported the Christian Zionism movement. Beginning in 1978, the Likud Party in Israel has taken the lead in organizing this force for Israel, and they have been joined by the neocons. For example, in 2002 the Israeli embassy organized a prayer breakfast with the major Christian Zionists. The main organization is the Unity Coalition for Israel which is run by Esther Levens. It consists of ~200 Christian and Jewish organizations has strong connections to neocon think tanks such as the Center for Security Policy, headed by Frank Gaffney, pro-Israel activist organizations the Zionist Organization of America, the Likud Party and the Israeli government. This organization claims to provide material for 1,700 religious radio stations, 245 Christian TV stations, and 120 Christian newspapers.
Facing the Future as a Minority
Was the Immigration Act of 1924 Illiberal?
its also expedient. Christian Zionist get to hop the queue for cabel access etc. Needless to say Chrsitians who speak out against israel are increasing marginlized by the new Jewish elite.
Needless to say, Christian Zionism is not only a heresy, but an embarrassment – and a very dangerous one..
There is a megachurch in Florida that tithes to the Israeli government.
The Scofield Bible was financed by Jews. It is yet another example of their foresight in their genocidal war against the white race.
1 Thessalonians 2:14-16 (King James Version)
14For ye, brethren, became followers of the churches of God which in Judaea are in Christ Jesus: for ye also have suffered like things of your own countrymen, even as they have of the Jews:
15Who both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they please not God, and are contrary to all men:
16Forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up their sins alway: for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost.
Rev. Ted Pike, a brave Christian, was front and center attempting to stop the Hate Crime bill passed in June 2009. He penned this antidote to Christian Zionism:
MID-EAST STRIFE:
RE-DISCOVERING THE BIBLE’S FORGOTTEN SOLUTION
WHENEVER you hear the term, “Judeo-Christian” then KNOW that the BIG LIE technique WORKS. Just as Hitler described the Jews use of that tactic in Mein Kampf.
There is a megachurch in Florida that tithes to the Israeli government.
un-believable…
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=487412&contrassID=2
Christians in Jerusalem want Jews to stop spitting on them
By Amiram Barkat
From the article:
[Hagee] denounced the Goldstone Report as “character assassination by an unbiased and uninformed committee.”
??
Does he mean that it would have been better for the committee to have been biased?
re: the Scofield Bible
It’s hard to evaluate how much that changed the Christianity of the day. The source referenced by KM seems to think that without Scofield’s pernicious influence, native Christianity would have been much more anti-semitic, or at least that American Christians would not have supported the state of Israel. This is not necessarily true, since the Bible is a text capable of being read various ways. There are not only some anti-semitic passages, such as John 8:39-49, Mark 25:27, and the above-cited passage in Thessalonians, but some extremely philo-semitic passages too. For example, my favorite:
By “dogs”, of course, Jesus means non-Jews. So even Jesus Christ himself was a Jewish racist. Thus, to be a Christian is to be like the Greek woman. You must first accept your sub-human status in the eyes of a Jew. Then Jesus will pat you on the head and send you on your way.
Then there is the explicit Jewish racial supremacism of John 4, in which Jesus states outright that “salvation is from the Jews”, and that no one else has the least clue about God. It seems to me that these two passages all by themselves could be used to justify any sort of subservience to Jews on the part of non-Jews, entirely without any help from Scofield. Read in this way, the Bible contains Zionism, and requires no additions or glosses. For someone to be simultaneously a Christian also to be anti-semitic would therefore seem to be quite a trick. Maybe some of our Christians here on this blog could speak to this and explain how they rationalize it. Do they consider themselves “dogs” in comparison to Jews? Do they believe that salvation is only from the Jews? If so, how can they be anti-semitic? How can they not be subservient to Jews?
Erratum: Instead of Mark 25:27, I meant Matthew 27:25.
What’s that old saying about the devil himself being able to quote the bible when it suits his purpose? ROTFLMAO!
Also, Adam, didn’t Odin (or was it Thor?) tell the Teutons that they were created to rule over the Slavs/Jews/Gypsies and other children of lesser gods? Still ROTFLMAO!
Modern Christian Zionism appeared at the same time as political Jewish Zionism. MacDonald’s points about Untermeyer and Scofield can be supplemented with notices about Lyman and Milton Stewart, wealthy founders of the Standard Oil Company of California who financed the rise of Modern Fundamentalist Christianity in America.
Stewart’s movement was explicitly Christian Zionist, and implicitly, multi-racial, which led to an offshoot, the integrationist Pentecostal movement.
Christian Zionism was not a natural or random development in American religion, it was financed and promoted by a very select group of people, and may as well have been an adjunct of the First Zionist Congress of 1897. It’s not as if some preacher was reading his Bible one day and came up with the idea.
There’s a huge amount of information available on the subject of Christian Zionism. The most excellent real world work has been done by Chuck (Charles) Carlson, who founded We Hold These Truths (WHTT) a dozen years ago. As part of his work, he organized “Vigils” by which volunteers holding placards stationed themselves on Sunday mornings in front of Christian Zionist churches and also in attendance at Hagee’s events.
The corrupted Scofield Bible, which makes the present state of Israel the object of worship–the gateway to God previously occupied by Christ–had an overwhelming effect on the practice of Christianity in this country, since it is that Bible that is used in seminaries and bible study courses, as well as in churches across the country. Millions upon millions of dollars that might have gone to support Christian goals go instead to Jewish pockets, including all off the tours to Israel that add more money.
Is there a prominent Christian who takes issue with Christian Zionism?
By the way, this is a fringe viewpoint and explicitly rejected by nearly all Christian Zionists. Hagee himself stepped far over the line with his In Defense of Israel book in which he claimed that “Jesus Christ was not the Messiah” and even his own staff denounced him. He later backpedaled and rewrote the book.
While Christian Zionism has been around for a while, since 911 there was a whole new militant strain, and it waxes and wanes depending on how much the TV news is talking about Muslim terrorists.
By “dogs”, of course, Jesus means non-Jews. So even Jesus Christ himself was a Jewish racist. Thus, to be a Christian is to be like the Greek woman. You must first accept your sub-human status in the eyes of a Jew. Then Jesus will pat you on the head and send you on your way.
Then there is the explicit Jewish racial supremacism of John 4, in which Jesus states outright that “salvation is from the Jews”, and that no one else has the least clue about God. It seems to me that these two passages all by themselves could be used to justify any sort of subservience to Jews on the part of non-Jews, entirely without any help from Scofield.
Since this site is hosted by Kevin MacDonald, an evolutionary psychologist, perhaps we should consider approaching Christianity from an evolutionary perspective.
A population that has coevolved with a variety of religious forms may disperse into a population that has not so coevolved and reduce the fitness of the indigenous population if religions promoting universal altruism are the only religions promoted among the indigenous population (religions promoting reciprocal, or even kin, altruism remaining within the dispersing population).
This appears to have happened when the technical infrastructure of the Roman Empire compensated for the naturally harsh conditions at the frontiers of that Empire creating an environment within which the universal altruism of Christianity was promoted among Europeans by Paul and the other early Christian Proselytes who were Jews. Jewish religious belief, however, retained its tribal character, expressing both reciprocal and kin altruism. The result was an extended period of Jewish success in diaspora among Europeans in competition with holders of indigenous niches involving religious beliefs and inter-tribal trade. This successful displacement of indigenous religions and trade niches has continued until this day (including recent innovations in religion such as Marxist economics, Rosenbaumian i.e. Ayn Rand philosophy aka “Objectivism”, Boasian anthropology/sociology, Freudian psychology, etc.).
