OUTCAST NATION

Israel and the Jews … and You

The complete story, from Abraham to Armageddon

By Steve Maltz

Saffron Planet

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Copyright (c) 2012 Steve Maltz

First published 2012

The right of Steve Maltz to be identified as the Author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher or a license permitting restricted copying. In the UK such licenses are issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P 9HE.

Unless otherwise stated, Scripture quotations are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. Copyright (c) 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society.

ISBN 978-0-9562296-4-9

Cover design by Phil Maltz

Reviews for Land of Many Names

The book has a number of strengths. It is written in an agreeable style which is accessible to the non-specialist. At the same time, Maltz manages to pack a lot of information into this modest volume. His efforts to inform his readership of different ways of reading sacred texts is commendable. Furthermore, Maltz articulates the Christian Zionist perspective in a very succinct and skilful manner … It is to be hoped that Maltz’ contribution to the debate will be read, not shunned, by those taking the opposite viewpoint. (Peter Riddell, Director of the Centre for Islamic Studies, London Bible College)

This book lives up to the blurb in its style – lively, entertaining and provocative – it gives a well-researched and popular account of Israel’s history from the days of Abram to Sharon … Addictive, dented some of my convictions and made me think hard. (Tony Sargent, Principal of International Christian College, Glasgow)

This author is gifted in presenting the complex historical issues in an erudite yet understandable way … I recommend this book. (PROPHECY TODAY)

A comprehensive overview in a very readable, almost conversational way. (MESSIANIC TESTIMONY)

I found this book a good read … I was challenged and ultimately persuaded by his thesis. (JOY MAGAZINE – Assemblies of God)

It is the best factual book about Israel that I have read for a long time … This is a very good buy and definitely one that I am grateful for. (POINTERS MAGAZINE)

Steve Maltz has written this very helpful book in a light and readable style, yet at no point is it less than well researched, cogently argued and biblically balanced. (Chris Hill, Bible Teacher)

I can’t over-emphasise the importance of this book by Steve Maltz … He gives a very balanced overview of the Christian’s understanding of the present-day Middle East conflict. (DIRECTION MAGAZINE – Elim Pentecostals)

Steve Maltz has an evident gift for explaining complex historical issues in a simple and conversational manner, and he is to be commended for such an easily read and yet comprehensive overview of this vital period. Christians and non-Christians alike are urged to read and then rethink this whole matter. (Derek White, Founder, Christian Friends of Israel)

I believe that this book is long overdue and will challenge all who read it to recognize that God is alive and active in Israel and with the Jewish people. Steve Maltz argues his case well. It’s guaranteed to provoke – it’s meant to! (Julia Fisher, Writer and Broadcaster)

This is a helpful book to dispel some of the myths and prejudices about Israel today. (Tony Pearce, Light for Last Days)

Reviews for People of Many Names

Steve Maltz writes unashamedly as a Jewish believer in Jesus and for this reason is able to bring some very challenging insights into the Jewish people, both past and present. (Derek White, Founder of Christian Friends of Israel)

Steve gives a fast paced, witty but both insightful and perceptive framework for his readers to gain a meaningful overview of the Jewish people and their relationship with God and the Nations. (Fred Wright, Author and Director of Chesed)

I think it’s brilliant, inspired, a great read, of interest to both Jews and Christians, a breath of fresh air – and timely! What more can I say! (Julia Fisher, Writer and Broadcaster)

Theme verse

‘But I will restore you to health and heal your wounds,’ declares the Lord, ‘because you are called an outcast, Zion for whom no one cares.’ (Jeremiah 30:17)

Dedication

This was a big book to sift through so I am eternally grateful to my merry band of manuscript readers. Colin B, Kit E, Bekah E, Brian & Sheila E, Moira D-E, Jackie B (and clever hubby) and sonny boy Simon, you are all heroes. Thanks yet again to Jackie S for your expert eye and special, special thanks to Monica for your usual sacrifices.

CONTENTS

Preface

Introduction

ACT ONE

Chapter One: All about Abraham

Chapter Two: Jacob’s Follies

Chapter Three: The Kingdom of Priests

Chapter Four: The Kingdom of Kings

Chapter Five: First Exile

ACT TWO

Chapter Six: Preparing the Land

Chapter Seven: The Fulcrum of History

Chapter Eight: Galut

Chapter Nine: To the Ends of the Earth

Chapter Ten: The Other Brother

Chapter Eleven: The Longest Hatred

Chapter Twelve: Some of My Best Friends …

Chapter Thirteen: Jude!

ACT THREE

Chapter Fourteen: A Welcome Respite

Chapter Fifteen: Dreams of Home

Chapter Sixteen: A Nation is Born

Chapter Seventeen: Who Are These People?

Chapter Eighteen: The People of Promise

Chapter Nineteen: The Land of Promise

Chapter Twenty: You Don’t Mess with God!

Chapter Twenty-One: Unavoidable Questions

Recommended Reading

Organisations working for Israel and the Jewish People

A Liturgy of Reconciliation

Now Why Don’t You … ?

Preface

I used to have a dream where I enter a drab, airy room filled with nervous people sitting in a circle on wooden chairs. All eyes turn to me as I creep to the front, then I turn to face them and make my admission, a brave confession after years of denial. “My name is Steve and I’m a … Jew.”

Why the dream? Well, the fact is that there was some truth in it, brought on by vestiges of shame from deep within my psyche. You see, I was not always upfront about my racial origins, even when confronted by direct questioning. “But you do look Jewish.” “No, not me, mate, you’re mistaken.” I was never sure where this shame came from. Perhaps it was the desire not to be different, perhaps it was a need not to be

stereotyped. Or, most likely, perhaps there was fear of rejection, the least serious of the whole gamut of emotions and reactions provoked by making the statement, “My name is Steve and I’m a … Jew.” Because, let’s face it, earlier generations have faced a lot worse than mere rejection.

As far as I could remember the only thing Jewish about my family was when we gorged ourselves with food at Uncle Syd’s at Passover time. We even had a Christmas tree at my Nana’s house every year, though I don’t recollect us actually going as far as singing carols. In fact, I was the only religious person in my family, as far as I could see. For as long as I could remember, up to my 13th birthday, I was blessed (or cursed?) with the weekly visit of Rabbi Jacobs. He was the one who taught me to be a Jew. I became the World authority on Deuteronomy 12. I could read it forwards and backwards, sing it, even yodel it. My whole reason for being, in a Jewish sense, was to learn that passage until it permeated every pore of my body. And the whole reason behind that was that, on some fateful day in some far-off time, I would be able to stand up in confidence at the front of a Synagogue congregation at the time of my Barmitzvah and sing that passage with the unwavering voice of a pre-pubescent Cantor. And the whole reason behind that was that my dad, a few rows ahead of me, and my mum, hidden among the hats in the gallery, could get that warm glow of satisfaction that only comes from the knowledge that you’ve brought up your son in a proper Jewish manner. That’s what being Jewish was to me. I could say that with confidence because, the day after my Barmitzvah, there was no Rabbi Jacobs, no Hebrew lessons, no Deuteronomy 12. At last I didn’t have to be Jewish any more, I could be like everyone else!

Deprived of Jewish friends from childhood, due to having a private Hebrew tutor, I drifted more towards Gentiles. If it was up to me I would have hidden my Jewishness under a bush at the school entrance. As things were, my religion was down on the register. I was excused RE and worship in the chapel, being given far more interesting things to do such as learning braille and corresponding with blind kids. We occasionally had to sit through the odd RE lesson, though, curiously, I can’t remember anything about religion being taught. Of the Jewish boys in my class I was only friendly with two of them, one a committed Zionist, no doubt by now a respected citizen of Israel and the other a rabid atheist. The others were more typically Jewish and at least two of them grew up to become very high achievers. One is now a highly acclaimed Q.C. and the other a nationally known journalist.

At 18 I left for University. At last real freedom and this time I not so much left my Jewish identity behind as buried it 12 foot underground! It wasn’t without a great deal of shame, and, later, regret, that I went through my three years at college as a WASP (White Anglo Saxon Protestant, or, in my case, Weak Anti Social Person). This was fine until the last month, of my last term, of my last year, just after Finals, when I inexplicably fell for a Christian girl and I was introduced to Jesus and my life was never to be the same again. But that’s another book!

Why should I be ashamed of my heritage? I wasn’t alone, I knew of many family friends who changed their surnames after the Second World War, to distance themselves from the shame of the Holocaust and the realities of post-war anti-Semitism. Would they have done the same if they had been born Greek, or Swedish, or Icelandish? I very much doubt it. Being Jewish has always been a provocation to others around you, whoever they are, whichever period of history you are living in. Don’t you find that strange?

Yes, it is strange and what is also strange is people’s reaction to a single word … Israel.

In May 2002 I helped to man a stand at the Christian Resources Exhibition in Esher, Surrey. Folk from 21 different ministries were exhibiting under the banner, ‘Why Israel?’, seeking to open dialogue with other Christians, whatever their background or perspective. Interestingly, my over-riding impression from those four days was that the only people willing to discuss the matter were those who shared the viewpoints of the exhibitors. The folk at the ‘Rediscovering Palestine’ stand observed similar behaviour.

Why this should be spoke volumes to me of the vast rift between those who were generally for Israel in the current conflict and those who weren’t. It was not dissimilar to the family who see the Christian evangelists at the front door and hide behind the sofa, hoping they haven’t been spotted through the window. They think they know what the visitors are going to say, they’ve heard it all before and they’re not willing to start a fresh argument on the subject. ‘Why don’t they leave us alone?’, is the cry. Yet, you and I know that hiding your head in the sand is not the best answer when truth and, in this case, eternal salvation, is at stake. The trouble is that this family doesn’t know it!

Tragically we Christians can be ignorant of our own blind spot, our unwillingness to see the other point of view. One side would stress that Christians should pursue justice and righteousness and, as with apartheid in South Africa, they should side with those whom they see as the oppressed and downtrodden, the Palestinians. Others, equally motivated by the Bible, would agree in principle, but would stress God’s integrity and faithfulness in terms of Old Testament covenants, in relation to the land as God’s promise to the Jews. How can there be such a division between Christians on such a vital issue?

How many times have you been approached by someone and asked the question, ‘So what do you think about what’s happening in the Middle East’? How frustrated have you been in your inability to string together a few coherent words, let alone a solid, robust argument to support your views? You are not alone. Hours of study and a Ph.D. are the minimum requirements here for a full understanding of the intricacies and subtleties of a situation that doesn’t even have a history that people can agree on!

No issue has split the Christian world more than the Israel/ Palestinian conflict, yet there is no current issue as confusing. Millions of words have been written and spoken about it, but how much of it has truly sunk in, how much of it has made sense, how much of it has been untainted by personal opinion or editorial slant? Jews and Zionists will tell you one thing and Arabs and Arabists will tell you the opposite! Surely they can’t both be right, surely there can only be one truth, one set of proven historical events that can unravel the whole mess. Unfortunately it isn’t that straightforward. The situation is so complex, puzzling and emotionally charged that it is well-nigh impossible to get an objective viewpoint – it is exceedingly difficult to find historical sources with no ‘axes to grind’, commentators who could be accepted as truly impartial.

‘God is spirit, and His worshippers must worship in spirit and in truth’. (John 4:24)

Nothing is more important than absolute honesty in our worship, in how we present ourselves to God, in all of our thoughts and actions. Being true to the Spirit that indwells us is paramount and a vital part of this is our quest for the truth in all situations.

This book is my quest for the truth in the matter of Israel, the Jewish people and God. What’s the connection? Is there a connection at all? This is why I wrote the original two books that have now been squeezed into this lengthier tome. And why would I do that?

I’ve always preferred to be pro-active rather than reactive. All of my books have been written out of a desire to fill a gap in people’s knowledge and take them further into God’s plan for mankind, rather than jumping on a bandwagon of current trends and newsworthy subjects. This new book is different, for two reasons.

These two original books were The Land of Many Names, concerning the Land of Israel and The People of Many Names, about the Jewish people. When I decided to self-publish, the original publisher of these books sold me their remaining copies. What I failed to realise was that this was not an inexhaustible number and the day would come when … Well the day came and we totally sold out of The People of Many Names, with the other book not far behind. Something needed to be done … and quick. Rather than reprint them, I decided to write a new book, based on the content of each but with a totally different structure, weaving both books together in a tighter narrative and bringing in new material and insights, to bring the story right up to the present day.

That’s the first reason for this book and the second reason is that, with so much current confusion and misinformation around in both the secular and Christian worlds about Israel, there is a real need for a book that takes both the historical and Biblical narratives of the people and the land and demonstrates that both are intertwined and connected, like the strands of a DNA molecule and that only through understanding both stories can the full picture of God’s plans be understood.

But what about the title? Outcast Nation. Many detractors would suggest that this would be a more apt title for a book about the Palestinians. An interesting view and you can see where they are coming from and it’s not a good place. It’s a viewpoint birthed from a very narrow view of history. A broader sweep of historical processes would indicate otherwise and it’s the ignorance of this that has encouraged me to forge ahead with this project, because the World – and most of the Church – simply do not get it!

In August 2011 there was a demonstration at Trafalgar Square, London, organised by the Islamic Human Rights Commission, regarding the Israel/Palestinian situation. A photograph appeared (though not in the mainstream media), a simple picture of a small boy carrying a huge placard, on which were the words, “For World Peace Israel must be DESTROYED”. There were many other inflammatory messages. Where was the outcry? Where were the P.C. hate-crime brigade? Many of course were at the demonstration, on the Palestinian’s side. What was the response from the mainstream Church? Predictably … zilch. And the reason?

The reason is that, for the majority of Christians (more out of ignorance than intent), Israel is an irrelevance and/or an embarrassment and “probably a blockage for World peace”. Most of course are not preaching its destruction, but some just see Israel as an anachronism, a glitch of history clinging to the past and perhaps it would be a good idea if something could be done about the situation … for the good of World peace. In fact a European Union poll in 2003 had 59% of Europeans considering Israel as a greater menace to world peace than Iran, North Korea and Pakistan.1

Here’s something else to chew on. The West Bank has indeed been illegally occupied, many indigenous Palestinians kept in camps, with most of the holy places in the Old City of Jerusalem destroyed, people ejected and never allowed to visit their homes or places of worship and the main cemetery desecrated, with tombstones being used to create toilet blocks and paving roads.

But this was not the Jews, this was the occupation of the land by Jordan, between 1948 and 1967, an act considered illegal by other Arab nations. We can be very selective in our recall of historical facts and it is too easy for our emotions to blur the truth. This is at the heart of the cloud of confusion that surrounds this subject. The current “occupied territories” were already occupied when the Israelis moved in as a result of the Six Day War, something that you probably didn’t know.

It doesn’t matter that Israel is currently the only bastion of democracy in the Middle East, with a stable economy and hitting way above its weight in intellectual and cultural achievements. It doesn’t matter that the Jewish people worldwide have had to constantly struggle for their survival for most of their long history. There’s an elephant in the room of World opinion, an unspoken attitude that has been birthed in a very dark place and it is this:

There’s just something odd about those people, but I just can’t put my finger on it, to be honest.

Not everyone has been affected by this, not everyone is an anti-Semite, but history, even current World events, has borne this attitude out. It seems irrational and illogical but there is a rational and logical reason for it. It’s not an easy one to analyse, but analysis will reveal the truth of the matter. What on earth am I talking about? Well, you will have to read on, because the truth needs to unfold slowly, as the light of understanding illuminates your soul. You must allow the Holy Spirit to teach you uncomfortable truths that may indeed change everything.

With regards to the subject of this book, people tend to fall into three groups; those who believe that the Jews and the State of Israel have, in some way, a divine mandate; those who believe that they have no divine mandate in any way; those who haven’t got a clue about the matter because people in the other two groups seem equally persuasive. This book has been written for all groups, to clear out the cobwebs and

to provide you with sufficient information to have an informed opinion on the subject.

If, having read this book, you are still confused, then I have failed. If, having read this book, you are not spiritually invigorated and challenged, I have also failed. This is a hot topic. God doesn’t want you to be lukewarm, He wants people to be His witnesses, not just to other Christians, but to the world out there that has absolutely no clue what is going on and has no Rock to hold onto. How better to introduce people to this Rock than to show them exactly Who is in charge of a world situation that, humanly speaking, has no workable solution?

Finally, the strap-line for this book is, Israel and the Jews and … You. This is not just my personal journey, but it is yours too. If you are a Christian, you need to have an opinion, you need to know God’s truth in this matter. This is probably not apparent to you yet, but it will be. Israel and the Jews are among the biggest of God’s mysteries, which is why there is so much confusion on this issue. But you need not be confused, you just need to be able to follow the narrative.

I ask you not to judge me before you have read what I have to say. Instead feel free to judge me by the fruits of what you do read. If you are left with a deeper understanding of the heart of God, a new commitment to prayer and a new, or refreshed, love for both Jewish and Palestinian people, then the fruit is good. My earnest desire is to understand God’s truth about Jewish people and the situation in the Middle East and then to share it with others.

There can only be one truth, one authentic script for the ongoing drama. The time is coming when we are all going to have to make a stand on this key issue and I hope that this book will provide a useful signpost for you.

NOTES

1 Source: The Economist website http://www.economist.com/node/7796479

Introduction

Let’s be clear about this now. Israel is a little place, about the same size as Wales. Surrounded by thousands of miles of oil-rich desert, it is populated by a vast seething melting pot of different colours, cultures and cuisines. It’s the holiest place for great religions whose scriptures argue against having holy places! It has a geography of extremes; snow capped mountains in the north, lush green orchards in the west, barren desert in the south and the lowest place on the earth in the east! It is possible to start a car journey needing an overcoat in Jerusalem and be sunbathing an hour later by the Dead Sea! Can Wales boast all of that? It’s also the world’s foremost political and religious hotspot, giving rise to more United Nation resolutions than all other nations put together! It’s both hated and loved by more people than any other. It’s the most fascinating, mysterious and intriguing strip of land in the world.

Israel is the most misunderstood and confusing place. Its history is a murky web of truth, half-truth and no-truth, depending on your perspective and allegiance. Even its very name provokes dissent. To Jews it is Eretz Israel, the Land of Israel. To most Arabs it is Palestine. To many Christians, confused by the whole issue, it is the simple fudge of the Holy Land.

The world has changed a great deal since the end of the Second World War. The cold war came and went as Eastern Europe passed from repression to liberation. Two superpowers became one and Britain more or less lost her empire. The rest of Europe has voluntarily unified, by mutual consent rather than by Nazi domination. Populations moved eastwards and westwards and northwards and southwards, prompted by

war or deprivation. No continent has been unaffected by this mass movement.

Yet, in one slip of land, a mere green and gold scar in the deserts of Araby, time has frozen. People concerned are still arguing and killing each other over events that happened over 40, 50, 60 years ago. The year 1948 provokes contrasting emotions for the people of the land – to Arabs it was the Nakba, the catastrophe, to Jews it was liberation from 1900 years of persecution.

We Jews are a strange people. Buffeted and battered by the forces of history, we survive with our senses intact. Our story is perhaps the saddest of all, yet we have helped to give humour to the World! A race that was being systematically slaughtered by Nazi brutes in Europe was, at the same time, entertaining America on stage and screen. A people who have, on the World stage, produced the highest proportion to size of Nobel Prize winners have been persecuted and reviled and forced into Jewish ghettos. A folk who provided Gentiles, in Jesus of Nazareth, with a Saviour and inspiration are tortured and killed in the name of the same man.

Why can’t the World just leave us Jews alone – to create, invent, compose and entertain – and find another people to torment? What’s it all about? So, the Jews are meant to be different, the ‘chosen people’. As Tevya said in The Fiddler in the Roof, ‘Maybe we’ve had enough of being chosen, Lord, can’t you go and choose someone else – if just for one day?’ Do we feel the same way? Does our chosen-ness mean anything to us now, in the 21st Century? Sure, it’s a source of great pride when we look at the achievements of our people, often against great odds. But we don’t like reading and hearing about the other side, the Holocaust and the pogroms. Yet they both work together, they are both part of the same package, like strawberries and cream (or should I say ‘smoked salmon and beigels’).

Jewish achievements in the World at large are nothing short of astounding! There are just over 13.4 million Jews world-wide (2010 figures^2), out of a World population of 6,960 million. This means that about 0.19% of the World is Jewish; about 1 person out of every 520. So one would naturally expect that 0.19% of the Worlds’ scientists, musicians, entertainers, writers etc. would, on average, be Jewish. Well, it hasn’t worked out like that, something has gone wrong in our calculations, our decimal point has gone walkabout! Just looking in the period since the mid 19th Century we find that about 25% of the World’s scientists have been Jews. That’s over one hundred times too many! It has been estimated also that 22% of all Nobel Prize winners in the 20th Century were Jewish^3. This is from just 0.19% of the population! But has mankind been grateful for this contribution? What do people think of the Jews?

This book deals with the two sides of the Outcast Nation, the Land and the People; the Land of Israel and the Jewish people.

It will look at the origins of the current crisis in Israel and indeed has been written to help you in your understanding of what is a very thorny, but vital, topic for the Church today. Starting with the earliest Biblical promises, it includes a history of the land and from Biblical times through to the modern day. Finally there is a summing up and a look to the future, with the Bible and its promises as our reference.

This book has also been written to look at how the World has reacted to the Jewish people over the centuries, from the time of Abraham to the modern day. We will ask why the Jews, by the very fact of surviving for so long, have managed to confound all models of history. The historian, Arnold Toynbee, who couldn’t fit them into any of the usual moulds, just dismissed them as fossils of history. Oh yes? How many fossils do you know that account for 25% of the world’s scientists since the mid 19th Century? The Jews are certainly an interesting people.

We will begin by considering the question, who exactly is a Jew? At a time of unprecedented mixing between the races we find ourselves in a society inhabited by folk of all hues and mixtures of traditions. My own children have the culturally confused heritage of English secular Judaism mixed with Polish Catholicism. My wife comes from a German/Polish background; her German mother is an atheist and her Polish father was a Catholic. What does that make our children? According to one definition they are not Jewish by birth, but another tradition would make them as Jewish as they wish to be and yet another tradition, the Nazi one, albeit for the wrong purposes, would make them Jewish on account of their

grandparents’ background and nothing else. If you go to Israel and expect to see a nation of olive skin and brown eyes you’ll be surprised at the blond hair and blue eyes you’ll see, even in that bastion of national identity, the Israeli Army. These days, contrary to the belief of some, you can’t measure your Jewishness by the size of your nose. Mind you I am reminded of a true story of a friend, a Gentile, who only discovered when he was in his twenties that his father was Jewish. His first words at this discovery were, ‘Ah, so that explains the nose!’ This story aside, we need a better way of defining Jewishness and we do this in our first Chapter, when we look at the question of origins.

But what of today? What do modern Jews think of their identity? There is a certain degree of pride. After all, Jewish people have impacted the World in so many different spheres and have influenced the thinking of the World so dramatically, that we need to look deeper at this situation. The three men who have, arguably, most influenced the 20th Century, Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud and Karl Marx, were all Jewish, as were the founders of two of the main World religions, Judaism and Christianity. Even Mohammed, the founder of Islam, drew greatly from Jewish sources. I’m sure someday someone will discover that the Buddha was a victim of the first Diaspora who got lost and ended up in India!

Like it or not, we Jews are pretty religious too. There is a joke that is told, in various forms, by Jews the World over. It goes something like this, in a heavy Yiddish accent:

Sadie Cohen, an elderly Jewish lady from New York goes to her travel agent.

“I vont to go to India.”

“Mrs Cohen, India! It’s filthy, it’s too hot, and it’s full of brown people!”

“I vont to go to India.”

“But it’s a long journey. And what will you eat? The food’s too hot and spicy. You can’t drink the water, you can’t eat fresh fruit or vegetables. You’ll get ill. Plague, cholera, typhoid. God only knows. Can you imagine? And no Jewish doctors. Why torture yourself?”

“I vont to go to India.”

So arrangements are made and off she goes. She gets there and despite the noise, the smells, the crowds, she gets to the ashram, a holy place. There she joins the long queue waiting to see the guru, the holy man. She’s told she’ll have to queue for three days. Out comes her knitting. Eventually she’s at the head of the queue. She’s told firmly that she’s allowed only three words with the guru.

“Dat’s OK.”

She’s ushered into the inner sanctum where the guru is seated, ready to bestow blessings on eager disciples. Again she’s reminded by an aide that she’s only got three words. Unlike every other visitor she doesn’t prostrate herself at his feet. She stands right in front of him, her arms crossed, staring at him fixedly and says,

“Marvin, come home.”

You may laugh, but Jews form a large proportion of both leaders and followers of many spiritual movements, some of them decidedly dodgy. You’ll see them in yoga and meditation classes, New Age cults, Hindu and Buddhist groups. One guru had so many Jewish disciples that he called them ‘Hinjews’. Jews are not always as material minded as people think; many seem to spend their lives searching to fill a spiritual ‘hole in their heart’.

So, what is special about this folk? And where does it say that these people are special, chosen for some purpose? Where does it say “all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” The Bible, of course. How could the writers of the Bible have known about Einstein, Freud and Marx (though it’s hard to discern what sort of blessing we received here, considering the fruits of their endeavours – the atom bomb, overpaid psychiatrists and communism), to say nothing of the scores of other major influences? How could they know about ‘this one solitary life’, the Jew, Jesus, written about in a famous essay?

“Here is a man who was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in another village. He worked in a carpenter shop until he was thirty, and then for three years he was an itinerant preacher. He never owned a home. He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never had a family. He never went to college. He never put his foot inside a big city. He never travelled more than two hundred miles from the place where he was born. He never did one of the things that usually accompany greatness. He had no credentials but himself … I am far within the mark when I say that all the armies that ever marched, all the navies that ever were built; all the parliaments that ever sat and all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man upon this earth as powerfully as has that one solitary life.” 4

Like it or not the above is true, though the effects felt on the Jewish nation as a result of this particular ‘solitary life’ has been one of the tragedies of history, a subject that we will explore in later chapters.

But for now, to prepare us for the journey ahead of us, the best way to approach a subject as emotive as this is to put one’s cards on the table right at the start, so that there can be no misunderstandings or suspicions. To be as frank as I can, this is an attempt at a response to such books^5 that claim to represent ‘different theological perspectives’ but tend to lean towards just one particular perspective. In fact, of the twelve contributors to one such book, eleven of them are in basic agreement that the promises of God to Abraham concerning the ‘Promised Land’ have now been inherited by the Church and that the State of Israel is nothing more than a blip of modern history.

Do we, as Christians, go with the flow and ‘play it safe’? Do we follow the majority view just because this is taught in many Bible Colleges and theological schools in the UK? The impression seems to be that a good dose of ‘formal Biblical and theological study’ provided at these establishments will put you right on this issue and clear your mind of such nonsense as the restoration of Israel!

Does this mean that the majority of us who have not had the benefit of a formal Christian education do not have the tools to read the Bible correctly? Does this mean that only theologians are properly equipped to deal with such thorny issues as the identity of Israel and the Church? Does that mean that there’s no point consulting the Bible (particularly the Old Testament) on these matters, because we will probably get it wrong? Do we ordinary Christians not have a duty to examine the issues for ourselves? Also, how do these educational establishments arrive at their theological position, because in other countries, notably the USA, the majority of schools would take a totally different perspective? Are we not all studying the same Bible?

These are good questions to ask because there is a lot at stake. Although these issues are not as key as one’s personal salvation, they are important for many reasons, not the least concerning the faithfulness of God in His dealings with His people. Therefore it is essential that every Christian, whatever their educational background, should prayerfully seek the truth on such a key issue. There is no sitting on the fence here; there can only be one truth.

In August 2002 a group of evangelical Christians in the USA sent a letter to President Bush, expressing their concern at what they saw as imbalance in American policy towards the Middle East conflict^6. One statement they made is worthy of note: ‘Significant numbers of American evangelicals reject the way some have distorted Biblical passages as their rationale for uncritical support for every policy and action

of the Israeli government instead of judging all actions — of both Israelis and Palestinians — on the basis of biblical standards of justice’.

When we get to the stage where Christians openly accuse others of ‘distorting Biblical passages’, then it is time for us to truly seek God’s face and examine how there can be such a split in the Body of Christ.

The arena of conflict is the cauldron of confusion known as Hermeneutics, which, for you and me, is concerned with how we should read and apply the Bible. The two key skirmishes are, firstly, how much of the Bible should be taken literally and, secondly, to what extent do we read the Old Testament in the light of the coming of Jesus, in the New Testament. The trick is getting the balance right between these two factors and it is fair to say that the differences of opinion are caused by different emphases of each factor.

One barrier to the acceptance of a pro-Israel view in the UK is our natural conservatism, a fear of being sucked into what is viewed by some as the ‘lunatic fringe’. Interpreting some key Scriptures in a certain way is not necessarily going to turn you into a fully-blown extreme dispensationalist or end-time fanatic, leafing through one of the hundreds of books on the subject for clues to the prophetic apocalyptic timetable. One must not be ruled by such fears and you should trust yourself with a certain degree of discernment. Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. Be real.

At the end of the day we are Christians first, members of one Body of Christ, and we should be secure enough in our views to be able to defend them without having to excuse the excesses of some others who may share some of your theological viewpoints.

It is my belief that we Christians must look beyond day-today politics and realise that the conflict is a spiritual conflict. The sooner we begin to look at it through spiritual eyes, the sooner we might wake up to the realities of the battles that are being fought in heavenly realms. These are exciting times, frightening times.

It is all a matter of personal integrity. Be yourself.

Be blessed.

NOTES

2 Source: Jewish Virtual Library http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/worldpop.html for Jewish statistics, U.S. Census Bureau

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population for World statistics.

3 More information about Jewish Nobel Prize winners can be found at SimpleToRemember.com

4 This essay was adapted from a sermon by Dr James Allan Francis in “The Real Jesus and Other Sermons” © 1926 by the Judson Press of Philadelphia (pp 123-124 titled “Arise Sir Knight!”).

5 Prime examples are ‘Whose Promised Land’ by Colin Chapman and ‘The Land of Promise’ by Johnston & Walker.

6 Institute for Global Engagement Letter to President Bush August 5th 2002. The full text can be found at http://www.alhewar.org/INTIFADAH%20PAGE/evangelicals_letter_to_president_bush.htm

ACT ONE

Covenant

Chapter One: All about Abraham

The story is quite straightforward really. God wanted to give humanity a chance after they’d blown it when Adam and Eve ate from the forbidden tree. He had a plan and, to carry out this plan, He needed one people out of all the nations who would be His people. But where would he find this people? He had to start somewhere so He chose one man, Abraham. Perhaps he was the latest of a large list, the others having failed in the selection process? We don’t know, the Bible doesn’t tell us, but it does tell us how Abraham found himself in that privileged position.

Abraham (then called Abram) was chosen by God while he was living in Ur of the Chaldees, his homeland, around 4000 years ago. Ur is one of the oldest recorded cities and its ruins are still visible today, though you’ll need to travel to the edge of the al-Hajar Desert in Iraq to see it. It was also a cult centre for the worship of the moon God, called (rather appropriately) Sin.

A Jewish legend^7 speaks of Abram’s father, Terah, as an idol-maker and that, even when he was still young, Abram realised that idol worship was nothing but foolishness. To make his point, one day, when Abram was asked to mind the shop, he took a hammer and smashed all the idols – except for the largest. His father came home aghast. “What happened?” he shouted. “It was amazing, Dad,” replied Abram. “The idols all got into a fight and the biggest idol won!” This witty observation must surely have been pleasing to God, who later spoke to him when he was living in Haran, with his father and extended family.

The Lord had said to Abram, “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you “I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” (Genesis 12:1-3)

The fact that Abram did what he was asked and moved to the area of Canaan, marked him down as a man willing to listen to the voice of God. Canaan was the western end of a region that stretched from the Persian Gulf in the east to the Mediterranean in the west. This region is now called the Fertile Crescent, because it was shaped like a crescent and consisted of land that is well-watered and easily cultivated. The inhabitants of Canaan at this time were, believe it or not, known as Canaanites, an agricultural people who shared a culture and religion with many of the other tribes and nations that surrounded them.

Questions posed here are; who exactly is this great nation and how will all peoples on earth received these promised blessings? To Abram it was quite simple, it was a promise that went beyond all logic and common sense. After all, how were he and his barren wife, both in their 70s, going to produce a ‘great nation’ if they hadn’t even produced their first child yet? As for blessing ‘all the peoples on earth’, that must have made them chuckle!

Before we move on, it is worth taking stock and establishing a foundation. This is crucial because we are about to enter a Biblical minefield. This is because it is fair to say that the promise in those three verses of Genesis, repeated and expanded in Genesis Chapters 13,15 and 17, is the root cause of the divisions within the Christian community, that were mentioned in the Introduction. To be precise it is the interpretation of these verses that is causing the bother and so it is worth spending time strolling through the Bible text, to see what it is that has caused such a conflict between Christians.

So, first, let’s decide exactly how we are going to read these verses. The sensible first approach is the one that we take when we read anything, whether a shopping list or a weighty novel. It is what you are doing now. You read it word for word and your understanding is fed by exactly what you are reading. This is called the literal approach. If your shopping list tells you ‘a bunch of bananas’, you don’t go and buy a loaf of bread! The literal approach to reading the Bible is defined as ‘following the plain and obvious meaning of the text’. It was the approach taken by the earliest Christians and, significantly, by the Protestant reformers such as Luther and Calvin, as a response to the corruptions wrought by the Catholic Church, who had developed a system of reading the Bible – the allegorical approach – that allowed them to interpret the Bible in a highly symbolic fashion. In some cases this amounted to coaxing the Bible to say whatever they wanted! 8

Of course this doesn’t mean that everything in the Bible is easy to read and understand, bearing in mind it was written centuries ago in the language and cultural alphabet of the Hebrews of the time. As well as straightforward narrative, there is poetry and a lot of symbolism alien to our ears, but if we look for the plain meaning first before accepting that, in places, a little more work is needed on our part to draw the meaning out, then we can’t go far wrong. We read again those words of Genesis 12:

‘I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.’

The plain meaning of this is that Abram himself is going to be a great nation, through whom everyone on earth is going to be blessed. Now one man does not constitute a nation so simple logic tells us that it is his descendants that are being talked about here (borne out in verse 7). The obvious understanding is that this points to Jesus, a far descendant, through whom the whole World will be blessed. This makes sense and all Christians would agree with this conclusion.

Back to our story. Abram was the first man to be called a Hebrew, a name coming from Eber, an ancestor and a descendant of Shem who, in turn, was a son of Noah. It is from ‘Shem’ that we get the name ‘Semite’, a term usually used for anyone of Middle-Eastern origin, and ‘anti-Semitic’, a term curiously only used in relation to Jews. Shem, who spent all that time in the Ark with Noah and his family, was still living at the time of Abram. Mind you, he was 465 years old at that time and probably the oldest man alive. What conversations they could have had together! Even more interesting was the fact that Canaan, whose clans now filled this new land, was Shem’s nephew and possibly also alive. What interesting reunions they could have had!

So God called Abram and, as a reward for schlepping himself and his family hundreds of miles across the desert at the creaky old age of 75 years, He promised him that he would produce a great nation. God spoke to Abram again, pointed to the land around him and, despite the fact that it was inhabited at that time by the Canaanites, promised the land to his offspring in Genesis 12:7. In the next chapter – after Abram’s brief sojourn in Egypt and a minor squabble with his nephew, Lot – God repeated the promise, but added the words, in Genesis 13:15, ‘All the land that you see I will give to you and your offspring for ever’.

Those two extra words ‘for ever’ seem to make a big difference, as a time element is now brought in, adding an element of permanence to the deal. Just like the loving Father that He is, God coaxes Abram to stroll around the land, ‘Yes, son, this will all be yours’.

The rent book for the Land of Canaan had been handed over in that one act 4000 years ago.

Abram had exercised the same faith as his ancestor, Noah who, ten generations earlier, built a large boat at God’s command, even though he was miles from the sea and despite the ridicule of those around him. It takes great faith indeed to follow God’s commands when it seems to go against all natural logic and takes you far away from the comfort zone of your everyday life. Abram’s faith muscles were stirred into

life, but they were going to have to be flexed to breaking point soon, as we start to read Chapter 15 in the Genesis account.

“Abram, your offspring will be like the dust of the earth …”

“How so? I am childless.”

“A son from your own body will be your heir …”

Look at this through Abram’s eyes. He was getting on a bit, perhaps in his 80s already. His wife Sarai had never borne children, so it was unlikely that she was going to start now.

But Genesis 15:6 gives Abram’s response to God’s promise: “Abram believed the Lord …” That was good enough for God, very pleasing in fact. His reaction was this:

“… and he credited it to him as righteousness”.

Abram’s reaction put him into credit with God. He had done the right thing. This is when God’s promises to Abram became God’s covenant with Abram.

