← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Walter Yannis
Thread ID: 17444 | Posts: 5 | Started: 2005-03-21
2005-03-21 20:35 | User Profile
[URL=http://www.herald.ns.ca/stories/2005/03/19/fReligion107.raw.html]Jewish leaders wanted Jesus executed - traditionalist author[/URL] By RICHARD N. OSTLING
During the Lenten season of 2004 there was considerable fury over Mel Gibson's film The Passion of the Christ and its depiction of Jewish leaders conspiring to hand Jesus Christ over to the Romans for crucifixion.
A year later, just in time for Good Friday of 2005, a book by Jewish writer David Klinghoffer says of course that's what the Jewish authorities did: Why the Jews Rejected Jesus: The Turning Point in Western History (Doubleday).
He bases that not only on the New Testament - whose history he distrusts to a fair extent - but on the Talmud, Judaism's authoritative compilation of Bible commentary and rabbinic law, and later Jewish sages such as Maimonides.
The Talmud says that "on the eve of Passover they hung Yeshu (Jesus)" on charges that he "performed magic, enticed and led astray Israel."
Since that's Jewish tradition, "to say that Jewish leaders were instrumental in getting Jesus killed is not anti-Semitic," Klinghoffer insists.
The Talmud also claims that Mary conceived Jesus in adultery and that Jesus suffers eternal punishment. Fear of Christian persecution caused Jews centuries ago to relegate such materials to footnotes in tiny type or delete them altogether, Klinghoffer says, but the history on this is clear and should be discussed honestly.
Anyway, he says, the real dispute between Jews and Christians concerns whether Jesus was Israel's messiah and the Son of God who properly exercised authority to reinterpret divine law. As a liberal Jew who turned to traditionalism as an adult, the Seattle-area author rejects those Christian beliefs. But he dislikes liberal and secular Jewish movements and respects Christianity's cultural contributions.
For believers like Klinghoffer, the Bible's written law defines the Jewish people, and the traditional "oral law" as found in the Talmud is part of that revelation.
Jesus, however, dismissed oral law "as a human invention" and "felt empowered to read and interpret the Torah for himself" regardless of what the elders taught, Klinghoffer observes, which is one reason observant Jews couldn't accept him.
Even if Jesus was raised from the dead after the Crucifixion, Klinghoffer writes, that wouldn't prove him to be the messiah unless "you have already accepted his authority to render interpretations of Scripture contrary to the obvious meaning of the words. . . . It works only if you are already a Christian."
Many Jews in Jesus' time wouldn't have heard of him, Klinghoffer says, and those who did had good reason to be skeptical. For one thing, Jesus didn't fit aspects of their expectations for the messiah.
On the Son of God issue, Klinghoffer finds "every reason to think Jesus entertained some extravagant notions about himself. . . . The idea that Jesus thought he was God is indeed thinkable," though he says it's more likely this belief developed decades after Jesus' death. "If the Jews did reject him, that was only so, in effect, passively" and more as a "turning away, a questioning of the authenticity or even the importance of the personas he adopted," he concludes.
As for the book's subtitle, Klinghoffer thinks that if the Jews had embraced Jesus they would have remained bound to the laws on Sabbath observance, kosher diet, circumcision of males and ritual purity, so "the Jesus movement might have remained a Jewish sect."
He then spins out a debatable counterfactual scenario. With Christianity as a minor sect, Europe would have had a spiritual vacuum that Islam would most likely have filled. America would be a totally different country today because it would never have been Christianized.
"It served God's purposes that there be a unique religion, acknowledging him," namely Christianity. It departed from Judaism but continued to revere the God of Israel and "contains the seeds for an ultimate reunification of the peoples in God's service."
However unpleasant, he believes, the ancient divide between Jews and Christians "was indispensable to God's plan."
All that is likely to be equally unsettling for Christians and his fellow Jews.