This isn’t to say that Christianity never served White gentile interests, or that Jews were never persecuted by Christians. But it seems that Christianity overall has been “good for the Jews.” Indigenous European gentile groups, such as the Cathars and Scandinavians, were persecuted, exterminated, and forced to convert to Christianity. Whereas Jews in the main were protected by Christian authorities. It’s certainly hard to imagine Buddhists and Druids being afforded the same privileges and protections by Medieval Western authorities. The role that Christianity has played through the form of Christian Zionism in supporting Israel and Jewish interests goes without saying. And the political regime that attempted to most comprehensively deal with the Jewish Question and attack Jewish positions in prominent religious and trade niches was the decidedly non-Christian Nazi Germany, a fact which I’m sure is not lost among many Jews. Christianity could have spun out of control and still potentially can. But in general it seems that Christianity was “good for the Jews” overall. Being accorded a special status as the ancestor faith and as a chosen people of the same god worshipped by the society has its benefits, if only marginal, that helps the group, especially a highly intelligent and astute one that is able to leverage it effectively.
I suspect part of the tension between Liberal Jewry and Neocon Jewry is driven by this. To liberal Jews, “too much” Christianity among White gentiles runs the risk of it becoming a focal point around which a tribal identity and racial consciousness can cohere. To neocon Jews, “more” Christianity is desirable and necessary to serve Jewish ends by supporting Israel (i.e. Christian Zionism) and preventing a kind of “de-Christianization” among Whites that may lead to a “de-universalization” and the development of tribalism among White gentiles. The intellectual godfathers of the neocons, people like Leo Strauss and Allan Bloom, didn’t have much faith or use for theological beliefs as such, but a major theme in their thought that no doubt influenced the neocons was that the decline of Christianity and the rise of “relativism” and the return of a kind of paganism was dangerous, and it doesn’t take any great leap in thinking to see that one of the implications is that this would be potentially dangerous especially for Jews. The implied point of agreement between these two factions of Jewry of course is that Jews will have to, must, are entitled to, maintain their prominent position in the religious (in the technical sense i.e. manipulating the mental states/beliefs of the populace) niches of society, on the one hand preventing Christianity from spinning out of control, and on the other using it to serve Jewish interests.
Although American Jews are more powerful relative to White Gentiles in America, the main force in America supporting Israel is not Jews, but White Christians, who vote for the neocons.
I am myself a Christian and recently stopped going to a church because there were constant missions to third world countries, adopt-a-child financial support programs for third world children, etc. Like nearly all congregations, there is no pro-White emphasis or any real racial consciousness–although 95% of the members were White, in that sense in was “implicit,” to use the term popularized by Prof. MacDonald. Our young adult leader even told us to “not listen to anyone who tells you that the Bible says you cannot date outside your race; it does not say that.”
I really have an issue with MacDonald’s research. No really. Its self-discrediting.
How can anyone take you seriously, if you are going to link to Serendipity.li Carlson article? Hello? Do you want to link to David Icke or Alex Jones, to convince us that we live in a world run by black helicopters? I mean come on.
First, we have no idea as readers, if the Bible in question is used in 50%, 10% or 90% of congregations. Second, we have no idea if there are churces that are Anti-Zionist, that use it. For example the Presbyterians, Episcopelians, Methodists, etc. Third, anyone with an iota of knowledge about Zionism as such – knows that it is a CHRISTIAN movement from 19th century England, called, surprise surprise British Israelites, which can be traced pretty much to the 16th century. Fourth, there is absolutely no demonstrable proof of any Zionist influence on this particular Bible.
The conclusion should be simple: instead of vilifying Christian Zionists as some kind of puppet of an evil Jewish puppet-master, entertain the possibility that Christian Zionists hail from a tradition which happens to converge with secular Jewish Zionism.
I really suggest pulling the plug on auto-ridicule. I thought we were starting a pro-White movement here. Instead we are deepening the rifts between component parts.
I feel for you, Angry One, but you gotta wake up. Racism is indivisible. Supporting it against one group and expecting your own to be exempted is plain dumb.
Long before the **Anschluss** students at the thoroughly Nazified Austrian universities used to chant:
**Vas ein Jude glaubt ist einerliei,
In die Rasse liegt die Schweinerei!**
loosely translated: Who cares what a Jew believes? The filth is in the blood.
But in general it seems that Christianity was “good for the Jews” overall.then why do they hate it with such ferocity? to the point where teh talmud calls the virigin mary a whore and christ boiling in shit in hell?
or the extraordinary anti-Christian behavior of jews in Israel, or whenever they had power – Bolshevik russia for example – 2000 ancient churches destroyed – hundreds of thousands of icons burned in railway cars sized bonfire, 200,000 clergy murdered.
The story of Jews in America is a story of almost non-stop attack on the Christian aspects of our culture. Even reasonable Jewish conservatives recognize this.
” Indigenous European gentile groups, such as the Cathars and Scandinavians, were persecuted, exterminated, and forced to convert to Christianity
like the salem witch trials this is the subject of myopic focus and exaggeration. Pagan human sacrifice – common – and infanticide – even more common, killed far more europeans.
Second, we have no idea if there are churces that are Anti-Zionist, that use it. For example the Presbyterians, Episcopelians, Methodists,
angry jew obviously you don’t go to church much :) it’s easy to tell who uses what bible – demoninations have officially approved bibles and hymnals, so everyone’s on the same page, so to speak. I would not call the mainline prod churches anti-zionist, they just are not pro-zionist there leadership is generally multicultural/left wing .
Although most have pretty good bibles they tend to pc-out any controversial passages in services.
side note but look at Norman Finkelstein
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNQSV3BBtZ4
“i refuse REFUSE to be brow-beaten anymore by the tears’
“The conclusion should be simple: instead of vilifying Christian Zionists as some kind of puppet of an evil Jewish puppet-master, entertain the possibility that Christian Zionists hail from a tradition which happens to converge with secular Jewish Zionism.”
The notion that Christian Zionism hails from any Tradition is false. The Scofield Bible, which is really what started most of this non-sense, is only like 150 years old! Must be the youngest Tradition on the planet!
The Occidental Observer has had plenty of articles from European New Rightists, so here is a link from Alain de Benoist (with an introduction by Tomislav Sunic!) critiquing Christianity (just thought I would throw this in as some food for thought):
http://home.alphalink.com.au/~radnat/debenoist/alain10.html
Let’s not overlook the first wave of Christian Zionism, which swept across England in the 17th century.
“Christian Zionism” is truly a moron’s oxymoron!
Not only is the Talmud starkly inconsistent with and even antithetical to the New Testament – they might as well be written for different species on different planets – but modern Zionism openly embraces terrorism against (esp. Palestinian) Christians for the “national security”, i.e. territorial expansion, of Israel.
Show me a “Christian Zionist”, and I’ll show you an imbecile in the full moral and intellectual senses of the word. These people are too stupid to find their own asses with two mirrors and a compass.
eurodele says:
Not only is the Talmud starkly inconsistent with and even antithetical to the New Testament …
Not entirely. Jesus’ equation of non-Jews with dogs in Mark 7 (quoted above) is entirely consistent with the Talmud. Jewish supremacism is a theme common to both the New and Old Testaments.
Compare:
… modern Zionism openly embraces terrorism against (esp. Palestinian) Christians for the “national security”, i.e. territorial expansion, of Israel.
The minimum boundaries of Eretz Israel are laid out in the book of Numbers in the Old Testament, and they include Jerusalem and all of the West Bank. Christian Zionists evidently believe that no true Christian can deny a Jew anything he wants, so if Palestinians need to be relocated, it’s not a problem. With them this is a matter of faith, not logic, so they see no contradiction.
“The meme for blind faith secures its own perpetuation by the simple unconscious expedient of discouraging rational inquiry.”
–Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene, p. 198
Perhaps the most important social prescription in the New Testament is the Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
This principle is clearly antithetical to Jewish supremacism. While Jewish doctrine seems to contain a rule analogous to the Golden Rule, it is applied only to Jews; it has no interracial interpretation consistent with other major elements of Judaism. In fact, the Talmud instructs Jews to regard other races as cattle…to abuse them, deceive them, and suck from them.
This is a very obvious point of divergence between Judaic and Christian ideology. Jewish holy writ instructs Jews to subjugate, use, and even commit genocide against other races, assuring them that God has chosen them, and only them, for spiritual and temporal ascendancy; Christian holy writ tells Christians something entirely different.
Note that the Christian Golden Rule can be uniformly and justly applied by not just individuals, but races. Concisely, it prescribes that just as other races have their own racial identities and homelands, we have the right to insist on our own racial identity and homeland(s). What is good for other races is good for us, and conversely, what is good for us is good for them.
In other words, the Golden Rule of Christianity is antithetical not only to the spirit and letter of Judaism, but to the secular religion of diversity and multiculturalism being aggressively crammed down our throats by the Jews while they adamantly reject it for themselves.
Given these points of divergence, any attempt to put Judaism on a par with Christianity, or to link them in a seamless “Judeo-Christian” whole, is nothing short of asinine.
eurodele says:
Perhaps the most important social prescription in the New Testament is the Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
This principle is clearly antithetical to Jewish supremacism.
You refer to Jesus’ saying:
“So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.”
– Matthew 7:12
But clearly, if Jesus considered non-Jews to be dogs — which we know he did on the authority of Mark 7:24-30 — this passage must mean something other than you think it means. And indeed, what could be less consistent with “doing unto others as you would have them do unto you” than the numerous genocides perpetrated by the Jews upon non-Jews, at the behest of their G-d? But if inconsistent, how then could it sum up the Law and the Prophets?
Although whether this is the most important passage in the New Testament or not is a matter of opinion, it certainly can be interpreted in a variety of ways. Just a few verses before the passage you cite, Jesus says: “5:17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I have not come to abolish these things but to fulfill them.” Therefore Jesus himself, by tying this “Golden Rule” back to Mosaic Law and the Prophets, seems to endorse today’s terrorism in the service of Jewish Zionism, since terrorism was also something that Moses himself engaged in. From the Book of Numbers:
If Jesus really did believe that non-Jews were merely “dogs”, then all this is perfectly consistent. Reading the Bible, it’s pretty clear to me that Jesus considered his mission was only to the Jews, and that when he gave utterance to the Golden Rule, it’s reasonable to think he meant it only for internal consumption among his fellow Jews. The Gentile Mission appears to have been Paul’s idea. Tellingly, there are no sayings of Jesus in the New Testament that explicitly repudiate the Jewish supremacism that is an integral part of the Jewish worldview, both in his day and in ours. Or do you know of some?
Of course, it is the nature of scripture to require interpretation. Those who claim that it does not must be watched closely, for in many cases they are merely trying to preclude any interpretation but the one they prefer.
However, in trying to interpret a saying like “do unto others”, we must obviously focus our initial attention on content, i.e., to what seems to be the literal meaning. Sometimes this is easy to do, sometimes not. If it is, then we need not assume that the context of the saying – its relationship to other passages – is inconsistent with its literal meaning. Only where this is not the case need we attempt to infer the meaning entirely from other passages. As a rule, there is never just one way to do this; consequently, there is a burden of proof attached to any particular contextual interpretation, and this falls upon he who promotes that interpretation.
Personally, while I find your interpretation of the Golden Rule to be somewhat interesting (if only because it is rather uncommon and a bit perverse), I don’t find it especially credible. First, the saying in question has an obvious literal meaning, and is not accompanied by any explicit qualification (e.g., “Mind you, this applies only to Jews!”). Secondly, this literal meaning is self-contained; it doesn’t depend in an obvious way on other passages. And if it does depend on other passages, then it still contains no definite prescription regarding the exact nature of the dependency, especially considering that Jesus was extremely fond of tropes and often had his own unique interpretations for historical references.
In short, if you say that “do unto others” cannot be interpreted literally, and that it is dependent on some other passage(s), then you must immediately answer your own criticism: what makes you think that the passages in question, the ones on which the meaning supposedly depends, can be literally interpreted? E.g., How do you know that in seeming to call a non-Jew a “dog”, Jesus was not (e.g.) using irony to instruct his disciples? After all, he had a good deal to say against Jews as well.
Until you can make a solid case for your interpretation, I hope you won’t mind if I continue to rely primarily on its literal content as a guide to its meaning.
In short, if you say that “do unto others” cannot be interpreted literally, and that it is dependent on some other passage(s), then you must immediately answer your own criticism: what makes you think that the passages in question, the ones on which the meaning supposedly depends, can be literally interpreted? E.g., How do you know that in seeming to call a non-Jew a “dog”, Jesus was not (e.g.) using irony to instruct his disciples? After all, he had a good deal to say against Jews as well.
That’s a peculiar argument. You want to be “literal” with Jesus’ Golden Rule but want to be figurative and ironical with Mark 7? Why? I don’t get it. Besides:
The words used for other people, “οι ανθρωποι”, could well be a translator’s attempt to render an Aramaic or Hebrew word that was more exclusive. In my opinion, it’s unlikely that the Sermon was delivered in Greek.
In any case, Jesus’ Golden Rule was an obvious derivation from Hillel, in the Talmud:
“Hillel said: “What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow: this is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn” (Shab. 31a).”
But it is well known that in the Hebrew of the Talmud the words used for “your fellow” means “your fellow Jew”. The goyim were not considered in the same category as Jews, notoriously so. Hence the numerous double standards that are found throughout the Talmud, with which Jesus also would have been familiar. Jesus came from this Kahane-like Orthodox tradition and would have been keenly aware of it (and indeed subscribed to it himself, as the literal meaning of Mark 7 shows), and yet he nowhere denounces it. Taking all of this into account, it seems to me that the onus probandi is on you to show that he meant his words in Matthew 7:12 to apply to non-Jews, rather than on me to show the reverse.
The following verses clearly establish the universalistic nature of Christianity:
Galatians 3:28-29 “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
Colossians 3:11 “There is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free, but Christ is all and in all.”
All attempts at theological racism will founder on the rock of these verses. For instance, Christian Zionist claims that unbelieving ethnic Jews are the recipients of special favor from God and other ethnic groups such as Russians or Arabs are the objects of God’s wrath for their alleged anti-semitic history. Or, on the other hand, Christian Identity’s attempt to portray Christianity as the tribal religion of White people.
To answer Adam’s question:
Tellingly, there are no sayings of Jesus in the New Testament that explicitly repudiate the Jewish supremacism that is an integral part of the Jewish worldview, both in his day and in ours. Or do you know of some?
Mattehew 8:10-12 “When Jesus heard it (the centurion’s answer), he marveled, and said to those who followed, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel! And I say that many will come from east and west, and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’”
In other words, the true kingdom of heaven consists of Abraham’s spiritual descendants – those who share his faith – not those physical descendants who inherit his genes but lack his faith.
“…it is well known that in the Hebrew of the Talmud the words used for ‘your fellow’ means ‘your fellow Jew’ … Jesus came from this Kahane-like Orthodox tradition and would have been keenly aware of it.”
But Adam, we’re talking about the New Testament, not the Talmud. The Talmud is brimful of hateful, sophistic drivel written by outspoken racists known to have very little in common with Jesus, especially as regards spiritual values. (That’s a major reason why Jesus is so violently hated by Talmudic Jews.) So I’m afraid that the onus remains on you.