What’s a covenant? It’s not a word that we tend to use much these days, so it’s important that we understand it using concepts that we are more familiar with. A covenant is basically a contract between two parties, a binding agreement that may or may not be torn up by one of the parties, depending on what type of contract it is. This covenant/contract came about when Abram, in a very human way, asked for assurances. After all he was ‘well past his prime’ and had produced no heir, yet here was God promising this land to Abram’s descendants!

He needed a few more details, even though he never for once doubted that God would remain true to His promises. So God gave Abram the assurances he asked for.

‘When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking brazier with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces.’

He made a covenant with Abram, in the custom and manner that such transactions were conducted in those days, except for one thing – only God signed the contract. Only God ‘passed between the pieces’ in Genesis 15:17, which meant that only God had to fulfil the covenant conditions – the covenant was going to be unconditional, as far as Abram and his descendants were concerned. There would be no conditions for Abram to fulfil – or break. This meant that God would never have reason to tear it up.

However much Abram’s descendants tried – and, boy, did they try in their chequered history – there were no actions, whether idolatry or faithlessness or whatever, that would cause this covenant to be torn up or nullified.

And what were the words of this unconditional covenant? You can read the words of the covenant in Genesis 15:18-21, “On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram and said, to your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates – the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites’”.

The plain literal reading of this verse is that Abram’s descendants will inherit, by divine promise, the land indicated. There are no conditions, no time frame, so, for now, we won’t add any of our own. All that is left is to decide what exact area is being referred to in this description. We’re looking at an area stretching from Egypt in the west to modern day Iraq in the east and Syria (or arguably Turkey) in the north. One thing is certain about this – the land that God speaks of here has never at any time been seen, in its totality, as the ‘Land of Israel’, even at the time of King Solomon’s empire, which, according to 2 Chronicles 9:26, stretched from ‘the River (Euphrates) to the land of the Philistines, as far as the border of Egypt’, but certainly didn’t stretch as far north as the lands of the Hittites.

The full area promised by God to Abram’s descendants has yet to be settled by any one people claiming this promise. Interesting.

At this point it is worth bearing in mind that there are other interpretations of the verses examined already, although we have only covered, so far, a couple of chapters in Genesis. Objections have been raised against some of the assumptions made so far. These will be covered shortly, but, in the meantime, please indulge me as I build my case.

A literal reading of the Biblical account seems quite clear and explicit. The land belongs, by divine decree, to the descendants of Abram. The only things that we need to get clear are:

1. Who are the descendants of Abram?

2. What are the conditions for this very generous offer?

To answer the first question we have to look at one of Abram’s very human failings, his impatience. Perhaps quite a few years had passed since this great act of faith and the old bones were creaking a bit. After all he was around 86 years old now when Sarai turned round to him and said, “It’s not happening is it, dear?” No child had yet burst forth from her loins.

“Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar; so she said to Abram, “The Lord has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my maidservant; perhaps I can build a family through her.” Abram agreed to what Sarai said.” (Genesis 16:1-2)

So his wife, Sarai, talked him into sleeping with Hagar, her Egyptian maidservant, to ‘hurry things along’ and give God a hand. Out of this union came a child, Ishmael, the ‘father of the Arab nations’ and this act of impatience laid the foundations for the current Middle Eastern conflict, over 4000 years later!

Surely, you may say, the Arab people can claim that Abram, the father of Ishmael, was their ancestor too and so the Biblical promises concerning the land could be theirs as well as for the Jews?

In fact God does give them specific promises. We read them in Genesis 16:10-12. Firstly, ‘I will so increase your descendants that they will be too numerous to count’ and (referring to Ishmael) ‘he would be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone and everyone’s hand against him, and he will live in hostility towards all his brothers’.

But as far as the covenant promises of the land are concerned, their claim is null and void according to the Word of God, which we will discover as the story unfolds. God’s relationship with Abram – now 99 years old – deepens in Genesis 17, when the covenant is confirmed and some small print added.

‘The whole land of Canaan, where you are now an alien, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you; and I will be their God’ (verse 8)

Again the land is mentioned – Canaan is confirmed as an everlasting possession for Abram and his descendants. God also confirms the everlasting nature of the covenant, reminding Abram of the sheer numbers of his descendants and also declaring that He, the God of Abram, will also be the God of his descendants and Abram also gets a name change, to Abraham, meaning ‘father of many nations’, adding weight to the earlier promise of ‘making him into a great nation’.

The next verse is where some may question the unconditional nature of the covenant. In verse 9, God says, ‘as for you, you must keep my covenant, you and your descendants after you, the covenant you are to keep … ”

It seems that this covenant can be broken, so can Abraham’s descendants break the covenant and nullify it? It’s true they can, but what God’s actually talking about here is the act of circumcision, the sign of the covenant. We read this in the next verse:

‘This is my covenant with you and your descendants after you, the covenant you are to keep: Every male among you shall be circumcised’ (verse 10)

Much squealing must have been heard in camp on the day Abraham and his son were circumcised. He didn’t have the benefit of anaesthetic or the trusting nature of an 8-day-old baby! Abraham was 99 years old when he was snipped. And no men in his household escaped from this ordeal, even foreign servants. They were all put to the blade. It was to be a visible reminder from that day onwards that Abraham and his descendants belonged to God in a special way.

This was the only condition that God imposed. If Abraham’s descendants were to stop circumcising their children, then they individually, will be cut off from the covenant, but as far as the unconditional nature of the covenant between God and Abraham and his descendants, concerning the land, that’s as

‘safe as houses’.

To return to our first question, about the identity of the descendants of Abraham as far as the unconditional covenant is concerned, it’s all explained in Genesis 17:15-22, as we shall see. Sarai too was blessed by a name change, though with it was a reminder that perhaps sleeping with Hagar wasn’t going to be the way that God had in mind when He spoke of Abraham’s offspring. Her name was changed to Sarah, with the words:

“I will bless her and will surely give you a son by her. I will bless her so that she will be the mother of nations; kings of peoples will come from her.” (Genesis 17:16)

That made Abraham laugh so much he fell over. A child at the age of 100? And Sarah’s 90 years old! He was troubled about Ishmael, now 13 years old. What was to happen to him? It was then that God made very clear His intentions.

Abraham was going to be the father of two distinct peoples. The first would be descended from Ishmael. He will found a dynasty of twelve rulers and he will be made into a great nation. But it would be the second people with whom God would establish his covenant.

“… your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will call him Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him.” (Genesis 17:19)

The next year Sarah gave birth to Isaac, the one who is to inherit the blessings. What about Ishmael, then? Well God repeats what He said earlier about Ishmael’s descendants being fruitful, but He also adds these words, in verse 21, ‘but my covenant I will establish with Isaac …’ (my emphasis).

Again, couldn’t be clearer. We hear nothing of the boy until, a number of years later, God spoke again to Abraham.

“Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about.” (Genesis 22:2)

It was to be a test. It was a test of Abraham’s faith. Would God really destroy the very son, to whom God had earlier promised an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him. Abraham passed this test with flying colours, he even had the knife poised in his hand, ready to deal the fatal blow to his beloved son. God stopped him at the eleventh hour and again carved a notch on the faith-pole. Abraham showed the

most amazing faith in God here, outweighing any lapses he may have made earlier in his eventful life. He was so sure of God’s promises that he actually believed that God would raise Isaac from the dead, even though he had never witnessed such a deed before.

This is true faith and it is no wonder that Abraham became the father of a great dynasty.

“I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” (Genesis 12:2-3)

It’s tempting now to declare ‘that’s that’, but it’s not that simple, I’m afraid. It is now time to backtrack and examine the objections to the approach I have taken. My approach has been to look at the text just as it has been written, taking the meaning from a plain reading of the text.

Others, though, would object to this approach, attacking it from two different angles.

Firstly, there are some specific objections to how the text has been interpreted. Some would say that, despite what the literal reading seems to imply, there were conditions added to this covenant with Abraham, meaning that the descendants of Abraham could lose their rights to the land, by breaking certain conditions.

To be frank, you have to bend your logic considerably to get a grip on these conditions.

They can be identified by considering the following questions. What would have happened if Abram hadn’t made the journey to Canaan (Genesis 12:1)? What if his descendants didn’t become a blessing to the nations (Genesis 12:2)? What if Abraham didn’t ‘walk before God’ (Genesis 17:1)? Well, history tells us that he had, he did and he did and so any further discussion on this is pointless.

Others look at the promise of land given to Abraham, saying that surely this promise was fulfilled at the time of Joshua and so has no relevance to us today. This objection will be discussed a little later, when it is more relevant to do so.

The second, and the most common, alternative perspective is to re-interpret the covenant with Abraham in the light of the fact that Jesus Christ has since come into the World. Because of this, they say, some key themes of the Old Testament must be re-evaluated. This is an important issue and must not be underestimated. But neither must it be overestimated.

The problem is trying to decide exactly which parts of the Old Testament are affected by the coming of the Messiah. This is where we get differences in opinion because we are naturally departing from the safe haven of an objective literal reading of the text and we are moving into the subjective areas of allegorising or spiritualising the text. In other words, because we accept that Jesus changes everything, we have to accept that, for some people, ‘things ain’t what they seem any more’ and some Bible texts now attract new meanings, determined by some expert’s readings of the New Testament. We have the benefit of history to show us the unfortunate results of such teachings, first expounded by some of the Church Fathers in the early years of Christianity, teachings heavily influenced by the Greek culture of the time.

The ‘uneducated’ reader of the Old Testament is now told that s/he would be mistaken in reading parts of it as straight narrative, because we may not be getting the full story. But who sets the rules? So you turn to mature Christians or go to Bible College to find out how the incarnation and resurrection of Jesus and the formation of the Body of Christ affects what you are reading elsewhere in the Bible.

In many cases this can be helpful, for instance when we identify Jesus as the fulfilment of so many Old Testament promises and prophecies, including the one in Genesis 12:3 that we read earlier. This makes sense as these show the Old Testament pointing to the New Testament and it all falls into a logical order.

To have to read the Old Testament with one eye on the text and the other on a whole library of concordances and commentaries is beyond many ordinary Christians. They simply don’t have the time. Surely reading the Bible was not meant to be this difficult?

So let us again read the original wording of the covenant with Abraham (when he was just plain Abram).

‘I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you’. (Genesis 12:2-3)

and

‘The whole land of Canaan, where you are now an alien, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you; and I will be their God’. (Genesis 17:8)

Now, as already mentioned, not all Christians would read these Scriptures in the same way. In fact, Christians tend to fall into one of two camps.

The first would take the plain meaning of the text, reading it literally, and take these promises to mean that there is a role for Abraham’s descendants, the Jewish people – and the land of Israel – in the Christian age.

And the second read the text symbolically and say that there is absolutely no role at all for the Jewish people or the land of Israel in the Christian age.

The first group tend to stress the continuity between the Old and the New testament, whereas the second group tend to elevate the New over the Old, saying that all things changed with the advent of Jesus the Messiah.

For the purpose of this book, I will give names to these groups based on the imagery of Romans 11:17, ‘If some of the branches have been broken off, and you, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root’. (This imagery will be properly explained in a later Chapter).

The first group, the literal readers of Scripture, I shall call Mr. Roots, to identify them with the oldest part of the olive tree and the second group, the Scripture spiritualisers, I shall call Mr. Shoots, identifying them with the newest parts of the olive tree.

Mr. Roots would look at the plain meaning of these verses, which tell him that the descendants of Abraham – the Jews – are to become a great nation, living in a land promised to them by God as a permanent habitation and out of whom there would be great blessings to the world, through Jesus.

Mr. Shoots would agree with the bit about Jesus as the means by whom all peoples on earth will be blessed, as none doubt that Jesus was a physical descendant of Abraham. But …as for the rest …

Who are the great nation?

Colin Chapman, appeals to the Book of Revelation, quoting from Revelation 7:4, the ‘144,000 from all the tribes of Israel’9, though not explaining who exactly is being referred to. Kenneth Bailey^10 says that what is being referred to here are the ‘Jews and Gentiles who through faith in Christ have been made righteous’.

What is the promised land?

Colin Chapman talks of the ‘new heaven and a new earth’ from Revelation 21:1^11. He also re-translates Matthew 5, ‘Blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth’, as ‘inherit the land’12, remarking that ‘those who will inherit and possess the land and dwell securely in it for ever are the poor in spirit – presumably of any nation – who mourn and are meek.’ C.J.H. Wright talks of the ‘rest we have entered with Christ’. 13 Kenneth Bailey substitutes ‘the world’ for the land, as ‘the inheritance of the righteous’14. R T France talks of the ‘ingathering of the Christian community from all nations’15.

Matthew Henry talks of a ‘heavenly Canaan’ promised, again, to the spiritual descendants. 16 The general consensus among the Mr. Shoots out there seems to be that the promised land is just another name for heaven.

Whose God will He be?

Colin Chapman looks forward to Revelation 7:9 to the ‘great multitude … standing before the throne’. 17 The general consensus has God transferring His attention and love from Jews to the spiritual descendants, the Christians. Jews would now be no more loved or cared for than any other nation on earth.

Now these are all clever people, with a multitude of theological qualifications and decades of Christian service between them. But that doesn’t make them infallible. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 1:27, ‘But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. …’ We mustn’t be fazed by cleverness because, after all, most of the brightest brains of our age are still dead in their sins (i.e. non-Christians). Equally,

we mustn’t neglect our brain cells out of laziness or neglect. Balance is what we need, head and heart, word and spirit.

The fact is that Mr. Shoots is not on particularly steady ground. They are not necessarily speaking with the authority of New Testament Scripture. Jesus and Paul have very little to say about the land promises to the Jews. There are no direct quotations and most theology is derived from ‘reading between the lines’.

These issues will be dealt with a little later in this book. All that I wish to say at this stage is that nothing is totally cut and dried. Which is why we need a helper. God doesn’t abandon us to our physical limitations, otherwise only clever people would be able to figure out what He’s saying to us and, let’s face it, cleverness doesn’t necessarily equate to godliness! So He provides all Christians with a helper, the Holy Spirit, to help us discern the truth.

We may not have the academic degrees and the educational advantages, but the Lord can speak to us, nevertheless. If we are truly open to His promptings, He provides us with checks in our spirit, when things are right and when things are wrong. Ask God to guide you into the truth, specifically ask Him for a real conviction, so that you can have a solid foundation on which to build. Now’s a good time to stop, put this book down and pray. Ask Him to reveal your deepest motivations, because the issues discussed in this book are so important and we’ve got to get it right!

NOTES

7 From Midrash Rabbah 38:13

8 For a thorough investigation of the historical process that led to this thinking you may want to read the author’s book, “How the Church Lost The Way … and How it can find it again”

9 Chapman, Colin Whose Promised Land? Lion Publishing 2002, 185

10 ibid., 176

11 ibid., 185

12 ibid., 155-156

13 ibid., 179

14 ibid., 176

15 ibid., 159

16 Henry, Matthew Complete Commentary on the whole Bible, Genesis 15

17 Chapman, 185

Chapter Two: Jacob’s Follies

Let us now return to our story. If we fast-forward historically and Biblically, to Genesis 25, we witness the death of Abraham, at the grand old age of 175 and we also see his son Isaac become an old man. There’s not much said about Isaac as an individual, apart from his partiality to eating choice young goats, but his son Jacob more than makes up for it. Jacob had a brother called Esau. They were twins but were hardly bosom buddies. They even fought in the womb. God offered an explanation for this, describing how their futures and the future of their descendants were going to be very different.

“… Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you will be separated; one people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger.” (Genesis 25:23)

God makes it clear, as He did earlier with Isaac and Ishmael, that Jacob was to be the covenant child. Esau became the manly one, the older and the stronger, a hunter by profession. Jacob, the younger by a few minutes, was the clever, craftier one. He was quiet and preferred to hang around at home with mother. But he was a good cook and, interestingly, it was through his excellent red stew that the above prophecy would start to come to pass. A starving Esau, after a hard day’s hunting, sold his precious birthright to Jacob for a bowl of this stew, followed by some bread, then another stew of lentils. It

obviously meant little to him, but it meant more to Jacob, who took this to the next stage when Isaac, their father, thought he was coming to the end of his life.

Urged on by his scheming mother, Jacob tricked Isaac into giving him the blessing due to Esau as the first born. You’ll have to read the account yourself in Genesis 27 to find out what happened, but, needless to say, food was involved, as before. This is a curious episode as Esau had already forfeited the rights to this blessing in the earlier incident, so all Jacob was doing was claiming what was rightfully his, even if it was bought for the price of a bowl of stew!

This was the blessing that Isaac gave to Jacob: “May nations serve you and peoples bow down to you. Be lord over your brothers, and may the sons of your mother bow down to you. May those who curse you be cursed and those who bless you be blessed.” (Genesis 27:29)

And so the prophecy over the womb was fulfilled. We shall see a little later how this all panned out, historically speaking.

Jacob then left home, fearful at what Esau might do to him for taking the blessing. He escaped to his uncle Laban, but on the way there had an encounter with God, at a place called Bethel. There he dreamt of the stairway to heaven and God spoke to him, repeating all of the promises made to his grandfather Abraham and father Isaac. It was a clear sign that the Lord God was blessing him and was with him, even though he was now in exile from the land of his fathers.

Nevertheless, he was a flawed character and decided to set his own conditions on his relationship with God, although God’s promises to him were entirely unconditional. The gist of it was this.

OK, God. If you stay with me and if you look after me on this journey and if you give me

food to eat and if you give me clothes to wear then … you can be my God.

God must have chuckled at the cheek of it, but had the last laugh when Jacob managed to subsequently dig himself into a hole and stayed there for fourteen years. First he was betrothed to Laban’s beautiful daughter, Rachel, in return for seven years working as a shepherd. On the wedding night he was tricked into marrying Leah, the less physically alluring daughter, and only found out in the morning, either because he was so drunk the night before to notice or perhaps she was veiled and it was dark! The only way he could also marry the beautiful Rachel was to work there for another seven years. During that time his love life was interesting to say the least. Not only did he have relations with Leah and (eventually) Rachel, but also with their respective servants too. There was even a comical episode when Rachel hired him out to Leah for a night of passion in return for exotic fruit.

The result of these liaisons were twelve sons and a daughter Dinah. Six of the sons – Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar and Zebulun – were from Leah and two – Joseph and Benjamin – were from Rachel. The other four – Dan, Naphtali, Gad and Asher – were from the maidservants.

Eventually Jacob fell out with Laban over some sheep and decided to leave him. God spoke to him at this time and told him that it was now time to return to the land of his fathers, Canaan. But first he needed to make his peace with his estranged brother, Esau. This filled Jacob with fear and trepidation, so he needed to know that there would be a measure of divine help in this enterprise.

“Then Jacob prayed, “O God of my father Abraham, God of my father Isaac, O Lord, who said to me, ‘Go back to your country and your relatives, and I will make you prosper,’ I am unworthy of all the kindness and faithfulness you have shown your servant. I had only my staff when I crossed this Jordan, but now I have become two groups. Save me, I pray, from the hand of my brother Esau, for I am afraid he will come and attack me, and also the mothers with their children. But you have said, ‘I will surely make you prosper and will make your descendants like the sand of the sea, which cannot be counted.” (Genesis 32:9-12)

God’s response was swift and unexpected. He took Jacob on in an all-night wrestling bout. It appears that the only way that Jacob could be overpowered was by dislocating his hip. Even then Jacob refused to let go unless he was blessed.

“… Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and

have overcome.” (Genesis 32:28)

Israel was his new name, meaning he struggles with God and a new chapter in the history of man’s relationship with God was now begun. Israel. It’s a strange name really, if you think about it. Here was a favoured dynasty, formed from the twelve sons of Jacob. Yet they were given a name not to indicate any special favour in a positive sense, but one that highlights their one consistent character trait, as the story unfolds through the Bible. Israel – struggles with God. For a chosen, privileged people you would have expected a holier name, such as listens to God, or follows God. But struggles with God? What’s this all about? What it tells us and told them, too, was that it wasn’t going to be a bed of roses. God didn’t choose a compliant, holier-than-holy people who would be His lap dogs and willing servants in days to come. Instead He chose a real, flawed people representative of mankind. A people named after Jacob for good reason. He wasn’t perfect, he wasn’t always a man of faith and he forced God to bless him on more than one occasion. In many ways he was like you and me.

It’s now a good time to look back and summarise where we have got to in our story.

Abraham was the one who found favour with God. He showed great faith by first obeying the call and moving to an unknown land, then by accepting that he was to become a father despite his advancing years and finally by being willing to sacrifice his son in the sure hope that he would be brought back to life in order to fulfil God’s promises of descendants like the dust of the earth, becoming a great nation.

He had two sons, Ishmael and Isaac, but it was the younger who would inherit these promises, just as it would be with his grandchildren, when Jacob, the younger twin, would be the one to gain the blessings and to provide descendants like the sand of the sea, which cannot be counted.

And what of the older brothers? Well, true to the prophecy, Ishmael had twelve sons, who became twelve tribal rulers. It is said that they lived in hostility towards all their brothers, a situation that, sadly, seems to have continued in history right up to the present, with Muslim Arabs in their current conflict with Israeli Jews. Esau, also called Edom supposedly after the red stew that led to his downfall, naturally became the

father of the Edomites in the hill country. These people were to become a thorn in the side of the descendants of Jacob, particularly through the descendants of Amalek, whom God later urged his people to blot out.

So God’s chosen family line was Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

We see God identifying himself over thirty times in the Bible as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He was making a point. It wasn’t Abraham, Ishmael and Nebaioth or Abraham, Isaac and Esau.

Interestingly, this blessed line consisted of second sons, not first borns. Neither Isaac nor Jacob were the first fruits of their father’s loins. Just being the first born guarantees you nothing in God’s eyes and an interesting verse in Malachi, illustrates this graphically:

“…’Was not Esau Jacob’s brother?’ the Lord says. ‘Yet I have loved Jacob, but Esau I have hated …’” (Malachi 1:2-3)

This is a bit extreme, isn’t it? It’s just unfamiliar use of language, showing the gap between the ancient Jewish culture and ours. What is meant here is to emphasise God’s love of Jacob, by lessening His regard for Esau. In our terms we would say that He ‘loved Esau less’.

The blessed line follows through to the next generation, to the sons of Jacob, or, as they are more commonly known, the Children of Israel. Again we are surprised in that God doesn’t choose the first born son to continue the line. Neither does He choose the second born, nor the third born. It’s the fourth born, Judah, who carries the blessings to the next generation.

Reuben, the eldest, forfeited his blessing by sleeping with his stepmother. The other two, Simeon and Levi, had too violent a nature (they slaughtered all the men in a city in vengeance for the rape of their sister) to be trusted with a divine mandate.

But Judah received the following blessing:

“The sceptre will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until he comes to whom it belongs and the obedience of the nations is his.” (Genesis 49:10)

It is interesting to observe that up to this point God meanders through the family line. He chose Isaac, but not Ishmael. He chose Jacob but not Esau. The discards go off and found other nations who, from then onwards, are always outside the purposes of God. But then we arrive at the twelve sons of Jacob, the Children of Israel and we see a nation being founded.

In the previous chapter, two key questions were posed.

Firstly, who are the descendants of Abraham who would inherit the promises of the land? It seems clear, from a literal reading of the Bible, that physical descendants of Abraham, through Isaac and Jacob, i.e. the Jews, are being referred to here.

Secondly, was there anything the Jews could do to nullify, or ruin, this covenant? The answer seems to be no. We are told that the covenant was and still is unconditional and everlasting.

But what is clear is that God holds the title deeds to the land and the Jews are the only tenants in the contract. Leviticus 25:23, ‘… because the land is Mine and you are but aliens and My tenants’.

But before they could enjoy their tenancy, there was a slight detour.

All twelve sons of Jacob produced family lines, but all stayed within God’s chosen nation. In fact they grew together and cemented themselves as a distinct people, the Hebrews, in the nation of Egypt, arriving as honoured guests of the Pharaoh, thanks to their rejected brother Joseph, but living most of their lives there as slaves to subsequent Egyptian rulers.

We read that around seventy of the Children of Israel made this journey into Egypt. They entered as an extended family, but left, 430 years later, as the Hebrew nation of around two and a half million. The name Hebrew probably derives from Eber, an early ancestor of Abraham, though it’s unclear why. A more natural name for these people would be Abrahamites, or Abites, but who are we to question the peccadilloes of history? Another name for them was Israelites, which made a bit more sense.

This was the Exodus, the most momentous event in Jewish history and commemorated yearly at the Passover festival. It was here that God made His first great entrance in corporate human history, through the provision of a whole symphony of miracles and mighty deeds. He also introduced himself to Moses through the burning bush. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob revealed His personal name, the name passed down to us as Yahveh or Jehovah and translated as “I am who I am”.

Moses led the Children of Israel to Mount Sinai and it was there that they were consecrated for service, as we read:

“Then Moses went up to God, and the Lord called to him from the mountain and said, ‘This is what you are to say to the house of Jacob and what you are to tell the people of Israel: ‘You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words you are to speak to the Israelites.’” (Exodus 19:3-6)

The decision was theirs. They could have turned down the offer. But they accepted their role and cemented a special relationship with God that has lasted to the present day.

“The people all responded together, ‘We will do everything the Lord has said.”

The relationship may have been made in heaven, but it was always going to be a bumpy ride.

Chapter Three: The Kingdom of Priests

“The people all responded together, ‘We will do everything the Lord has said’.”

They may have meant what they said at the time, or perhaps they just said what Moses wanted to hear. But, nevertheless, they were accepting their God-given role as the kingdom of priests and a holy nation. But what, exactly, were they letting themselves in for?

It’s awesome if you think about it. A priest is someone who interacts with God on behalf of His people. It is his job to make sure that all is right between man and God. They had taken on a role of breathtaking importance, God’s people on earth. If they had known in advance the places this relationship was going to take them in later years they would have made an about-turn back to Egyptian slavery, there and then.

Ah yes, the Egyptian slavery. What was that all about, then?

The promises given by God to Abraham must have seemed a bit far-fetched as his descendants, the Israelites, sweated in the Egyptian quarries and building sites of Pharaoh. After all, hadn’t the Lord, in Genesis 15:18-21, promised the land ‘… from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates’? It must have seemed a sick joke to those Hebrew slaves, for whom the ‘river of Egypt’ was a place where they drew their sustenance between work shifts. How on earth had they got into that predicament?

God did warn them, after all. He did tell Abraham that his descendants were going to spend a good 400 years or so as ‘strangers in a strange land’ and Egypt was never one of Abraham’s favourite places, no doubt a reminder of his woman troubles. First, there was that delicate matter between Pharaoh and Sarah (‘she’s my sister, no – sorry – she’s my wife!’). Then, of course, there was the matter of frisky Hagar the Egyptian, the mother of Ishmael, but God’s plans are His own and it was necessary for Abraham’s descendants, led by his great grandchild, Joseph, to settle in Egypt until the sins of the Amorites reached their full measure (Genesis 15:16).

So they arrived in Egypt as proud guests of ‘our brother the governor’ and watched as things went steadily downhill from there, ending up as slaves to a new Pharaoh, many years later.

Then Moses came along and, on that first Passover night, the first small step was made towards fulfilling God’s promise when over 2 million Israelites made a bee-line eastwards for the Red Sea and freedom. They were coming home, to the land promised by God to Abraham all of those years earlier, but it wasn’t going to be that easy as they spent 40 years circling around the Sinai desert getting nowhere. It was their own fault because it didn’t have to be that way.

They were to become mankind’s representatives to God almighty. Of the scores of peoples and nations scattered through the earth at that time, from the Chinese in the far east to the Egyptians in the west, it was this bedraggled band of ex-slaves who had been chosen as a channel for God’s dealings with humanity. He chose them not because they were the largest nation, or the nicest people, or the cleverest folk, or the most moral of human beings. He chose them because He is God and He chooses whom He chooses. He chose them for a role that promised both blessings and curses, depending on decisions that they would make. He gave them a burden that, frankly, was going to be a millstone around their necks and other nations should feel eternally grateful that it was the Jewish people that were chosen and not any other. He chose them, knowing full well that they were going, initially, to fail:

“And the Lord said to Moses: “You are going to rest with your fathers, and these people will soon prostitute themselves to the foreign gods of the land they are entering. They will forsake me and break the covenant I made with them. On that day I will become angry with them and forsake them; I will hide my face from them, and they will be destroyed. Many disasters and difficulties will come upon them, and on that day they will ask, ‘Have not these disasters come upon us because our God is not with us?’ And I will certainly hide my face on that day because of all their wickedness in turning to other gods.” (Deuteronomy 31:16-18)

He knew they were going to fail, not because they were the most insignificant nation, or the nastiest people, or a bunch of idiots, or the most immoral of folk. He knew they were going to fail because they were human beings and, in matters of what warms the heart of God, we are all doomed to failure.

The Jewish people were no different in that respect from the Egyptians, or Chinese, or Hittites would have been. It’s no use condemning them for their failure, just as it is no use castigating them for their rejection of Jesus; they were just doing exactly what you and I would have done.

God may have known in advance that His kingdom of priests would fail, but He did all He could to help them to succeed. This is why He made them a holy nation. The word “holy” has an actual, original, meaning that can be a surprise to some. It implies being apart from others. If someone is holy, it doesn’t mean they are morally, spiritually or ethically pure; what it really means is that he or she tries to live a life separated from the uncleanliness of the rest of us. This is a person apart. The Jewish people were a people apart, kept apart by the laws and customs imposed on them by God for a purpose.

The first year had been spent receiving the Law at Horeb (Sinai). It was there that Moses received the Ten Commandments (and the other 603 rules and regulations recorded in the Books of Moses – primarily in Leviticus and Deuteronomy). These constituted what has become known as the Mosaic Covenant, or ‘the Laws of Moses’.

Ah, a covenant. Does this take the place of the old covenant with Abraham? No, certainly not because, if you remember, the Abrahamic Covenant was unconditional.

‘The whole land of Canaan, where you are now an alien, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you; and I will be their God’. (Genesis 17:8)

This new covenant with Moses contained a whole list of rules and regulations, some major, some minor, all perfectly breakable.

”When Moses went and told the people all the Lord’s words and laws, they responded with one voice, ‘Everything the Lord has said we will do’”. (Exodus 24:3)

Yeh, right!

This Mosaic covenant, was a conditional covenant, meaning that it could be broken. Deuteronomy 28 contains a list of blessings and curses attached to this covenant, promising blessings if they followed God’s commands and curses if they didn’t. As we shall see later, subsequent Jewish history to the present day represents the outworkings of this covenant.

The second year was spent travelling to Kadesh, where it all went horribly wrong. You can read it in Numbers 13 and 14. It seemed that God’s promises of the land were about to be realised. The Israelites were poised at the edge of Canaan, the land was theirs for the taking. All they needed was sufficient faith in the God who had delivered them from Egypt and sustained them with miracle after miracle.

Twelve men were sent out to spy out the land. Their names and lineage were proudly recorded in Numbers 13:4-15. Ten of them came back with tall tales of giants and demonic offspring and every excuse not to progress further – ‘Hey, chaps, it’s been fun but perhaps it’s time we went home – to Egypt’. These men’s names were never again to appear in the Bible, whereas the only two to have a positive report of the land – Joshua and Caleb – became heroes of the faith.

Because the Israelites chose to believe the ten doom merchants, this incredible lack of faith doomed the entire adult generation (except for Joshua and Caleb) to wander around in circles for up to 38 years and never to enter the ‘Land of Milk and Honey’.

This experience, nevertheless, had the effect of forging these people together as a nation. God shepherded them and strengthened them, binding them together through the Torah, the instructions for life given to Moses at Sinai. This was a set of 613 rules and regulations, designed not just to bind them together as a people under God but also to provide them with rules for living and surviving in those times, covering issues of behaviour, diet, relationships and much more. Torah, often labelled in a negative sense as “law”, was intended to be viewed in the positive light as teachings or instructions.

So, had their lack of faith in God, their deliverer from Egypt, nullified God’s covenant with Abraham? Moses has more to say on this subject as we now find him, at Moab, near the end of his life, a tired old man of 120 years.

First, let us consider the situation. We look at the covenant that God made with Moses at Horeb (the Ten Commandments and all that) and ask ourselves, ‘does this replace the one that God made with Abraham about 600 years earlier?’ This is a key question because, if the answer is yes, as some people proclaim, then there are two major consequences:

1. God breaks promises. After telling Abraham that His promises to him are everlasting, despite anything Abraham or his descendants could do to provoke Him, He’s now adding conditions! Think about it. Christians are saved through the ‘New Covenant’ that basically sets out the rules and conditions by which we can attain salvation. What would happen if God just turned round and said, ‘Hold on, it hasn’t exactly gone according to plan; I’m changing my mind and adding one or two new conditions. Sorry.’ We’d

be very worried people, wouldn’t we?

2. Which parts of God’s covenant with Abraham now have conditions slapped on them? The promises of spiritual blessings? Becoming a great nation? Inheriting the land? It all gets very fuzzy.

If we look at Deuteronomy 29:1, we see what Moses has to say.

‘These are the terms of the covenant the Lord commanded Moses to make with the Israelites in Moab, in addition to the covenant he had made with them at Horeb.’ (Highlights mine)

I hear the cry, ‘oh no, not another covenant’! The answer is yes and no. I hear a new cry, “Oh no, not another ambiguous statement. What’s all this yes and no business”?

It does say that, at Moab, God makes a new covenant in addition to the one He made a generation earlier to Moses at Horeb. So there is another covenant, called by some the Palestinian covenant (unfortunate name really), but is it a new covenant?

The full text is in Deuteronomy 29 and 30. What we see here is an explanation of how God can show both His faithfulness, by upholding His promises given to Abraham, and His righteousness, by rewarding or punishing His people according to their behaviour. Basically, the ‘Palestinian covenant’ allows the Abrahamic and the Mosaic (Moses) covenant to sit side by side, with no conflicts of interest.

What it first shows, in Deuteronomy 29:2-30:1, is the consequences of sin. This is the conditional bit, the stuff from the Mosaic covenant. This tells God’s people that, despite all the good things God did for His people in the wilderness and in battle, the consequence of their worshipping the false gods of the Canaanites is going to be a curse on the land and exile from the land.

This is not the whole story because any exile from the land could never be permanent; the Abrahamic covenant saw to that. So we read, in Deuteronomy 30:2-10, that despite the exile from the land, a day will come when the Abrahamic covenant will kick in and the exiles will return to the land, ‘even if you have been banished to the most distant land under the heavens, from there the Lord your God will gather

you and bring you back’. (verse 4).

What this ‘new’ covenant at Moab, this Palestinian covenant does, is to warn the Israelites that the punishment for unfaithfulness and disobedience will be exile from the ‘Land of Milk and Honey’, but the right to the land will never be taken from them and one day in the future it will be theirs again. Their lease will never be torn up, even if the landlord may kick them out temporarily for rule breaking!

There is further light shed on this in the New Testament, in Galatians 3:17, ‘what I mean is this: the law, introduced 430 years later, does not set aside the covenant previously established by God and thus do away with the promise’. This further emphasises the difference between the covenants made with Abraham and Moses.

Mr. Shoots would quote from a number of verses here to say that the promises of the land were conditional on their behaviour.

“‘Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways, because this is how the nations that I am going to drive out before you became defiled. Even the land was defiled; so I punished it for its sin, and the land vomited out its inhabitants’”. Leviticus 18:24-25

‘I will lay waste the land, so that your enemies who live there will be appalled. I will scatter you among the nations and will draw out my sword and pursue you. Your land will be laid waste, and your cities will lie in ruins. Then the land will enjoy its sabbath years all the time that it lies desolate and you are in the country of your enemies; then the land will rest and enjoy its sabbaths. All the time that it lies desolate, the land will have the rest it did not have during the sabbaths you lived in it’. Leviticus 26:32-35

Yet if he were to read on in this Chapter, to verses 40-45 …

“‘But if they will confess their sins and the sins of their fathers—their treachery against me and their hostility towards me, which made me hostile towards them so that I sent them into the land of their enemies—then when their uncircumcised hearts are humbled and they pay for their sin, I will remember my covenant with Jacob and my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land. For the land will be deserted by them and will enjoy its sabbaths while it lies desolate without them. They will pay for their sins because they rejected my laws and abhorred my decrees. Yet in spite of this, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them or abhor them so as to destroy them completely, breaking my covenant with them. I am the Lord their God. But for their sake I will remember the covenant with their ancestors whom I brought out of Egypt in the sight of the nations to be their God. I am the Lord’”.

Mr. Shoots is willing to proclaim the curses for Jewish disobedience, but is strangely unwilling to read on and accept that God always provides the possibility for blessings for obedience, through the promises of the covenant with Abraham. His thinking is that, because of God’s rejection of the Jewish people, He is unwilling to implement the verses after verse 39 of Leviticus 26. ‘How can God bless a people He has already cursed’, is his thinking, putting restrictions on God’s behaviour in the process.