2005-03-21 21:18 | User Profile
[url]http://www.orlutheran.com/mlseac13.html[/url]
Next, he (St. Paul) proceeds to remove their chief stumblingblock, the thing of greatest offense to them. He warns them against the course adopted by them of Jerusalem, who had the Word of salvation from Christ himself, who read it in the prophets every day, who should have had no trouble perceiving that the prophets testified to Christ and that there was complete harmony between their teaching and that of Christ and the apostles, yet would not understand. Because Christ came not in the manner they desired, they condemned the very One whom they read of in the Scriptures as appearing with this Word of salvation, the time of whose coming had been pointed out, leaving them to know it had long since arrived and they had no reason to wait for another. They understood not the Scriptures because their minds were completely hardened and dominated by the fixed idea that Christ should reign as a temporal king. So thoroughly was the whole Jewish nation impressed with this belief that the very apostles had no other conception of Christ's kingdom, even after his resurrection. As John says (ch. 12, 16), they did not understand the Scriptures until Christ ascended to heaven and the Holy Spirit came.
So long as there hangs before one's eyes this curtain--the carnal fancy of a temporal kingdom for Christ, an earthly government for his Church--the Scriptures cannot be understood. As Paul says of the Jews (2 Cor 3, 14), the veil remaineth in the reading of the Scriptures. But this lack of understanding is inexcusable. That is gross and wilful blindness which will not receive the instruction and direction imparted by the apostles. The Jews continue to rave against the Gospel; they will hear nothing of the Christ, though even after crucifying him they receive the offer of repentance and remission of sins at the hands of the apostles.
2005-03-22 00:00 | User Profile
[QUOTE]Even if Jesus was raised from the dead after the Crucifixion, Klinghoffer writes, that wouldn't prove him to be the messiah unless "you have already accepted his authority to render interpretations of Scripture contrary to the obvious meaning of the words. . . . It works only if you are already a Christian."[/QUOTE] Some people are just bound and determined to go to Hell.
[QUOTE] "It served God's purposes that there be a unique religion, acknowledging him," namely Christianity. It departed from Judaism but continued to revere the God of Israel and "contains the seeds for an ultimate reunification of the peoples in God's service." [/QUOTE] I don't think so, Mr. Jew. The Jews are not a people in God's service. They are the servants of Satan, their father. The only way I'll have anything to do with a Jew, is if he repents of his rebellion against God, accepts Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior, and tells other Jews that they must repent or perish.
2005-04-01 13:24 | User Profile
Good post Robert!
Agreed on that mate. The Jews however are not Israel, they are Khazars and wear the mask of Edom, a mask that is now apart of their personallity.
2005-04-01 14:05 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Walter Yannis]He then spins out a debatable counterfactual scenario. With Christianity as a minor sect, Europe would have had a spiritual vacuum that Islam would most likely have filled. America would be a totally different country today because it would never have been Christianized.
"It served God's purposes that there be a unique religion, acknowledging him," namely Christianity. It departed from Judaism but continued to revere the God of Israel and "contains the seeds for an ultimate reunification of the peoples in God's service." [/QUOTE]Good to see a Jew acknowledging his people's guilt. Although, if I'm not mistaken, Klinghoffer also claims the Jewish rejection of Jesus was the "founding event" of the West. How typically arrogant of them to claim responsibility for our civilization!
Pet Jews, like Klinghoffer, who write for erstwhile conservative pubs such as National Review, really annoy me. I remember when NR used to publish Kirk, Keuhnelt-Leddihn, and Sobran. And then the Neocons took over, and we're left with people like Klinghoffer who are love with their own Jewishness and want everyone to know how wonderful Jews are. Ben Stein, who writes a column for The American Spectator, is another one. Stein is truly embarrassing, especially when he talks about the wondrous joys of Judaizing his adopted son Tommy. :yucky:
I've often wondered if the placement of prominent Jewish writers in conservative mags like NR and TAC was an effort to neutralize any simmering anti-Jewish sentiment among the readership on the Right.