But here’s a bit of advice. You cannot rationally assume that you know the mind of Jesus, his exact state of awareness, or other particulars of his psychology. If you are so fond of exegetical detective games that you insist on making such assumptions anyway, and are impetuous enough to let them override the literal content of the words actually spoken by Jesus, then you should at least not expect others to be convinced along with you.
Of course, you’re welcome to pursue your speculations. But given that Jesus clearly revealed his contempt for the kind of people from whom we hear in the Talmud (“You are of your father the devil, and his lusts you will do”), the Talmud may not be the proper basis for speculating on his personal opinion of the Jewish superiority complex.
@ Whites Unite
Interesting.
BUT the same incident is cited in Luke 7:1-10, only without the (still not explicit) universalism, and with quite a different set of facts. Why accept Matthew 8 instead, when Luke 7 is more consistent with the Jewish supremacism Jesus seems to project in other places, such as Mark 7? Clearly, both accounts can’t be correct.
Nothing in that one about non-Jews sitting down as equals at the banquet table with Jews in Heaven, and note that in Luke the centurion’s virtue is said to derive from his obsequious service to Jews. By these lights it is much less egalitarian. In fact, one could argue that the centurion sent Jewish elders to plead his case because he realized that Jesus, being a typical Jewish supremacist, probably wouldn’t take his request seriously unless it were presented to him by other Jews. You could say he hired some Jewish lawyers, just like a modern-day goy who wanted to beg a favor of a powerful Jew might do. The experience of the Syrophoenician woman in Mark 7 would seem to bear that out. Before she groveled, he very nearly turned her away. He didn’t want to waste one of his miracles on a lowly dog.
As far as your cites from Colossians and Galatians to establish Christian universalism, I agree that Paul and the rest of the Apostles decided to branch out to the larger market of the goyim and made Christianity universalistic, but Jesus himself never said such things, and if he believed them one has to wonder why not. If Jesus viewed his mission as only to the Jews, and he shared the typical Jewish supremacist attitude, then that’s why he didn’t say such stuff. That’s the simplest explanation.
BTW: What is your interpretation of Mark 7:24-30? Do you consider yourself a dog compared to Jews? A subhuman animal? To me that meaning of Jesus’ words seems clear enough, and consistent with all we know about Jews, both then and now. You don’t subscribe to eurodele’s “irony” theory, do you?
eurodele says:
You cannot rationally assume that you know the mind of Jesus, his exact state of awareness, or other particulars of his psychology.
And yet, that seems to be just what you are doing. I haven’t claimed to know his mind or his heart. I’ve just quoted his plainly Jewish supremacist words, and those of his Jewish supremacist contemporaries like Hillel, from whence they came.
Nevertheless, it seems we will not come to agreement on this question. If my scholarship cannot convince you of my interpretation of Mark 7:24-30, then perhaps Revilo Oliver’s will help. He was a bona fide classics scholar, fluent in a number of Biblical languages. From Double-Think:
The accounts in Matthew and Luke can be reconciled if you consider that each omits certain aspects of the complete story. For instance, the centurion pleads his case both in person and via Jewish elders. Matthew includes one aspect of the complete story, Luke another aspect. One could theorize that Matthew, writing to a Jewish audience, emphasized the pro-gentile aspect of the story, while Luke, writing to a gentile audience, emphasized the pro-Jew aspect of the story.
The Greek woman in Mark 7:24-30 displayed humility, which Jesus rewarded. Contrast this with his denunciations of the proud among the Jewish elite.
Whites Unite says:
The accounts in Matthew and Luke can be reconciled if you consider that each omits certain aspects of the complete story. For instance, the centurion pleads his case both in person and via Jewish elders. Matthew includes one aspect of the complete story, Luke another aspect. One could theorize that Matthew, writing to a Jewish audience, emphasized the pro-gentile aspect of the story, while Luke, writing to a gentile audience, emphasized the pro-Jew aspect of the story.
No, in the account given in Luke, Jesus never meets the centurion at all, just his emissaries. So the two versions are absolutely irreconcilable.
The Greek woman in Mark 7:24-30 displayed humility, which Jesus rewarded. Contrast this with his denunciations of the proud among the Jewish elite.
Surely one can display humility without likening oneself to a dog owned by Jews.
PRETRIB RAPTURE POLITICS
Many are still unaware of the eccentric, 180-year-old British theory underlying the politics of American evangelicals and Christian Zionists.
Journalist and historian Dave MacPherson has spent more than 40 years focusing on the origin and spread of what is known as the apocalyptic “pretribulation rapture” – the inspiration behind Hal Lindsey’s bestsellers of the 1970s and Tim LaHaye’s today.
Although promoters of this endtime evacuation from earth constantly repeat their slogan that “it’s imminent and always has been” (which critics view more as a sales pitch than a scriptural statement), it was unknown in all official theology and organized religion before 1830.
And MacPherson’s research also reveals how hostile the pretrib rapture view has been to other faiths:
It is anti-Islam. TV preacher John Hagee has been advocating “a pre-emptive military strike against Iran.” (Google “Roots of Warlike Christian Zionism.”)
It is anti-Jewish. MacPherson’s book “The Rapture Plot” (see Armageddon Books etc.) exposes hypocritical anti-Jewishness in even the theory’s foundation.
It is anti-Catholic. Lindsey and C. I. Scofield are two of many leaders who claim that the final Antichrist will be a Roman Catholic. (Google “Pretrib Hypocrisy.”)
It is anti-Protestant. For this reason no major Protestant denomination has ever adopted this escapist view.
It even has some anti-evangelical aspects. The first publication promoting this novel endtime view spoke degradingly of “the name by which the mixed multitude of modern Moabites love to be distinguished, – the Evangelical World.” (MacPherson’s “Plot,” p. 85)
Despite the above, MacPherson proves that the “glue” that holds constantly in-fighting evangelicals together long enough to be victorious voting blocs in elections is the same “fly away” view. He notes that Jerry Falwell, when giving political speeches just before an election, would unfailingly state: “We believe in the pretribulational rapture!”
In addition to “The Rapture Plot,” MacPherson’s many internet articles include “Famous Rapture Watchers,” “Pretrib Rapture Diehards,” “Edward Irving is Unnerving,” “America’s Pretrib Rapture Traffickers,” “Thomas Ice (Bloopers),” “Pretrib Rapture Secrecy” and “Pretrib Rapture Dishonesty” (massive plagiarism, phony doctorates, changing of early “rapture” documents in order to falsely credit John Darby with this view, etc.!).
Because of his devastating discoveries, MacPherson is now No. 1 on the “hate” list of pretrib rapture leaders!
There’s no question that the leading promoters of this bizarre 19th century end-of-the-world doctrine are solidly pro-Israel and necessarily anti-Palestinian. In light of recently uncovered facts about this fringe-British-invented belief which has always been riddled with dishonesty, many are wondering why it should ever have any influence on Middle East affairs.
This Johnny-come-lately view raises millions of dollars for political agendas. Only when scholars of all faiths begin to look deeply at it and widely air its “dirty linen” will it cease to be a power. It is the one theological view no one needs!
With apologies to Winston Churchill – never has so much deception been foisted on so many by so few!
[Also Google "David Letterman's Hate, Etc."]
Adam: “And yet, that seems to be just what you are doing.”
No, I’m doing the opposite. I’m going by the direct content of a passage rather than attempting to reconstruct the exact mental state of its author.
Here’s me: “Passage A says —. so let’s assume that this is exactly what it means.”
Here’s you: “OK, so there’s passage A. But here’s this other passage B. So let’s interpret A in light of B.”