It’s the attitude of the ‘stay-at-home’ son in the story of the Prodigal son (Luke 15:11-31). One son blows his inheritance on wild living and returns to his Father in repentance, but the other one is unwilling to accept the possibility of restitution and is consumed with ‘righteous anger’. So it is with Mr. Shoots, unwilling to believe that, contrary to the very essence of Christian teaching concerning repentance and restitution, God refuses to grant second chances to the Jewish people.

The position held by Mr. Shoots can in some situations, as we shall see later, force him into a cavalier approach to reading Scripture, to the extent that whole passages of Scripture must be ignored, in order not to ‘upset the apple cart’.

Returning to our story we find that it was the children of Moses’ doomed generation who eventually entered the land of Canaan, led by Joshua.

About 600 years since the time of Abraham, the Promised Land now started to become a reality. Before Moses died he drew up a map of the land to be conquered, in Numbers 34.

This land was to be divided up and allocated to nine and a half of the tribes of the Israelites – the other two and a half tribes had already been allotted land on the east side of the River Jordan. He then coaxed his surprisingly strong 120 year old bones up Mount Nebo, where he died in full sight of the Land of Milk and Honey, with God’s final words reminding him of His oath concerning this land.

So who were really living in the land at that time? Amorites, Midianites, Perizzites, Jebusites and Hivites, collectively known as Canaanites. The sins of the Amorites had reached its full measure and the Israelites were on their way to put things right. What the Children of Israel did to the Canaanites, as instructed by the Lord God, would have seriously upset many modern Christian liberals. Nothing short of complete

annihilation was on the cards here. How could God be so brutal? is their cry. What could these people have done to reap such judgement?

We read about the ways of the Canaanites in Leviticus 18, where we find a whole list of forbidden relationships and unnatural sexual practices, most of which are currently in vogue in today’s decadent society. Mention is also made of child sacrifice, another practice that has, in modern times, tragically returned to the land as the unseen tragedy of the rise of abortions.

God’s instructions are given in Deuteronomy 20:16-18, ‘only in the cities of these peoples that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, you shall not leave alive anything that breathes. But you shall utterly destroy them, the Hittite and the Amorite, the Canaanite and the Perizzite, the Hivite and the Jebusite, as the Lord your God has commanded you, in order that they may not teach you to do according to all their detestable things which they have done for their gods, so that you would sin against the Lord your God’.

This episode has upset many Christians, who find it hard to reconcile this (they say) ‘vengeful’ God with the loving God of the New Testament. Some of them use it as another bludgeon against the Old Testament as an ‘inferior’ revelation of God (more of this later on). Others seek to diminish it in other ways. Colin Chapman, who sees Jesus as ‘the lens through which everything in the Old Testament is seen and interpreted’18, says that Jesus would never have acted in the brutal ways that Joshua did, for the same reason that Joshua could never have understood the love of God as expressed in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. The reason, he says, is that God acts according to the culture and understanding of the day. 19

This may seem neat and tidy but does that mean that, nowadays, God has to remember to calm down in case he upsets Christians? According to Him, the striking down of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5 must have been an embarrassing mistake, to say nothing of the promises in store for our sinful world in the judgements promised by Jesus in Matthew 24 and how could David, the ‘primitive’ Old Testament king and psalmist have understood ideas of death and resurrection when he wrote the Psalms? Remember, whenever you hear a news report on some natural disaster or outrage that is ‘of Biblical proportions’, that this present age is just as brutal and ignorant as in the time of Joshua and the presence of the Christian message in the World makes not an iota of difference to the ignorant men and women who perpetrate deeds every bit as evil and debauched as the ancient Canaanites. God is the same yesterday, today and forever. So is human nature.

The uniqueness of this people can be highlighted when you consider the sequence of events that accompanied the beginning of their conquest of the ‘Promised Land’. Firstly God provided a miracle, by parting the River Jordan – no bridges for this army!

To emphasise the divine nature of this event, the huge army were to cross the river not by a direct route, but fanned out to the north and south. This was because the centre of the river was taken up by the priests carrying the Ark of the Covenant – God’s earthly home – and no-one else was allowed to pass within 900 metres of this, on fear of death.

Next, the Jewish men were circumcised with flint knives!

Circumcision was the most important sign of who they were. It was an instruction given to Abraham hundreds of years earlier.

“You are to undergo circumcision, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and you. For the generations to come every male among you who is eight days old must be circumcised, including those born in your household or bought with money from a foreigner—those who are not your offspring. Whether born in your household or bought with your money, they must be circumcised. My covenant in your flesh is to be an everlasting covenant. Any uncircumcised male, who has not been circumcised in the flesh, will be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.” (Genesis 17:11-14)

What had happened was that during the forty years in the desert (perhaps even earlier), the Children of Israel had stopped circumcising their children. Perhaps God was sparing them extra pain, their trudging endlessly through the desert being punishment enough. Perhaps it was simply because, as they were separated from the rest of the World during that time, there was no-one around for whom a sign on their body need be displayed. But crunch time had now come; they were about to re-enter the World and meet other nations. They now had to display a sign of their separateness, their holiness. They had to go under the knife; there was no escape.

Then they partook of the Passover meal, a commemoration of that event 40 years earlier when their parents (mostly) had taken their first step of nationhood and left behind their lives in Egypt. The Passover commemoration was part of the Torah instructions given by God, as described in Numbers 9:2: “Make the Israelites celebrate the Passover at the appointed time.”

This was an important Passover meal for them. It was the first celebrated ever as free people in a land of their own and the day after they ate of the produce of this land, the manna that had sustained them for decades in the desert suddenly ceased falling from the sky. A new chapter had started.

Finally, Joshua was to meet an angel on the road to Jericho, who told him how this walled city was to be taken by the Israelites. Priests with trumpets were going to pave the way for this particular siege and you know the rest of the story. If you don’t then, suffice to say, they marched round the walls of the city and, as an encore, ‘brought the house down’.

Yes, this was no ordinary army!

Joshua spent the rest of his life leading his people through battle after battle in this land promised by God, but nevertheless a land already occupied by Canaanites, Amorites, Anakites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. When he was an old man, God informed him that, although they had by no means conquered the whole country, it was time to colonise the cities and regions that were in their control. So the twelve tribes of Israel were each allocated a district to call their own and were given a time to enjoy the peace. Joshua was even older when he gathered together the great and the good from the tribes and made what was, by all accounts, his farewell speech.

“You yourselves have seen everything the Lord your God has done to all these nations for your sake; it was the Lord your God who fought for you.” (Joshua 23:3)

He needed to remind them that they weren’t by nature great military tacticians. They hadn’t graduated from a middle eastern West Point or Sandhurst. They were basically just upstart slaves, who had become desert nomads. Their success was due to the simple fact that they were representatives on earth of the God of the Universe and He wasn’t going to let them fail to conquer the land He promised them. And it was important that they shouldn’t forget this important fact. Joshua reminded them …

“The Lord has driven out before you great and powerful nations; to this day no-one has been able to withstand you. One of you routs a thousand, because the Lord your God fights for you, just as he promised. So be very careful to love the Lord your God.”

Then the crunch. A warning that, sadly, became an epitaph …

“But if you turn away and ally yourselves with the survivors of these nations that remain among you and if you intermarry with them and associate with them, then you may be sure that the Lord your God will no longer drive out these nations before you. Instead, they will become snares and traps for you, whips on your backs and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from this good land, which the Lord your God has given you.”

Canaan was conquered in three campaigns and the land divided up among the tribes of Israel (Joshua 13-21), in accordance with God’s plans, as given to Moses just before his death. In modern day’s terms, we are looking at the geographical area of Israel, Jordan and Lebanon.

Mr. Shoots would quote from Joshua 11:23, ‘so Joshua took the entire land, just as the Lord had directed Moses, and he gave it as an inheritance to Israel according to their tribal divisions. Then the land had rest from war’. He would use this as fuel for his argument against the literal reading of the Covenant with Abraham, by saying that here we see the fulfillment of the land promises – after all, doesn’t it say ‘Joshua took the entire land’? ‘Yes’, says Mr. Roots, ‘It does. But it says nothing about the land promised to Abraham, only that promised to Moses, a much smaller area.’

While Joshua and his generation lived, all went well. These were people who had walked in the presence of God, even if it amounted to travelling around in circles in the Sinai desert.

These were people who were God-soaked to the core of their being, benefiting from His provisions and guidance, but also witnessing the penalties for misdemeanours – whether through plague, snake-bites or sudden earthquakes. They knew the score and, as crude as it may seem to our “sophisticated” 21st Century eyes, they were a people who needed to be moulded from scratch. So, when they left the desert for the

Promised Land they looked to God and He alone for guidance and leadership. He went before them in battle and they had great successes as a result.

Yet, despite God’s stern warnings and apparently brutal fulfilments, the land was not completely cleansed of idolatry and evil practices. As we enter the period of the Judges we find many remnants of the ancient peoples, still very much alive and kicking. The Philistines occupied the southern coastal plains, Moab was alive and well to the east of the Dead Sea, with Edom to the south. Canaanites were still everywhere and the greatest sin of the Israelites was their failure to follow God’s command to eliminate them. As a consequence, immoral practices filtered into the Israelite community. It didn’t take long. As soon as Joshua’s generation passed away.

‘Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord and served the Baals. They forsook the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of Egypt. They followed and worshipped various gods of the peoples around them. They provoked the Lord to anger because they forsook Him and served Baal and the Ashtoreths’.

(Judges 2:11-13)

Before we start tut-tutting, stop and think for a moment how far we in the UK have come since the end of the Second World War. From being a church-going country, to one that worships at the altar of pagan gods, ranging from celebrity worship to Tibetan worship in cathedrals. In the time it took the Israelites to forget their victories under Joshua (with God’s provision), we have proudly moved into a self-proclaimed ‘Post-Christian’ era, where God’s values are undermined and His provisions taken for granted.

This next generation was indifferent to God and what He had done for them. They went over to the ‘dark side’ and started to pay an unhealthy attention to the nations that co-existed with them in the Promised Land. Alluring women, foreign ways and alien gods were their downfall and God was not pleased.

As a result, they began to realise that they weren’t so good at fighting after all and every time they went into battle they lost and suffered the consequences.

“Whenever Israel went out to fight, the hand of the Lord was against them to defeat them, just as he had sworn to them. They were in great distress.” (Judges 2:15)

What short memories these people had and it was just as well that God didn’t give up on them. He had simply invested too much time in them, developing them as a holy nation, a nation apart. He used these other nations to test them and, although, by and large, they failed miserably, God was always on hand to offer them new ways to redeem themselves. He raised up a fine line of Judges, from Deborah to Samson. These great men and women of God led them back to the straight and narrow and reminded them of their destiny by leading them into great victories against their enemies. And to remind them all of the supernatural nature of these victories, He made it impossible, in some cases, for them to believe otherwise. In the case of Gideon, the army that was sent out to face the Midianites in battle was led by the most insignificant chap in camp (Gideon himself) and was whittled down in numbers – by filtering out the cowards and those who didn’t drink their water like dogs – so that no-one could have any doubt that this army would have problems routing a tea party, let alone an enemy numbering in their tens of thousands.

This period of the Judges can be summarised in one circular sentence:

When Israel listened to God all was well, but when they fell away they were shown the consequences of their sin (usually through matters of war), which prompted them to cry out to God, who sent them a Judge, who led them back to listening to Him.

Repeat this about 12 times – through such Judges as Deborah, Gideon, Samson etc. – and you get the idea. Keep going in this vein for 350 years. You’d think they’d get the point after a half dozen times or so, but human nature says otherwise – how soon we forget what God has done for us and move on under our own steam, making the same mistakes again and again.

The Israelites were meant to be a holy nation, a nation under God, a theocracy. They were chosen to be a nation apart, living among the other nations, but apart from them.

This was why it was for their own good to destroy the corrupt nations around them. It was to keep God’s people as pure and uncorrupted as possible, not to satisfy the apparent blood-lust of the Deity, but it was never going to be easy.

The Israelites were chosen not because they had an especially holy and righteous nature that was going to make it easy for them to fulfil their destiny. They were chosen because … they were chosen. Someone had to be chosen. It just happened to be them. If God had chosen Nigel the Barbarian instead of Abraham, to leave his mud hut and trek over to Canaan and if Nigel had proven as willing as Abraham to fulfil his calling, then it could have been the Nigelites that found themselves in this Land of Milk and Honey. The point being that God could have chosen anyone and perhaps would have chosen Nigel if Abraham hadn’t been so faithful, but Abraham passed the test and it was his descendants that find themselves burdened with this ‘chosen-ness’.

Some, of course, had lived up to this honour, great men of faith like Jacob, Joseph, Moses and Joshua, but they were the exceptions. Once the Israelites had been established in the land for a few years, they began to cast jealous eyes around the other nations and started to yearn to be like them. In the west of the country a new problem had presented itself – the Philistines. These were a sea-faring aggressive people, sailing in from the Mediterranean, who quickly established themselves along the coastal plain, then started casting their beady eyes eastwards, at the land settled by the Israelites. They had two great military advantages over the Israelites – they had chariots and they had iron, but they didn’t have the missing ingredient, the Lord God of the Universe, as the famous episode with Samson and Delilah was to show. Nevertheless the Israelites had grown complacent and soon began to forget that, if God was on your

side, no-one could come against you.

The decline was seemingly unstoppable. Prompted by the basic human instincts of pride and independence and influenced by the dodgy lifestyles of the nations that surrounded them, the people of God kept forgetting about the One who rescued them from Egyptian slavery, fed and sustained them in the desert and gave them victory after victory against their enemies. There was the odd acknowledgement. In the story of Ruth we read of God providing food for His people, indicating that at least there were some in leadership in that day who remembered Him and asked for help. This was the tragedy of it all. God was always there, very willing and very, very able to help His ‘kingdom of priests’ in every circumstance. All they had to do was ask. After all, as we are reminded, it was life He was offering. Choose life, He had told them, so that you and your children may live.

Incredibly, on the most part, they chose death and a life of independence and idolatry. To illustrate the point, let’s see what happened to them when they came against the Philistines, their most persistent foes in those days.

“The Philistines deployed their forces to meet Israel, and as the battle spread, Israel was defeated by the Philistines, who killed about four thousand of them on the battlefield.” (1 Samuel 4:2)

How can that be? cried the elders of Israel. Then they asked the right question, but came to the wrong conclusion. “Why did the Lord bring defeat upon us?” they asked. This was the right question as it acknowledged as to who pulled the strings in matters of war. The right thing to ask next would have been, “Perhaps we didn’t ask Him to help us.” And, probably, the reason they didn’t was the shame of how far they had gone from their God, the Ruler of the Universe. So, instead, they did what they imagined was the next best thing.

They performed an act that illustrated how they had been corrupted by living among foreign people with foreign gods. They provided concrete proof of the need for a “holy” people to remain separated from corrupting influences and perhaps, also, we can get an inkling as to why God repeatedly urged the Israelites to obliterate the corrupt Canaanite tribes in the land. So what did they do, already?! Let’s read from 1 Samuel 4:3:

“Let us bring the ark of the Lord’s covenant from Shiloh, so that it may go with us and save us from the hand of our enemies.”

Influenced by the pagan beliefs of the Canaanites, they believed that God’s power lay in the Ark of the Covenant, rather than in God Himself. They placed their faith in a created object, just as the pagans did, with their Astarte poles and Baal statues.

The whole plan backfired and their idolatry, ironically, was their undoing. The news that the Israelites had brought their “god” to battle inspired the Philistines to fight even harder.

The Israelites lost 30,000 men in battle and the Ark of the Covenant was captured. ‘The glory has departed from Israel’ was the cry.

A telling epitaph of this story was what happened to the Philistines as a result of their actions. The Ark became a curse for them. First, it caused the physical destruction of their god, Dagon (the idol lost its head and hands), then the Philistines were overrun with plagues until the Ark was later gladly returned to the Israelites.

A Kingdom of Priests. We must keep reminding ourselves of this. However badly they behaved and however un-priestlike their actions were, they couldn’t escape their destiny. But God knew that, as much as He wanted his people to succeed, most wouldn’t. Yet his holy nation had to endure, for His plans to come to pass. Central to His plan was the original promise given to Abraham.

“I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” (Genesis 12:2-3)

For this blessing to take place, a descendant of Abraham was to come onto the scene at some future date. He was spoken of by the patriarch, Jacob, just before his death, when he blessed each of his sons in turn. His special blessing was to his fourth born son, Judah, from whom we get the name Jew.

“The sceptre will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until he comes to whom it belongs and the obedience of the nations is his.” (Genesis 49:10)

The children of Israel were going to be sifted and God was going to be ruthless both in preserving the family of Judah and discarding others who had the misfortune of being born in the wrong family. It might sound cruel to our sense of fairness but it is God’s way. It’s called the mystery of election which is, simply put, the fact that God chooses whom He chooses for His purposes. He doesn’t choose those who attract his eye or who please Him, rather He chooses first and it’s an added bonus for Him if, subsequently, they do manage to please Him. Abraham certainly pleased Him, though it’s hard to see God receiving much joy from Jacob. But he loved them both on the basis of His divine choice. The mystery of election dictated that a future ruler of Israel, who will have the obedience of the nations, will come from the family of Judah – the Jewish family.

So it is no surprise that God’s sifting process would begin as early in the life of the new nation being forged in the Promised Land as at the time of the first King, Saul. When he was mustering an army against the Ammonites, it was reported that the men of Israel numbered 300,000 and the men of Judah numbered 30,000.

Already Judah was being set apart from the other tribes, who were lumped together as Israel. Remember this was many years before the time of David, Solomon and the time of the splitting of the country into the Northern and Southern Kingdoms. But I am getting ahead of myself …

NOTES

18 Chapman, Colin Whose Promised Land ? Lion Publishing 2002, 133

19 ibid., 126-129

Chapter Four: The Kingdom of Kings

They began to look at the nations around them. These people had Kings, who led them into battle, ruled them, made decisions for them. We want a King, too! This was the cry of Israel in 1 Samuel 8 and they got the one they deserved, Saul. God had warned them, but did they listen? He told them that this King was going to take away their sons to fight dangerous wars, their daughters to be cooks and bakers and would also take a proportion of their land, crops, slaves and flocks for his own use. No, we want a King! “Then don’t come running back to me when it all goes wrong!” adds God, in 1 Samuel 8:18. ‘We don’t care – give us a King, already!’

This first King of Israel was volatile, insecure and paranoid, which was probably God’s punishment on Israel for showing such a lack of faith in Him and demanding a King in the first place. There were controls in place, namely the prophet, Samuel, who was the mouthpiece of God during this time, but Saul wasn’t always to listen – except, tragically, through a witch after Samuel’s death – and this was to provide the seeds for his downfall.

The people wanted a King for a very good reason. It’s the same reason why human beings throughout history have tried to do things their own way and have followed their human instincts in building their own empires and kingdoms. It’s because we are wilful beings and, when push comes to shove, quite faithless. We still find it hard to trust God, (or even believe in Him these days) and, rather than waiting on Him, we go ahead with our own plans expecting His blessing when we have spent all of our energy and return to Him with a pleading heart to put things right.

So it was with the Children of Israel when Saul led them against the Ammonites. They had more faith in a flesh and blood mortal flawed King than they had in the Lord God, Creator of the Universe, who had delivered them from slavery in Egypt, sustained them in the desert and fought on their behalf as they began to conquer the land. The prophet Samuel reminded them exactly who was in charge:

“But when you saw that Nahash king of the Ammonites was moving against you, you said to me, ‘No, we want a king to rule over us’ —even though the Lord your God was your king. Now here is the king you have chosen, the one you asked for; see, the Lord has set a king over you.” (1 Samuel 12:12)

And as a further reminder he called on the Lord to send thunder and rain and declare His majesty. “And you will realise what an evil thing you did in the eyes of the Lord when you asked for a king”, he added.

It’s the old chestnut of faith versus works, putting ourselves and our labours before a complete and sincere trust in God. It is further illustrated by another episode in the life of Saul.

All he had to do was assemble with his army at Gilgal to face the Philistines and wait for Samuel to turn up and call on the Lord to be with them. But he didn’t wait for Samuel and made the necessary sacrifices himself. He lacked faith and decided to act instead. As a result Samuel, who did eventually turn up, declared:

“You acted foolishly … You have not kept the command the Lord your God gave you; if you had, he would have established your kingdom over Israel for all time. But now your kingdom will not endure; the Lord has sought out a man after his own heart and appointed him leader of his people, because you have not kept the Lord’s command.” (1 Samuel 13:13-14)

D’oh! Saul blew it and prepared the way for his successor, David. His dynasty was doomed anyway, as he was of the family of Benjamin. But David was of the family of Judah and it was to be through his family line that God’s promised descendant, through whom all peoples on earth will be blessed and who would have the obedience of the nations.

Saul continued to sink into the mire of his own making when God gave him a simple instruction:

“Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’” (1 Samuel 15:3)

He failed to do so, keeping the best of the livestock for himself. But this was not what God asked. He wanted all trace of the Amalekites destroyed. It sounds ruthless to us and some would even query how a God of Love could be so merciless.

What is often overlooked is that our Father God, Ruler of the heavens and earth, is a God of righteousness as well as a God of love and when evil rears its ugly head, particularly in these formative years of His dealings with His people, He is compelled by His very nature to take action. But to kill women, children and infants?

To allow ourselves to consider such perceived injustices we are forced to ask the questions, were there no innocent women, children and infants in Sodom and Gomorrah when burning sulphur reigned down, or at the time of Noah’s Ark, when a whole generation drowned in the waters? Of course there were – they died in the same way as the most evil and debauched men of their people. Three verses will force us to see the similarities and help us to understand why our Kingdom of Priests had to be protected from the people who surrounded them.

“In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire.” (Jude 1:7)

“… if he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others.” (2 Peter 2:5)

“And he sent you on a mission, saying, ‘Go and completely destroy those wicked people, the Amalekites; make war on them until you have wiped them out.’“ (1 Samuel 15:18)

Saul eventually committed suicide in battle and left the kingdom of Israel in a worse shape than when he found it, largely due to the presence of the pesky Philistines in the west.

Contrast Saul with the next King of Israel, David. Here was a ruddy young shepherd, a sensitive musician and a mighty man of faith. How do we know this? Because he was the only Israelite who didn’t quake in his boots with the prospect of man-to-giant combat with the nine foot armed warrior known as Goliath.

Armed only with a slingshot he cried out,

“You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the Lord will hand you over to me, and I’ll strike you down and cut off your head. Today I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel. All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves; for the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give all of you into our hands.”

King David was a man somewhat flawed but with a deep and practical faith in God. On the one hand he was an adulterer, a murderer and quite cruel in the manner of his retributions to those who crossed him, but on the other hand he was brave, a good military commander and administrator, a poet of genius (as the Psalms prove) and, above all, a man aware of his sins and willing to deal with them before God. He was to roundly defeat the Philistines, the Moabites, the Edomites and the Ammonites and captured a whole swathe of Canaanite cities, as well as Jerusalem, which was to become his capital.

Mighty man of faith? No question about it! In contrast with Saul, David enquired of the Lord before acting (except in matters of romance, sadly) and always acknowledged that his victories were always through the hand of God, rather than his own military prowess. It was said that God gave David victory wherever he went. He was rewarded by promises from God that his descendants will be very special indeed and that his throne shall be established forever. David may not have fully understood what this meant, but it showed immense favour and grace.

Jerusalem was captured around 1000 BC from the Jebusites, who were big-headed enough to taunt the Israelites, who stood outside the walls of the city, saying that even the blind and lame would be able to keep David out. While they posed along the heavily fortified walls, David’s army were clambering through the water shaft, from where they entered the city and conquered it. Jews have had a continuous presence in this city ever since (though only just at the time of the destruction by the Romans, but more of that later).

Ah, Jerusalem! At last it appears in the pages of our story. No other city in history has attracted so much controversy. At the time of David, the Israelite nation had been divided into two main regions, Israel and Judah. Judah covered the south of the land, comprising not just the land allocated to the tribe of Judah, but also that given to Simeon and Benjamin. The region of Israel covered the central and northern parts, covering the land given to Ephraim, Dan, Manasseh, Issachar, Zebulon, Naphtali and Asher. And Jerusalem was right on the boundary between the two, accessible to both regions.

‘There are ten portions of beauty in the world. Nine are in Jerusalem, one in the rest of the world. There are ten portions of suffering in the world. Nine in Jerusalem and one in the rest of the world.’

This is a quote from the Avot de Rabbi Natan, an ancient collection of rabbinic commentary and serves to highlight the importance of Jerusalem in World history and it all really started with King David who made the significant decision to make Jerusalem his capital city.

The matter of Jerusalem has been a key focus of the battles between Mr. Roots and Mr. Shoots. Mr. Roots would point out that Jerusalem is mentioned 669 times in the Old Testament, not just in a historical sense (describing key points in its history), but in a prophetic sense. Zechariah 12:2-3 says:

‘I am going to make Jerusalem a cup that sends all the surrounding peoples reeling. Judah will be besieged as well as Jerusalem. On that day, when all the nations of the earth are gathered against her, I will make Jerusalem an immovable rock for all the nations. All who try to move it will injure themselves.’

Yet Mr. Shoots would seek to poo-poo any suggestion that Jerusalem has any current significance for the Jewish people, even to go as far as suggest that whenever we see Jerusalem mentioned, it is Jesus that is meant.

Needless to say, Jerusalem has been one of the key points of conflict between Judaism, Christianity and Islam and will be discussed further a little later.

Back to King David, now ruling the ‘United Kingdom’ of Judah and Israel from Jerusalem, his new capital city. For all of his positive virtues, it was David’s shortcomings that defined history, with regard to the ‘Promised Land’.

Because of his adultery with Bathsheba, God was to tell him, in 2 Samuel 12:10, ‘the sword shall never depart from your house’, which set the scene for a lot of deep bother for the future ‘House of David’. These prophetic words found fulfillment with his very own son, the handsome Absalom, who tried to usurp his father’s position as King. He was so big-headed that he had a monument made in his own honour erected near Jerusalem. Unfortunately his big head contributed to his demise … literally. He got it stuck in an oak tree and ended up with three javelins in his heart, courtesy of the commander of David’s army.

The next King of Judah and Israel was Solomon, another son, but David’s chosen successor. Here was a man who started off so promisingly, with a one-time offer from God in a dream of whatever he wanted. He chose wisely, wisdom was his choice, rather than a long life, riches or power. God was so pleased with this unselfish choice that He gave him the lot anyway, so Solomon had everything he could have needed and his reign was indeed very fruitful.

The nation prospered like never before, he built a palace and the magnificent First Temple in Jerusalem and expanded the United Kingdom, his influence reaching as far as the river Euphrates to the north and Egypt to the west. He wrote poetry (Song of Songs), philosophy (Ecclesiastes) and proverbs (Proverbs). Was there anything he couldn’t do? Well, there was one thing – he had difficulty in restraining himself with the fairer sex. Seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines seemed to be overdoing it a bit, but it was in the spiritual, rather than the physical realm where we see dire consequences of these dalliances.

The clue is in 1 Kings 11:1-2, when it is noted that Solomon’s lovers included those from nations with which God had forbidden His people to intermarry. The reason was to do with spiritual pollution and we see the consequences in verse 4: ‘as Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods and his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord his God, as the heart of David his father had been’.

God reminds Solomon that, through his actions, he had not kept the covenant. This is serious stuff. What covenant was he referring to? This was easy, as it was clearly the first two of the Ten Commandments being referred to. Solomon had taken to other gods and had indulged in idol worship, acts prohibited under the covenant made with Moses (see Exodus 20:1-4). He had broken some of the terms of the covenant and, as he was King of Israel, the consequences were going to be dire indeed.

They were. God now vows that the Kingdom will be taken from Solomon’s family and given to ‘one of his subordinates’.

This was going to happen in the subsequent generation. Solomon was offered this mercy not because he deserved it, but for the sake of his father, David. Also, as a measure of the esteem the Lord had for David, it was decreed that one tribe, Judah, is to remain, ‘for the sake of David my servant and for the sake of

Jerusalem which I have chosen’ (verse 13),‘the city where I chose to put my Name’ (1 Kings 11:36)

So, because of the sin of one man, Solomon, the United Kingdom was going to be split in two, resulting in two separate people, with two separate destinies.

King David was God’s special favourite. How often we see how the kingdom of his royal descendants was spared judgement, citing no other reason than the fact that David was their illustrious ancestor. The real reason for this was that just as God had protected David’s illustrious ancestors – from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, through to Boaz, Obed and Jesse – He was also going to protect David’s not-entirely-illustrious descendants too. This was the Messianic blood-line, the blood line of the Messiah. This had been protected from the time of the Hebrews, through the sojourn in the desert by the Israelites, then through the conquering of Canaan and would pass down the generations from David, for another thousand years. It may have been a royal blood-line by virtue of the fact that it would produce, in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, a Messiah King, but it managed to bypass all the hereditary Kings on its journey through the ages.

Looking at the genealogy of Jesus in Luke 3, it’s interesting to note that the usual suspects, Solomon and the (not so) great Kings of Judah, don’t get a look in. Instead we are treated to Nathan, David’s ninth son, followed by a procession of unknowns, from Mattatha onwards. God has always chosen the weak, the flawed, the low-born to accomplish His plans.

It’s why we feel safe in our own destiny and why we love Him so much.

What God had ordained, came about and this is how it happened.

Jeroboam was one of Solomon’s favoured officials who was told by the prophet Ahijah, in 1 Kings 11, that he was going to be God’s instrument in carrying out His judgments on Solomon, who, by now, was not particularly popular with his subjects. God even tempted Jeroboam with the promise that He would build a dynasty around him, equal to the one promised to David. The Lord undoubtedly had a smile on His face at the time because the conditions were the very same ‘keeping my statutes and commands’ that were the foundation of the covenant with Moses. God knows the heart of man and though He was gracious enough to offer this generous deal to Jeroboam, he knew that Jeroboam, along with everyone else born of mortal man, would slip up when it came to keeping his side of the bargain. That was the whole point of the covenant with Moses – sinful man was (and still is) incapable of fulfilling the conditions and will always fall short. It’s just as well that a better Covenant, the New Covenant, with different conditions, was to come along later!

On Solomon’s death, his son Rehoboam succeeded him. He knew that, because of Solomon’s unpopularity towards the end of his reign, rebellion was in the air, so he took advice. Unfortunately, rather than listening to the wise elders, he took his advice from the young men he’d grown up with.

It was bad advice, resulting in a rebellion by Israel, the northern part of the kingdom, which, in accordance with God’s pronouncement, broke away from the ‘United Kingdom’ and, in accordance with the prophecy, made Jeroboam their King. The parting words are given in 1 Kings 12:16: ‘What share do we have in David, what part in Jesse’s son? To your tents, O Israel! Look after your own house, O David!”

Rehoboam was peeved. He summoned 180,000 fighting men to make war against the breakaway state of Israel. A bad idea, as he had to be reminded by Shemaiah the prophet that this whole thing was the Lord’s doing, so a civil war would not be his best move. So he was left to take stock of the situation. All that remained for King Rehoboam was the house of Judah (also including the smaller tribe of Benjamin) in the south, with Jerusalem as the capital, but if he only knew what was going to happen ‘up north’ he would have been counting his blessings!

It wasn’t long before Jeroboam too broke God’s covenant, ruining any chance he had to found a dynasty with God’s blessings. As a result the kingdom of Israel went from bad to worse. Jeroboam set the trend by making two golden calves and set them up as gods in Bethel and Dan saying, in 1 Kings 12:28: ‘Here are your gods, O Israel, who brought you out of Egypt’. He did this in order to stop the citizens of Israel from making pilgrimages to the temple in Jerusalem, which was now in ‘enemy’ territory. He went on to build further pagan shrines and ordain dodgy priests, piling sin upon sin and battering away at the Second Commandment until God could stay silent no longer. It was not surprising that Ahijah, the very same prophet who had set him up as King, should prophesy again with these words, in 1 Kings 14:9-10: ‘You have done more evil than all who lived before you … I am going to bring disaster on the house of Jeroboam’. There are hints concerning the nature of this punishment in verse 15: ‘He will uproot Israel from this good land that He gave to their forefathers and scatter them beyond the River …”.

This prophecy was put on hold while subsequent rulers of Israel went from bad to worse, digging themselves further and further into the mire, with sordid tales of murder, massacre, idolatry and general mayhem. Nadab succeeded Jeroboam and carried on in his father’s evil ways for a few months until he and every last member of the doomed family dynasty were slaughtered by Baasha, who was to grab the throne of Israel for himself. Baasha continued in the same evil traditions, lasting for 24 years and, like Jeroboam, incurring God’s wrath with a curse on his family that came to pass when Elah, his son and successor, was killed (along with the rest of his family) by Zimri, who was to succeed him. Zimri’s reign lasted for a mercifully short 7 days, enough time though to deserve his very own set of curses from God. After him came Omri, who managed to sin more than all of his predecessors, so he must have been an interesting fellow. He also made Samaria the capital city of the northern kingdom of Israel. Then

came Ahab.

Ahab was a particular scoundrel, who ‘did more evil in the eyes of the Lord than any of those before him’ and ‘did more to provoke the Lord, the God of Israel, to anger than did all the kings of Israel before him’.

Much of this was due to his choice of wife. Jezebel was a foreigner and was totally dedicated to the worship of a variety of pagan gods. Ahab was totally dominated by his evil wife and together they dedicated the kingdom to the pagan god Baal, but God was to provide a ‘thorn in their side’ in the person of Elijah the prophet and a showdown was imminent. It came at Mount Carmel and we read of it in 1 Kings 18.

In the light corner we have the Lord God, Creator of the Universe, represented by Elijah the prophet. In the dark corner is Baal, represented by 450 ‘prophets’. The task – to set fire to a bull without the use of hands, matches or any human agency.

First, the prophets of Baal ranted and raved for a full day to attract their god’s attention, but to no avail. ‘Perhaps he is asleep’, taunted Elijah. They failed and all eyes turned to Elijah. He milked the moment by drenching the altar first with water, then called down fire from heaven. It came and the people realised who was the real God of Israel. The 450 ‘prophets’ of Baal were subsequently slaughtered. This could have been a defining moment, signalling a mass repentance and return to the God of Israel. It wasn’t, as Jezebel wasn’t going to let a setback like this slow her down and Elijah was forced to flee into exile.

It is important to note that although it tends to be the rulers who bring judgment on the land, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the evil that they represent is fully representative of their people. We read in 1 Kings 19:18 that there was still a remnant of 7,000 in Israel ‘whose knees have not bowed down to Baal’. In all of Biblical (and Church) history there is always a faithful remnant who remain true to God, despite contrary pressures that might surround them.

Although we have concentrated on the conflict between Israel and its erstwhile brothers to the south, other nations were continuing to appear on the scene, driven by the ebb and flow of ambitious rulers and empires. One such person was Ben-Hadad of Syria, who attacked Israel (or Samaria, as it was also called at this time). As Biblical history shows us time after time, God appoints other nations to punish His people when they go astray. Although Israel under Ahab was about as astray as you can get, this was not such an occasion, as the Syrians were decimated. God, in His mercy, was using this

episode to remind Israel exactly who was pulling the strings.

It didn’t seem to do any good as Ahab persisted in his sins and so he finally met his end in battle. Because his death was prophesied, he went in disguise, seeking to dodge his destiny, but fell foul of a stray arrow between the sections of his armour and died in his chariot.

In 841 BC King Jehu was the new King in Israel, ordained by a prophet and ordered to finally rid the earth of the house of Ahab on account of the sins of Jezebel. Jezebel met her end thrown out of the palace window by a pair of eunuchs, so another royal dynasty went the way of Jeroboam and Baasha and a new one was created. Would this one be any better? 2 Kings 10:18 appears to set the tone for this man’s rule: ‘Ahab served Baal a little; Jehu will serve him much’, he declared.

But this was a clever deception to flush out the priests of Baal, who were done to death. Despite this Jehu didn’t completely turn away from the dark side.

Israel carried on being cursed by a string of maniacal monarchs, each adding their misdemeanours to the pool of judgment that was growing and growing. That judgement had a name, Assyria.

Assyria had been one of the leading players in the Near East, but it had been too far east to trouble the folk of Israel and Judah. This was beginning to change during the reign of Jehu and particularly his son, Jehoahaz, a particularly nasty piece of work. God showed His displeasure with this latest wicked King of Israel by allowing the Syrians in the north to kick up some bother. Amazingly, Jehoahaz had the cheek to turn to God for help and, even more amazingly, God listened to his pleas and sent help. The rulers and people of Israel, although under increasingly imminent judgement, were still able to call upon the Lord, who was still willing to listen to them, despite their sins.

Jeroboam II was the grandson of Jehoahaz. Although just as wicked as his forbears, his reign saw the restoration of the northern borders of Israel. The people of Israel became very complacent and boastful about this, mistakenly believing that they were a nation under God’s blessing. The prophets Amos and Hosea quickly put them right on this: ‘The Sovereign Lord has sworn by Himself—the Lord God Almighty declares: “I abhor the pride of Jacob and detest his fortresses; I will deliver up the city and everything in it” (Amos 6:8). ‘Do not rejoice, O Israel; do not be jubilant like the other nations. For you have been unfaithful to your God; you love the wages of a prostitute at every threshing-floor’. (Hosea 9:1). The clock was ticking …

In Hosea 13:9-11 God proclaims the epitaph for the Northern Kingdom of Israel, reminding them that Kings were what they demanded (back in the day of Samuel) and it was to be Kings that brought their downfall: ‘You are destroyed, O Israel, because you are against Me, against your helper. Where is your king, that he may save you? Where are your rulers in all your towns, of whom you said, ‘Give me a king and princes’? So in My anger I gave you a king, and in My wrath I took him away.”

The end came during the reign of Hoshea, the twentieth ruler, who came to the throne in 732 BC. Ironically, although he was evil, he hadn’t sunk to the depths of some of his predecessors. Yet it was he who had to bear the full brunt of God’s judgement. One day the Assyrians invaded, angry that Israel had made friends with Egypt, their bitter enemy. They imprisoned Hoshea and laid siege to the land.

After three years (they were patient) the siege was over and the Israelites deported en masse to various locations in the Assyrian Empire.

The Northern Kingdom of Israel was no more and the people largely vanish into obscurity, kept alive by a multitude of myths about the ‘Lost Tribes of Israel’. This is a pointless exercise, in the same vein as musing over the whereabouts of Atlantis or the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. If God wants a people ‘lost’, then that’s it, they’re LOST. The Northern Kingdom simply went the way of the multitude of peoples, like the Canaanites, Philistines and Moabites, who served their purpose in His plans, but then disappear from the pages of history.

This is not to say that the ten tribes were totally lost, only those who were living in the Northern Kingdom at the time of the exile. Many had left earlier. Some remained in the Southern Kingdom when the kingdoms first split (1 Kings 12:17). Some returned there a few years after the split (2 Chronicles 11:14-17). Others returned at various points, appalled at the growing apostasy of the Northern Kingdom. You can read about these in 2 Chronicles 15:9 and 2 Chronicles 30:25-26. The point I wish to make is that, although Jews are descended from the folk of the Southern Kingdom of Judah, it is safe to say that all tribes were represented among these people, not just Judah and Benjamin.

Deportation was a common fate for all who opposed the Assyrians. It was their way of discouraging revolt. The people deported first were the natural leaders, potential troublemakers. The deportation of the Israelites was fairly thorough and the area left behind became predominantly Gentile, though some Israelite land-workers remained. The northern part of this area was eventually to be renamed ‘Galilee of the Gentiles’. The southern part, the area of Samaria, was to be resettled by other displaced folk, carted in from the far reaches of the Assyrian Empire. These were to eventually become the mixed-race Samaritans of Jesus’ day.

Why the mass deportation? Was it really through the sin of King Jeroboam and his successors? The answer is given in 2 Kings 17. Verse 7 says: ‘All this took place because the Israelites had sinned against the Lord their God, Who had brought them out of Egypt from under the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt’. God’s anger burned against both these evil rulers and their subjects, for following the detestable practices

of the other nations and ignoring the pleadings of prophets, such as Elijah, Elisha, Amos and Hosea, sent to warn them.

The whole sorry ‘Israel’ episode is summarised in 2 Kings 17:21, when God reminds us how it started and why it finished; how He tore Israel away from the House of David, because of the sins of Solomon; how He gave this new Kingdom to Jeroboam, promising him either blessings or curses, depending on his conduct; how Jeroboam’s sin was even worse than Solomon’s, bringing curses down upon himself and his family; how every subsequent King followed in his idolatry and unbelief, culminating in the destruction and exile of the Northern Kingdom of Israel.

The future of God’s people now rested with the Southern Kingdom of Judah, the Judeans – the Jews. Yes, this is where the word comes from – people from the Kingdom of Judah.

Remembering back to Abraham, and the promises given to him by God, it’s now up to the Jews, rather than the Israelites, to carry the banner of the covenant.

How do all these events square up with the covenants made with Abraham and Moses? As already mentioned, the covenant promises regarding the land were summed up in the Palestinian covenant. This warned God’s people that the punishment for unfaithfulness and disobedience would be exile from the land, but the right to the land will never be taken from them and one day in the future it will be theirs again. What it doesn’t promise is an easy ride and if a large proportion of God’s people, the Israelites from the Northern Kingdom, were to be pruned away, then so be it – at least there is a sizeable remnant, the Jews, left behind to inherit the land, however long this was going to take for a complete fulfilment. Of course, it would now be through the Jews that the other aspects of the covenant with Abraham would be fulfilled, including the future blessing of mankind in the person of the Messiah who is to come. We now turn our attention to the Jews, the people of the Southern Kingdom of Judah.

The Kings of Judah were, on the whole, a better bunch than their Israel counterparts, with a liberal seasoning of good Kings, though the first King, Rehoboam, was weak and managed to lose the treasures of the Temple and the royal palace to an Egyptian invader. This invasion severely weakened the Kingdom and certainly didn’t help them in dealing with the constant friction with the Northern Kingdom of Israel.

Rehoboam’s son, Abijah, was not much of an improvement, but Asa, the next in line, was. Asa was the first good King of Judah. ‘His heart was fully committed to the Lord all his life’, we read in 1 Kings 15:14.

He got rid of the idols that his predecessors had erected and even booted out his grandmother from a position of authority, because of her pagan leanings. His son, Jehosophat, too was a good ‘un. He ‘walked in the way of his father, Asa’. Although he rid the land of the shrine prostitutes, his eyes and ears weren’t everywhere and there were still ‘high places’ in the Kingdom where pagan sacrifices were made. He was succeeded, unfortunately, by a couple of bad Kings, who managed to undo all the good achievements of their predecessors. The first was Jehoram, who sealed his fate by marrying the daughter of the weak King Ahab of Israel and his evil wife Jezebel. The second was Ahaziah, his son, who also married into Ahab’s family and was a close buddy to Joram, the King of Israel. This was a big mistake as when Joram was assassinated, the assassin saw off Ahaziah too, to complete the royal set.

Now here’s a little known fact. One of the Kings of Judah was, in fact, a queen! And a nasty one to boot, which is not surprising as Athaliah was the daughter of Jezebel! Yes, this was the queen mother who, on the death of her son Ahaziah, seized power by massacring the rest of her family, but she overlooked her 6 month old grandson, Joash, who was whisked away and brought up in secrecy. It was the very stuff of fairy tales, particularly as later he was brought out of hiding and took the throne as a seven-year-old, at which point the evil Athaliah was done to death outside the temple walls.

Of course a seven-year-old can’t govern a country, so Joash was aided by Jehoiada the priest. This priest was a real man of God and rededicated the King and the people of Judah to God at a ceremony culminating with the tearing down of the temple of Baal and the killing of the pagan priest. The Lord’s Temple was then repaired, which was a good thing but, unfortunately, once Joash had come of age and outgrown the influence of Jehoiada, he went the way of the wicked. Eventually, to try and forestall God’s judgement, prophets came to Joash, warning of God’s wrath, but he ignored them and went as far as killing one of them, Zechariah, who happened to be Jehoiada’s son.

As a result Judah came under enemy attack and Joash was eventually assassinated by his own officials. There is a continuing theme with God’s treatment of the bad Kings of Judah. Knowing that the Davidic line (i.e. ancestors of David) had to be kept intact both to preserve the Jewish people and to eventually produce the promised Messiah, God refused to turn His back on the people of Judah. We read of this in 2 Kings 8:19: ‘Nevertheless, for the sake of his servant David, the Lord was not willing to destroy Judah. He had promised to maintain a lamp for David and his descendants for ever’. Although there would be many setbacks along the way, the consequences of bad leadership, Judah would never go the way of Israel. It would survive on account of God’s eternal plan for the Jews.

The next three Kings of Judah, Amaziah, Azariah and Jotham blew hot and cold. On the positive side they ‘did what was right in the eyes of the Lord’ (but not as well as David had done) but this was spoiled by the fact that the high places were not removed and unlawful sacrifices continued to be made. For his sins Azariah seemed to have been afflicted with leprosy for much of his reign.

We then arrive at Ahaz, son of Jotham, one of the worst Kings of Judah. It was an understatement to say that ‘he did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord his God’, as he not only offered unlawful sacrifices in high places but also sacrificed his own son to alien gods. This was the time of the Assyrians and their invasion of the Northern Kingdom of Israel was imminent. The King of Israel attempted to get Ahaz to help him in the fight against this common enemy and, when that failed, decided to invade Judah instead. This backfired as Ahaz went to Assyria for help, taking Temple treasures with him to oil the deal and even going as far as defiling the Temple with a pagan altar.

One man spoke out against this desecration and folly, the prophet Isaiah, who lived in Jerusalem at this time. Through him God tried to calm Ahaz down, telling him just to trust in Him and all would be OK. Isaiah even offered a sign, which Ahaz refused. But Isaiah gave it anyway. It was the Sign of Immanuel. These are verses, in Isaiah 7:14, that we read at Christmas time, speaking of the virgin birth, ‘therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: the virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel’.

What’s Ahaz and his problems got to do with the birth of Jesus? Actually, nothing directly. It is all to do with how we read and understand Scripture. Up to now we have been looking at the plain literal sense of Scripture as we build up the story of the Jews in the Old Testament. There seems to be no reason to change our approach here. The problem is that there have been arguments as to exactly what the literal meaning of this passage is! Which baby is being born (from Ahaz or Isaiah) and how do we explain a virgin birth in Old Testament times? There’s no room here to investigate further but it’s worth mentioning that the best fit for this particular verse is if we take it as a prophecy for the coming of Jesus the Messiah. And this is why we quote from it at Christmas time.

As I said, Ahaz did not heed the wise words of Isaiah and Judah became just one of many self administered but subservient Kingdoms to the Assyrian empire, but at least it was never conquered, mainly due to the next King of Judah, Hezekiah. Here was a really good King, one who even destroyed those high places. 2 Kings 18:5 tells us that ‘There was no-one like him among all the kings of Judah, either before him or after him’.

The Assyrians were threatening, confident after their defeat of Israel in Hezekiah’s sixth year. Eight years later they came again and managed to capture many of the cities in Judah. Hezekiah was forced to send them treasure to pacify them and things didn’t look good, but it was not God’s plan for Judah to go the way of Israel, which was just as well because soon the massive Assyrian army was at the gates of Jerusalem.

Hezekiah, being a godly King, consulted Isaiah, who told him not to worry as the Lord was with him. That night, the angel of the Lord killed 185,000 of the Assyrian invaders in their camp. The rest withdrew to Nineveh, their tails firmly between their legs and their King, Sennacherib, was subsequently slaughtered by his sons, a fate predicted by Isaiah! That was the Assyrian threat seen off, but a new threat was on the horizon. Babylon was stirring. The last conversation between Isaiah and Hezekiah concerned a ‘friendly’ visit from some Babylonian envoys. Isaiah warned him with these prophetic words: ‘The time will surely come when everything in your palace, and all that your fathers have stored up until this day, will be carried off to Babylon. Nothing will be left, says the Lord. And some of your descendants, your own flesh and blood who will be born to you, will be taken away, and they will become eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.” (Isaiah 39:6-7). Hezekiah’s response was stoic and a little selfish. “’The word of the Lord you have spoken is good,’ Hezekiah replied. For he thought, ‘There will be peace and security in my lifetime.’” He was a good King, so we’ll forgive him!

It is hard to believe that the most godly King of Judah could have a son who was a complete horror, the most evil King of all. Manasseh was his name and this was his catalogue of shame in his 55 year reign. He rebuilt the high places and erected a variety of altars to pagan gods, even in the Temple itself. He practiced sorcery and divination and was responsible for the shedding of much innocent blood. God declared, in 2 Kings 21:9: ‘Manasseh led them astray so that they did more evil than the nations the Lord had destroyed before the Israelite’. God was angry and judgment was not far off now. He promises, in verse 12 that ‘I am going to bring such disaster on Jerusalem and Judah that the ears of everyone who hears of it will tingle’. The reason for God’s extreme reaction was that Manasseh’s reign was so long that his pagan measures had time to take root, to such an extent that only by completely wiping the slate clean could the Kingdom be rid of them.

Judgement was forestalled again by the actions of a righteous King. This was King Josiah, grandson of the evil Manasseh. One day the High Priest was pottering about in the Temple, in the middle of a rebuilding campaign, when he discovered a book. It was the Book of the Law, probably a copy of the Book of Deuteronomy. It was read out to Josiah, who was shocked to discover how far God’s people had fallen from the standards set out in Scripture and how judgement was imminent. Josiah had to act quickly and had the book read out aloud at a meeting of the great and the good (and the bad) of the land. By doing so, he rededicated his people to God and, in return for this, was told ‘Your eyes will not see all the disaster I am going to bring on this place’ in 2 Kings 22:20.

He then embarked on a thorough campaign to undo the harm that his father and, particularly, his grandfather, had done to the Kingdom. He tore down shrines, Asherah poles and altars and killed pagan priests, mediums and spiritists. Passover was celebrated for the first time since the times of the Judges. Josiah didn’t act alone, he had the counsel of a couple of God’s top prophets. Zephaniah was a real encourager of the King and no doubt had a hand in many of the reforms. Jeremiah was just starting his ministry at this time. He, too, encouraged Josiah in his reforms, but he knew that, however hard the King may try, the heart of the people was not right and there was a big difference between outward observances and inner convictions. Such was the legacy of Manasseh.

In 2 Kings 23:25 we read that ‘Neither before nor after Josiah was there a king like him who turned to the Lord as he did—with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his strength, in accordance with all the Law of Moses’. Yet, in the very next verse, we have the sober reality that judgement was forestalled, not averted. “‘Nevertheless, the Lord did not turn away from the heat of His fierce anger, which burned against Judah because of all that Manasseh had done to provoke Him to anger. So the Lord said, “I will remove Judah also from My presence as I removed Israel, and I will reject Jerusalem, the city I chose, and this temple, about which I said, ‘There shall My Name be.’”

After Josiah came the evil Jehoahaz, who thankfully only lasted three months. He was followed by Jehoiakim, who was little better, followed by a further tongue-twister, Jehoiachin (aka Jeconiah), who also carried on the family traditions! Jeremiah knew that a national calamity was not far off and he spent no little time proclaiming this unpopular message. He had a special word for this latest King and it was no word of comfort! In Jeremiah 22 we read “’As surely as I live’, declares the Lord, ‘even if you, Jehoiachin son of Jehoiakim king of Judah were a signet ring on My right hand, I would still pull you off … Record this man as if childless, a man who will not prosper in his lifetime, for none of his offspring will prosper, none will sit on the throne of David or rule any more in Judah’”.

This is awesome stuff because the Lord, through Jeremiah, declares that no descendant of Jehoiachin (Jeconiah) will sit on the throne of David. Although he’s not the first King to be so cursed, he’s the only one to be mentioned in the genealogy of the Messiah, in Matthew 1! Surely this means that if Jesus is descended from this man then he couldn’t be the promised one, the Christ, because Jeconiah’s line has been cursed? True, but if you look closely at this genealogy in Matthew 1:2-16, you’ll see that it is the genealogy of Joseph, husband of Mary.

Jeconiah was Joseph’s ancestor, but not Jesus’s ancestor if we accept that Joseph was not the father of Jesus. Now we are reminded of that verse we read earlier, Isaiah 7:14: ‘Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: the virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel’.

It’s fun when the Bible makes so much sense and explains itself so elegantly, isn’t it?

It was now over 10 years since the death of the godly Josiah and despite all of his reforms, the ungodly practices had yet again returned big time. Prophets might as well have been banging their heads against brick walls. Jeremiah went as far as proclaiming the sacred Temple as something now cursed by God because of the sins of the people. This put him on trial for blasphemy, but he got off on a technicality – how could someone proven as God’s spokesman be speaking blasphemy?

While all this was happening, the Babylonians came, saw and conquered. Daniel the prophet is quite matter-of-fact about what happened in 605 BC. ‘In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it. And the Lord delivered Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, along with some of the articles from the temple of God. These he carried off to the temple of his god in Babylonia and put in the treasure-house of his god.’ Daniel was one of a group of noblemen carted off to Babylon at that time.

This wasn’t the main event and Jeremiah proclaimed it quite bluntly.

“So Jeremiah the prophet said to all the people of Judah and to all those living in Jerusalem: For twenty-three years—from the thirteenth year of Josiah son of Amon king of Judah until this very day—the word of the Lord has come to me and I have spoken to you again and again, but you have not listened. And though the Lord has sent all His servants the prophets to you again and again, you have not listened or paid any attention. They said, ‘Turn now, each of you, from your evil ways and your evil practices, and you can stay in the land the Lord gave to you and your fathers for ever and ever. Do not follow other gods to serve and worship them; do not provoke Me to anger with what your hands have made. Then I will not harm you.’ ‘But you did not listen to Me,’ declares the Lord, ‘and you have provoked Me with what your hands have made, and you have brought harm to yourselves.’ Therefore the Lord Almighty says this: ‘Because you have not listened to My words, I will summon all the peoples of the north and My servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon,’ declares the Lord, ‘and I will bring them against this land and its inhabitants and against all the surrounding nations. I will completely destroy them and make them an object of horror and scorn, and an everlasting ruin. I will banish from them the sounds of joy and gladness, the voices of bride and bridegroom, the sound of millstones and the light of the lamp. This whole country will become a desolate wasteland, and these nations will serve the king of

Babylon for seventy years’”. (Jeremiah 25:2-11)

So it happened. The Temple and most of Jerusalem was burned down and the people of the city, and indeed the cream of the rest of Judah – priests, craftsmen, the wealthy etc. – were led into exile, mostly to Babylon itself. The other, mostly poorer folk, were left behind to work the vineyards and the fields. Jeremiah, for his pains, was slung into prison.

Exile had arrived.

Chapter Five: First Exile

The difference between this exile of Judah and the earlier exile of Israel is important. Israel was dispersed to a variety of places and, for all intents and purposes, left the story. Judah was largely deported, as a whole, to one place, Babylon. They kept their identity, as Judeans, or Jews and this is demonstrated very ably in the Book of Daniel, which was written totally in a Babylonian context.

The Promised Land was now only sparsely populated, with refugees from elsewhere in the Assyrian empire in the north and poor farmers in the south. Jews were still in the land, but with the smallest population since the heady days of Joshua and the Israelites.

Again we must consider these events in the light of God’s covenants with Abraham and Moses. Again I remind you that the covenant promises regarding the land were summed up in the Palestinian Covenant, warning the Jews that the punishment for unfaithfulness and disobedience would be exile from the land, but that the right to the land would never be taken from them and one day in the future it will be theirs again.

The Israelites of the Northern Kingdom had already been exiled, with no hope of return, but when the Jews of the Southern Kingdom now largely go into exile too, they are reminded that their exile is to be temporary, in fact just 70 years, as we read in Jeremiah 25. Even Isaiah, who had died over a century earlier, spoke of this in Isaiah 48:12-22: “… Leave Babylon, flee from the Babylonians! Announce this with shouts of joy and proclaim it …” The great prophet of the exile was Ezekiel and he too reminded the Jews of a return to the land, but he mysteriously spoke more about another return, one that was far off into the future. More of that later.

It is worth mentioning that, since the Northern Kingdom had disappeared from the scene a couple of centuries earlier, the name Israel is now used to refer to the Jews, who are now mainly languishing in parts of the Babylonian Empire. The Book of Ezekiel, written to the Jews in exile, uses the word ‘Israel’ 158 times and doesn’t mention the word ‘Jews’ once.

From now on the words ‘Israel’ and ‘Jews’ are referring to the same people, lest other groups start to claim the name Israel for themselves.

The Kingdom of Priests were kept intact as a people through all of these upheavals. What happened to the Jews in Babylon was an interesting story. After hundreds of years in their own land they were now strangers in a strange land. It was a huge shock to their system as the land they had left behind was, after all, the land promised to them as their eternal possession by God Himself. It was the land dominated by the awesome and magnificent Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem, the place where God was said to reside, the only place where sacrifices could be made. How were the Jews to worship their God now that the Temple was inaccessible to them? There was only one thing for it, they had to adapt to their new situation – or die. It is important to realise that, in God’s eyes, the people of Israel have been and will always be of much greater importance than the land of Israel. It wasn’t the land that was going to produce the Messiah.

It wasn’t the land that was going to bless the world. The land of Israel never has been and never will be a blessing, unless the people of Israel are living in the land. History bears this out. So our attention now moves to the people of Israel, exiled from the land and living in Babylon.

Now not all Jews were taken into captivity by the Babylonians, they only took the cream of society, leaving behind the dregs. A new community was created, adapting to the lack of a single focus, by meeting in synagogues (a new concept) and yeshivas (places of learning). They lived along the Chebar river (the river of Babylon) and were allowed to farm and build houses for themselves. The head of the community was the Resh Galusa, a man who always had to be a direct descendant of King David. But we know that none of them were part of the messianic blood-line, because that privilege was held by Zerubbabel, who led the exiles back to the Promised Land at the earliest opportunity. This whole exile shouldn’t have been a surprise to them. The prophet Jeremiah had already spoken of it, given the reasons for it and proclaimed when there’d be an end to it.

“This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile …This is what the Lord says: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfil my gracious promise to bring you back to this place.” (Jeremiah 29:4-7,10)

The Jews in Babylonia were sorely tempted. Their exile must have been a wrenching experience but their new home had its ‘plus points’. After all, Babylonia was one of the most ostentatiously rich empires the World has seen and this must have been a strict contrast to the austerity and restrictions back in Judah. Many were won over by these riches and, like the Israelites earlier, disappear from the pages of our story.

Others wept by the River of Babylon. Psalm 137 tells us that there was a faithful remnant who yearned for the ‘good old days’. ‘By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion … How can we sing the songs of the Lord while in a foreign land? If I forget you, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill. May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth if I do not remember you, if I do not consider Jerusalem my highest joy.’ These were God’s people, the faithful remnant who were going to ensure that His covenant would remain intact – after all, if all of the Jews had been assimilated into the Babylonian culture, then that would have been that – no Jews, no Messiah, no Jesus!

Empires come and empires go and the mighty Babylonian empire wasn’t to last long. Within fifty years, Babylon itself had fallen to the Medes and Persians and, at the order of Cyrus in the 6th Century BC, Jewish exiles were allowed back into their Land, along with the captured Temple treasures. Why did he do it? This seemed an odd act from a leader of a mighty Empire. The answer is given in Ezra 1:2-3 and it shows who really is the ‘Boss of history’. It reads, “This is what Cyrus king of Persia says: ‘The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdom of the earth and He has appointed me to build a temple for Him at Jerusalem in Judah. Anyone of His people among you – may his God be with him and let him go up to Jerusalem in Judah and build the temple of the Lord, the God of Israel, the God Who is in Jerusalem’”.

When their time was up in the divine calendar and God made the coast clear for a return to the Promised Land, there were up to a million Jewish exiles in Babylonia. Of these only 42,000 returned – mainly from the tribes of Judah, Benjamin and a number of priests and Levites – just a small percent, the others happy to live their days in exile. A similar situation exists today with the majority of Jews living outside of Israel, mainly in the USA and the Western world. The Babylonian community was to become an important Jewish centre, but we are following that minority who returned to the Promised Land, following the spirit of their ancestors who understood the significance of God’s promises.

The first trickle back to the land was led by Zerubbabel, for the express purpose of rebuilding the Temple in Jerusalem, according to the wishes of Cyrus, already mentioned and confirmed by the word of God through the prophets Haggai and Zechariah. Zerubbabel was chosen specially for this task, as we read in Haggai 2:23 “‘On that day,’ declares the Lord Almighty, ‘I will take you, my servant Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel,’ declares the Lord, ‘and I will make you like my signet ring, for I have chosen you,’ declares the Lord Almighty.” Zechariah confirms the task he has been selected for. ‘The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this temple; his hands will also complete it. Then you will know that the Lord Almighty has sent me to you’ (Zechariah 4:9).

This man was special indeed as Luke 3:27 tells us that he was one of the illustrious ancestors of Jesus, through both Joseph and Mary’s line.

This Second Temple (Solomon’s Temple being the first) was completed in 516 BC and it took twenty years to build. A reason for this late completion date was the opposition to the rebuilding by the Samaritans. They were the majority in the land at the time, wanted to keep it that way and would do anything to keep Jewish observances to a minimum.

Sixty years later Ezra the priest, accompanied by around two thousand other Jews, was sent from Babylonia to Judah. The reason was to whip the Jewish population into shape, religiously speaking, as a decline had set in since the days of Zerubbabel. Ezra seemed to have been given the responsibility of spiritual advisor to the nation and he had a real job on his hands getting the people right with God,

particularly as there had been much intermarriage with the other nations. He instigated a spiritual revival among a people who were in dire need of some “old fashioned religion”. The Kingdom of Priests were reminded of who they were meant to be.

He was helped later by Nehemiah, who was a Jew living in Susa, employed as the cup-bearer to the Persian King of the day. Nehemiah heard that the Jewish community in Jerusalem was in great distress and was given a commission to rebuild the walls of the city. He became governor of the land, a post that he held for 12 years – a marked contrast to his earlier career and an encouragement to us all with talents so hidden that only God can coax them out of us. Nehemiah’s story is told in the Biblical book of his name.

A decade later Nehemiah was recalled to Babylon and, in his absence, the people fell into their old ways – intermarriage, corruption and the like. Malachi was the latest prophet sent by God to warn and chastise His people. He was to be the last prophet of the Old Testament.

We may have reached the end of the Old Testament, but we have certainly not escaped from its influence and reach. As well as the history, poetry and teachings, we must not forget that much of the Old Testament was prophecy. Some of it was fulfilled during Old Testament times, particularly the warnings concerning the exile and the subsequent return from Babylon.

Yet much of it remained unfulfilled. Three major themes dominate this unfulfilled prophecy; the coming of Jesus, the restoration of Israel and the end times.

The first of these to be (partly) fulfilled was when Jesus arrived on the scene some four centuries later. The rest of the prophecies – concerned with Jesus’ second coming, the restoration of Israel and the end times – had many more centuries to wait for before coming to pass.

Of these prophecies the most currently contentious are those regarding the restoration of Israel. Is the modern State of Israel a fulfilment of Biblical prophecy or just a historical oddity and a political embarrassment?

Therefore the way we approach these particular prophecies is crucial to our honest dealings with the Word of God. We are not talking of a few ambiguous prophetic utterances. We are talking of scores of prophecies from the mouths of most of the Old Testament prophets. As a taster of a fuller discussion later in this book, here are a few Biblical references to whet your appetite: Amos 9:14-15, Deuteronomy 30:3-5, Ezekiel 20:34, Ezekiel 34:13, Ezekiel 36:24, Genesis 28:10-15, Isaiah 27:12-13, Isaiah 43:5-6, Jeremiah 23:3-6, Jeremiah 32:36-37, Jeremiah 32:37-41, Zechariah 8:7-8, Amos 9:14-15, Ezekiel 4:3-6, Ezekiel 11:17, Ezekiel 37:10-14, Micah 7:8-11, Jeremiah 32:44, Jeremiah 16:14-15, Isaiah 66:7-8, Jeremiah 31:35-36.

We have now come to the end of our Old Testament review of the Jews in their land, first Canaan at the time of the Exodus, then Israel and Judah, then finally as a remote outpost of the Assyrian, Babylonian and Persian empires. But at no point was this not God’s land. In Leviticus 25:23 we are again reminded, ‘…the land is Mine and you are but aliens and My tenants.’ Even the mighty Cyrus knew this when he stated that God was ‘in Jerusalem’. It is God’s land then, as now, but it is also covenant land and although the tenants may have occasionally been forced to sub-let, everyone who lives in His land does so only by permission from the ‘Author of History’, for His purposes.

ACT TWO

Exile

Chapter Six: Preparing the Land

A decline had set in and, very soon, there were no prophets in the land to bring the Jewish people back to God. God’s voice was seemingly silent for around 450 years, a time that saw the rise of the Ancient Greek civilisation, introducing ideas and concepts that would prove utterly alien and an abomination to the Jewish mind. Alexander the Great conquered them in 331 BC, introducing this new way of life to the Jewish inhabitants. The process was called Hellenisation and was to provide a significant threat to the survival of the Jews as a distinct people. The Kingdom of Priests were confronted with a new enemy and battle lines were drawn.

Have you ever wondered why the New Testament was written in Greek at a time when the country was populated by Jews speaking Hebrew and Aramaic and governed by Latin-speaking Romans? For an answer we have to rejoin our history of Israel at the point when God goes strangely quiet, as far as Scripture is concerned. He seemingly enters into a 450 year slumber, perhaps carefully planning His comeback in the person of Jesus the Messiah.

Empires come and go, some making major changes to the culture of the conquered nations, others making little impact. The Ancient Greeks made a real impact and, in many ways, still influence our current thinking. First they enlightened the World in the areas of philosophy, mathematics and science, with such luminaries as Aristotle, Socrates and Plato, then they conquered it, spreading both their knowledge, but also their culture and language. Alexander the Great was responsible for the latter. Described as probably the greatest military genius of all time, his conquests stretched as far as India in the east and Egypt in the south. In the middle was little old Judea and Samaria, smarting from its third conquest in three turbulent centuries, when passing from Persian to Greek hands after the defeat of the Persian Empire in 331 BC.

Many Jews learned to speak Greek and took on Greek customs. Although there was a degree of coercion, many of them didn’t need to be pushed. After all, Greek philosophy of life basically meant enjoying yourself, having a good time and prancing about naked (in sports arenas). For those that way inclined, it was a welcome release from 2000 years of rules and regulations, but, as we know from our modern experiences, life without rules and regulations is not really a life of freedom. Many took on Greek names and frequented Greek theatres and sports events. These were Hellenised Jews and were as good as lost to the community. The others held fast to their Jewish customs, often to the point of death, including reverence for God and His laws.

All the time, through the whole sweep of history, from Abraham onwards, God was sifting His people. As the family tree of the generations grew and widened, the line of promise, the Messianic blood-line was following the narrower route. Many were discarded on the way – Ishmael, Esau, the Northern Kingdom, those left behind during the exile, those left in Babylon and the Jews who were assimilated into the Greek culture.

But many resisted the lure. For them the law laid down by Moses was God-given and sufficient for them and surely the Messiah King will come forth soon from the illustrious line of David. It wasn’t always easy to hold to these views, particularly under the reign of Antiochus IV Epiphanes. He outlawed the keeping of the Sabbath and the rite of circumcision and many Jews, the first martyrs, died when they protested.

This was a source of amazement for the Greek rulers, more used to seeing conquered people submitting to their ways. These people were actually dying for their beliefs! It was unheard of. Our Kingdom of Priests was living up to its name.

The last straw for those Jews who still clung to their beliefs was in 168 BC. Antiochus’ soldiers brought a statue of Zeus into the Temple in Jerusalem and sacrificed a pig on the altar. This was the ultimate insult to God-fearing Jews and provoked a national stirring, leading to the uprising led by Judas Maccabee.

When the (eventually) victorious Judas and his men entered the Temple in Jerusalem they found it in total disarray and completely defiled by the altar and the idol. They destroyed all that was impure and rededicated the Temple to God. This is commemorated by Jews to this day at Hanukkah, the Festival of Dedication.

These were important historical events because there was a real danger that the Jews would have been assimilated into Greek culture, with the same end result as when the Northern Kingdom of Israel was absorbed into the Assyrian Empire and lost to history, centuries before. God would not allow this to happen, for the sake of His covenant with Abraham, regarding the land being an everlasting possession for His people, the Jews and also for the other covenants, made with David (2 Samuel 7:11-16) and through Jeremiah (Jeremiah 31:31-34), which promised a ‘seed of David’ to be the anointed one, or Messiah.

How could a Jewish Messiah be born (and recognised as such) if all Jews had become assimilated and had swapped synagogues for gymnasia and the Torah for Plato? God had to act and He did so through such people as the Maccabees and the many martyrs who died for their faith at that time. The Jewish people had to prevail, the Messianic line of David had to be preserved, as we read in Jeremiah 23:5-6: “’The days are coming,’ declares the Lord, ‘when I will raise up to David a righteous Branch, a King who will reign wisely and do what is just and right in the land. In his day Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. This is the name by which he will be called: The Lord Our Righteousness’”.

In 161 BC, Judas Maccabee was killed in battle, two years after his brother Eleazar had met an untimely end crushed by an elephant (after spearing it in the stomach from below!), also in battle. From Judas, a family dynasty was created, the Hasmonean dynasty, the name coming from Hashmon, a distant ancestor.

From this time onwards for a hundred years, thanks to a peace treaty forged by another brother, Simon, Judea and Samaria remained more-or-less an independent state, ruled by a convoluted succession of Hasmoneans.

These rulers also generally functioned as High-Priests in an intriguing mixture of the sacred and the secular. Simon was a benevolent ruler, easy on any Jews who had been Hellenised and was held in such high esteem that not only was he the ruler and High Priest, but was also given the role of commander-in chief of the army! Interestingly he was made hereditary High Priest ‘until such time as God speaks to the contrary’. As it was then believed that prophecy had ceased in Israel, this was expected to last forever. As history was soon to show, they were wrong on both counts!

Under the Hasmoneans, Jewish territory expanded from the small state of Judea, roughly equivalent to the territory held by the tribe of Judah, to take in territory after territory under subsequent rulers. Eventually the land also included much that was part of the old Solomon empire, back in the days before the exile. On the religious front, there had always been people, notably the Hassids, who opposed the idea of the Hasmonean rulers also functioning as High Priests. This came to a head around 100 BC with the emergence of the Pharisees, a national religious revivalist movement who, despite their later bad press, were actually a breath of fresh air at the time. In many ways they represented the ancient equivalent of the charismatic revival at the end of the 20th Century. The Pharisees opposed the status quo of the hereditary priesthood but they, in turn, were opposed by another new group, the Sadducees, who were in support of the priesthood. Many battles were fought between these factions in the Sanhedrin, the religious ruling body. It seems that the scene is being firmly set for the events to come in the Gospels, but there are a few more glitches to overcome first.

Things started to get fraught through the actions of the third generation of Hasmoneans. The first of this generation, Aristobulus, called himself King, killed his mother and one brother and threw his other brothers in prison. He was succeeded by one of these brothers, Alexander Jannaeus (a name combining Greek elements with Hebrew), who turned out even worse. Under his rule the Pharisees organised an uprising which he put down by crucifying eight hundred souls, after slaughtering their wives and children before their eyes. Although he was responsible for great expansions of the kingdom he was, unsurprisingly, deeply unpopular with his Jewish subjects. His way of life was more Greek than Hebrew and the thought of a High Priest with so much blood on his hands was too much to bear. Something had to give and it did, with the coming of the Romans in 63 BC.

The Roman general Pompey took Jerusalem that year, slaughtering some 12,000 Jews in the process – a tragic pattern set at the time of the Babylonians, but sadly not to end there, as history will bear evidence. The Romans were on a conquering tour of the Middle East and decided to intervene in a dispute between two Hasmonean brothers, Hyrcanus II and Aristobolus II, who were fighting for control. Rome favoured Hyrcanus over the cunning Aristobolus and so the latter was thrown into jail, while the former was given the throne of Judea.

But there were strings attached, as this brought the whole land under indirect Roman rule, as a province of Syria. A generation later, Roman influence was brought to bear through the selection of a new King for the province, King Herod. Identified as someone who could further Roman influence in the east, the emperor declared Herod the ‘King of the Jews’ and sent him off to conquer the land. After a 3 year campaign, Jerusalem yet again came under siege and, after it was taken, Herod sent his vanquished opponent, the hapless Antigonus, off to Rome to be beheaded.

King Herod reigned for thirty three years and was deeply unpopular. The main reason was his using the title ‘King of the Jews’, which rankled as he was really descended from the Edomites. These were traditional enemies of the Jews, who had been forcibly ‘Judaised’ a couple of generations back. He tried to alleviate this by marrying a Hasmonean princess after divorcing his previous wife, Doris. His new mother-in-law was a battleaxe and forced him to install his brother-in-law, Aristobulus, as High Priest.

Unfortunately, Aristobolus was drowned after high jinks in a swimming pool (serves him right as High Priests were not meant to frolic about!), which had international repercussions, particularly with Cleopatra of Egypt (yes, it was she), who had her eyes on expansion eastwards. She had Herod summoned to her friend Mark Anthony to account for himself, which he did with a large bribe. The purpose for recounting this episode is that this was the point when Herod started to develop a deeply

suspicious nature which became his enduring trademark.