You may be right, but maybe not. All I’m saying is that if Jesus intended that A be applied strictly in light of B, then he might well have said so, especially insofar as he said many other things in light of which A might have been specifically interpreted instead, and the potential for context-sensitivity grows exponentially with time and the symbolic distance between passages.
Adam: “I haven’t claimed to know his mind or his heart. I’ve just quoted his plainly Jewish supremacist words, and those of his Jewish supremacist contemporaries like Hillel, from whence they came.”
I agree with you that (most) Jews are supremacists. I also agree that Jesus was born a Jew and steeped in Jewish supremacism. However, much of his message seems to have pertained to the folly of Jewish hubris and the degeneracy of Jewish behavior. It may be that without seeming to take Jewish superiority as axiomatic, he couldn’t get the Jews to listen to him, and was thus forced to speak to them in the only language that they seem to understand, namely, that of Jewish supremacism.
But in any case, the Christian religion is now a large part of Western tradition, and at this point, it goes well beyond Jesus and his cultural milieu. Its proper religious interpretation is now at least partially determined by those for whom it is in fact a religion, insofar as it cannot be rationally interpreted in any way that would disable the constructive aspect of its religious functionality.
Admittedly, some of these people are Christian Zionists, but some are not. Which ones are right?
Obviously, people who believe that Jews “own”, and have the right to destroy, the world created by God, including its Christian inhabitants, are irrational in the technical (decision-theoretic) sense, and may accordingly be classified as insane. That is, by adopting an interpretation of their religion that shows every sign of leading them to destruction, Christian Zionists have relinquished their claim to rationality, and their interpretation of the Bible may be pronounced irrational and invalid.
I suppose it’s possible that if Jesus were to return, he’d say something like this: “Hey, goyim. You’re a bunch of dogs. Bow wow, Fido! And by the way, if I’d known you were gonna grab my spiritual wisdom for yourselves instead of leaving it in the hands of Karl and Groucho Marx and their illustrious relatives, I’d have stuck a dirty sweatsock in my mouth rather than let you have one word! Make that two dirty sweatsocks! And by the way, is that Sarah Silverman a hottie, or what!!”
But this is not consistent with the central premise of Christianity, that Jesus was the savior of all mankind…and if one accepts that premise, then one is constrained to interpret the Golden Rule accordingly, as something that applies to all mankind.
That’s really all there is to it.
Adam,
Luke 4:23-30 is another example of Jesus’ universalistic, not Jewish supremicist, message.
eurodele says:
Adam: “And yet, that seems to be just what you are doing.”
No, I’m doing the opposite. I’m going by the direct content of a passage rather than attempting to reconstruct the exact mental state of its author.
Yeah, baloney. What was that again about how you somehow “know” that Jesus was really being ironic, and didn’t mean it when he said that non-Jews were dogs?
However, much of his message seems to have pertained to the folly of Jewish hubris and the degeneracy of Jewish behavior.
From what he says, I think most of his irritation had to do with them not accepting him as the messiah, the “Son of God”.
It may be that without seeming to take Jewish superiority as axiomatic, he couldn’t get the Jews to listen to him, and was thus forced to speak to them in the only language that they seem to understand, namely, that of Jewish supremacism.
There you go again, trying to get inside his head and tell us what his “mental state” was. The simpler hypothesis is that he believed it himself.
That is, by adopting an interpretation of their religion that shows every sign of leading them to destruction, Christian Zionists have relinquished their claim to rationality, and their interpretation of the Bible may be pronounced irrational and invalid.
As I said, it is faith, not logic. Anyone who believes in the Christ myth at all believes nonsense — that people can come back from the dead, change water into wine, or walk on water, etc. To me it seems that your attempts to subject faith to the standards of rationality are themselves irrational.
But this is not consistent with the central premise of Christianity, that Jesus was the savior of all mankind…and if one accepts that premise, then one is constrained to interpret the Golden Rule accordingly, as something that applies to all mankind.
That’s really all there is to it.
What you call the central premise of Christianity — that Jesus was the savior of all mankind — was developed by Paul, a Jew who never even met Jesus. You are certainly free to believe otherwise, though I (and Professor Revilo Oliver) think there is little scriptural support for it.
Adam: “Yeah, baloney. What was that again about how you somehow know that Jesus was really being ironic, and didn’t mean it when he said that non-Jews were dogs? … There you go again, trying to get inside his head and tell us what his mental state was.”
Kudos, Adam. Once you get something backwards, you go the extra mile to make sure that it stays that way.
Again, here’s me: “Passage A says —. so let’s assume that this is exactly what it means.”
And again, here’s you: “OK, so there’s passage A. But here’s this other passage B. So let’s interpret A in light of B.”
I’m the one who interpreted the Christian Golden Rule directly, not deviating from its explicit content or applying extra distinctions like that between Jews and Gentiles.
You, on the other hand, are the one who insisted that we can’t interpret the Golden Rule without knowing, as you apparently think you do, that the mental state of Jesus was that of a hardcore Jewish supremacist.
Adam: “Anyone who believes in the Christ myth at all believes nonsense — that people can come back from the dead, change water into wine, or walk on water, etc.”
How confusing. First you say that we can’t take the words of Jesus literally. But then you say that the only way we can possibly interpret the Bible IS literally, so that people ACTUALLY come back from the dead, water ACTUALLY changes into wine, and somebody can ACTUALLY walk on water (no metaphors allowed, and no metaphysical exceptions of the kind usually made in attributing supernatural powers to Jesus).
No wonder you’ve mixed up our respective positions regarding Biblical interpretation! But at least you’ve managed to clear up one thing: you have a bone to pick with Christianity and everyone in it.
As I said before, you’re welcome to your opinions. But as you so generously share them with us, can you at least try to avoid misrepresenting the positions of others?
No wonder you’ve mixed up our respective positions regarding Biblical interpretation!
I haven’t mixed up anything, as anyone who reads our back and forth here with an open mind can easily see.
I’m the one who interpreted the Christian Golden Rule directly, not deviating from its explicit content or applying extra distinctions like that between Jews and Gentiles.
By so doing, you have de-contextualized the passage, and refuse to take into account the distinction between Jews and Gentiles that was deeply embedded in the culture, and probably even expressed literally in the original language of the Sermon, which was almost certainly not Greek.
But at least you’ve managed to clear up one thing: you have a bone to pick with Christianity and everyone in it.
The personal attack is the last refuge of one who has lost an argument.
As I said before, you’re welcome to your opinions. But as you so generously share them with us, can you at least try to avoid misrepresenting the positions of others?
Welcome to my fan club. :-D
Me: “…you have a bone to pick with Christianity and everyone in it.”
Adam: “The personal attack is the last refuge of one who has lost an argument.”
Is that really fair? After you (in effect) called Christianity a fool’s paradise, and all Christians fools, by saying that “Anyone who believes in the Christ myth at all believes nonsense”?
If you don’t understand how this kind of derision relates to “having a bone to pick with Christianity”, then you have no business calling me or anyone else “irrational”.
Come on now, Adam. Only a small man can’t admit it when he’s wrong. You’re not a small man, are you?
U.S. State Department Says New Testament Is ‘Anti-Semitic’?
By Rev. Ted Pike
Evangelical lovers of Israel would never believe that our government could consider them anti-Semitic. Yet the U.S. State Department’s new “Department of Global Anti-Semitism” now defines anti-Semitism in a way that makes Bible-believing Christians into anti-Semites. Here’s how:
The State Department’s 40-page Report on Global Anti-Semitism cites a recent example of “anti-Semitism” in Poland. “…the pastor of St. Brigid Church in Gdansk told parishioners during services that Jews killed Jesus and the prophets.” (p.22) What’s wrong with that? According to Jewish leadership: plenty. Jewish leaders say it was this millennia-old accusation that ultimately led to the Holocaust: to millions of Jewish “Christ killers” being herded into the prison camps and gas chambers of Auschwitz, Dachau, etc. “You can’t get any more anti-Semitic than that!” they protest.