Yet Herod did some good. He brought peace to the northeastern territories and he loved building things. He built, with the help of a thousand burly Levites, a new Temple in Jerusalem to add to the one he built for the Roman emperor in Samaria.

He also built stadiums and theatres, which didn’t make him too popular as they were intended for the forthcoming Greek games. He also gave Roman names to the local regions and towns, some of them in honour of his own family, even though he was to try and murder most of them in time. Herod’s Temple took more than 80 years to be completed and the final trimmings were in place barely 7 years before its destruction! Nevertheless, the Temple was just about operational when it witnessed something significant and unusual in about 7 BC (or in 1 BC for traditionalists). An elderly priest, Zechariah, had a meeting with the angel Gabriel there while on a tour of duty. Subsequently, his wife, Elizabeth was to give birth to a son, John, months later. John the Baptist was to grow up to be very special indeed.

We read of him in Matthew 3:3: “This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah: ‘A voice of one calling in the desert, Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for Him’”. God’s apparent silence was over. After over 400 years since Malachi, the last prophet of the Hebrew Scriptures, we now have a new voice, that of John the Baptist and we move to the world of the Gospels.

King Herod died a madman, one of his last acts being to order the slaughter of all infants in the Bethlehem area, after discovering the presence of a rival ‘King of the Jews’. This, of course, was Jesus, the true King of the Jews, who by now had escaped to Egypt. After Herod’s death, his kingdom was split into three and given to his three sons, none taking the title of King. Herod Antipas became a tetrarch (a minor title) and ruled Galilee, falling foul of John the Baptist in Matthew 14:1-12.

Archelaus became the much more important, politically, ethnarch of Judea, which did him little good as, after a few bad decisions, he was banished to Europe. From this time on Judea was proclaimed a province of the Roman Empire and was governed by a Roman official, a procurator, appointed by the emperor. The fifth such procurator was Pontius Pilate, who governed from 26 AD to 36 AD.

By now the Roman hold on the province was firm. The heart of the country was Judea in the south and Galilee in the north, separated by Samaria, which was inhabited by a people who were not quite kosher, with a religion that tended to ‘mix-and match’ the Judaism of the day, which was not surprising as they were descended from immigrants of the Assyrian Empire.

Jerusalem at that time was a splendid place, the most dazzling sight being that of the Temple. There may have been as many as 250,000 people living there at the time, swelling to the millions during the pilgrim festivals. Local affairs were sorted out by the Sanhedrin but real power was held by the Romans.

All major decisions had to be referred to Rome, including the death sentence of Jesus, which had to be approved by Pilate.

Jesus? So where does he fit into our story?

Chapter Seven: The Fulcrum of History

Jesus of Nazareth changed everything. He was truly the fulcrum of history, especially so for the Jews, not just those living at that time in the Promised Land, but for every Jew who has ever lived. Whatever we believe about him, a study of history is going to show us that Jews in the Christian era have suffered untold misery seemingly through the actions of the relatively small group of Jews living in Jerusalem over the period of a single week at around 34 AD.

What had happened, in the context of our developing story is that our Messianic blood-line, edging its way through history via such giants as Abraham, Jacob and David, had reached its fulfilment. It had survived the Canaanites, the Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks and Romans. God had nurtured this precious seed, as a gardener guarding the well-being of tender young shoots. The clock ticked away as the line drew closer to the end …Matthat … Heli … Mary … before it finally stopped … Jesus.

The people had high expectations of Jesus of Nazareth, Yeshua ben Yosef. He was the one about whom John the Baptist, his cousin, had spoken. He was the Lord, the anointed one, the Messiah. His identity was woven throughout the fabric of the Hebrew Scriptures; he was the promised one of the House of David. You could say that all of the history of Israel up to that point, even the bad stuff, was guided by heavenly strings so that the Messiah could be born into such an environment, at such a time.

God had this in mind when, 2000 years earlier, He had made His covenant with Abraham, promising the possession of the land and also of spiritual benefits to come. For all the subsequent years, God nurtured the Messianic line. If Jewish survival itself was a minor miracle, the preservation of this promised line, as listed in the genealogies in Matthew 1 and Luke 3 was a major one of the highest degree!

So we now reach the Christian age, the New Covenant as prophesised by Jeremiah;

“‘The time is coming’, declares the Lord, ‘when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke My covenant, though I was a husband to them,’ declares the Lord. ‘This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after that time,’ declares the Lord. ‘I will put My law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be My people’” (Jeremiah 31:31-33)

So how does this fit in with our understanding of God’s covenants?

The New Covenant instituted by the Lord Jesus through his sacrifice at the cross, was, as we read, initially with the Jews. This makes us prick up our ears and consider how it relates to the two other covenants we have encountered in the Old Testament, the covenant with Abraham and the covenant with Moses.

The New Covenant replaces the one made with Moses, on account of the Jews breaking that particular covenant.

“But the ministry Jesus has received is as superior to theirs as the covenant of which he is mediator is superior to the old one, and it is founded on better promises. For if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another. But God found fault with the people and said: ‘The time is coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they did not remain faithful to My covenant, and I turned away from them, declares the Lord. This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. I will put My laws in their minds and write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be My people. No longer will a man teach his neighbour, or a man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest. For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.’ By calling this covenant ‘new’, He has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and ageing will soon disappear.” (Hebrews 8:6-13)

We have to be clear what is happening here. The covenant with Moses, made at Sinai, with its 613 laws and instructions, was a conditional covenant, which could be broken and was broken, through the idolatrous and unfaithful behaviour of the Jews towards their God. This was the Mosaic Covenant, replaced by the New Covenant instituted by Jesus.

So the covenant with Moses was no more, but the covenant with Abraham – which, as explained earlier, was unconditional – remained intact. It couldn’t be broken and it wasn’t broken. What this meant is that the coming of Jesus would have no effect on the covenant with Abraham, although his coming did fulfil an aspect of the covenant. After all, Jesus was, without a doubt, the means by which ‘all peoples on earth will be blessed’. But this was just one aspect of the covenant, so what about the others? God’s promises to Abraham concerning the land are still in effect. Jesus’ coming affected this not one jot.

‘The whole land of Canaan, where you are now an alien, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you; and I will be their God’ (Genesis 17:8)

Misunderstandings on this point and the teaching of Jesus on the nature of his Kingdom, lead some to go as far as to imply he said ‘Because I have come to initiate a new Kingdom, this old talk of physical return to the land is now irrelevant’. Mr. Shoots would say that Jesus’ silence on the subject indicated that the land promises given to Abraham are no longer physical promises to the Jewish nation but spiritual promises to Christians. For them, the ‘Promised Land’ now becomes the Kingdom of Heaven.

If you followed this approach then you’d have to concede that Jesus was only interested in subjects that he explicitly taught about. Does this mean that, because Jesus didn’t speak on child sacrifice (a practice totally condemned in the Old Testament), he was in fact saying that this was of no concern to him and it was OK to toss your children onto Moloch’s fiery altar? Common sense tells me that you can’t formulate doctrine out of what is not spoken about!

The reason why Jesus did not speak about the land and God’s promises of it to the Jews is because the New Covenant was to run alongside the one given to Abraham, not instead of it, and so there was nothing new for him to add. The Abrahamic Covenant was a given, a done deal, no arguments needed. Surely this fits the facts best … unless we need to believe that God’s eternal promises to the Jews were torn up

when Jesus appeared on the scene.

Why would people need to believe in this? Because the alternative, for some, is not acceptable. It would imply a future for the Jewish people in the ‘Promised Land’, according to the plans of God.

If Jesus had intended to be radical enough to cancel an ‘eternal’ covenant, he certainly wouldn’t have been silent about it. It would have been a key teaching, expounded in a clear and unambiguous way. There would have been no doubt where he stood on the matter. ‘Verily, listen to me’, he would have said, ‘I have come to tell you that the covenant God made with Abraham has now been fulfilled. He who follows me shall inherit the land …’ But he said nothing of the sort, neither did he allude to it, hint at it, or imply it!

Although Jesus wasn’t too forthcoming, Paul was. In his letter to the Romans he said: ‘Theirs is the adoption as sons; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises’ (Romans 9:4). Who was he writing about? The Jews. And which covenants was he writing about? God’s covenants with the Jews, of course. As far as Paul was concerned, the covenants were still valid, as were, at the time of Paul’s writing, all the other items listed.

It is worth having a quick view of some New Testament Scriptures that Mr. Shoots would use to back up his views. He would look at Matthew 21:33-46, the Parable of the Tenants and quote verse 43: ‘Therefore, I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit’. He would conclude that this shows Jesus rejecting the Jews as a ‘chosen people’. If we carry on reading, to verse 45, we see that Jesus is not talking about the Jews as a people, he is speaking directly to the Jewish leadership, the chief priests and the Pharisees.

In fact, this parable, as with others, speaks to all in positions of authority, reminding them of their responsibilities and the outcome of disobedience. It could equally well speak to us, if we are in positions of leadership.

He would look at Galatians 3:26-29: ‘You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptised into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.’

He would point to this and say that surely there is no difference between Jew and Gentile any more. That’s true, as far as personal salvation is concerned, through the New Covenant of Jesus the Messiah. When it comes to this issue it is true that there are no differences between Jew and Greek – both equally need Jesus as Messiah. Jews have no fast-track to heaven! The context of this verse, in fact the whole book, is that non-Jews as well as Jews can also be saved and that the spiritual blessings of the Abrahamic Covenant are for all to enjoy. If you take this verse as meaning that there is no longer any distinction between Jew and Greek, then you must equally say the same about men and women, or slave and free.

He would look at Hebrews 8:1-6: “The point of what we are saying is this: We do have such a high priest, who sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, and who serves in the sanctuary, the true tabernacle set up by the Lord, not by man. Every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices, and so it was necessary for this one also to have something to offer. If he were on earth, he would not be a priest, for there are already men who offer the gifts prescribed by the law. They serve at a sanctuary that is a copy and shadow of what is in heaven. This is why Moses was warned when he was about to build the tabernacle: ‘See to it that you make everything according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.’ But the ministry Jesus has received is as superior to theirs as the covenant of which he is mediator is superior to the old one, and it is founded on better promises.”

All this does is speak of the superiority of the New Covenant of Jesus over the Old Covenant with Moses. It is not concerned with the Older Covenant with Abraham and so these verses are totally irrelevant to our discussion.

He would not spend too much time on Romans 9-11, which explains exactly what God thinks of the Jewish people in the light of the New Covenant with Jesus. Read it for yourself and spend some time in a reliable commentary on these verses.

Whole books have been written on these three chapters and it is unlikely that Mr. Shoots would have paid them too much attention. More on these chapters a little later.

About a week before his crucifixion, Jesus was approaching Jerusalem and started weeping. He gave his reasons in Luke 19:42, ‘If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace – but now it is hidden from your eyes. The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognise the time of God’s coming to you’.

It was a prophecy about the future, a prophecy that would be fulfilled within the lifetime of many who were listening.

Of course, one could write a library – and many have – about Jesus and his mission, but all we are doing in this study is to examine the effect that his life had on the Jews of his day.

A key to our understanding of this matter is to examine how the nature of the Jews’ relationship with their God had changed since the Babylonian exile. Or, rather, how the ways in which they managed to anger their God had changed.

Prior to the exile, in fact the dominant reason for the exile, was their idolatry, forever prostituting themselves to foreign gods, gods made of stone and fashioned by the corrupting influences of unclean spirits. Since the exile they no longer chased after the gods of their neighbours; the gods of Persia, Greece and Rome had no appeal for them. Our ‘kingdom of priests’ had been cemented together like never before, one people under one God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The problem was not in who

they worshipped, but how they worshipped Him. They had built a hedge around the simple laws that God had given them at Sinai, adding more and more rules and regulations to convert the simple act of following God’s ways from a joy to a burden.

We know this as Pharisaism, which is a little unfair on the Pharisees, who started out as a breath of fresh air and real people of revival and ended up, at the time of Jesus, as no worse than many modern day rule-laden and judgemental clergymen, who can be found lurking in the corridors of churches throughout the World. There’s no doubt that, if Jesus would appear today in the flesh, many church leaders would reject him for similar reasons as the Pharisees of old – it takes great faith and courage to mount a challenge to established religious systems.

Needless to say the life and death and re-life of Jesus was dramatic, in different ways, for those who accepted him and for those who rejected him. The crux of the matter was that many Jews accepted Jesus for who he claimed to be, but the majority didn’t and that particular generation who witnessed the crucifixion, were to reap the whirlwind. Jesus himself warned them of this near to the end of his life.

“When you see Jerusalem being surrounded by armies, you will know that its desolation is near. Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, let those in the city get out, and let those in the country not enter the city. For this is the time of punishment in fulfilment of all that has been written. How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! There will be great distress in the land and wrath against this people. They will fall by the sword and will be taken as prisoners to all the nations. Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.” (Luke 21:20-24)

We now return to history and see how this all panned out …

Pilate was recalled to Rome in 36 AD, the same year that Herod Antipas suffered a heavy defeat in battle, followed by a falling out with the Romans. Next in line for control was Herod Agrippa, made King of Galilee and Judea by the crazy emperor Caligula in Rome.

Meanwhile, in 40 AD, there was trouble a-brewing in western Judea. Some Gentiles had erected an altar in the emperor’s honour, which was torn down by God-fearing Jews. Caligula retaliated by insisting that his statue should be erected in the Temple itself, in Jerusalem – shades of Antiochus Epiphanes! Thanks to an urgent intervention by Agrippa, Caligula relented and was assassinated shortly afterwards by the Roman authorities who couldn’t find a constitutional way of getting rid of such a maniac.

But the whole episode made Jews, particularly the growing band who put their faith in the resurrected Jesus of Nazareth, very nervous indeed. Herod Agrippa was no friend of these people, in fact he was beginning to persecute them. He put James the apostle to death and threw Simon Peter into prison. We read of these things in Acts 12. Herod came to a grisly end though – being eaten by worms (verse 23), after proclaiming himself a god, in the deranged tradition of the Roman emperors.

The King is dead, long live the procurator – yes we were now back to direct rule from Rome. The first was Fadus, who was succeeded in 46 AD by Alexander, a Jew who had abandoned the faith of his fathers. This was the time of a severe famine in the land, which we read of in Acts 11:27-30, with Paul and Barnabas organising relief efforts. In the next few years the Jews were becoming less and less pleased with the Roman occupying army, who cared little for the religious sensibilities of the natives, particularly as, unlike with other conquered people, they stubbornly clung to their God and refused to have anything to do with the Roman deities. A growing band of Jewish rebels, springing from the zealot movement in Jesus’ day, was now roaming the countryside, not averse to an occasional assassination of pro-Roman Jews.

The high priesthood had become heavily compromised and had become the property of a few Sadduceean families and the actions of one of these, Ananias, can be read in Acts 23:1-5, at the trial of Paul before the Sanhedrin.

The Jewish revolt against the Romans began in 66 AD as an aggressive backlash against the latest procurator, the greedy Florus, who raided the Temple treasures. This provoked a Roman response, which included random crucifixion. The final act prior to all out war was the refusal of a priest, Eleazar, to make the daily sacrifice for the emperor’s welfare. The zealots now took the opportunity to march to Jerusalem, forcing the Roman forces to surrender. Rome was stung, but retaliated with massive force and Titus, the son of the emperor attacked the city in 70 AD.

On one dark day in August, on the anniversary of the destruction of the First Temple by the Babylonians, the city was in Roman hands and destroyed. Jews were slaughtered or enslaved and 700 of them were dragged back to Rome as part of the triumphal procession, which included the Temple treasures.

So, sadly and inevitably, the two prophecies that Jesus made over Jerusalem were now fulfilled some 40 years later. The only saving grace was that some did listen to his words. Jewish Christians, mindful of his warning in Luke 21:20 (‘When you see Jerusalem being surrounded by armies, you will know that its desolation is near’), left Jerusalem when they saw the Roman armies approaching, fleeing to Pella on

the east side of the River Jordan.

The ‘Promised Land’ was again purged of most of its Jewish population and this exile was to prove far longer than the exile under the Babylonians. Meanwhile the faith that grew from the teachings, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth spread throughout the Roman Empire, challenging the dominant Greek culture.

So, in 70 AD the Gentile Roman army trampled on Jerusalem, killing 600,000 Jews and exiling most of the rest from the Promised Land. Of course the Jewish followers of Jesus had already left for Pella in the east by then, having heeded the words of the above prophecy.

Why this horrific event happened fetches different answers, depending on the perspective of the speaker but, for a Bible believer, when one considers the sins that led to the 70 year exile to Babylon, hundreds of years earlier, there must have been a serious dislocation between God and His kingdom of priests to warrant an exile that was to last nearly 2000 years.

Chapter Eight: Galut

The Gentile world calls it ‘Diaspora’, though this word has been applied to any situation when large groups of people have moved between nations, for whatever reason. The Jews themselves call it Galut, a term specific to their unique circumstance. It means ‘exile’, a word that itself means ‘enforced removal from one’s native country’.

So the Jews were forcibly removed from their native country, from the Promised Land given to them by God Himself some 2000 years earlier. Who did the ejecting? On the face of it, it was the Romans, driving them into exile for being a thorn in their side, for not laying down in silence and allowing themselves to be conquered like everyone else. But the Romans themselves, just like the Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians and Greeks earlier, were mere instruments in the hand of God, who is so interested in the comings and goings of His people, Israel, that He says, in Deuteronomy 32:8: “When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, when he divided all mankind, he set up boundaries for the peoples according to the number of the sons of Israel.”

Whatever this exactly means, it does indicate the central place occupied by ‘the sons of Israel’ in God’s dealings with mankind. The undeniable fact is that, just as He used the Babylonians earlier to exile the Jews from their land the first time, He was now using the Romans to exile them for a second time. And although the first exile was to last only 70 years, this second exile was to prove far more long-reaching.

How does the Galut fit in with the message of the Bible? Why would God allow this to happen to our kingdom of priests? That’s a big question that needs an answer. Moses offers some clues in the Book of Deuteronomy:

“Just as it pleased the Lord to make you prosper and increase in number, so it will please him to ruin and destroy you. You will be uprooted from the land you are entering to possess. Then the Lord will scatter you among all nations, from one end of the earth to the other. There you will worship other gods—gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known. Among those nations you will find no repose, no resting place for the sole of your foot. There the Lord will give you an anxious mind, eyes weary with longing, and a despairing heart. You will live in constant suspense, filled with dread both night and day, never sure of your life. In the morning you will say, “If only it were evening!” and in the evening, “If only it were morning!” —because of the terror that will fill your hearts and the sights that your eyes will see.” (Deuteronomy 28:63-67)

These words, written over 3500 years ago, send a chill down the spine when we consider the Galut. As mentioned earlier, what could the Jewish people have done to deserve such a judgement? Could this all have been a result of the life of one man, Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus the Messiah? The early Gentile Church seemed to think so.

So you’ve read the Scriptures, you’ve had some insight into God’s mind, what He thought about the Jews. Now for a big contrast, a very big contrast. Let’s get into the mind of the Gentile Christians, from the 2nd Century onwards, when the Church had already started the process of extricating itself from its Jewish roots.

As we enter the Times of the Gentiles, we reach a key point in our story. What was happening to the Jews? Were they now cursed by God and, if so, why? The early Christians were Jewish, but as more and more Gentiles entered the Church, a time came when Jewish Christians were very much in the minority.

Now we come to the crunch. The Jewish (or Hebraic) worldview that had dominated Biblical thought for over 2000 years now gave way to the dominant worldview of the Gentile world, the Greek philosophies of Plato and others. This was to have drastic consequences for the Jewish people.

Many of the early Church Fathers had extensive knowledge of Greek poetry and the writings of the philosophers and, consequently, were heavily influenced by Greek thought patterns. Chief among these was the use of allegory and this led to interpretations of the Bible that was highly symbolic.

Origen, in particular, popularised allegorical interpretations of the Bible, which have influenced Christian understanding right to the modern day. This was not good news for the Jewish people.

Once the Church had moved away from its Jewish origins, the Gentile Church Fathers were keen to show the world how the favours of God had moved from the old flesh-and-blood natural Israel to the spanking new spiritual Israel, the Church. They reasoned that the Jews had had their chance, and failed.

‘Didn’t they bring it on themselves’, they argued. ‘For surely they not only rejected Jesus, their Messiah, but they killed him as well!’

It suited them to ignore a few key points:

◊ It was the Romans who actually killed Jesus. Crucifixion was a Roman instrument of death.

◊ A reading of the Gospels show that it was the Jewish leadership who bear the responsibility for the rejection of Jesus, not the Jews as a whole. ‘But the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and to have Jesus executed.’ (Matthew 27:20)

◊ Jesus had to die for Christianity to exist. There can be no resurrection without a crucifixion. Should we eternally condemn whoever is responsible for this part in God’s plan for mankind?

◊ On the cross Jesus himself forgave the people responsible for his death. (Luke 23:34)

◊ Jesus knew in advance of his death, he spoke of it earlier to his disciples. It was no surprise to him.

It’s a pity that the Church Fathers, of Gentile origin, were unwilling to consider these points. It appears they had their own agenda to follow. These early Christians weren’t an ignorant rabble, they were learned men who were zealous in defending their faith, often to the death. Yet they were blinkered when it came to ‘the Jewish question’. Why was this? There were four reasons.

Firstly, there was a split between Judaism and early Christianity. The key event was the revolt in 132 AD, when the Jewish Christians refused to support their fellow Jews but, instead, fled from Jerusalem. This resulted in great antagonism towards the Christians from the Jews, who were still, at that time, in the majority.

Secondly, the Christians saw the destruction of Jerusalem as ‘proof’ that God had turned His back on the Jews and saw themselves as God’s new ‘chosen people’.

Thirdly, the majority of Jews at that time refused to accept Jesus as Messiah. As a result, some early Christians began to see Jews less as potential converts, but more as enemies of the gospel.

Fourthly, the Church was becoming overwhelmingly Gentile and so the new leaders began to formulate a new theology that accounted for this.

Their conclusions can be summarised thus: God had permanently cut the nation of Israel off as His people as a result of her disobedience and idolatry in the Old Testament, and her rejection and crucifixion of Jesus in the New. The faithful of the Church age became the ‘new Israel’ of God. The Church would now inherit the promises given to national Israel.

In 160 AD Justin Martyr, living in Asia Minor. wrote a piece called ‘Dialogue with the Jew Trypho’ in which he declared that the (Gentile) Church has completely and permanently replaced Israel in the working out of God’s plans and would now inherit all the promises promised to Israel in the Old Testament. 20

But the real villain was a man called Marcion, who gave us Marcionism, the first great assault on the pure faith of the apostles. Here was a man so heavily influenced by the Greek philosopher, Plato, that he was willing to allow these pagan ideas to create a wedge between the Old Testament of the Jews and the New Testament of the Christians.

Plato believed in dualism, a separation between the spiritual and the physical, the former being “good” and the latter “evil” (more of this in my book, How the Church lost The Way…). Marcion took this dualism and applied it to the Bible.

He reasoned that the Old Testament represented the failed religion of the Jews, supplanted by the spiritually-charged New Testament of the Christians. He also rejected the nasty, wrathful, “God” of the Old Testament, in contrast to the forgiving God of the New Testament. In his dualistic thinking, the people (the Jews) and the god (Yahweh) of the Old Testament represented the evil physical world and the people (the Christians) and the God (Jesus) of the New Testament represent the good spiritual world.

To Marcion, Paul was the only apostle worth considering and he chose Luke as the only reliable gospel. But he didn’t leave it there. As the gospel of Luke contains many Scriptures at odds with his dualistic views, he got out his scissors and snipped away. Out went all references to the Old Testament, such as the nativity narratives; in fact out went the first three chapters entirely! So, in his “gospel”, Marcion presented to his followers a Jesus with absolutely no back story!

How on earth did Marcionism survive? It was clearly a case of trying to fit a square pagan peg into a round Biblical hole and, when it didn’t fit, to hack away at the hole with a chisel. Yet survive it did and we are going to see it emerge again and again as we follow our story through the pages of history.

This view has heavily influenced Replacement Theology, a dangerous idea because of the consequences that can flow from it. It has sadly become a breeding ground for much of the anti-Semitism and anti-Israelism that still plagues our Church, though – and it needs to be stressed – not everyone who follows this view is anti-Semitic. Replacement Theology (or Supercessionism) has become (certainly in the UK) the dominant view of the Christian Church on the matter of Israel and the Jewish people. There are two major elements to Replacement Theology:

1. Rejection of a literal reading of certain Bible verses (particularly the Old Testament). The rejecting of obvious meanings of Scripture in order to justify their own positions regarding the ‘true’ meaning of the text.

2. The spiritualising of certain Bible verses (particularly the Old Testament), using such methods as allegory and functional hermeneutics.

This was significant. By extensive use of allegory and symbolism, anyone can make the Bible say anything at all! You can squeeze all sorts of ‘new revelations’ out of Scripture, something that still goes on today.

If the Church is the ‘new Israel’ do the references to Israel in the New Testament obviously refer to the Church? Let’s look at the Bible. Of the 77 times the words Israel or Israelite occur in the New Testament:

◊ In 9 cases they are direct quotations from the Old Testament, so the meaning must be the same. e.g. Matthew 2:6 “‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will be the shepherd of My people Israel.’” (Quoting from Micah 5:2)

◊ In 66 cases they are not Old Testament quotes but clearly do not refer to the Church e.g. Matthew 10:6: ‘Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel’, Romans 11:26: ‘And so all Israel will be saved. …’ Use a concordance or Bible software and see the list for yourself and be convinced.

◊ In only 2 cases (Romans 9:6-9 and Galatians 6:15-16), this interpretation would seem to be an obvious choice, but in both cases Paul is restricting the use of the word Israel to those Jews who had accepted Jesus.

So where did the idea of the Church being the ‘new Israel’ come from? It certainly doesn’t seem to be from a systematic review of the New Testament. The key word is tradition. Just as Jesus constantly argued with the Pharisees over their use of the ‘traditions of the elders’, rather than the Word of God, so we must follow his example and do the same, unless we want to follow Churchianity rather than Christianity, tradition rather than Scripture.

In Acts 1:6, when Jesus was asked, ‘Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?’, this would have been a good opportunity for him to answer, “What exactly do you mean by ‘Israel’ because, you see, I’ve changed the rules”.

But he didn’t, because, for Jesus, Israel was Israel was Israel. Also, one of the claims of these people is that the Church inherits the blessings promised to Israel in the Old Testament.

But what of the curses in the Old Testament? No, we don’t want those, we’ll leave those with the Jews! Examples of this can be shown by looking at earlier editions of the King James Version of the Bible.

The chapter heading in this Bible above Isaiah 59 reads ‘The sins of the Jews’ and the next chapter has the heading ‘Glory of the Church’. Everything that is nice and positive is thus promised to the Church and all the curses are left for the Jews! None of this was in the original Biblical text; it was added by English translators, who had already made up their minds and wanted to tell the World what they thought.

Needless to say, returning to the theme of this book, Mr. Shoots has most assuredly bought into this Replacement Theology in one way or another.

Returning to history, we can trace how Replacement Theology became Christian practice. Although the Jews, by then, were largely living in exile, they were a constant embarrassment to the Church Fathers, who were eager to show the triumph of Christianity over Judaism and Christian over Jew and what better way than to directly attack the very heart of Judaism, the religious practices.

The day of rest and worship changed to the Sunday, the Lord’s Day, in honour of Jesus’ resurrection. Despite the fact that there was no direction from God on this and that Sunday was a pagan Roman day of sun-worship, it was the first step away from the roots and towards the pagan community in which they lived. This, with the later adoption of December 25th as Christmas Day (The Roman day of Saturnalia, a day of orgy and revelry) and Easter (a pagan fertility festival), went totally against the teaching of Jesus who told them to ‘be in the world, but not of the world’.

Then it started to get personal. In the 4th Century AD, lived John called Chrysostom, literally ‘the golden-mouthed’ by his friends and followers on account of his eloquence in promoting modest Christian principles. He was probably the best known preacher of the day. What did he think of the Jews? Here are his words:

‘The synagogue is not only a whorehouse and a theatre; it is also a den of thieves and a

haunt of wild animals … not the cave of a wild animal merely, but of an unclean wild animal … The Jews have no conception of things at all, but living for the lower nature, all agog for the here and now, no better disposed than pigs or goats, they live by the rule of debauchery and inordinate gluttony. Only one thing they understand: to gorge themselves and get drunk’21

Can you believe these words? Chrysostom wasn’t alone in expressing these sentiments, it’s just that his writings have survived longer than those of his contemporaries. You can imagine a small rabble meeting in a darkened room in a sordid part of town and spewing out such views out of ignorance and hatred, but coming from the mouth of the ‘greatest of Christian preachers’, who was renowned for his moral teaching, it is unbelievable! We are now entering a situation that becomes very difficult to understand from a natural standpoint. It would be understandable for this Christian leader to preach his views on the ‘rejection of the Jews’, but then, out of common humanity, also urging forgiveness and understanding.

After all, this is what Jesus taught! But, alas …

Chrysostom continues. ‘As for me, I hate the synagogue … I hate the Jews …’

Now you may think that I have been uncharitable to Chrysostom, because, after all, we only picked on some of his writings, ignoring the rest of his life’s work. Perhaps we can allow him one little lapse, he may have been having a ‘bad hair day’ when he wrote those horrible things … no, certainly not! We can only judge historical figures by the effect they have on the World, and the anti-Semitic writings of Chrysostom, along with many other Church fathers such as Augustine, Tertullian, Origen, Irenaeus, and others, set the tone for treatment of the Jews in subsequent years.

But then there’s another way to see the Galut. Was this exile to be permanent? After all, when the people of the northern nation of Israel were led into captivity by the Assyrians, they disappeared from history – unless you truly believe they re-emerged as Red Indians, Salt Lake Mormons, Rastafarians or Prince Charles!

As my argument went in an earlier chapter, the main purpose for the ‘kingdom of priests’ was to fulfil the plans of God. A ‘separated’ people had to be nurtured, protected and directed so that the Messiah of mankind could appear at a point in history. Jesus of Nazareth had to come to fulfil the prophecies of the Hebrew Scriptures and for this to happen, the blood-line of David had to survive the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Greeks and the Romans. Despite attempts by Herod the Great to kill him before he had a chance to start his ministry (Matthew 2:16), Jesus was born to a people under harsh Roman occupation, but a people intact after centuries of persecution and hardships.

So that should have been that. Jesus had arrived and now we see, just 40 years after his crucifixion, his people had been sent out into exile, into Galut. If the Jews were now a spent force, like a wolf spider male, devoured by the female after mating, then the sensible thing for God was to make this second exile a permanent one. Surely, some say, the Jews were now finished.

The Messiah had come and most of them had rejected him, so they’d had their day and they’d blown it!

But not so. God hadn’t finished with the Jews yet. One reminder is given in Jeremiah 31:35-37:

“This is what the Lord says, he who appoints the sun to shine by day, who decrees the moon and stars to shine by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar—the Lord Almighty is his name: “Only if these decrees vanish from my sight,” declares the Lord, “will the descendants of Israel ever cease to be a nation before me.” This is what the Lord says: “Only if the heavens above can be measured and the foundations of the earth below be searched out will I reject all the descendants of Israel because of all they have done,” declares the Lord.”

So there was still a future for the Jewish people, after their exile from the Promised Land. But it wasn’t the future they would have chosen. It hasn’t been an easy ride.

Witness a typical conversation between a Jew and a Gentile Christian:

Christian: God really loves the Jewish people, you know. It says so in the Scriptures.

Jew: And how does He show this love for us? Tell me, I need to know.

Christian: Well, He has made sure that, despite all that the World has thrown at you for the past 2000 years or so, you are still here. You’ve survived. Isn’t that proof of His love?

Jew: And how does that show His love for us?

Christian: By bringing you through the troubles. Look, you’ve outlived the Romans, the Greeks, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Nazis! You’ve triumphed over all of them.

Jew: Triumph? I see no triumph in the ghetto, in the concentration camp. How is this triumph? We may survive these things, but only to bring us through a new set of troubles? Why can’t we be like other people? To be born, to be left alone in peace and then to die of peaceful old age, just like everyone else.

Christian: But you’re God’s chosen people!

Jew: Chosen for what? For persecution? For hatred? As scapegoats for the World’s problems? If this is what being chosen is all about then you can keep it!

It’s a hard one to answer, but you can appreciate the Jewish position. To be told of God’s love for the Jewish people, then to balance that up against all the evil that has been directed towards these same people, seems to imply a God who is ineffectual and powerless to protect those He claims to love.

What is the nature of this love? It certainly seems to defy the usual definitions. To our eyes it’s not a love of a man for his wife, protecting her from harm with strong arms, providing for her needs from the fruits of his labours. God is not seen to offer each individual Jew these kinds of protections and provisions, otherwise what went wrong in the Holocaust, or during the pogroms or the suicide bombings in modern Israel?

God’s love for the Jewish people is not expressed in this way. In fact individual Jews, unless they have come into a personal covenant relationship with God, are treated no differently from any other individual. Instead we must look at the wider picture, at the Jewish people as a whole.

God deals with nations in very different ways from the way He deals with individuals. When we are told about God’s love for the Jewish people it doesn’t mean that an individual Jew has a higher value in his eyes than a Gentile. That would make a Gentile a second class citizen in God’s eyes and that’s not how He works! A Jew has no direct route to heaven; he has to qualify for the privilege in exactly the same way as a Gentile.

There’s no fast track to paradise for the chosen people!

God’s promises to the Jewish people are exactly what it says on the packaging – God’s promises to the Jewish people, not the Jewish individual. God’s love for the Jewish people promises not individual survival, but national survival. This is an important fact and is key to our understanding of the whole subject.

Let’s look at a few of God’s promises to the Jewish people:

◊ God promises them a life of purpose and destiny. “For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession.” (Deuteronomy 7:6)

◊ God assures them of His love. “The Lord did not set his affection on you and choose

you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But it was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath he swore to your forefathers that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt.“ (Deuteronomy 7:7-8) ‘I have loved you with an everlasting love.’ (Jeremiah 31:3)

◊ God promises them a living relationship with Himself. “If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully follow all his commands that I give you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations on earth. All these blessings will come upon you and accompany you if you obey the Lord your God.” (Deuteronomy 28:1-2)

◊ God promises them national survival beyond all natural expectations. “This is what the Lord says, he who appoints the sun to shine by day, who decrees the moon and stars to shine by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar—the Lord Almighty is his name: “Only if these decrees vanish from my sight,” declares the Lord, “will the descendants of Israel ever cease to be a nation before me.” (Jeremiah 31:35-36)

This is an interesting list, particularly so for a Christian, because we can see many similarities between God’s package of benefits for the Jewish people and those He offers to individual Christians (both Jew and Gentile). To illustrate this, I will repeat the list, but will change the reference verses.

◊ God promises Christians a life of purpose and destiny. “… and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, and has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father—to him be glory and power for ever and ever! Amen! (Revelation 1:5-6)

◊ God assures Christians of His love. “I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.“ (John 17:23)

◊ God promises Christians a living relationship with Him. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9)

◊ God promises Christians survival beyond all natural expectations (i.e. eternal life). “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)

Now this is just an observation, not doctrine. No doubt a theologian could tear it to pieces on closer scrutiny. But this is not the point; it is just an illustration. The real point I am making is this: God’s relationship with the Jewish people is a covenant with the nation as a whole, not with individual Jews. His only deep relationship with individuals is with those people – whether Jew or Gentile – who have entered a covenant with Him as Christians.

This can be further illustrated when we look at the following two verses.

First, when we consider the Jewish nation at the time of King Solomon:

“When your people Israel have been defeated by an enemy because they have sinned against you, and when they turn back to you and confess your name, praying and making supplication to you in this temple, then hear from heaven and forgive the sin of your people Israel and bring them back to the land you gave to their fathers.” (1 Kings 8:33)

Then we compare it with the New Testament verse speaking about the individual Christian:

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9)

You can see the pattern. In the Old Covenant, forgiveness and restitution tends to be applied to the Jewish nation as a whole but in the New Covenant it is with individuals, Jew and Gentile, who have entered a personal relationship with God.

A major point, and one often misunderstood by Christians, is that individual Jews are not treated any differently by God than individual Gentiles. For them personally to know a life of purpose and destiny, a life everlasting and a life filled with love from their Creator, they have to follow the same rules as Gentiles – a personal relationship with the risen Jesus. Jews who have become believers in Jesus already are twice blessed, on account of their personal relationship with God and on account of the national covenant relationship between God and all Jewish people (whether they know it or not).

But history shows us that this relationship between God and the Jewish people does not come without cost. Where there are privileges, there are responsibilities, even when the privileges are not accepted.

Still thinking about theology, a difficult question presents itself. Why were the Jews exiled from the land under the Romans, anyway? Did God reject the Jews, as Replacement Theology says? Let’s just look at some Scriptures and, in true Hebraic style, read them in a plain, literal sense. I will let the Scriptures speak for themselves.

“But you, O Israel, my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, you descendants of Abraham my friend, I took you from the ends of the earth, from its farthest corners I called you. I said, ‘You are My servant; I have chosen you and have not rejected you.” (Isaiah 41:8,9)

‘How can I give you up Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel? … for I am God and not man.’ (Hosea 11:8,9)

‘I have loved you with an everlasting love.’ (Jeremiah 31:3)

‘O descendants of Israel his servant, O sons of Jacob, his chosen ones. He is the Lord our God; His judgments are in all the earth. He remembers His covenant for a thousand generations, the covenant he made with Abraham, the oath He swore to Isaac. He confirmed it to Jacob as a decree, to Israel as an everlasting covenant…’ (1 Chronicles 16:13-17)

‘For the Lord’s portion is His people, Jacob His allotted inheritance.’ (Deuteronomy 32:9)

‘He remembers His covenant forever, the word He commanded, for a thousand generations, the covenant He made with Abraham, the oath He swore to Isaac. He confirmed it to Jacob as a decree, to Israel as an everlasting covenant…’ (Psalm 105:8-10)

‘He has revealed his word to Jacob, His laws and decrees to Israel. He has done this for no other nation.’ (Psalm 147:19,20)

‘The Lord will not reject His people; He will never forsake His inheritance.’ (Psalm 94:14)

‘Remember that at one time you were separated from Messiah, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise… Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow-citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household.’ (Ephesians 2:12 &19)

‘The law, introduced 430 years later, does not set aside the covenant previously established by God and thus do away with the promise. For if the inheritance depends on the law, then it no longer depends on a promise; but God in His grace gave it to Abraham through a promise.’ (Galatians 3:17,18)

‘9-11’ has entered public consciousness as a watershed event in the modern World, when the old certainties crumbled as dramatically as the Twin Towers. Yet there’s another ‘9-11’, mostly ignored by the Church since Bible translators arbitrarily divided up Paul’s letters to the Christian communities of his day. Romans ‘9-11’, the ‘missing chapters’ that bridge the supposed gap between ‘nothing separating us from the love of God’ and ‘offering our bodies as living sacrifices’, is as neglected by pulpit preachers as Isaiah 53 (‘the suffering servant’) is by the Jewish rabbis in orthodox synagogues. It is embarrassing; it doesn’t fit in. It talks of things that simply don’t square up with the carefully constructed arguments of Mr. Shoots. It speaks of the Jews … having a future!

As Paul asserts, in Romans 11:1, ‘I ask then: Did God reject His people? By no means!’ God may be punishing the Jewish people during the exile, or Galut, according to the terms of the covenant with Moses, but he hasn’t abandoned them.

And God provides a stark warning to the Gentile Church.

The Jews, natural Israel, are considered the natural branches of a spiritual Olive Tree. Gentiles are to be considered wild, grafted-in branches.

‘Do not be arrogant, but be afraid. For if God did not spare the natural branches, He will not spare you either.’ (Romans 11:20,21)

Be afraid!

Did they heed this warning? Let’s next return to our historical narrative and find out.

NOTES

20 Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Jew, Trypho, Chapter 135

21 Chrysostom, John, Eight Orations against the Jews, 1,3,4

Chapter Nine: To the Ends of the Earth

The name ‘Palestine’ (or Palastina) was given to the land in 135 AD for one reason and one reason only. It was part of a campaign to strip away any association of the land with the Jewish people. By inventing a name derived from one of the Jews’ bitterest ancient enemies, the Philistines, the Romans succeeded in needling Jewish people right up to the current day. It was as if England was renamed Lesser France on account of the French invasion in 1066. Or the USA being referred to as Navajoland, in memory of the native American tribe. It rankles and it was designed to rankle.

How had it come to this? Well, read on …

Jerusalem had never seen such misery in the thousand years or so since David made it his capital. It was 70 AD and the Romans had brutalised the city and its inhabitants with an army three times the size of that needed to invade Britain years earlier, killing 600,000 Jews in the aftermath. Referring to this in 1868, C.H. Spurgeon said “The destruction of Jerusalem was more terrible than anything that the world has ever witnessed, either before or since” 23. The Temple had been utterly destroyed and so, almost, had Judaism itself. A leading Pharisee, Yochanan Ben Zakkai, just managed to escape in a coffin and set up an academy in Yavneh by the coast. This, subsequently, became the centre for the Jewish community in the land and ensured the future of Rabbinic Judaism, the new form of Judaism adapted to function without the Temple sacrifices.

Jews who were followers of the new Christian faith had already fled Jerusalem for Pella, in response to the prophecy of Jesus in Luke 21:20: ‘When you see Jerusalem being surrounded by armies, you will know that its desolation is near’. After filling in the details with unerring accuracy Jesus uttered the following pronouncement, in verse 24, ‘Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled’. Trample they did – for nearly 1900 years. God’s covenant land was now to be trampled by nations outside of the covenant He made with Abraham. If we remind ourselves, this covenant may have promised the land as an eternal possession to the Jewish people, but it doesn’t give a timetable of events. The Jews now enter an exile, the Galut, that was to last for nearly 1900 years.

The story wasn’t quite over for the Jews in the land, but it was the beginning of the end of their majority status. Some zealots had a famous last stand at Masada in 73 AD, preferring suicide to capture by the Romans and serving as an enduring national symbol of defiance for subsequent generations.

Others escaped the enemy’s clutches and were sufficiently emboldened to organise a second Jewish revolt. They were led by Simon bar Kochba, who was proclaimed Messiah by a leading scholar, Rabbi Akiva, in order to attach an apocryphal element to the struggle. Messianic Jews, believing that the Messiah, Jesus, had already come, found it impossible to follow this man and this cemented the final split between these Christian Jews and their brethren.

This revolt exploded in 132 AD, significantly on the very same day, the 9th of Av, when both the First and the Second Temple had been destroyed! In order to blot out any Jewish associations with the land, the Romans renamed the city of Jerusalem, Aelia Capitolina, forbidding any Jew from living there and the land was given the name Palestine.

It is interesting to note that in virtually every current Bible you can mention, maps showing Israel in Biblical times will invariably include the heading ‘Palestine’, even though this name was unknown until 100 years after the Resurrection.

Scholars are fond of the name ‘Palestine’, perhaps not realising that the very use of the word is a provocation to Jewish people. To them it seems to be an affirmation of Arab claims to the land, giving the mistaken impression that the land has always been Palestinian Arab land, even going back to Biblical times!

Let’s rewind a little. It is 130 AD. Jerusalem was in ruins.

Roman vengeance was thorough and devastating. A story is told of Rabbi Akiva, the spiritual giant of his day.23 One day he travelled to the ruined city with four other rabbis and, when they arrived, the desolate sight that greeted them filled them with such sorrow that they each rent their garments and mourned. As they approached the site of the ruined Temple they saw a fox prowling through what was left of the Holy of Holies. At this sight his four companions wept, but Rabbi Akiva was filled with joy.

“Why are you so happy?” they exclaimed.

“Why do you weep?” was his reply.

“In the holiest of all places, where once only the High Priest was permitted, foxes now roam. Isn’t that enough to make you weep?” they replied.

“And for that very same reason I am joyful”, said Rabbi Akiva. “In the Book of Micah it says ‘Jerusalem will become a heap of rubble, the temple hill a mound overgrown with thickets’. In the Book of Zechariah it says, ‘Once again men and women of ripe old age will sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each with cane in hand because of his age.’ Until the first prophecy came to pass, I may have doubted the truth of the second. Now that the first prophecy has been fulfilled, I can have no doubt at all that the second will also, one day, come true!”

There’s something about this story that speaks volumes about the Jewish spirit and perhaps gives us a key to understanding how God’s kingdom of priests was going to survive in the Galut.

After the second Jewish revolt the centre of Judaism moved to the north, to Galilee, which held the largest concentration of Jews in the country. Gentiles were concentrated on the coastal plain. The next event of historical note was the Christianisation of Europe under Emperor Constantine in the 4th Century and the official beginning of state-sponsored anti-Semitism, on the grounds that the Church had supplanted the Jewish people as ‘God’s chosen’ and therefore the Jews ‘must be utterly rejected by God’, giving the Church the right to ‘carry out God’s will’ in persecuting Jews at every opportunity.

Christianity returned to Palestine with a vengeance, under the banner of the Byzantine Empire. In 326 AD Constantine built the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem on the supposed site of Jesus’ burial and the city became the spiritual capital of the Empire. Missionary work commenced in Galilee, provoking a Jewish revolt in 351 AD and, although this area continued being an important Jewish centre, many churches were built there alongside the synagogues. There were also troubles between Jews and Christians in Samaria. The revolt, already mentioned, led to the destruction of many Jewish settlements there.

The coastal cities, such as Gaza and Ashkelon, with a lower Jewish population, became important commercial centres, exporting, among other things, religious paraphernalia – after all, this was a Holy Land – to the rest of the Christian world.

The southern area of the land, the Negev, became a favourite among the new Christian inhabitants. The deep south was used as a place of exile for misbehaving bishops and the Sinai area was already attracting the interest of pilgrims and religious tourists.

In 614 AD the Persian Empire came to visit, conquering Jerusalem in the usual brutal manner of despotic empires, burning many of the churches that had sprung up there and killing many priests. For the only time in history there were no Jewish deaths – Jews, if you remember, had been largely expelled from the city by the Romans five hundred years earlier.

As Christianity, through Emperor Constantine, had become the state religion, there was now a good living to be made as professional Christians. Overnight the common man found out that whereas yesterday he had been a pagan, indulging in vile practices and worshipping a selection of gods, today he was officially ‘Christian’, whatever that meant, now worshipping only one God (and his mother, Mary).

It didn’t stop the vile practices though and, as no-one was given Bibles to read (that was a privilege left to the clergy), they had no idea what was acceptable behaviour. Mind you no-one seemed to mind how you treated the Jew; in fact the clergy positively encouraged nasty behaviour towards this ‘accursed’ people.

The ‘official version’ of Christianity, though, was, at that time, by and large a trillion miles away from anything written about in the New Testament, and God showed what He thought about this state of affairs by allowing them to sink into the ‘Dark Ages’, a period of intellectual and spiritual darkness in the ‘civilized world’, lasting for centuries. As a further punishment, there was a stirring in the Arabian desert … but more of that later.

It is worth taking a breath and having a glimpse at what a terrible time Jews had during these times and beyond. There are two major factors about the Galut that make it totally unique. Firstly, are the amazing distances to which Jews were dispersed and the contributions they made to the environment where they found themselves. Secondly, is the hatred they found in virtually every community. To illustrate these facts, let’s take a whistle-stop tour through time and place: 24

Central Asia – Heathen Khazars converted to Judaism in 700.

Isfahan (Persia) – Jews forbidden to build houses as high as Muslim neighbours.

Capua (Italy) – A Jew was the director of the mint 1000.

Bulgaria – Jewish slave trading with Christians in 1096.

Peking (China) – Small Jewish trading community here by 1200.

Exeter (England) – Synod forbids Jews to hold public office 1281.

Toledo (Spain) – 12,000 Jews massacred by a mob 1355.

Strasbourg (France) – No Jew allowed in city between 1388-1767.

Goa (India) – Over 100 Jews burned by inquisition.

Moscow (Russia) – Jewish court physician killed for failing to cure nobleman 1490.

Cracow (Poland) – Jews forced into ghetto 1494.

Heidelberg (Germany) – Jew helped finance Austrian wars against Turkey 1680.

Buenos Aires (Argentina) – Over 4000 Jews living in the city 1754.

Green Bay (USA) – Jew opens trading post with Indians 1794.

Leipzig (Germany) – Jews in Prussian Army against Napoleon 1813.

St Petersburg (Russia) – Burning and banning of Jewish books 1837.

Meshed (Persia) – All Jews forcibly converted to Islam 1838.

Suez (Egypt) – Jew loans money to Britain to buy Suez Canal 1876.

Ekron (Palestine) – Bought by German Jew for South Russian Jews 1884.

Baku (Turkey) – 30,000 “Mountain Jews” with own language 1900.

Recife (Brazil) – 1000 Jews establish a colony 1904.

Viet Nam – Ho Chi Minh offers Jews a home in exile 1946.

Good and bad, but mostly bad. The Galut was certainly thorough in its scope and severity. We can see distinct Jewish communities all over the world at different times. Mostly they are on the move, particularly in places – tragically – where their presence had been an offence to the “Christian” church. Expelled from England, France, Spain, Germany and Portugal at various times and always living in a climate of fear and uncertainty, it surely wasn’t a life fitting for a kingdom of priests. There will be more about this life in the next four chapters.

Then, against all odds, expectations and human reason, it began to reverse itself. Jews, who had been wandering the nations for centuries, began to return home to the Promised Land. What started as a trickle became a torrent, leading to the formation of the Nation of Israel in 1948. There was no historical precedent for this; it was something new. God was doing something amazing, yet Bible believers should not be surprised. He spoke of it enough times well in advance in His Scriptures.

In order to appreciate the effect of the Galut we will concentrate on a microcosm of the whole experience, with a geographical snapshot of the Jewish experience in just one place, London^25, to see what we can learn.

The crowning of Richard the Lionheart at Westminster was a time of great rejoicing for the people, but not all of them. The Jews of the country had only been around since 1066, when they came over from France with William the Conqueror, as bankers and financial consultants. But they were always under suspicion, an attitude hardly discouraged by the Church and this situation came to a head at the coronation. The Jews arrived at Westminster bearing gifts but were refused entry and pelted by mobs, fuelled by rumours that the King wanted them exterminated. This resulted in riots, resulting in the death of thirty Jews and the burning of many Jewish homes. This act was to be repeated all over the country, in places such as York, where Jews committed suicide rather than being killed by a blood-thirsty mob. Their crime? Just being Jews.

A hundred years later the situation had reached the point of no return, particularly as the Italians had been lined up to take over the financial affairs of the Kingdom. There was now no more need for Jewish expertise and the King’s protection was removed, resulting in full blown persecution of the Jews, who were blamed for every calamity going.

In 1287, Edward I imprisoned and ransomed 3,000 of them on a charge of doctoring the coinage. The ransom was paid, but it was decided, in 1290, to expel all Jews from England.

By November 1st thousands had fled, mostly to France. They had to pay their own passage and were only allowed to take what they could carry. Some of them were robbed and cast overboard during the voyage by the ships’ captains. England was the first country to kick out the Jews and it was to be an exile that lasted 366 years.

Oliver Cromwell was growing old and well established as the Lord Protector of England, when he felt empowered to invite the Jews back. Although he was deeply religious and positively inclined towards the Jews on account of the Puritan partiality for the Old Testament, it was the politician in him that was the key factor. It was a time of alliances among the European nations, and it was important to know what your enemy was up to. Who better to have on your side than the Jews, true internationalists, with their interests in Spanish and Portuguese trade and influences stretching from Germany to the Dutch East Indies? Who better to bring trade to the country and also to act as spies on his behalf?

In 1655 he summoned the Dutch Rabbi, Manasseh ben Israel, to plead the case for the re-admission of Jews to England. He did so in a document called the Humble Address. In this he felt it was necessary to address the three major accusations made by Christians against the Jews, back in the days when they were living in England. Firstly, the question of usury, the charging of excessive interest on loans. He insisted

that the rate of interest charged was the same as that charged by Christian moneylenders and that their religion had always forbidden them to do otherwise. Secondly, he insisted, in the strongest terms, that Jews did not kill Christian children to make Matzoh bread for Passover. Thirdly, that Jews did not actively proselytise and were not in the business of enticing innocent Christians into Judaism.

This was OK for Cromwell, but not for many of his advisors, who were still holding onto the old prejudices. A committee met in the Council Chamber at Whitehall that December. It consisted of representatives of the army, the law, the trading interests, and sixteen Christian leaders, the majority of whom Cromwell had carefully selected on account of their supposed approval of religious tolerance. The only thing they really agreed on was that the 1290 expulsion of the Jews had been illegal, but they were unwilling to act on this realisation.

So Cromwell convened another meeting with an extra few delegates whom he thought would be more favourable towards the Jews. But the outcome was the same and an air of hostility had soured the proceedings.

So Cromwell played the religious card, saying that as the Bible speaks of their conversion, they need to be in a place where the Gospel is being preached, i.e. England! He then mocked this assembly, accusing them of cowardice, being afraid that the Jewish merchants would take away their livelihood. But it was for nothing, so he vacated the chair and closed the conference. Now it was up to the God of history to intervene.

It was an open secret that there were some Jews already in England. These were the secret Jews, the Marranos (literally “pigs”). These were Spanish and Portuguese Jews who, as a result of the Inquisition, had “converted” to Christianity but continue to practise their Judaism in secret. Forty Marrano families had settled in England and one, Roderigo Lopez, had even become a medical attendant to Elizabeth 1st in 1586.

After the conference had broken down, war broke out with Spain and the Spanish Marranos were now unable to live in England as Spanish citizens, and in 1656, relying upon the decision that the expulsion of 1290 was no longer valid, they openly threw off their disguise and assumed the position of Jews.

Cromwell agreed to this, particularly after a petition was made to him by Manasseh ben Israel and six other prominent Jews, asking whether they can meet openly without fear of molestation and bury their dead in peace.

Interestingly, there is no recorded answer to this petition, as the relevant Council minutes have never been found. What is certain, though, was that they were subsequently confident enough to rent a house to be used as a Synagogue and Jews began to trickle back into England for the first time in nearly 400 years.

History shows us that the Jews who were taken in by England in the 17th Century, protecting them from the hatreds shown towards them in Europe, were to flourish in their new country, becoming bankers, statesmen, even producing a prime minister and confidants to royalty, thus playing a major part in the growth of the British Empire, at the expense of those countries they had left behind.

These Jews who first trickled into England from 1656 onwards were Spanish and Portuguese Jews, Sephardi Jews, who had fled their native lands because of the persecutions initiated by the Inquisition. They had found temporary refuge in Holland, where they made massive contributions to what was the golden age of Dutch commercial enterprise and helped make Amsterdam the richest city in the World at that time.

The site of the first synagogue in England for these Sephardi Jews is commemorated by a blue plaque, in Creechurch lane, on the eastern fringes of the City of London. One day in 1663 Samuel Pepys, the great diaryist, paid them a visit and was greatly perturbed by their exuberance. 26

“… But, Lord! To see the disorder, laughing, sporting, and no attention, but confusion in all their service, more like brutes than people knowing the true God … I never did see so much, or could have imagined there had been any religion in the whole world so absurdly performed as this.”

In fact he had stumbled on a celebration of Simchat Torah, a festival known for its exuberance and one would expect a similar reaction if a modern orthodox Jew had witnessed a modern charismatic Christian worship service!

Very soon the congregation had grown too large for the synagogue and a new one was built in 1701. This was Bevis Marks synagogue, built within the City walls and still functioning today as the oldest synagogue in England. In fact, some of the benches there in current use actually pre-date the original synagogue and are said to be the largest collection of Cromwellian benches in the world. Ladino, the form of Spanish spoken by 15th Century Jews, is also still used in the services! The architect, Joseph Avis, was a Quaker and it is said that he refused to make a profit from building a house of God and returned all profits to the congregation.

This was not the whole story because as well as the Sephardis – the Spanish and Portugese Jews, there were other Jews making their way over from Holland. These were the Ashkenazi Jews – of Dutch, Polish and German descent. They intended to build a synagogue and there was even talk of the possibility that St Paul’s Cathedral, recently rebuilt after the Great Fire of London, was to be offered to the Jews, but that

sufficient funds couldn’t be raised! So they built their own synagogue, the Great Synagogue at Duke’s Place, just further along the old wall from Bevis Marks. This place remained until the Second World War when it became another victim of the Nazi war effort.

So the Jews settled and prospered, building their synagogues and mainly living close to these synagogues. More synagogues were built in the following years and the Jewish community began to spread out through the region as a whole. In 1795 it was estimated that there were around 25,000 Jews in England, with around 75% of these in London.

This was the third and largest wave of Jewish immigration to these shores. The first, numbered in the hundreds, were the financiers accompanying the Norman conquest. The second, in their thousands, following the initiative of Oliver Cromwell, were from Holland and Germany, a people forever on the move around Europe. The third numbered in the tens of thousands, came between 1880 and 1905, fleeing from persecution in the lands to the East, mainly Russia and Poland.

Jewish immigration to the area came to a full stop when, after much pressure from the indigenous population (namely the British Brothers League, an early version of the BNP), parliament passed the Aliens Act in 1905, refusing entry of undesirable aliens to Britain. This of course meant Jews from the east and reduced immigration by 40%. Nevertheless, in the period since 1881, over 100,000 Jews had found refuge in Whitechapel and Spitalfields and a grateful Jewish population commemorated this fact by tossing their pennies into a large coffer and had a monument built to King Edward VII in 1911.

This still stands opposite London Hospital, outside the McDonalds and between the Bangladeshi market stalls.

Now there are under 300,000 Jews in the UK, a number dwindling by the year, mainly due to assimilation. Despite the subtle growth of anti-Semitism, Jews in the UK feel fairly settled. But, then again, so did Jews in Germany in the 1930s, just before the Nazi holocaust. In July 2004, Ariel Sharon, the Israeli Prime Minister, called on French Jews to move to Israel “immediately”, because of the worrying rise of anti-Jewish feeling in France. Only time will tell if the Galut will end with a whimper or a bang.

NOTES

23 From Midrash Rabba Eicha, 5

24 These facts were mainly taken from The Jewish History Atlas, Martin Gilbert

25 The Jewish experience in London is such a fascinating subject for me that I occasionally conduct historical walking tours of the Jewish East End of London. More information is at www.londonjewishtours.com

26 Diary of Samuel Pepys 14th October 1662

Chapter Ten: The Other Brother

Now we need to return to the start of our story, to ponder the fate of the other brother.

They were two half-brothers with very different destinies. The Bible makes it totally clear about this. The first born, Ishmael, would become the father of twelve rulers, who would become a great nation (Genesis 17:20). The second born, Isaac, would inherit the everlasting covenant given to his father, Abraham (Genesis 17:19). This covenant promised him many descendants, the land on which he stood and a legacy of blessing the nations through a future offspring.

The Muslim holy book, the Qur’an, says it differently. Firstly, Abraham (Ibrahim) is distanced from his Jewish roots and Christian heritage:

“Ibrahim was not a Jew nor a Christian but he was (an) upright (man), a Muslim, and he was not one of the polytheists” (Qur’an 3:67 27)

Then the episode of Abraham’s intended sacrifice of his son is left ambiguous as to the identity of the son.

“And when he attained to working with him, he said: O my son! surely I have seen in a dream that I should sacrifice you; consider then what you see. He said: O my father! do what you are commanded; if Allah please, you will find me of the patient ones” (Qur’an 37:102)

Muslims assume this son is Ishmael, the first born, though the Bible explicitly states it is Isaac.

“Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about.” (Genesis 22:2)

Muslims go on to say that Jewish or Christian scribes later doctored the Bible, and that the original son quoted as the favoured son was Ishmael. It’s an important point because the consequence of this testing of Abraham was for this son to be known as the child of promise and inheritor of the blessings. If it’s Isaac, then Isaac’s seed is the blessed seed, otherwise the blessings go to Ishmael’s seed. It’s important because there are implications here concerning who inherits the ‘Promised land’ and whether the faith of Ishmael’s seed (Islam) or Isaac’s seed (Judaism or Christianity, depending on your perspective) is the true faith.

These points only became an issue when a 40 year old Arab called Muhammed had a religious experience and Islam was born, becoming, through conquest, the dominant faith of the Middle East in the 7th Century AD.

In order to get a grasp of current claims on the land by Muslims, it is important that we go back to the beginning, to Muhammed himself, to see what he had to say about the Jews, the land and Jerusalem.

Muhammed’s relationship with the Jews follows a theme that is all too familiar, particularly when we look at the attitudes of various Christian leaders, such as Martin Luther. It starts off with a respect for a people who have stubbornly and faithfully clung to their God despite all the World had to throw at them. It continues with attempts to convert these people to your way of thinking and ends, unsurprisingly with

frustrated anger, leading to persecution, when they don’t dance to your tune.

Muhammed and his followers stayed for ten years in Medina, a place with a thriving Jewish population, who lived in harmony with the Arabs there. One of the first things he did there was strike a covenant with the Jewish inhabitants, promising good relations. He then set out to win them over, as is indicated by the verse in the Qur’an, his holy book. ‘We gave the Book to the Israelites and bestowed on them wisdom and prophethood. We provided them with wholesome things and exalted them above the nation’. 28

Muhammed was an Ishmaelite, meaning that he shared a common ancestor with the Jews. He played on this, trying to gain converts among the Jews but ultimately failed to win them over. Because of this he broke away from them in 624 AD and started to strip away some Jewish elements from his new religion.

The direction of prayer was moved from Jerusalem to Mecca (its original direction before his move to Medina). He broke his covenant with them, justifying his actions in the Qur’an, ‘If you fear treachery from any of your allies, you may fairly retaliate by breaking off your treaty with them. God does not love the treacherous’ 29. As his influence grew in Medina, there subsequently followed a period of persecutions, assassinations and expulsions of the Jews. In AD 627 his followers killed between 600 and 900 Jewish men and divided the women and children amongst themselves.

The Qur’an sets the tone for Muslim attitude toward Jews.

“… And abasement and humiliation were brought down upon them, and they became

deserving of Allah’s wrath; this was so because they disbelieved in the communications of Allah and killed the prophets unjustly; this was so because they disobeyed and exceeded the limits.” (2:61)

“And the Jews say: The hand of Allah is tied up! Their hands shall be shackled and they shall be cursed for what they say. Nay, both His hands are spread out, He expends as He pleases; and what has been revealed to you from your Lord will certainly make many of them increase in inordinacy and unbelief; and We have put enmity and hatred among them till the day of resurrection; whenever they kindle a fire for war Allah puts it out, and they strive to make mischief in the land; and Allah does not love the mischief-makers.” (5:64)

Islam divides the World into two parts. First is the Dar al-Islam (“house of Islam”), the part of the World where Islam holds sway and Islamic law is in effect. The rest of the World is the Dar al-Harb (“house of war”), where all is fair game except the “People of the Book”. As “People of the Book,” Jews were protected under Islamic law in those early days. As dhimmis (protected ones), Christians and Jews were allowed a place in Islamic society, as subordinates to the Muslim conquerors.

Peoples subjected to Muslim rule usually had a choice between death and conversion, but Jews and Christians, who adhered to the Scriptures, were allowed to practise their faith, but in acknowledgement of the superiority of their Muslim masters. They had to pay an annual poll tax and had to live with some stringent regulations. They were forbidden to criticise the Qur’an, Islam or Muhammed, to seek to convert a Muslim or touch a Muslim woman. They couldn’t take public office and couldn’t bear arms. They were not allowed to ride horses or camels, to build synagogues or churches taller than mosques, to construct houses higher than those of Muslims or to drink wine in public. They had to show public deference toward Muslims, always yielding them the centre of the road and were not allowed to give evidence in court against a Muslim.

Dhimmis were also forced to wear distinctive clothing and from the 9th Century this took the form of a yellow star for Jews. As his influence grew in Medina, so the lot of Jews took a familiar turn – it was a similar situation as it had been for Jews under Christian rule, but, in general, Jews were treated better by the Muslims. Although they were able to live in relative peace and thrive culturally and economically, their position was never totally secure, however, and changes in the political or social climate would often lead to persecution, violence and death.

It was never as bad as it had been at the hands of the Christians, but there were some exceptions. There were the massacres and forced conversions in North Africa and Spain in the 12th Century perpetrated by the fanatic sect of the Almohads.

Also, in 1066, a Jewish vizier was assassinated in the Berber kingdom of Granada, Spain, and afterwards the entire Jewish community of 5000 souls was wiped out by the Muslim mob.

The Islamic Empire was to begin to crumble a couple of centuries later, battered by Genghis Khan and his Mongol army in the 13th Century, followed by the Moguls, Ottoman Turks and Almihades among others. It was all but over by the 16th Century. Muslims still held sway in many pockets throughout the Near East and North Africa, but not as part of a great empire.

Muslims identify Jerusalem as the third holiest site of the Islamic faith. We must ask ourselves why that should be as the name Jerusalem does not appear once in the Qur’an (though it appears over 700 times in the Old Testament), neither does it appear in Muslim prayers. The only justification given is the claim that Mohammed himself visited Jerusalem in a dream and, from there, ‘ascended to heaven’. The Qur’an states, ‘Glory be to Him who made His servant go by night from the Sacred Temple to the farther Temple whose surroundings we have blessed, that We might show him some of Our signs. He alone hears all and observes all’. 30

The Sacred Temple refers to Mecca and the farther Temple, supposedly, to Jerusalem. There is confusion regarding this farther Temple, as, at that time, there was no temple, Jewish or Muslim, of any kind in Jerusalem! Some commentators have even said that this farther temple was a mosque elsewhere in Arabia. Others have said that the farther temple is the al-Aqsa Mosque, that can still be seen today in the Old City of Jerusalem. The only problem is that this Mosque was built in the reign of Umar, at some time after 635 AD, but Mohammed had died three years earlier.

A few years after Mohammed’s death the Muslims were in the land, having defeated the Romans at the battle of Yarmouk. They captured Jerusalem from the Byzantines, who had wrenched it back from the Persians nine years earlier. On the Temple mount they built the shrine of the Dome of the Rock in 691 AD, still there today as the city’s most recognisable and controversial feature. The land was now generally named the Holy Land by the Christian world.

Yet it was welcome relief from Byzantine rule as Jews were now allowed back into Jerusalem and, in general, Jewish communities throughout the land were allowed to prosper, particularly in Tiberias in Galilee. Under Muslim rule, Jews were considered as one of the ‘peoples of the Book’ and were given a ‘protected’ status, a much better deal than state Christianity ever gave them! The Muslims used the coastal cities of Tyre, Acre and Caesarea pretty much as their Christian predecessors did, as important centres of commerce with the outside world. Later on in their rule they even populated these towns with Muslims from other parts of their Empire, such as Persia, in order to strengthen their hold. These tended to be soldiers, to fight off constant attack from Byzantine ships from the West. The Negev, of earlier interest for Christian pilgrims, was now a place of interest for Muslim pilgrims, as it was an important route to Islamic holy places.

At this time, Jerusalem had little importance in the Muslim world. The first description of the town under Muslim rule comes from the visiting Bishop Arculf, a Gallic pilgrim, in 680 AD, who reported seeing ‘an oblong house of prayer, which they [the Muslims] pieced together with upright plans and large beams over some ruined remains.’ 31 At no time had Jerusalem ever been a capital city in the Muslim world. In fact, the only time Jerusalem has ever been clothed with importance and significance in the Muslim World is as a response to external events, such as the Crusades and the Jewish regathering (both to be discussed later).

From 750 AD Jerusalem fell into near-obscurity. For the next three and a half centuries, Muslim books praising this city lost favour, no more glorious buildings were built and city walls collapsed. The city declined to the point of becoming a shambles. ‘Learned men are few, and the Christians numerous,’ cried a 10th Century Muslim native of Jerusalem. 32

The great historian S. D. Goitein concludes that, in its first six centuries of Muslim rule, ‘Jerusalem mostly lived the life of an out-of-the-way provincial town, delivered to the exactions of rapacious officials and notables, often also to tribulations at the hands of seditious fellahin [peasants] or nomads.... Jerusalem certainly could not boast of excellence in the sciences of Islam or any other fields.’ 33

Muslim rule in the land had its first major test at the hand of the Crusaders, described as ‘one of the most romantic, chaotic, cruel, passionate, bizarre and dramatic episodes in history.’

This was the 11th Century AD and various ill-advised armies of ‘Christians’ from Europe were led by soldiers and priests to the Holy Land, under the Pope’s instruction. They came to reclaim ‘Christian land’ from the ‘infidel Muslims’, which was a quite ridiculous idea as there is no such thing as “Christian Land”. Of course, Scripture states most clearly that The Holy Land is God’s land, with Jews as the rightful tenants according to the covenant with Abraham.

But nowhere is it ever called ‘Christian land’. This mob of ‘pilgrims’, inflamed by disease, hunger and religious fanaticism, killed all in their path, including other Christians in the lands to the east, whom they mistook for ‘infidels’.

The initial Muslim response to the First Crusade was minimal, but it all changed when Jerusalem was threatened and, in order to drum up support among the Muslim World, the status of this neglected outpost was drastically heightened.

Through books, poems and sacred literature, propaganda was produced, stressing the sanctity of Jerusalem and the urgency of its return to Muslim rule. Suddenly Jerusalem became evermore critical to the Islamic faith, a situation unheard of just a few years earlier!

The First Crusade (1096-1099 AD) was the most successful Crusade and here are the sequence of events leading to this infamous episode.

About 50 years earlier, Turks had invaded the region, converted to Islam and subdued the reigning Arab power. These new invaders were even more aggressive to the Christians than their predecessors, meaning that pilgrimage routes, long protected by the Byzantines and friendly Arab rulers, were closed down and Christians could no longer walk where Jesus had walked. The Byzantine emperor appealed to the West for help and, in 1095 AD, Pope Urban II responded, in a speech delivered at Clermont, in central France. He called for a crusade to save the Christian East from Islam. The Turks, Urban reportedly said, ‘were disemboweling Christians and dumping the bloody viscera on church altars and baptismal fonts. Those who joined this Crusade would have their sins absolved, for God himself desired that Christianity recover Jerusalem’.

On July 15, 1099 AD, after a two-week siege of Jerusalem, the Crusaders broke through. The city’s Muslim rulers surrendered without a fight and, in the three days of celebrations, the conquerors slaughtered nearly every Muslim in the city and burned down a synagogue in which Jews had sought refuge. Contemporary accounts spoke of the blood that flooded the city to the height of the horses’ knees. Having conquered the city, the Crusader leaders started casting greedy eyes over the entire land. Over the next few years they had secured the coastal cities of Caesarea, Haifa and Acre. Baldwin was proclaimed the first King of the ‘Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem’ and his successors built a series of fortresses from the Dead Sea to the Gulf of Aqaba and also captured Ashkelon from the Egyptian Fatimids, who were using the city’s port to conduct raids against the Crusader kingdom.

By the mid-12th Century, the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem controlled the territories of present-day Israel, western Jordan and southern Lebanon. In Jerusalem itself the Dome of the Rock was converted into a Church, the Templum Domini, with architectural changes inside and outside. The Al-Aqsa Mosque, by the Temple mount, was used as a residence, first for the Crusader Kings then the Templar Knights, a holy order later to become an elite fighting force. But this rule wasn’t to last long. The sultan Saladin, who unified Egypt and Syria, attacked the Crusader kingdom from the north in 1187 AD and defeated the army of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem at the Horns of Hattin, west of the Sea of Galilee, and took control of Jerusalem and the whole country.

Crusader rule in Jerusalem had lasted a mere 90 years. This pleased the Crusaders not at all and they made a comeback in 1189 AD in the Third Crusade under Richard the Lion-Heart but never managed to extend further than the coastal regions, a thin strip along the Mediterranean. They signed a treaty with Saladin, which at least granted rights for pilgrims to visit Jerusalem. The city was finally retaken forty years later through the Sixth Crusade, resulting in a 15 year rule.

This was ended by a Mongol invasion from Central Asia, which wreaked havoc in the city, destroying many of the Crusader buildings. In the late 13th Century, a new force arose in Egypt, the Mamluks, fierce slave warriors who invaded the Holy Land, evicting the Mongols and regaining Crusader possessions. The last Crusader outpost, the city of Acre, fell in 1291, putting an end to the European presence in the land. The Mamluks began destroying every Crusader site that fell into their hands and managed to sustain a state that lasted for over 300 years, until 1560 AD. They destroyed all of the fortifications along the coast and much of the population moved to the mountain regions. The coastal plain remained desolate for centuries afterwards, with vegetation growing wild and swamp land a dominant feature.

Jerusalem was generally ignored and used as a place of exile for out-of-favour officials. These people started a building programme and the city began to take on a Muslim appearance though, at this time, the city was unwalled and vulnerable to attack. In fact it was attacked in 1219 and not rebuilt for three centuries. By the end of Mamluk rule there were barely 4,000 people living in Jerusalem. It was just as well that this was one of the more peaceful periods of its history. Yet during these uncertain times, the Jews still maintained a foothold in the Land, particularly in the Galilee. The town of Safed became, by the 15th Century the largest Jewish settlement in the whole country.

In 1517 AD yet another Gentile power came visiting; this time it was the turn of the Ottoman Turks. Although the heads of the Jewish community in Safed were massacred, this didn’t lead to a widespread bloodbath and the occupation was generally a peaceful one. It started well for Jerusalem, with the city walls being rebuilt in 1537, but things went slowly downhill from then onwards. The key administrative centres were Nablus and Gaza, and Jerusalem was left to stagnate.