IS THE NEW TESTAMENT “HATE LITERATURE?”
Yet, think about it. Isn’t that accusation exactly what Mel Gibson portrayed in “The Passion of the Christ?” Isn’t that exactly what the New Testament teaches in passages too numerous to list here? Scripture says evil Jewish leaders, helped by Jews gathered at the Feast of the Passover, collectively pressured the Romans to crucify Christ…
The State Department’s Report on Global Anti-Semitism was not written by the State Department. It was “ghosted” by the international Jewish religious, educational, fraternal and charitable organization, B’nai B’rith and its Anti-defamation League. Only they could marshal such an extensively detailed report from 50 countries, utilizing their worldwide “hate crimes” statistics-gathering capacities.
Far from being a “far left” kooky Jewish minority, not representing mainstream Jewish attitudes, B’nai B’rith International describes itself as the “body and soul” of organized Jewry. Its half million Jewish members constitute a powerful lobbying base, setting up anti-hate bureaucracies (and ending free speech) in many of the more than 50 countries in which B’nai B’rith is established. This anti-Christian, international Jewish religious organization, uniting synagogue and state, is creating a federal hate-crimes Gestapo. Its “Department of Global Anti-Semitism” is laying down outrageous definitions of the “hate crime” of anti-Semitism that make Bible-believing Christians into anti-Semitic “haters.”
http://www.rense.com/general67/state.htm
I think there’s no question that Christian holy books are anti-Jewish, as Judaism was a competing religion/ideology from the beginning, just as many Jewish holy books, the Talmud for example, are anti-Christian.
I think elements of anti-Christian Jewry, however, are starting to realize that what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. If they want to outlaw The New Testament under the pretext/argument that it is “hate” literature, the Talmud will eventually be outlawed as well under the same argument.
Historically, it is for this reason that many Jews embraced left-wing totalitarianism, ie the Jewish Bolsheviks — in order to impose the double standard. Many still believe this can be successfully pulled off, whereas others realize that the inherently anti-religious state will eventually consume everyone, as the stronger and bigger it grows, the less tolerance it has for rivals, and the less interest it has in dealing with the hassles and demands of religious small fry.
I think the American leviathan, as much as organized Jewry has been able to infiltrate its levers of power, is reaching the point of maximum tolerance for championing of the Jewish agenda, and is starting to creek and rumble in response to their pushing it ever further.
As Mark Perry at Foreign Policy recently pointed out: “There are important and powerful lobbies in America: the NRA, the American Medical Association, the lawyers — and the Israeli lobby. But no lobby is as important, or as powerful, as the U.S. military.”
http://mideast.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/03/14/the_petraeus_briefing_biden_s_embarrassment_is_not_the_whole_story
And the U.S. military seems to have had it up to here with fighting and dying for the Zionist agenda.
Chris Moore says:
I think there’s no question that Christian holy books are anti-Jewish, as Judaism was a competing religion/ideology from the beginning, just as many Jewish holy books, the Talmud for example, are anti-Christian.
Books can be read any way you want, as this whole exchange proves. A deeper, more nuanced understanding recognizes that meanings can shift depending on the circumstances of utterance and hearing, and that any text must be understood as part of a broader cultural picture. There are Jews who argue for a universalistic interpretation of Hillel’s Golden Rule, even though that is as revisionist and false as putting that spin on Jesus’ version. To decontextualize the Gospels and argue that Jesus meant his words and his mission to apply to non-Jews, whom he plainly states he saw as “dogs” who were property of the Jews, is exactly the same order of madness as saying that because the Declaration of Independence says that “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, …” that the Founding Fathers had their negro slaves in mind when they wrote it. The fact is, they didn’t really see negroes as men in the context of that time, just as Jesus didn’t really see non-Jews as men in his. To make it so that some things can go without saying is probably the purpose of having a culture at all.
There is a difference between ‘Jews’ and Israelites, so please, no need to conflate the two unecessarily.
In fact, there is indeed very few references to even the word ‘Jew’ in the ‘Old’ Testament.
“Judaism”, as we have all come to know it in all its manifestations, is pecularly a product of the post-Babylonian captivity of the Judeans, who were merely one of twelve tribes of the Israelite peoples/confederation.
Hence, the highest religious source and authority for this religion is the Babylonian Talmud, not the Hebrew ‘Old’ Testament – which many of the Rabbi’s consider primarily myths, and the Talmud is the principle authority on ‘interpreting’ those ‘myths’ — of course in whatever way possible that is ‘good for the Jews’ — not what is actually the Truth.
Here is an example of what I mean -
@ADAM
I’m happy that you brought up John 4. I regard it as one of the most important but misunderstood chapters in the New Testament. I disagree with your conclusion that there are extremely philo-semitic sections in the NT, I think it’s just the opposite, Jesus and the early Christians were adamantly and profoundly anti-Jewish. The Jewish community has always understood this.
You quote a “paraphrased” bible; they are notorious for fudging the translation – in favor of Jews. For example, in your version of John 4:19, the woman at the well blatantly calls Jesus a Jew (catering to modern philo-jewish Christians). Contrast that with the King James Version (KJV). No mention of Jews.
(ADAM) John 4:20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but YOU JEWS claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”
(KJV) John 4:20 Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and YE SAY, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.
Contrast your John 4:22, which claims that “salvation is FROM the Jews” with the KJV which says OF the Jews.
(ADAM) John 4:22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is FROM THE JEWS.
(KJV) John 4: 22 Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is OF THE JEWS.
Translators often fudge by creative punctuation. The original Greek manuscripts were not punctuated. John 4:22 takes on an entirely new meaning if you place periods between the three clauses, and associate the third clause with the following sentence, thus:
(KJV) John 4:22 Ye worship ye know not what. We know what we worship. For salvation is of the Jews, 23 but the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.
The new word order provides some much needed clarification. The phrase “salvation is of the Jews” is now decoupled from the phrase “we know what we worship.” That coupling has traditionally been used to claim that Jesus worshiped the in the same manner as the Jews (which he patently didn’t), and imply that salvation comes from or is somehow controlled by the Jews. In short, it put the Jews on a pedestal and enhanced their “chosenness”.
Jesus now defines salvation as an exclusively Jewish issue, not associated with Christians. It is temporary and will be superseded by a new mode of worship which will be done “in spirit and truth”, in other words, according to Christian values. Christians may balk at limiting salvation to Jews, but the reality is that the Jews regarded salvation as exclusive to them. The exclusively Jewish nature of salvation becomes clear when you realize that Jesus spent almost all his time and resources trying to save the Jews.
(KJV) Matthew 10:5 “These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not; 6 But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
(KJV) Matthew 15:24 “… I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”
The bottom line is that Jesus regarded the Jews as a lost people.
John 8:44 Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.
He was trying to save a small remnant before God dropped the hammer and obliterated a failed experiment.
Matthew 21:43 Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof. 44 And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder. 45 And when the chief priests and Pharisees had heard his parables, they perceived that he spake of them.
Jesus explains the terms. The Jews are devastated and utterly cut off from God until they accept Jesus as saviour. Note there’s no special treatment or “apple of his eye” preference. There is no alternate mode of salvation or atonement, which means traditional Jewish religious practices are of no effect. Jesus grants no religious justification for the occupation of Palestine.
Luke 13:35 Behold, your house is left unto you desolate: and verily I say unto you, Ye shall not see me, until the time come when ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.
Finally, the Jews assume eternal responsibility for his death. This is perhaps the most anti-Jewish sentence ever written.
Matthew 27:25 Then answered all the people, and said, His blood be on us, and on our children.
The notion that Christian Zionism hails from any Tradition is false. The Scofield Bible, which is really what started most of this non-sense, is only like 150 years old! Must be the youngest Tradition on the planet! – Hellacious Heath
You quote a “paraphrased” bible; they are notorious for fudging the translation – in favor of Jews. – vext
–
I disagree with your conclusion that there are extremely philo-semitic sections in the NT, I think it’s just the opposite, Jesus and the early Christians were adamantly and profoundly anti-Jewish. – vext
–
As was St. Paul – formally Saul of Tarsus., who also spoke out against ‘the words and traditions of men, rather than those of God -
“Then there is the explicit Jewish racial supremacism of John 4, in which Jesus states outright that ‘salvation is from the Jews’,”
When Jesus said salvation comes from the Jews, he was obviously talking about himself, and his being born from a Jewish Mother.
He wasn’t talking about the Jews as a group, and in fact he never failed to express disgust at them as a group.
“and that no one else has the least clue about God.”
That was because he was a Monotheist.
“It seems to me that these two passages all by themselves could be used to justify any sort of subservience to Jews on the part of non-Jews, entirely without any help from Scofield.”
You forgot about the part where Jesus said it was the will of God that the Jews would have their Capital destroyed, and further that it was is will that Jewish Mothers be reduced to a circumstance that they would cry out to heaven that their wombs had been barren.
Jesus turned and said to them, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep for yourselves and for your children. For the time will come when you will say, ‘Blessed are the barren women, the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!’ Then “‘they will say to the mountains, “Fall on us!” and to the hills, “Cover us!” “For if men do these things when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?”
-Luke 23:30-33
Adam: “To decontextualize the Gospels and argue that Jesus meant his words and his mission to apply to non-Jews, whom he plainly states he saw as “dogs” who were property of the Jews, is exactly the same order of madness…”
You return to this specious canard that Jesus regarded non-Jews as “dogs” time and again. Where does your claim come from? Apparently this:
A Greek non-Jewish woman’s daughter is sick. Jesus instructs:
27 “First let the children eat all they want,” he told her, “for it is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs.”
There are a million ways to interpret this sequence, but extrapolating that Jesus considers Gentiles to be dogs is a stretch beyond all logic. In fact, he was apparently instructing Christians to put their children before their farm animals.
And remember, he considered himself the Messiah who was ushering in a new way and a new world (Christianity), not just another Jew.
This “Jesus was just another exceptional Jew meme” is one turned to by Jewish supremacists and other racialists time and again for their own self-serving purposes.
Racialists (which Christian Zionists tend to be) and Jewish supremacists actually have a lot in common in terms of how they view the world: “us and them.” No wonder Christian Zionists venerate the Old Testament more than the New Testament.
I think it’s a stretch to call Judeo-Christian Zionists “Christians.”
“There are a million ways to interpret this sequence, but extrapolating that Jesus considers Gentiles to be dogs is a stretch beyond all logic. In fact, he was apparently instructing Christians to put their children before their farm animals.”
You’re doing the same thing Adam did, only in the other direction.
The point Jesus was making was that his mission was to the Jews, to give them a chance to accept him as the son of God and thus to receive God’s blessings, and that they therefore had “Dibs” on him in the same way that the children in a household have Dibs on Dinner.
He was saying the Jews had, for a time, precedence over Gentiles.
He most assuredly wasn’t saying Gentiles are Dogs compared to Jews, as Adam implied.
But by the same token, he wasn’t telling Christians to favor their children over dogs either.
Jesus wasn’t even talking to Christians in that passage, he was talking to a Non-Christian Gentile.
“You’re doing the same thing Adam did, only in the other direction.”
Fair enough. That’s the fascination of scripture: it can be interpreted in so many different ways…and the beauty of Christian scripture in particular, which can be interpreted in so many beautiful ways.
But as a historical document chronicling the culture of Christianity and the plight, targeting, persecution and suffering of Jesus Christ, the New Testament speaks for itself, and ipso-facto cuts through all of the spin and subjective, self-serving interpretations straight to the quick.
That’s why Jewish tribalists tend to hate it, and Christian Zionists tend to shun it in favor of the Old Testament, as despite their pretensions and posturing otherwise, deep down they both persist towards a racist, self-absorbed, money-worshipping ethic.
Birds of a feather.
The point Jesus was making was that his mission was to the Jews, to give them a chance to accept him as the son of God and thus to receive God’s blessings, and that they therefore had “Dibs” on him in the same way that the children in a household have Dibs on Dinner.
Do not forget as well, guys, that He also said that he was coming for the ‘Lost Sheep’ of the House of Israel — in other words, all of the ‘twelve tribes’ scattered abroad, not merely the Talmud-worshipping “Jews” (many of whom were ‘Jewish’ in name only) in Judea at the time -
James 1:1 – James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting.
I highly recommend “The Jewish Revolutionary Spirit and Its Impact on World HIstory” by E. Michael Jones. If you have the energy to wade through 1100 pages (and I did) you will be richly rewarded with an entirely new understanding of Jewish influence.
It’s very dense but each page brings new insights. Some notable chapters include Rome Discovers the Talmud, The Revolution Arrives in Europe, The Rise of Freemasonry, Revolutionary Music in the 1930s, Jewish Humor, Jewish Discourse, and The Neoconservative Era.
He writes from a Catholic point of view but that is appropriate. The Catholics have always been at the forefront of the battles between Jews and Western culture.
It’s available on his website. http://www.culturewars.com
Well! :-D
I certainly seem to have called forth a maelstrom. I didn’t know we had this many Jew worshipers here.
My purpose in coming to this blog is not to enter into silly debates with aspiring theologians about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, or whether in calling non-Jews dogs as he does in Mark 7:24-30, Jesus actually meant the opposite. Further, I think I’ve already stated my case about as well as I can, even showing that the estimable classics scholar Revilo Oliver completely agreed with my interpretation. So let me just hit a couple of highlights of these latest outbursts.
vext says:
You quote a “paraphrased” bible; they are notorious for fudging the translation – in favor of Jews. For example, in your version of John 4:19, the woman at the well blatantly calls Jesus a Jew (catering to modern philo-jewish Christians). Contrast that with the King James Version (KJV). No mention of Jews.
Since she already has called him a Jew in John 4:9, it’s only a stylistic difference.
9λεγει ουν αυτω η γυνη η σαμαρειτις πως συ ιουδαιος ων παρ εμου πιειν αιτεις ουσης γυναικος σαμαρειτιδος ου γαρ συγχρωνται ιουδαιοι σαμαρειταις
Contrast your John 4:22, which claims that “salvation is FROM the Jews” with the KJV which says OF the Jews.
(ADAM) John 4:22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is FROM THE JEWS.
(KJV) John 4: 22 Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is OF THE JEWS.
Let’s note that Jesus here is calling himself a Jew, and that the phrase “η σωτηρια εκ των ιουδαιων εστιν” could more literally, though less euphonically, be translated as “for salvation is out of the Jews”, i.e., it is derived from the Jewish people; it originates from them. This is extremely philo-semitic, obviously, the implication being that the Jews are a special “Chosen” people in the eyes of God, the rest of mankind being subordinate and secondary, i.e., that “Gentiles are supernal garbage” as Rabbi Schneur Zalman, founder of Chabad-Lubavitch, put it.
22υμεις προσκυνειτε ο ουκ οιδατε ημεις προσκυνουμεν ο οιδαμεν οτι η σωτηρια εκ των ιουδαιων εστιν
Next, vext rewrites the KJV thus:
(KJV) John 4:22 Ye worship ye know not what. We know what we worship. For salvation is of the Jews, 23 but the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.