Reports from pilgrims, diplomats and tourists bore evidence to this. George Sandys in 1611 found that ‘much lies waste; the old buildings (except a few) all ruined, the new contemptible’. Constantin Volney, one of the most scientific of observers, noted in 1784 Jerusalem’s ‘destroyed walls, its debris-filled moat, its city circuit choked with ruins.’ ‘Hapless are the favourites of heaven,’ commented Herman Melville in 1857.

The first couple of centuries of Ottoman rule were reasonably benevolent but, by the 17th Century, corruption had set in, with rulers often living vast distances from their regions of control. Local rulers rose up against the central government and created independent states for themselves, only to be ousted by the government. There were many such conflicts, too many to outline here. The effect of all of this misrule was that the land fell into ruin, with the neglect of agriculture. Yet during this time Safed’s reputation grew, with Jews flocking there from Spain and Portugal. The town in time became a centre for mysticism, specifically Kabbalism. As for their predecessors, Jerusalem was of little importance to the Turks, though the walls were rebuilt and the Dome of the Rock renovated.

The Ottoman Empire began to crumble in the 19th Century, with a rise in the influence of European powers. In the 1840s there was an immigration of the Druze from Lebanon in the north, as a result of French meddling. There was also an immigration of Muslims from Bulgaria and Sudan into the Golan, to the north. There was a lot of European influence in the affairs of Jerusalem, responsible for new religious and government buildings. Protestant Christians also began arriving in increasing numbers. The Ottomans welcomed them all as it all meant extra taxes; money was, after all, their chief interest.

Also many other Arab workers were to migrate to the Holy Land later in the 19th Century. There is a common thread that ties together all of these influxes to the land because another group of people were beginning to return to the land of their forefathers and, more importantly, the land of their covenant with God. These were the Jews. Although they had always had a presence in the Land over the previous 17 centuries, their main concentration had been outside the land, in exile, or Galut. But there were now stirrings in the air and it seemed that the days were now numbered for the ‘times of the Gentiles’.

Meanwhile, the lot of Jews in Muslim countries had hardly improved. Jews in most of North Africa were forced to live in ghettos and in Morocco, which contained the largest Jewish community in the Islamic world, Jews were made to walk barefoot or wear shoes of straw when outside the ghetto. Even Muslim children participated in the degradation of Jews, by throwing stones at them or harassing them in other ways. The frequency of anti-Jewish violence increased, and many Jews were executed on charges of apostasy.

The situation worsened further in the 20th Century, with the troubles in the Middle East as a result of Jews returning to the “Promised land”. There will be more about this in later chapters.

Now that there has been a resurgence in the more militant expression of Islam, accompanied by a frenetic output from Muslim scholars, we can look deeper for further insights into Muslim opinions of Jewish people. One area worthy of consideration is eschatology, their view of the end-times. I am indebted to Tony Pearce, of Light for the Last Days, for the article “Islam & the Second Coming” 34, from which the

following is based.

If you’re surprised that there is such a thing as Muslim eschatology, you’ll be astounded to know that they also believe in the second coming of Jesus. They don’t get this from the Qur’an, but instead from their traditional writings, the Hadiths.

One such Hadith speaks of Jesus going to Jerusalem with a lance in his hand with which he will kill the Antichrist.

“Then he will kill the pigs, break the cross, demolish oratories and churches and kill

Christians except those who believe in him … There will be such security in his time that

lions will lie down with camels, leopards with cattle and wolves with sheep. Youths and boys will play with snakes without harming them or being harmed by them. Then he will tarry on the earth for as long as God wills – perhaps for 40 years. Then he will die and the Muslims will pray over him and bury him.”  35

We see here elements that would be familiar to Christians, but there are subtle differences. The Bible account is changed and given a different meaning to fit in with Islamic thinking. It is not only the accounts which have been changed, but the spirit behind them. A proper understanding of the Biblical prophecies should inspire us to a concern for unbelievers and a desire to see them saved from ‘the wrath to come’ by believing the Gospel of peace and gaining reconciliation with God through the Messiah Jesus. Islamic groups looking for the end of days are motivated in the opposite direction. One such group, Hizb ut Tahrir, has been active in British universities calling on British Muslims to ‘fight Jews and kill them’ in order to hasten the end of days. They also believe that when Jesus comes again, he will kill all the Christians (except those who believe him to be merely God’s servant or messenger rather than the Son of God). There is a Hadith which says that when Jesus returns, ‘even the rocks and trees will say,

‘O Muslim, here is an unbeliever. Kill him!’ Hence Allah will cause all unbelievers to perish.’  36

The Muslims claim that the difference between their account and ours is that we have ‘changed the books’ (i.e. our Bible is not the original message but the Koran is). However, in the Koran, which was written about 600 years after the New Testament, Mohammed actually recommends Muslims to ‘observe the Taurat (Torah) and the Injil (Gospel)’ (5:6-8).

He did not say anything about the books being changed. This was a Muslim doctrine which was introduced much later when contact with Christians showed them that their version of the same stories differed from the original accounts found in the Bible.

There is a hugely influential international gathering of Muslims every year. It is called the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and comprises 56 Islamic states, with the aim of safeguarding the interest and ensuring the progress and well-being of their peoples and those of other Muslims in the world over. The first meeting was on 25th September 1969, where the major aim of the Conference was proclaimed “in absolute priority, with liberating Jerusalem … from Zionist occupation.”

The Jews and Jerusalem have been an abiding focus of the Islamic world ever since. We must ask why. Is this just the usual anti-Semitism? Why is Jerusalem so important? It certainly wasn’t for Mohammed, who never visited there, except allegedly in a dream and who never wrote about it once in the Qur’an. For an answer we must delve again into Islamic end-time theology.

As I said earlier, Muslims too believe that Jesus will return. The bad news is that they have a very different view of Jesus from Christians. The Muslim Jesus is not the Son of God who atoned for our sins through his death, only to rise again in victory over death. Instead they believe he is just a prophet, albeit a lesser one than Muhammed. This Muslim Jesus will return, so they believe, but the scenario is not the

Christian one.

It involves a period of religious turmoil, when a figure called the Mahdi appears, “riding on a white horse”. He will set up his kingdom in Jerusalem (yes, you heard it right – not Mecca or Medina or Cairo) and will be opposed by the Dajil, a Jewish ‘beast’, accompanied by thousands of other Jews, who will be like a rapacious dog, hoping to occupy the City. He will eventually be slain by Isa (Jesus) on his return and the “day of salvation” will be established. This is the official position of Islam on end-times and is all described in the influential Muslim book, “The End Times and the Mahdi”, by Harun Yahya.

This is the real reason why Jerusalem is important to Muslims – it’s not about the past (as there are no foundational Muslim ties to the city), it’s about the future. Jerusalem, in the World’s eyes, has been the stumbling block to peace in Israel, but, despite what the World has been told, it’s not because of any historic Muslim associations with the city, it’s simply because that’s where they believe Islam is finally going to be declared the true faith. One thing is clear – Jerusalem is the big issue in the Middle East; let there be no confusion over this.

Modern Islamic anti-Semitism started in the 1930s, as a result of the rise of Jewish immigration to the “Promised Land”. We now turn our attention to Haj Amin al-Husseini, a typical product of those times. He was a member of one of the two major Arab dynasties in Palestine, the others being the Nashashibis. This other family produced more rulers, giving the World Abdullah and Hussein (of Jordan) and Feisal

(of Iraq). These were the days of European colonialism and Britain and France managed to control most of the Middle-East between them. Haj Amin al-Husseini was appointed the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem by the British in 1921. He was a Muslim extremist and violently opposed Zionism, as the following activities will show us:

◊ On August 1929 he inspired a massacre of Jews praying at the Western Wall, their holiest place in Jerusalem.

◊ During World War II he moved to Germany and became associated with Hitler. He worked on the assumption that, as we both have the same hated enemies (the Jews), we can be friends. If he only knew what Hitler thought of him (a member of a sub-race) and what his fate was to be in the Third Reich!

In the view of al-Husseini and his ilk, all Jews were fundamentally evil, dedicated to the destruction of Islam. This is still the position today with Muslim extremists. The Muslim holy book, the Qur’an did no favours for the Jews, with plenty of verses – some already mentioned – speaking against them. If the Muslims have shown negativity to the Jews then they can honestly claim that they are just following the teachings of the Qu’ran. At least this is a more honest position than those Christians who read hatred against the Jews in their Bible, where it plainly isn’t there to start with! But it’s not all bad news. There are little pockets of hope dotted around that can provide possibilities of what can be in the future. One such story appears in the book, “Israel: The Mystery of Peace”, by Julia Fisher, in the chapter “From Algeria to Jerusalem”.

It is the story of Marcel Rebiai, born into an Algerian Muslim family, but brought up in an orphanage, where he was taught to hate the Jews (as well as the Americans and the French).

After running away from there he became a street child, until he was rescued and taken to Switzerland. He later became a drug addict, until God rescued him and gave him a mission. God called him to Israel and helped birth, ”The Community of Reconciliation”, working to bring Jews and Arabs together in love. Here he speaks of their aims: “We have experienced massive opposition and violent assaults from both Islamic fundamentalists and Jewish Orthodox groups. But this has not stopped us. We also experience lives being changed and reconciliation and hope becoming a reality for our Jewish and Arab friends. This encourages us to fully invest our lives, because we believe according to Isaiah 19:24-25 that the day will come when God will make the two peoples a blessing for the whole world. We are working towards the fulfilment of

this promise.”

So there is hope. Jews and Arabs (those who can trace themselves back far enough) are half-brother nations, Semitic, descendants of Noah’s son, Shem. There’s more to unite them than to divide them. Yet, perhaps, no people in the modern age are so divided. Why should this be? Why indeed? The answer can only be seen in the unseen, in spiritual realms. This idea will be developed later on.

NOTES

27 The Qu’ran quotes are taken from University of Virginia on-line Koran at http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/HolKora.html

28 Qur’an 45:16

29 Qur’an 8:58

30 Qur’an 17:1

31 Peters, F.E. Jerusalem, 195-196

32 Le Strange, Guy Palestine under the Moslems Boston: Houghton Mifflin 1890, 86

33 Goitein, S. D. Al-Kuds, The Encyclopaedia of Islam 2d edition, vol. 5, 329, 322.)

34 You can see this article at http://www.lightforthelastdays.co.uk/view_page.asp?page_id=261&menu_id=228

35 Al Hendy, Kanzol ‘Ummal, Vol. 17-18, Hadiths No. 1014, 994, 808, 1020 et al.

36 Hafiz Ibn Hajar, Fath-ul-Bari Vol. VI, p. 450

Chapter Eleven: The Longest Hatred

A small news item caught my eye as I was first researching this book. It concerned the then Bishop of Durham’s reaction to a small addition to the Church of England’s prayer book at Easter-time. 37 The prayer in question was written as God speaking to His Church, saying “I grafted you into the tree of my chosen Israel and you turned on them with persecution and mass murder. I made you joint heirs with them of my covenants, but you made them scapegoats for your own guilt.”

“This is turning the Church into a scapegoat for anti-Semitism”, he said, adding that he interpreted the prayer as God accusing the Christians of persecution and of inducing an anti-Semitic culling of the Jews.

He said that this prayer made several statements that were “biblically and theologically unjustifiable” and also remarked that the thrust of the prayer has, “never been mainstream Church of England teaching.”

Perhaps he’s right. Perhaps the sentiments of the prayer are going a little too far and it’s all a bit unfair on our State Church. Words mean nothing unless backed with facts, so we must explore these facts ourselves to see whether the Bishop of Durham is justified in his righteous anger.

In a previous chapter we met Rabbi Akiva, who felt real joy and certainty that, just as it said in the Book of Zechariah, one day in the future there would be peace in Jerusalem. He was a man of great faith and was willing to stand up and be counted when it mattered. He was the latest in a long line of Jewish martyrs, who died performing Kiddush HaShem, the highest calling for any Jew. He was tortured and killed by the Romans and it is said that he suffered no pain until the red-hot iron combs they were using to peel the skin from his flesh reached the place on his forehead where his tefillin would rest, and it was then that he screamed “Shema Yisrael, Adonai Elohaynu, Adonai, Echad.” Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one (Deuteronomy 6:4).

Kiddush HaShem, Sanctification of the Name, is to give up one’s life rather than submit to the betrayal of one’s belief in God and abandonment of Judaism for another religion. Akiva died a martyr, a tradition of the Jews way before the Christians came along. It is a sad and tragic fact that Kiddush HaShem has resulted more from Christian persecution than by any other. How on earth can that be?

If anti-Semitism is defined as hatred of the Jews, so how then would we define Christian anti-Semitism. That’s surely an oxymoron, two words that couldn’t possibly inhabit the same sentence, let alone joined together as a phrase! That’s true, which is why we’ll instead be using the phrase “Christian” anti-Semitism. A subtle change, but a necessary one because there is absolutely, definitely nothing Christian about anti-Semitism, yet more anti-Semitic acts have been committed by “Christians” than by any other. Witness the following:

On July 15th, 1099, the First Crusade arrived in Jerusalem and proceeded to slaughter every Jew they could find, many burnt alive in the synagogue. After this monstrous act they went on a procession to church, singing hymns on the way and wading ankle deep in the blood of their victims. Tens of thousands of Jews and Muslims were massacred at the hands of the “Christians”. An eyewitness, William, Archbishop of Tyre, said, “They cut down with the sword every one whom they found in Jerusalem, and spared no one. The victors were covered with blood from head to foot. It was a most affecting sight which filled the heart with holy joy to see the people tread the holy places in the fervor of an excellent devotion.” 38

Needless to say, Kiddush HaShem became commonplace during the Crusades. The Crusaders created the first experience of large numbers of Jews dying for Kiddush HaShem.

Thousands of Jewish women, fearing rape and violation, chose to die for Kiddush HaShem. They died as martyrs to the very same God that their persecutors claimed to worship. It was an unbelievable tragedy and, human sensibilities aside, can you imagine what this did to the heart of God?

Is it not surprising that Jews through the ages, witnessing these and other acts by “Christians” have said, “If this is Christianity then you can keep it!” We must turn the remark into a question and ask, “Is this Christianity and, if so, what went wrong because it’s surely not the faith in a risen Jesus Christ?” So what went wrong?

What went wrong was that the early Gentile Church made a decision, based on a questionable interpretation of the Bible, that the Jews were no longer God’s chosen people and certainly not a kingdom of priests. They took it further by declaring that not only had the Jews lost their privileged position, but that they were eternally cursed by a fickle God, for whom love had now turned to hate. Now this was not the God who had said, ‘I have loved you with an everlasting love’ (Jeremiah 31:3), it was not the God of the Bible, but it was a convenient “man-made” God of the “Christians”, who were looking for justifications for their acts of hatred, greed and depravity.

In the Christian world, Jews found themselves driven towards one profession – the world of finance. Christian society at that time was run by the feudal system, with the nobles, who did the fighting, the priests, who did the praying and the serfs, who did the work! There was a vacancy for a “middle class”, for merchants, traders and money-lenders and the Jews fit the bill perfectly. It was ironic that the feudal system, that stifled so many in its all-embracing grip, gave such freedom of movement to the Jews.

Money-lending became the profession that most characterized the Jews of the day and it was all because of their own book, the Bible. You see, Christians of the day felt that the Bible forbade them to lend money to each other with interest, yet there was a growing need for credit in the expanding markets of the day, so someone had to lend the money and take the risks. Enter the Jews.

For some reason the Church paid special attention to the fifth book of the Torah, concerning money-lending. “Do not charge your brother interest, whether on money or food or anything else that may earn interest. You may charge a foreigner interest, but not a brother Israelite, so that the Lord your God may bless you in everything you put your hand to in the land you are entering to possess.” (Deuteronomy 23:19-20)

Suddenly the Christians were Israelites, already! Ignoring the large bulk of the 613 laws that made up the Torah, they focused on this one, reasoning that as they were now Israelites, that made them foreigners to the former Israelites – the Jews. So it was OK for Jews to lend money to Christians, who knew very well that, when push came to shove, they could always refuse to repay the loans, as the Jews were not exactly in a position to enforce any agreements made!

An example of their precarious existence was an edict by Henry III of England in 1253. In it he declared that “no Jew [should] remain in England unless he do the king service, and that from the hour of birth every Jew, whether male or female, serve us in some way.” 39 The same edict severely limited everyday Jewish life. Identifying badges had to be worn in public and Jews could no longer live in towns unless granted special licences by the King. Nor, in the future, could they eat or buy meat during the Lenten season. Henry also ordered that Jews worshipping in their synagogues had to “subdue their voices in performing their ritual offices, that Christians may not hear them.”

But there was worse, far worse. Although the Popes of the day tended to protect the Jews, the Church in general was no friend of the Jew. One reason was fear. Having labeled the Jews as children of the devil, their very survival was an affront to the Church, implying that the devil was gaining ground in the “war against the saints”.

Why didn’t God just destroy them, to show His power? Well, He was committed to their survival, not their annihilation and it’s now clear, looking back with hindsight, to see on whose side the devil was in this particular conflict. While the Jewish “idolaters” were quietly studying the word of God in drab yeshivas in Palestine and Jewish academic centres in the Galut, “Christians” were either arguing among themselves and corrupting themselves and their religion with the most unbiblical practices from the pagan world, or they were kept in ignorance of the true word of God by the Church.

Reading and writing were just for those being groomed in the Church. The vast majority of citizens had never read a Bible for themselves in their life – indeed no Bibles were available in the languages of the common man anyway. So all theology and expressions of Christianity came from whatever the Church of the day wanted them to believe, for purposes that were more about power and greed rather than a desire to

educate people on the liberating teachings of the Bible. During the “Dark Ages” – the period between the 5th and the 12th Century – the light of God’s revelations through His word, the Bible, was well and truly dimmed, except in isolated monastic communities. It was a time when “Christianity” ruled and the reason for its darkness was that Christianity is not a religion of rule and conquest, so what actually ruled was a corruption of Jesus’ teachings.

Do you not think that if this really was a society ruled by the teachings of Jesus that it would have been the “Light Ages”, a period of peace, learning and tolerance? It was the complete opposite! All kinds of strange teachings – littered with superstitions and paganism – filtered to the people from the established Church and much of it concerned the Jews, the hated “Christ killers”. Here are some of the worst examples.

The Jews were accused of causing the Black Death, the plague that swept through Europe, killing over half the population in the mid 14th Century. Apparently they did so by poisoning wells. The ‘justification’ for this is that fewer Jews died from this plague than “Christians”, though the real reason was that the Jews were simply following the sensible health and sanitation guidelines in the Bible and other Jewish writings, which the “Christians” couldn’t possibly do as the few of them who could actually read would have been totally unfamiliar with the Bible. These accusations resulted in about 350 separate massacres of Jews during the plague years, with well over 20,000 murdered.

It gets worse with an accusation born of sheer hatred and sustained by blind ignorance. It was the blood-libels. Jews were again and again accused of murdering Christian children and using their blood to make Passover Matzah bread. These accusations were usually at Easter-time and were usually accompanied by massacres of Jewish populations. The first such accusation was in 1144 in Norwich, England. There, Jews

were charged with kidnapping a Christian child, tying him to a cross, killing him and then draining his body of blood. The baby was canonized as St William of Norwich – no doubt his short life had been extremely virtuous.

“Christian” Europe followed this lead. In 1171, thirty eight Jews in France were burned to death for the (false) charge of throwing a Christian child into a river. In 1255, eighteen Jews were tortured and hanged in England for allegedly murdering an eight year old boy and using his blood for religious rites. In 1285, one hundred and eighty Jews were burned in Munich, purely on a rumour that they bled a child to death in the synagogue. In 1475, at Trent, Italy, almost all the Jews of the city were tortured and burned after a rumour started to spread that they had murdered a boy named Simon.

The irony of this whole accusation is that Jews to this day are prohibited by Jewish law to consume any blood whatsoever yet the Church had, by the 14th Century, adopted the doctrine of transubstantiation, which says that, when the priest says mass (Holy communion), the wafer and wine mystically change into the body and blood of Jesus. In effect, Christians were themselves drinking the blood and eating the flesh of Jesus himself, according to their beliefs!

Having concocted this doctrine they then exercised their imaginations to find new ways of persecuting Jews and came up with an extreme nastiness. It was called host-nailing or the desecration of the host. A rumour spread that once the Jews found out that the wafer (host) became the actual “body of Christ” they began stealing the wafers and drove nails into them, so as to crucify Jesus again and again. They were also accused of trampling on it and even urinating on it! Medieval documents tell stories describing how a Jew (usually called Abraham) would steal a wafer from a church, stick a knife in it, and blood would start pouring out. He would then cut it up into pieces and send it to different Jews who would continue to torture it.

To you and I it seems like a sick joke, but to the Jews of the day it just meant further slaughter. It started in 1243, when Jews were burned at the stake in Belitz Germany, for host-nailing.

Then, in Nuremberg, in 1298, 628 Jews were killed for the same offence. In 1370, in Brussels, hundreds of Jews were tortured and mutilated for this alleged offence. In 1095, Pope Urban II called for Christians throughout Western Europe to travel to the “Holy Land” to rescue the holy places from the Muslims. The result was the First Crusade, the first installment of eight expeditions that sent thousands of innocent people to an early grave, but achieved little for its organisers and did nothing for the cause of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

You have already read what these Crusaders did to the Jews (and Muslims) of Jerusalem, but this was just a climax to a bloody and cursed expedition. They felt that it was their sacred duty to kill some “Christ-killers” before they left for the Holy Land, so Peter the Hermit and his untrained peasant army killed hundreds of Jews in the Rhineland before leaving for the First Crusade. At about the same time, another crusader, Count Emich of Leiningen, systematically attacked the Jewish communities in the German cities. On May 3rd 1096 the Jews of Speyer, in the Rhineland, were massacred by French and German Crusaders. In Worms, Jews hiding from the Crusaders in the Bishop’s palace were mercilessly hunted and eventually committed suicide (Kiddush HaShem) rather than being put to death by the “Christians”. Near Mainz 1014 Jews, including children, were slaughtered.

Emich believed that slaughtering the infidels who lived amongst Christians was a primary religious duty. He gave the Jews two options: baptism or death. While some submitted to baptism, most Jews chose Kiddush HaShem. Emich and his men killed thousands of Jewish men, women and children and all traces of Jewish culture in these cities, the synagogues, the Torah and the Talmud scrolls, were completely destroyed.

The outcome was that at least 10,000 Jews of an estimated population of about 20,000-30,000 were murdered in 1096 as the first Crusade got started.

European nations in turn decided that the best way to deal with the “Jewish problem” was to get rid of them and let someone else deal with them. So, during these years Jews found themselves ping-ponged across Europe. They were expelled from England in 1290, from France in 1306, from Germany in the 1350s, from Spain in 1492, from Portugal in 1496 and from the Papal States in 1569.

As a result of these mass expulsions, the centres of Jewish life shifted from Western Europe and Germany to Turkey and then to Poland and Russia.

But where they were needed, Jews were tolerated. Living as they did at the margins of society, Jews performed economic functions that were vital to trade and commerce. Where they were permitted to participate in the larger society, Jews thrived.

During the Middle Ages in Spain, before their expulsion in 1492, Jewish philosophers, physicians, poets, and writers were among the leaders of a rich cultural and intellectual life shared with Muslims and Christians.

For centuries, individual Christians and Jews had engaged in debates over the truths and merits of their respective religions. The more or less amiable tenor and informal setting of these encounters changed in 1239 when Church leaders began staging public “disputations.” Taking place before large audiences, often with Kings and popes in attendance, they featured Jewish scholars forced to defend Judaism’s holy books against claims made by Christians.

Many of the Catholic debaters – supposedly well-versed in Torah and Talmud – were converted Jews. Moreover, the Christian establishment set the ground rules: by definition, Christian theology would always be upheld as the ultimate revealed truth.

On January 7, 1413, the apostate Jew known as Geronimo de Santa Fe challenged leading Jewish scholars in Spain to disprove that specific Biblical and Talmudic passages pointed to Jesus as the true Messiah. Outside the church where the “debate” took place, frenzied mobs demonstrated their hatred of Jews, the people whom they believed had murdered Jesus. Inside, the Jewish debaters attempted to point out how

Geronimo had misinterpreted the cited passages, but Church officials frequently silenced them. As in all forced debates, the Tortosa Disputation’s outcome was never in doubt: Judaism’s defenders could never be declared the victors, however good their arguments were.

As an option to death or banishment, a Jew could always “convert” to Christianity. Unlike in the early Church, when the transition was relatively painless and straightforward, in fifteenth-century Spain it was a different story. These converts were known as Conversos or Marranos (“swine”). It didn’t really matter how deep their new Christian convictions were, they were still hated on account of their racial origins.

Here are examples of the formal declarations these Marranos had to make:

“I do here and now renounce every rite and observance of the Jewish religion, detesting all its most solemn ceremonies and tenets that in former days I kept and held … I renounce the whole worship of the Hebrews, circumcision, all its legalisms, unleavened bread, Passover, the sacrificing of lambs, the feast of Weeks, Jubilees, Trumpets, Atonement, Tabernacles, and all other Hebrew feasts, their sacrifices, prayers ….. in one word, I renounce absolutely everything Jewish …” 40

“No-one escapes the Spanish Inquisition!” was the catchphrase of a particularly surreal Monty Python sketch on television. This was no joke, because no-one did escape the Spanish Inquisition; no-one escaped from the Grand Inquisitor, Tomas de Torquemada.

Set up to stamp out “heresies” in general, the Inquisition came down heavily, not so much on the Jewish population in general, but on the Marranos, the Jewish Christians. It was said that “the Devil never devised a more effective instrument of Jewish scorn and hatred of the name of Christ than the Inquisition.” The mildest penalty imposed on Marranos was the seizure of their property, followed by the public humiliation of being paraded through the streets wearing a yellow shirt emblazoned with crosses that came only to the waist, leaving the lower body uncovered. They were then flogged at the church door.

A sliding scale of punishments continued up to burning at the stake, performed as a public spectacle called an auto-da-fé (“act of faith”). If the condemned recanted and kissed the cross, they were mercifully strangled before the fire was set. If they recanted they were burned with a quick-burning seasoned wood, but if they refused to kiss the cross they were burned with slow-burning green wood.

In 1490 there was a show-trial, the LaGuardia trial. This involved eight Jews and Marranos, who were accused of having crucified a Christian child. No victim was ever identified and no body was ever found, yet all eight were convicted, on the strength of their confessions which were obtained through torture. They were burned at the stake.

So, given the unspeakable historical track record of the Church in the treatment of Jews, it is no wonder that the Jewish people, on the whole, reject Christianity unreservedly. Yet, the actions of these “Christians” had little, or nothing to do with the words of Jesus. In looking at their motives one must consider such things as pride, hate, jealousy, greed, ignorance and just about every other base emotion known to man. But, above all, it is the curse of the anti-Semitism virus, whatever its cause, that has infected the hearts and minds of people, encouraging them in their actions, just as a cold virus

inevitably produces sore throats and runny noses.

But wait, I can hear the sound of hoof-beats in the distance. Is it the cavalry, coming to rescue the Jews from the madness that surrounds them? The World is changing. A new movement, the Reformation, sweeps through Europe, promising liberation from the ignorance and tyranny of the Catholic Church. The key figure in this movement is Martin Luther, the founder of the Lutheran Church.

Luther makes a bold proclamation. “Let’s start reading our Bibles”, he says. (The cavalry approaches nearer, salvation is surely close at hand?). He reads his Bible and discovers that Jesus was Jewish. He writes a pamphlet, That Jesus Christ was born a Jew (1523), which affirms the Jewish descent of Jesus. (The horses are so close now …) He denounces the wickedness of Popes and priests in their attitude to Jews (even closer, I can see the whites of their eyes …) He advocates a loving attitude to them, to win them to Christianity. But …

Twenty years later. He was near the end of his life. He’d achieved much, founded a Church, helped found a major religious movement.

But very few Jews had converted to Christianity!

Martin Luther’s love turned to hate. He changed his attitude towards Jews (the cavalry has long since disbanded and gone home). He became hostile to them and issued a new set of pamphlets, one of them titled On the Jews and their Lies (1543). Within these writings we can read words he used to describe these people he once wrote so favourably about:

“venomous … thieves … disgusting vermin … a pestilence and misfortune for our country … children of the devil.”

He proposed the following remedies:

1. Set fire to their synagogues.

2. Homes should be broken down and destroyed.

3. Deprive them of their sacred books.

4. Rabbis should be forbidden to teach.

5. Passport and travelling privileges should be withdrawn.

6. Stop them from money lending (although it was the only ‘acceptable’ trade for them).

7. Give them hard physical labour.

His conclusion was this: “To sum up, dear princes and nobles who have Jews in your domains, if this advice of mine does not suit you, then find a better one so that you may all be free of this insufferable devilish burden – The Jews.” 41

“Find a better one?”

These were prophetic words indeed, particularly when we consider the legacy of this German preacher. In “Mein Kampf”, a book that needs no introduction, we read that Luther was one of Hitler’s heroes. These words were finally renounced by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, but not until 1994.

As the Protestant reformation took hold, the position of Jews in Europe was unchanged. They remained subject to occasional massacres, such as those that occurred during wars between Eastern Orthodox Ukrainians and Roman Catholic Poles in the mid-17th Century, which rivaled the worst massacres of Jews in the Middle Ages. Periodic persecutions of Jews continued until the late 18th Century, as history moved into the “Age of Reason”, when the power of the Church loosened its hold on the people of Europe.

Yet anti-Semitism still continued in a different form. As reason took over from faith, Jews were not so much blamed as “Christ-killers”, as for Christianity itself and, ironically, the injustices and cruelty committed by followers of “religion”.

Some of the most prominent figures, such as Voltaire, ridiculed the Jews as a group alienated from society who practiced a primitive and superstitious religion.

Until the French Revolution of 1789, Jews in Europe were still viewed as outsiders with few civil rights. They were taxed as a community, not as individuals and were forced to continue to rely on their own communities, which were strengthened as a result. The French Revolution, with its promise of liberty, equality, and fraternity, changed this and the rights of citizenship were extended to Jews, as long as they were willing to be treated as individuals rather than a community.

The individual was king and the slogan emphasised this: “To the Jews as individuals everything, to the Jews as a people, nothing.”

This emancipation resulted in another transformation of anti-Semitism. With the emergence of nationalism as the defining factor in European society in the 19th Century, anti-Semitism acquired a racial rather than a religious character and Jews, with their differences, were regarded as aliens in society. Dodgy scientific theories asserting that the Jews were inferior to the so-called Aryan “races” gave anti-Semitism new ‘scientific’ respectability and popular support, especially in countries where Jews could be made scapegoats for existing social or political grievances. In this new climate, anti-Semitism became a powerful political tool, as politicians were quick to discover. In both Germany and Austria in the late 19th Century, anti-Semitism became an organised movement with its own political parties.

The Russian Empire had restricted Jews to western regions known as the Pale of Settlement. In 1882, new laws, drafted after widespread anti-Jewish riots, or pogroms, had broken out in the Russian Pale the previous year, stripped Jews of their rural landholdings and restricted them to the towns and cities within the Pale. These measures, which crippled many Jews’ activities as rural traders and artisans, spurred the emigration of more than a million Jews to the United States, England and other places over the next four decades.

In France the Dreyfus Affair became a focal point for anti- Semitism. In 1894 Alfred Dreyfus, a highly placed Jewish army officer, was falsely accused of treason. His final vindication twelve years later was hampered by the French military and the bitterly anti-Semitic French press.

So anti-Semitism, a virus of hatred that had developed from within the Church, was able to adapt with the times. One good thing is that the Church has finally seen the error of its ways. Even the Catholic Church, the main villain of the piece, have finally admitted their error, officially announcing at Vatican Council II in 1965 that the Jews “should not be presented as rejected by God or accursed” Historically, when you look at Church history, as we have done, from the early Church right through to Martin Luther and what was known as the Reformation, one important fact sticks out – the common person was never given a Bible to read! Bible reading and interpretation was in the hands of the leaders and teachers, who had their own agendas to fulfil and used the Bible to justify their own vices, be it lust for money, power, or just

good old-fashioned lust!

As soon as the Bible was put in the hands of the masses, people read it and, at the very least, saw no basis for anti-Semitism and at best saw many justifications for a positive attitude towards their Jewish brethren. And this is still the case. Christians today are better informed than “Christians” of yesteryear. Anyone who reads the Bible would have no excuse for reading anti-Semitism into it, unless their judgement is clouded by their own agendas.

So, given what you have read in this chapter, do you blame the modern Jew for resisting the claims of Jesus Christ? What Jew would want to follow such a religion that claims that his ancestors killed its founder and then refuses to forgive or forget? What Jew would want to follow a religion that has, over the last ten centuries, insulted him, persecuted him and slaughtered him on a whim? It doesn’t make sense, given that track record, does it? We need to understand the inbred distrust that Jewish people have and why, for instance, the blessed name of Jesus Christ has been such a curse for the Jews for centuries.

A salutary lesson is given in 2 Chronicles 28:9-11. An army from the Northern Kingdom of Israel had decided to act as God’s army of justice against the Southern Kingdom of Judah. But they had taken it too far and had angered God in the process.

“But a prophet of the Lord named Oded was there, and he went out to meet the army when it returned to Samaria. He said to them, “Because the Lord, the God of your fathers, was angry with Judah, he gave them into your hand. But you have slaughtered them in a rage that reaches to heaven. And now you intend to make the men and women of Judah and Jerusalem your slaves. But aren’t you also guilty of sins against the Lord your God? Now listen to me! Send back your fellow countrymen that you have taken as prisoners, for the Lord’s fierce anger rests on you.”

If a people, whether or not they consider themselves God’s people, decide to act as God’s avengers without a divine mandate, then all they are doing is making themselves the objects of God’s wrath. May this be a warning to the Church.

Finally, let’s return to our Bishop of Durham. Remember, at the head of this chapter, he complained about a new prayer in the Anglican prayer book. “This is turning the Church into a scapegoat for anti-Semitism”, he said, adding that he interpreted the prayer as God accusing the Christians of persecution and of inducing an anti-Semitic culling of the Jews.

The only possible mitigating circumstance there was; was that the Church of England wasn’t directly responsible for the deeds described in this chapter. But it was the Church in England that was responsible, God’s representatives in our country. If God’s current representatives feel no guilt or shame for the evil acts committed on God’s “kingdom of priests” on British soil then there is something deeply amiss.

NOTES

37 This article can be found at http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/content/news_syndication/article_040714prys.shtml

38 The History of Godefrey of Boloyne and of the Conquest of Iherusalem. William of Tyre, Hammersmith: Kelmscott Press, 1893

39 Select pleas, starrs, and other records from the rolls of the Exchequer of the Jews, AD 1220-1284, J M Rigg, London: B. Quaritch, 1902

40 Professions of Faith Extracted from Jews on Baptism: Laws of Erwig, from Leg. Vis. 12.3.14.

41 The Jew in the Medieval World: A Source Book: 315 - 1791. Marcus, J. (1973). Athenaeum, New York

Chapter Twelve: Some of My Best Friends …

And now for the big one. Why does our modern secular, rational, ‘progressive and enlightened’ World still hate Jews so much? It’s a big question and we should consider what reasons people give. Is it religious, like between Muslims and Hindus in Asia? Is it about land, like the British and Argentinian spat over the Falkland Islands? Is it economic, blaming Jews for the financial misfortunes of others? Is it because of their insularity, the way ‘they stick together’, just like every immigrant group in this country?

How about the world-wide Zionist “conspiracy” for taking over the World, just like those attributed to the Freemasons, Catholics or countless cult groups?

Think on. Historically, it has in fact been all of these, all have been given as reasons for hating the Jews. Yet it is my belief that it has also been none of them. That’s confused you, so let me explain. Let’s say you’ve been invited out to a party but you have absolutely no desire to go; it’s an old school reunion, and you were the one they all used to pick on! You need an excuse, and fast. You phone them up and tell them that you’ve already planned to go elsewhere. There’s a silence on the phone and you panic. Your conversation continues like this: “Oh yes, and our car’s acting up …. and my husband’s feeling a bit peeky …. and I can feel a headache coming on …”.

Basically, you pile on the excuses as if the sheer quantity of them somehow makes it more acceptable for your absence at the party. Meanwhile your school friend has seen through all of this and is saying to herself, “She doesn’t really want to come to my party, does she?” If you’d just given one reason and left it there it would have been alright, but by giving excuse after excuse you create confusion and doubt in the other’s mind.

Returning to my story and fitting it all together we arrive at the situation that, because so many justifications have been given for hating the Jews, it’s a smokescreen hiding the real situation; the truth is that people in general just don’t like them. Deep down, they don’t really know why and are quite happy to believe any explanation put forward by others, and the more reasons the better – it helps to justify these

irrational thoughts.