The new word order provides some much needed clarification. The phrase “salvation is of the Jews” is now decoupled from the phrase “we know what we worship.” That coupling has traditionally been used to claim that Jesus worshiped the in the same manner as the Jews (which he patently didn’t), and imply that salvation comes from or is somehow controlled by the Jews. In short, it put the Jews on a pedestal and enhanced their “chosenness”.
Thanks for the “new word order”, vext. Only one problem, the real KJV doesn’t punctuate it like the forgery above. The real KJV says:
22Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews.
23But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.
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Next, Chris Moore says:
Adam: “To decontextualize the Gospels and argue that Jesus meant his words and his mission to apply to non-Jews, whom he plainly states he saw as “dogs” who were property of the Jews, is exactly the same order of madness…”
You return to this specious canard that Jesus regarded non-Jews as “dogs” time and again. Where does your claim come from? Apparently this:
A Greek non-Jewish woman’s daughter is sick. Jesus instructs:
27 “First let the children eat all they want,” he told her, “for it is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs.”
There are a million ways to interpret this sequence, but extrapolating that Jesus considers Gentiles to be dogs is a stretch beyond all logic.
If it’s “beyond all logic”, then every exegesis I could find — and I checked about 6 or 7 of them — goes beyond all logic, because they all say that is the meaning, as it very plainly is. One says:
Another says:
Still another:
And a fourth:
Note that all of these exegetes are Christians, and all go on to find some way to soften the insult, but they at least have the brains to understand that Jesus is referring to non-Jews as dogs. Unlike Mr. Moore here, at least they know that Jesus is using the terminology of Jewish supremacism.
In fact, he was apparently instructing Christians to put their children before their farm animals.
That is a moronic interpretation if ever there was one. Note well that no authority is cited, primarily because no one who knows what he’s talking about would try to peddle such nonsense.
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To continue to this dispute past this point seems to me pointless. People who insist on “interpreting” their Bible verses in direct opposition to the literal meaning, and even inventing new ones when they feel the need, can’t be reasoned with.
Frankly, even I am shocked at the level of white degeneracy I see among these Jew worshipers. I can only conclude that in equating them to dogs, I think Jesus may have overestimated them. Looking over these responses, it’s no wonder the great Revilo Oliver despaired of the white race ever pulling out of its death spiral. Khrushchev once exclaimed, “These Americans! You can spit in their face and they call it dew!” Let’s change that now to white Christians. Jesus has been spitting in their faces for two thousand years, and degenerate whites such as these we see here do nothing but try to make up excuses for him.
I highly recommend “The Jewish Revolutionary Spirit and Its Impact on World HIstory” by E. Michael Jones. If you have the energy to wade through 1100 pages (and I did) you will be richly rewarded with an entirely new understanding of Jewish influence. – vext
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Vext,
You and the other fellas might also as well be interested in Michael Hoffman’s latest magnum opus Judaism Discovered.
Mr. Hoffman says it has been getting a hard time being advertised (even Amazon he says won’t carry it) but there are other sellers one can look for, for those interested.
Here is an excerpt from a review on Rense -
You know, Adam, for someone who openly prides himself on his theological scholarship, you have a remarkable talent for ignoring the obvious.
Venturing now into the realm of scriptural context-sensitivity, let me present two facts for your approval.
1. Jesus considered himself a Jew and sometimes obliquely expressed mild contempt for non-Jews.
2. Jesus expressed violent (not mild) contempt for many of those calling themselves “Jews”, especially those who were politically influential and functioned as religious authorities for the mass of Jews.
Superficially, these facts appear to contradict each other. How could Jesus consider himself a Jew, and while apparently holding non-Jews in mild contempt, hold Big Jew in even greater contempt? What must his understanding have been in order to reconcile these feelings? In particular, how must Jesus have defined the concept “Jew” (aside from the fact that this is not the exact word he used to label that concept)?
Intellectually, the average modern “Jew” can easily solve this problem. How do we know this? Because the average modern Jew hates Jesus and everything he stood for (or lets hiself be spoken for by others who do), implying that most modern Jews consider fact 2 more important than fact 1, at least as regards their own relationship to Jesus. Now, why do you think they do that?
Could Jesus have defined “Jew” (or equivalent) to mean something like “a person who worships the One God and keeps His commandments”?
Under this definition, it would indeed have been possible for Jesus to regard himself as a Jew while denying the property of Jewishness to (most) Gentiles of the period and expressing extreme antipathy for others who dared to falsely apply it to themselves, without actually worshipping the One God or keeping His commandments.
In other words, as most Jews are well aware, the paradox embodied in facts 1 and 2 can be resolved in just one way: by a spiritual definition of “Jew” which is not identical to its usage by modern Jews (especially those of a Talmudic or secular-atheistic stripe). Essentially, modern Jews believe that Jesus attempted to preemptively displace what they would consider a true Jewish messiah, and that his followers are attempting to displace them as the “the Chosen”.
The Jews are right on both counts, as innumerable Christians have clearly understood for literally thousands of years. If Jesus defined “Jew” in a spiritual way, meaning “one who worships the One God and keeps His commandments”, then this definition clearly applies to right-thinking Christians (in Jesus’ understanding, as opposed to the understanding of modern Jews and even those who called themselves Jews in his own time). In effect, right-thinking Christians are “the true Jews”.
This is all very obvious to most people who really think about the New Testament. But since you seem to have chosen a different path for yourself, we have the following question.
What is your evidence that Jesus defined “Jewishness” (or equivalent) as modern Jews define it – roughly, “a genetically-related tribe of people referred to in the Torah and Talmud and divinely chosen by definition, where “divine” refers in a circular fashion to just that God who forever chose the Jews regardless of what they may do” – rather than in a spiritual way that neatly eliminates the cognitive dissonance seemingly implied by facts 1 and 2, i.e., “one who worships the One God and keeps His commandments”?
Lastly – and I almost hesitate to mention this – your personality is apparently such that the contempt squirts right out of you whenever anyone dares to disagree with you. As we all know, that’s an emotional reflex rather than a rational intellectual response.
Why don’t you see if you can modify your tone so that it at least seems more intelligent, objective, and befitting an intellectual board such as this?
Just a suggestion.
Like the resented prophets before him, Jesus didn’t consider most Jews of his time to be true to God, either in spirit or deed. He ruthlessly ridiculed and attacked them for their greed, hypocrisy, and wickedness, particularly the self-righteous Pharisees, who were the most corrupt of them all. He also expressed occasional contempt for non-Jews.
But unlike the other prophets, his destiny was to be the founder of a whole new religion. That’s why he ridiculed the Jews in particular mercilessly.
Adam, think of it like Luther, whose main work was tearing apart the corrupted Church. By ridiculing non-Christians too, was he engaging in Catholic supremacism? No, obviously he hated what the Church had become enough to engineer a permanent schism in fidelity to God, so that was his main focus.
You’re obviously peddling the “Jesus was just another exceptional Jew” propaganda for self-serving purposes, perhaps from the Marxist Jewish-supremacist direction instead of the religious Jewish supremacist direction. (C’mon, how many people quote Khruschev?)
It’s important to remember that the Jewish supremacists are hell bent on crushing Christianity, whether from the Left (pseudo-“secular” Judeophile Marxism, socialism, left-liberalism) or from the Right (Judeophile neo-conservatism/Zionism, Judeo-Christian Zionism, Judeophile money-worship).
That they are determined to go to such sophisticated and elaborate, almost supernatural, lengths to destroy Christianity tells you all you need to know. It’s almost as if they’re working for/drawing upon Satan himself.