Yids! Kikes! Hebes! We are truly a people of many names, not all of them nice. So how does this anti-Semitism surface? Are all non-Jews natural anti-Semites? Do all anti-Semites want to kick the lot of us into the sea? Anti-Semitism can surface in many ways and here are a few examples:

◊ As I take notes from the ‘Encyclopaedia of the Jewish Religion’ in the reference library, I notice that of the 420 pages, only the 2 pages containing the entry ‘Jew’ are slashed with a razor blade!

◊ ‘Some of my best friends are Jews’ (all time classic), usually followed by something like ‘but we have rules … / it’s more than my job’s worth … / now if it were up to me, but …’, then ending with the denouement concerning a golf club or a party or somewhere where the last person they’d like to see there would be a Jew!

◊ The use of ‘Jew’ in any other way than as a proper noun. As a common noun (“Don’t be such a Jew”, meaning “Don’t drive such a hard bargain”), or verb (“to Jew”, meaning “to cheat”). I suppose we have to stifle a giggle when we discover that a ‘Jewish piano’ is another name for a cash register and then consider that without real ‘Jewish pianos’ the world would be robbed of much of its music, including the ‘Star Spangled Banner’, ‘White Christmas’, ‘Easter Parade’ and ‘Rhapsody in Blue’.

◊ It can be unconscious, inasmuch as it can be handed down in a ‘traditional’ sense e.g. in popular songs. Did you know that the origin of the affirmation Hip Hip Hooray is an ancient Roman chant used while wiping out Jews in medieval villages? The word Hip was originally Hep, an acronym for Hierosolyma Est Perdita (Jerusalem is destroyed).

◊ Little ditties like ‘Roses are red, violets are blue-ish, if it wasn’t for Jesus we’d all be Jewish!’ Gentiles may say, “How odd of God to choose the Jews”, but I would answer, “If he hadn’t so presumed, you Gentiles would be doomed!”

◊ I’ve just discovered that, for no special reason, 50 Jewish graves in a local cemetery have been desecrated. Why don’t you ever hear this happen to Christian graves, or Muslim graves?

But surely not in this day and age? You may say that, but you are making the false assumption that our society has reached some enlightened state. If you believe that it is true then it’s just that all of the old hatreds and fears have just dropped below the surface. The Jewish Community Security Trust in the UK reported that there is a continual rise in Anti-Semitism in Britain. 2010 had 639 incidents, the second highest total since record-keeping began 26 years earlier.

Here are a few examples of such behaviour in Europe in recent times (you can find more at the European Forum on anti-Semitism www.european-forum-on-antisemitism.org):

◊ In Belgium, thugs beat up the chief rabbi, kicking him in the face and calling him “a dirty Jew.” Two synagogues in Brussels were firebombed; a third, in Charleroi, was sprayed with automatic weapon fire.

◊ Oxford professor Tom Paulin, a noted poet, told an Egyptian interviewer that American Jews who move to the West Bank and Gaza “should be shot dead.”

◊ A Jewish yeshiva student reading the Psalms was stabbed 27 times on a London bus.

◊ In Italy, the daily paper La Stampa published a Page 1 cartoon: A tank emblazoned with a Jewish star points its gun at the baby Jesus, who pleads, “Surely they don’t want to kill me again?”

◊ In Germany, a rabbinical student was beaten up in downtown Berlin and a grenade was thrown into a Jewish cemetery. Thousands of neo-Nazis held a rally, marching near a synagogue on the Jewish Sabbath. Graffiti appeared on a synagogue in the western town of Herford: “Six million were not enough.”

◊ In Ukraine, skinheads attacked Jewish worshippers and smashed the windows of Kiev’s main synagogue. Ukrainian police denied that the attack was anti-Jewish.

◊ In Greece, Jewish graves were desecrated in Loannina and vandals hurled paint at the Holocaust memorial in Salonica.

◊ In Holland, an anti-Israel demonstration featured swastikas, photos of Hitler, and chants of “Sieg Heil” and “Jews into the sea.”

◊ In Slovakia, the Jewish cemetery of Kosice was invaded and 135 tombstones destroyed.

◊ In Lyon, France, a car was rammed into a synagogue and set on fire. In Montpellier, the Jewish religious centre was firebombed; so were synagogues in Strasbourg and Marseilles; so was a Jewish school in Creteil. A Jewish sports club in Toulouse was attacked with Molotov cocktails, and on the statue of Alfred Dreyfus in Paris, the words “Dirty Jew” were painted.

Anti-Semitism, despite the impact of the Holocaust, has never left Europe. It became unfashionable for a while, but now it is back, particularly – if the statistics are to be believed – in France. “Stop saying that there is anti-Semitism in France,” President Jacques Chirac once scolded a Jewish editor. “There is no anti-Semitism in France.” Perhaps the following statistics help us to understand better what is happening in France. There are approximately 4.7 million Muslims and only about 480,000 Jews presently living in France. To answer Chirac, perhaps we should say, “Something smells very Vichy in the air”!

Perhaps it’s time for light relief, so let’s look at some popular misconceptions, particularly from medieval times, just to show how ignorance was rife in that lamentable period of Christian history.

◊ Many Medieval Christians actually believed that Jews had horns and a tail. This was due to a mistranslation by Jerome of a passage in the Book of Exodus describing Moses as he came down from Mount Sinai. The Hebrew used the word for a ‘ray of light’ shining from his forehead. This was mistranslated as ‘horns’. Michaelangelo actually sculpted Moses the Lawgiver with a nice set of horns!

◊ It was believed that Jews had a characteristic smell that would disappear as soon as they convert!

◊ One piece of research on the Jewish nose concluded that it was the hereditary outcome of a habitual expression of indignation.

◊ Still on noses, yet another study found that most Jews do not have a Jewish nose, but a Greek nose.

◊ The German leader Bismarck once said that Germany’s male nobility should marry Jewish women, to “improve their race”! (Of course he didn’t realise that offspring would legally be Jewish, which would have been quite interesting!)

“Whadyamean?” goes the cry, “some of my best friends are Jewish!” This can be a comment delivered with full sincerity, but often the body language and voice tone tells you otherwise. In fact many Gentiles, when confronted by an accusation that prompts this opening remark, are unaware of any negative feelings towards Jews. This is particularly so for Christian Gentiles. Yet it can be there, lurking in deep dark corners of your psyche, or what the psychologist called the racial memory or archetypes. It’s like those unreachable fat deposits in your sink ‘U’ bend. It blocks the flow of water and can only be shifted by a spurt of caustic soda.

Now you’re probably thinking that I’m being over-sensitive about this. Those of you from other minority cultures are used to the occasional poisonous barb or hurtful insult from the indigenous folk (even though they were immigrants once!)

If so, you’ve probably been at the receiving end of far more racism than your average Jew living in the UK in 2011.

But there is a difference in this case. Firstly, we have to be aware of the origin of much of the negativity thrown at Jews. For example, a Christian minister was speaking to me once of financial matters and casually remarked that how come that I was no good with money (a true statement, as it goes). The implication was that all Jews were experts with money, it’s in their blood. And how did it get in their blood? It got in their blood because the “Christian” rulers of our country, from 1066 onwards, declared that the only profession that Jews may be permitted to have was money lending – in fact that was the only reason William the Conqueror brought them over from France in the first place.

So for a modern Christian to refer to this fact – probably out of ignorance – is to refer to a past of shame and prejudice. Even supporters of Israel are not exempt from this insidious seed within the ‘British soul’.

I overheard a conversation recently when a lady was enthusing about the blessings she had received through her discovery of the Jewish roots of her faith. Her companion was telling her of dealings he was having with a Jewish company, who had slapped on an unexpected surcharge on some service they were offering. “How Jewish”, she exclaimed and they both chuckled. This rankled with me, but I said nothing. These people were not anti-Semites by any stretch of the imagination, but they were making themselves a

channel for ancient prejudices. It is curious to me that I have never witnessed such attitudes from young people or members of other ethnic groups. It seems to be a characteristic solely of white English-born people of a certain age, though it is not, I stress, a feature of every member of that particular grouping.

Or perhaps it’s just sensitive old me!

It is worth making a brief mention of the article by the journalist, Melanie Philips, in The Spectator. On February 16, 2002 she wrote an article entitled ‘Christians who hate the Jews’. She was reporting on a meeting of Jews and prominent Christians brought together to discuss the churches’ increasing hostility towards Israel. She wrote:

‘The real reason for the growing antipathy [to Israel], according to the Christians at that

meeting, was the ancient hatred of Jews rooted deep in Christian theology and now on widespread display once again... The Jews at the meeting were incredulous and aghast. Surely the Christians were exaggerating. Surely the Churches’ dislike of Israel was rooted instead in the settlements, the occupied territories and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. But the Christians were adamant. The hostility to Israel within the Church is rooted in a dislike of the Jews (my emphasis). The Christians at that meeting affirming this view were the editor of the main Church of England newspaper, the Archbishop of Wales (now the Archbishop of Canterbury), the Middle East representative of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the head of a Christian institute and relief organisation, who remarked ‘What disturbs me at the moment is the very deeply rooted anti-Semitism latent in Britain and the West. I simply hadn’t realised how deep within the English psyche is this fear of the power and influence of the Jews.’ 42

Then there’s another issue that became one of the news stories of 2004, bringing Christian issues to the forefront of everyday life. No it’s not dodgy vicars, or paedophile priests, it was the launch of Mel Gibson’s, The Passion of The Christ.

Having attended the press launch I wrote an article for a couple of websites looking at the effect the film could have on the Jewish community. Here is an extract:

“The problem is one of context. The Jewish characters (apart from Jesus and his disciples) are continually angry at Jesus, but we are not told of their reasons in a way we can understand. A thorough reading of the Gospels would provide that context, but the film, concentrating on the final 12 hours of Jesus’ ministry only gives us brief flashbacks to the remaining 3 years of his public life. A reading of the Gospels would also show us other things. It would show us that the chief priests and the elders were responsible for the whole sorry episode, for their own reasons (Matthew 26:3-4, Matthew 27:20), and it was their manipulation of the Jewish crowd that gives the impression that all the Jews present were after his blood.

We are not shown that in the film, instead we were shown the Jewish people mocking him, pushing him, pelting him with stones and demanding his death, right up to Golgotha. Satan, a curiously androgynous character, makes an appearance at strategic points throughout the film, but it always seemed to be among the Jewish characters, rather than the Roman ones. It brings to mind the words in John 8:44, about “belonging to your father, the devil”. Although this quote was clearly intended for the Jewish leadership, the inclusion of this scene acts to reinforce the negative view of Jews in general. When Jesus says to Pilate, “the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin”, He was clearly referring to Judas, but, instead we cut to the faces of the Jewish leaders, implying who the film-makers really hold responsible for the deeds of that day. In fact the only Jewish characters (apart from John and the Marys) who show any sympathy were some women, mostly dressed suspiciously in black, with a curious resemblance to Catholic nuns!

I would in no way recommend this film to Jewish unbelievers, for the reasons already stated. It could have been so different. If Gibson had only included Jesus’ assertion in John 10:17-18, “The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life – only to take it up again. No-one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord,” either at a prominent part of the action, or as text at the end of the film, then this would have spoken volumes about his desire for good relations between the Christian and Jewish communities. By not doing so, for all the good this film will do, it will only add to the curse of anti-Semitism that is again growing across the globe.

What Christians must realize is that, in the eyes of the Jewish community, this film just serves to reinforce their views on the Christian attitude to Jewish people. They see Christians raving about this film and they see the ‘same old same old’. Despite all of their proclamations over recent years, they still hate us! A Christian watching the film is inclined to feel sympathy for Jesus and contempt for the Jews. For many Jews watching the film, it is the other way round. How many Jews will this entice into the Kingdom? Very few, I suspect.”

The main point I was trying to make was not really about the film itself, but the insensitivity shown by the Christian Community to the Jewish community. The over-riding impression was that nothing must be allowed to get in the way of the gospel opportunities given by the film and there was even an implication, in some quarters, that all negativity shown to the film was of the devil! Well, no revival came as a result of the film and the Jewish community have long memories.

You, dear reader, must decide if any of this touches a familiar chord with you. There are warnings in Scripture that are also worth considering. Some are considered in the final chapter of this book, but a couple of important ones are now listed. First, there’s the old faithful, often-quoted verse.

“I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” (Genesis 12:3)

Much has been written on this, focusing, for example on what happened to Germany after the war (split into two), to Britain when it started favouring the Arabs in the Middle East conflict (lost her Empire) and what happened to Poland when it kicked out the Jews in medieval times (didn’t realise that they were

actually running the country!) It’s a controversial and debatable subject, but that doesn’t mean we should discount it. More of this later on.

“For this is what the Lord Almighty says: “After he has honoured me and has sent me against the nations that have plundered you—for whoever touches you touches the apple of his eye.” (Zechariah 2:8)

The Jews, on account of their on-going relationship with God, have a certain standing before Him. There is a sense that crimes against Jews are, in fact, crimes against God. Here are a couple of Biblical examples to show what happened to two particular tyrants who did touch ‘the apple of his eye’.

The first is the Pharaoh, King of Egypt at the time of the ‘Exodus’. The Jews (or Israelites as they were then known) were there as forced labour. Pharaoh feared their numbers and doubted the loyalty of his immigrant workforce in times of war. The harder he worked them the greater their numbers became (where did they get their energy from?) and he decided to limit their size by killing all new-born boys. But, the Bible tells us, he missed one, Moses.

Despite witnessing countless miracles at the hands of God working through Moses, he refused the Israelites a termination of employment. In fact he made them work even harder. This action didn’t exactly endear his people to Moses, whom they blamed for all this misfortune. But God had other plans and decided to show His power by visiting a series of plagues on the Pharaoh and the Egyptian people.

Water was changed to blood, frogs hopped down from the sky and gnats were formed from dust. The Pharaoh’s magicians had no trouble duplicating the first two, but the third one got them stumped and they advised their boss to stop his stubbornness and let the Israelites go. But would he listen? No! Then came clouds of flies, followed by a terrible plague on the livestock. But still the Pharaoh would not listen. Next came horrible boils. It seems that the magicians had these on their feet as we read that they couldn’t even

stand up in front of Moses. Then came the worst hailstorm ever witnessed, killing all who were exposed to it. This perturbed Pharaoh and he relented and the storm stopped. But, true to form he changed his mind and he got a plague of locusts for his trouble. They invaded the land and ate everything they could, like a school outing to McDonalds.

But did he learn? No! So next, total darkness came over the land for three days. This seemed to be Pharaoh’s last straw, but anger took hold of him and he refused to listen any more to Moses and sent him away.

The last plague was the worst, the death of every firstborn son in the land. The Israelites had to daub the blood of a lamb on their doorframes, for this plague to skip them or ‘pass them over’, from which we get the Passover festival. The Egyptians had had enough by now, despite their Pharaoh, and urged the Israelites to leave, even giving them parting gifts. This became the Exodus, the ‘departure’ of the Israelites from their Egyptian captivity.

Now you’d think that the Pharaoh would have bitten the bullet and put it all down to experience, and find some other unfortunates to press into service on his pyramids. But instead he jumped into his chariot and set off in pursuit of the Israelites, followed by every other chariot in Egypt, to ‘head them off at the pass’. Our story ends with the parting of the Red Sea and the drowning of the whole Egyptian army, including the stubborn monarch.

Our second tyrant lived in Persia about 2,500 years ago. We read, in the Book of Esther, how King Ahasuerus of the Persian Empire got rid of his wife for answering him back once too often and, in her place, installed the lovely Esther as queen. Despite her craving for gefilte fish, he was unaware of her Jewish background. He was also unaware of the presence of her relative, Mordechai, whom she regularly visited, until Mordechai had a stroke of luck (or divine favour?) One day, he was just sitting on his favourite chair by the city gate minding his own business, when he accidentally overheard a plot to kill the King. Being a shrewd man, he figured that he could help himself if he handled the situation carefully and so he told the King and the plot was thwarted. In this way Mordechai gained favour with the King.

All seemed well for the moment, and the Jews of the day could sleep well at night … but not for long, because this is when Haman came on the scene. A descendant of the ancient Amalekites, old enemies of the Israelites, he managed to worm his way through the ranks until he became the chief minister to the King, a sort of Home Secretary. Now this man was a severe ego-maniac who demanded that all court officials regularly kneel down to honour him. They all did this, except one, Mordechai. Mordechai, being a good Jew, refused to bow to any man as, according to the Law of Moses, this was idolatry. Haman was enraged at this and, on finding out that Mordechai was Jewish, tricked the King in ordering not just the death of Mordechai, but the death of every Jew in the kingdom! They then drew lots (they cast the ‘pur’, which is where we get the name Purim, the festival that commemorates these events), to find out on what day to execute this dastardly deed.

Thanks to the bravery of Esther, this plot was thwarted and Haman (and his ten sons) was hanged on the very gallows he had made especially for Mordechai. These gallows were 75 feet high which seems a little excessive to me. I thought Jews were meant to be stiff-necked, not long-necked! It seems that Haman wasn’t the only one who hated the Jews as thousands of others were waiting for the edict to legally do away with the Jews. This edict never came, but the tables were turned and their own ‘death warrants’ were sent to the Jews, who cheerfully obliged by annihilating them.

Now Haman was a true anti-Semite. Why kill just the one Jew who crossed you when you’ve got the power to destroy the whole nation of them! This was to become the motif for true anti-Semites through history and Haman was to set the pattern for people such as Hitler in later years. Purim, for the Jews, is in fact the most joyous day in the Jewish calendar and Jews to this day commemorate the death of Haman by eating him, something that Jews are rather expert at (eating, that is, not eating people!). Little did this twisted man know that he would be remembered through the ages as a triangular pastry filled with poppy-seeds, called Hamantaschen.

Returning to our story, it’s time for a good hard look at anti-Semitism to see if we can get a handle on it. Historians admit that it is the longest and deepest hatred of human history.

There have, of course, been many other hatreds but none can compare to a hatred against a single people group that has lasted well over 2000 years and shows no sign of abating. So how do we explain this ancient hatred? Many have tried.

There has been the sociological angle where the Jews were always an alien minority with a distinctive culture of their own, out of harmony with the culture of the surrounding Gentile nations. If this was true then the birth of a new Jewish nation, the State of Israel, would have removed anti-Semitism, which it clearly hasn’t.

Then there’s the economic angle, where the Jews have been accused of taking away jobs and money from Christians. This derives from the medieval insistence that money lending was the only occupation a Jew was fit for. You could hardly blame the Jews for the fact that, out of this restriction came great skills developed in international trade and finance and that, all over the world, Jews are found in positions of power of wealth. This provokes jealousy from others, leading to hatred.

Then there’s the ethnic angle, where the Jews are believed to be a separate race from others, an inherently inferior one that is bent on polluting and corrupting the other inherently superior races. Character traits that have been attributed to the Jew to fuel anti-Semitism include the world conqueror, the coward, the money grabber, the show off, the rootless wanderer (Wandering Jew), the heartless capitalist, the corrupter. These images were often the subject of popular cartoons in the 19th Century in Europe, particularly in Germany. This was a key tenet of Nazism and we can see where that led.

Then there’s the political angle, as mentioned earlier. Anti-Zionism is a key component of Arab and Muslim anti- Semitism, a reaction to the presence of the tiny Jewish state of Israel on “Muslim” land.

Then there are the conspiracy theories. The Jews (Zionists) are bent on world domination. This is the Zionist conspiracy and is much loved by Neo-Nazis and fundamentalist Muslim groups. A key mantra of these folk is Holocaust revisionism, where they state that part of this conspiracy is a complete fabrication of the facts of the Holocaust i.e. they state that the Nazi Holocaust never really happened. Others on the lunatic fringe have stated that Communism is also a Jewish conspiracy, though these people have gone quiet since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The explanation that, for obvious reasons, is most popular among anti-Semites is the one that puts the blame fair and square at the feet of the Jews themselves. It’s because they choose isolation and a solitary existence for selfish, exclusive reasons, the reasoning goes. They continue to berate the Jews for their stubborn regard for their Torah, refusing to kow-tow to any other laws, as a factor that encourages hatred by others.

It’s a reason, of sorts, but it speaks more negatively about these other nations than the Jews themselves, if their only sin is to live according to the laws that God gave them!

Then there’s the religious angle, mentioned earlier. The Jews killed Christ, so it’s up to us to wreak God’s vengeance on these cursed people (so it goes).

In Greek mythology there was a creature called the Hydra. It was a water serpent and it had many heads. When a head was cut off, two new heads appeared. Anti-Semitism, too, as we have seen, is many-headed and every new generation seems to be able to add a freshness to this ancient hatred. Yet there was a way of killing the Hydra and, later in this book, we will discuss the identity of the Hydra of anti-Semitism and

how we can, like the Greek hero Hercules, find a way through its defences.

Orthodox Jews themselves see it in Biblical terms. The Midrash refers to two verses in the Book of Malachi: “… the Lord says. “Yet I have loved Jacob, but Esau I have hated …” (Malachi 1:2-3) From this comes the observation, “It is a well known principle that Esau hates Jacob” and, from this, rabbis equate Esau with the whole Gentile world, saying, in essence that anti-Semitism is a law, a mysterious principle laid down by God in His wisdom! So, the idea is that, rather than question the wisdom of God in this issue, they should seek to find ways of living with it. It’s a sad conclusion, but it’s the only rational way they could look at it, within their worldview.

We end on a sombre note because, in the next chapter, we are going to witness a moment in time when all of the historical justifications for anti-Semitism came together in one place and raged, unchecked, for over a decade.

NOTE

42 Phillips, Melanie Christians who hate the Jews. The full article can be seen on http://melaniephillips.com/christians-who-hate-the-jews

Chapter Thirteen: Jude!

This chapter is designed as a climax to the sorry story of the previous few chapters. After this it gets a little – not a lot – easier. But this is an important chapter because it represents a culmination and a fulfilment of all the dirt, grime and filth of anti-Semitism and acts as a warning klaxon to what can happen when pure evil is allowed to flow unchecked.

In 1942, at the height of the Second World War, a German reserve police battalion from Hamburg was given the mission of rounding up and massacring over 38,000 Jews in a village in Poland. The average age of these Germans was 39; they were middle class and most had no particular hatred of Jews. About a dozen out of the 500 refused to take part and some more refused to carry on once the shooting had started, but the majority got on with it. Later on, some actually developed a taste for the job and actively volunteered to take part in other death squads. They had acquired a taste for killing and it didn’t concern them. One of them said this:

“It was possible for me to shoot just the children. It so happened that the mothers led the children by the hand. My neighbour shot the mother and I shot the child, because I reasoned that the child couldn’t live without its mother. This soothed my conscience.”

They were just following orders. As one man later admitted, it was not until years later that he began to consider that what he had done had not been right. He had not given it a thought at the time.

I thought that I would start with this unsavoury episode because, rather than absolving the indescribably evil Nazi leaders, it demonstrates that evil, to the extent of taking human lives without conscience, is contagious. This story was taken from a book, “Ordinary Men” 43 and demonstrates just how many of the Jews who died in the Nazi holocaust were killed at the hands of ordinary men.

But first, the facts in a nutshell. The Holocaust was the systematic, bureaucratic annihilation of at least six million Jews by the German Nazi regime and their collaborators as state policy during World War II. In 1933, approximately nine million Jews lived in the countries of Europe that would be occupied by Germany during the war. By 1945 two out of every three European Jews had been killed. Although Jews

were the primary victims, other Nazi targets included Gypsies, the mentally or physically disabled, Slavs, homosexuals and political and religious dissidents.

To understand how the Holocaust could happen in a country known for its sophistication and civilization, we need to explore some history.

Anti-Semitism had found fertile soil in the 19th Century, in Germany. The Nazis may have provided practical ‘solutions’, but all the groundwork and theory had been laid in the 19th Century. German philosophers such as Ghillany, Arndt and Jahn were now producing work of the most venomous nature

towards the Jews. Ludwig Feuerbach said, “Eating is the most solemn act or even initiation into the Jewish religion” (Some truth in that!) He then continues, “… When the seventy elders climbed the mountain with Moses, ‘they saw the God of Israel … they stayed there before God; they ate and they drank’”. (Yes, this is more or less what it says in the Bible.) But then he concluded, “The sight of the highest being therefore only amused their appetite”. This is contempt for Judaism, just a small step from fully blown anti-Semitism.

German philosophers and scientists now confounded all logic and began to put forward strange new theories about racial origins. It was summed up in the phrase “purity of the blood”. These people considered themselves of the Aryan race, a people originating in India. They even put forwards such ideas that Adam and Eve, in the Garden of Eden only spoke German to each other! Well, anyway, this Aryan race was “the most superior of all, the race to conquer all before them”. The problem is that, in their long history they were in constant battle with the inferior … the “sub-human” … the evil Jew!

Yes, the sub-human and inferior and tainted Jewish chosen race, always seemed to thwart the intentions and destiny of the superior Aryan master-race! In 1899, Houston Stewart Chamberlain put all these myths together in a book called Foundations of the Nineteenth Century. It was a 1500 page book and was packed with attacks on the Jews, such as “The Jewish race is altogether bastardised, and its existence is a crime against the holy laws of life.” This book sold almost 1 million copies, almost a million hearts willing to be diseased by lies and hatred. One could also imagine thousands of young German hearts and consciences anaesthetised in advance against the horrors of the Holocaust, 40 years later!

Chamberlain wasn’t the only anti-Semite in his family. His father-in-law was Richard Wagner, Hitler’s favourite composer. Wagner, whether composing music or writing books, dedicated his life to anti-Semitism. It became a driving obsession and in 1881 he wrote this to the King of Bavaria:

“I regard the Jewish race as the born enemy of pure humanity and everything that is noble in it; it is certain that we Germans will go under before them, and perhaps I am the last German who knows how to stand up as an art-loving man against the Judaism that is already getting control of everything.”

So the scene was set for Hitler and his wickedness.

What can I add to the millions of words written and tears shed on this subject? The German State became a diseased organ, poisoned by the virus of anti-Semitism, an irrational disease that inflames the mind while deadening the conscience.

The Germans, whether you wish to believe it or not, were one of the most cultured, civilised societies at the turn of the century. Yet a few decades later these people were engaged in, or supporting, or turning a blind eye to, the most inhuman, evil activities ever conceived by the mind of man. But consider this.

If Haman, or the Inquisition, or the Medieval State Church had had the 20th Century transportation systems or technologies of death and destruction, wouldn’t they have done the same? The ultimate aim of anti-Semitism is not simply hatred of the Jews, but the extinction of the Jews. Wouldn’t earlier anti- Semites, who also considered Jews to be inferior, sub-human or demonic, have chosen the same ‘solution’, rather than the ‘inconvenience’ of conversion, pogrom or deportation? We’ll never know; we can only guess.

We can get a flavour of the mindless hatred that drove these Nazis by considering that so much energy, enthusiasm and – most importantly – material and human resources were expended by Nazi Germany in their attempted extermination of the Jews, that there is every possibility that they could have won the war if these resources had been diverted towards the war effort.

There are many individual stories that work together to make up the Holocaust; six million of them, in fact. Each story tears at the heart and begs to be told, demands to be remembered. Yet we can’t do them justice, just as these victims suffered without justice. So there will be no stories and no statistics. This sad story has been extensively documented in so many other places.

But before we pour out our righteous indignation against the Germans, what about the World community at large? In 1938, just before the start of the Second World War there was a conference in Evian, in France, called by the US President and attended by 32 nations with the objective of discussing the future of the European Jews. The Jews at that time were still free to move but it was clear to many right-minded people that, by staying within the clutches of the Nazi state, they were putting themselves in great danger.

So these delegates sat round a table and asked each other, “Who’s going to take in these Jews to save them from this fate?” Do you know the outcome of this conference? Out of the millions of Jews in central Europe, the danger zone, only a few thousand were accommodated by these nations. One by one they all gave reasons why they couldn’t take Jewish refugees – they would have loved to have taken them, but

their hands were tied!

Golda Meir, the future Israeli leader, was there. She commented, “I don’t think that anyone who didn’t live through it can understand what I felt at Evian – a mixture of sorrow, rage, frustration and horror. I wanted to get up and scream at them all, ‘Don’t you know that these numbers are human beings, people who may spend the rest of their lives in concentration camps, or wandering around the world like lepers, if you don’t let them in?’”

Hitler saw the report of this conference and saw this indifference as the ‘all clear’ for the commencement of the next stage of his master plan. Four months later came Kristallnacht, the ‘night of the broken glass’, when the word ‘Jude’ (Jew) sprayed on your shop front or stitched on your garments, meant nothing less than a death sentence. It was the first major step of the Final Solution against the Jews.

The horrors of the Holocaust must never be forgotten and there’s simply no space here to adequately get this idea across. Instead I urge those of you in the UK to visit the Holocaust experience, at the Imperial War Museum in London, or Yad Vashem in Israel or one of the Holocaust museums in the USA. You need to hear testimonies of the survivors, watch the Nazi propaganda films, see the evocative exhibits. 44

“I believe in the sun even when it is not shining.

I believe in love even when not feeling it

I believe in God even when he is silent.”

This short poem was found on a wall in a cellar in Cologne, Germany, where Jews had hidden from the Nazis, but had ultimately perished. It speaks of a spirituality that has been severely challenged by the horrific events. Many lost faith; others clung on regardless. Jews cried out in utter anguish, but their Creator did not seem to hear. Jews prayed and there was no response. Jews died Kiddush HaShem, sanctifying the name of the Lord with their last breath on earth, and the heavens only responded with a deafening silence.

How could the Jews continue to believe in a God who allowed an Auschwitz to happen? It’s not humanly reasonable to do so; it’s like a rejection by a loved one. There is a sense in saying, ‘OK, you’ve let me down once too often, now leave me be to live the rest of my life in peace’. Who could blame many Jews, particularly Holocaust survivors, from doing so?

Many did and have allowed the experiences of the Holocaust to dictate the rest of their days on earth. Others have been set free by the power of God.

One thing we must remind ourselves of is the fact that God views individual Jews differently to the Jewish nation as a whole. As individuals, there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free; the Jew competes on an even playing field, so to speak. For each and every Jew who has ever lived, God offers a personal relationship on a one-to-one basis. The trouble is that, due to the actions of others, many of whom should have known better, the knowledge of this possibility was mostly kept from the Jewish people.

On the other hand, on a national level, the Jews are a Covenant people. As such there are responsibilities, leading to advantages or setbacks or, putting it more bluntly, blessings or curses.

On an individual basis, God is forever holding out His arms to us, whatever dire situation may surround us, whatever plans evil men and women may have for us. God’s word is clear on this. He will always show compassion on the weak and the defenceless, but the fate of these wicked is sealed and you can be assured that, for the Nazi perpetrators, their eventual fate would be far worse than their victims. Let us read Psalm 9.

“I will praise you, O Lord, with all my heart; I will tell of all your wonders. I will be glad and rejoice in you; I will sing praise to your name, O Most High. My enemies turn back; they stumble and perish before you. For you have upheld my right and my cause; you have sat on your throne, judging righteously. You have rebuked the nations and destroyed the wicked; you have blotted out their name for ever and ever. Endless ruin has overtaken the enemy, you have uprooted their cities; even the memory of them has perished. The Lord reigns for ever; he has established his throne for judgment. He will judge the world in righteousness; he will govern the peoples with justice. The Lord is a refuge for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble. Those who know your name will trust in you, for you, Lord, have never forsaken those who seek you. Sing praises to the Lord, enthroned in Zion; proclaim among the nations what he has done. For he who avenges blood remembers; he does not ignore the cry of the afflicted. O Lord, see how my enemies persecute me! Have mercy and lift me up from the gates of death, that I may declare your praises in the gates of the Daughter of Zion and there rejoice in your salvation. The nations have fallen into the pit they have dug; their feet are caught in the net they have hidden. The Lord is known by his justice; the wicked are ensnared by the work of their hands. The wicked return to the grave, all the nations that forget God. But the needy will not always be forgotten, nor the hope of the afflicted ever perish. Arise, O Lord, let not man triumph; let the nations be judged in your presence. Strike them with terror, O Lord; let the nations know they are but men.”

This may have been little consolation for those facing the terrors at the hands of men and women without compassion, mercy or conscience but the fact remains that, in terms of life everlasting, God will provide a refuge for the oppressed, but for the oppressor – saving acts of sincere repentance and restitution (and very few of these have been documented) – no mercy will be shown. The Holocaust showed what man is

capable of, but, in the final judgement that no-one will escape, all will see what God is capable of.

The Holocaust, as mentioned earlier, showed us what happens when evil is allowed to go unchecked and free reign is given to every hatred of the human heart. It proved the failure of man, not the failure of God. He gave man free will and what the World witnessed in the 1940s was how low we could sink when we forsake morality and conscience. The Holocaust showed us that without God and His teachings, the earth could not survive; we would just end up killing each other.

If you wish to read more on the subject of God and the Holocaust, may I recommend that you read Chapter 13, “Can theology survive after Auschwitz?” in Fred Wright’s excellent book, “Father Forgive us”.

Many Nazis were Roman Catholics or members of the State Protestant Church but, as both Church history and secular scientists were telling them that Jews were subhuman, haters of God and worthy of death, they allowed themselves to be instruments of this age-old hatred and killed Jews without a glimmer of conscience or thought of personal consequence.

Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf, “I am convinced that I am acting as the agent of our Creator. By fighting off the Jews. I am doing the Lord’s work.” The attempted annihilation of the Jews was carried out by these twisted hearts with religious zeal, a zeal nurtured by years of anti-Semitism, infiltrated into the German Church and German soul.

As mentioned earlier, the Jewish people were in Galut, in exile. It was a natural consequence of the warnings in Deuteronomy 28. During this exile, it’s as if God leaves them in the hands of man, just as, in the final hours of Jesus’ own life, he was placed in the hands of man. An implication of this is that, outside of Israel, the Promised Land, life for the Jew was always going to be precarious. This puts an added emphasis on the true nature of Galut. One of the major consequences of the Holocaust was to signal the death-throes of the exile, in the miraculous provision of the State of Israel, a land to provide, for the first time in 1900 years, a safe haven for Jewish people.

It’s my belief that the tender heart of God, grieved to the utmost by the frenzy of evil deeds against His people in the Holocaust and overwhelmed by the sheer number of devout Jews going to their death Kiddush HaShem, just said, ‘Enough is enough, I cannot leave my beloved people any longer at the mercy of the Gentile nations. It is time for their homecoming.’

Once installed in the Land of Israel, although anti-Semitism was never going to leave them alone (taking a new form in Arab Muslim hatred), they would be masters of their own destiny in their own land, with their first self-governance since the time of the Kings of Judah. This is the importance of Israel to the Jewish people. Most Jews, living in material comfort and perceived safety in the West, have yet to realise this.

Perhaps the coming days will show them otherwise, as was shown to the Jews of Poland and Germany, who also thought in the mid-20th Century, that they were safely integrated into these countries.

As a footnote to this tragic episode I finish with a poem, written by 12 year old Eva Pickova in a Jewish ghetto; she died 2 years later in Auschwitz.

Fear 45

Today the ghetto knows a different fear,

Close in its grip, Death wields an icy scythe.

An evil sickness spreads a terror in its wake

The victims of its shadow weep and writhe.

Today a father’s heartbeat tells his fright

And mothers bend their heads into their hands.

Now children choke and die with typhus here,

A bitter tax is taken from their bands.

My heart still beats inside my breast

While friends depart for other worlds.

Perhaps it’s better – who can say,

Than watching this, to die today?

No, no, my God we want to live!

Not watch our numbers melt away.

We want to have a better world.

We want to work? We must not die!

Near the head of this Chapter we heard of those “Ordinary men”, ordinary Germans who were turned into “killing machines”, agents of the evil Nazi regime in the “Final Solution”. Yet before the war these were regular people like you and I. This speaks volumes of the evil that lurks within all of our hearts and the ease with which anti-Semitism can find fertile soil for its propagation. We must all be so watchful.

NOTES

43 Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland, Christopher Browning, Perennial 1993

44 You can visit on-line exhibitions on the Holocaust referenced at http://www1.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/index.asp

45 The original manuscript for this poem can be found in the Jewish Museum, Prague.

ACT THREE

Return

Chapter Fourteen: A Welcome Respite

For countless centuries Christians viewed Jews as parasites, devils, pariahs and whatever lowly insult prejudiced minds could come up with. But there is some good news; they haven’t all wanted to wipe Jews out. It has been said that, in 1589, an English Christian, Francis Kett, was burned alive, his only crime having been to insist that the Jews would some day return to their land, an idea he got from reading the Bible.

Things were soon to improve. The improvement came with the Puritans in the 17th Century, who were so thoroughly Hebraic in their worldview that the Old Testament made something of a comeback in the Christian landscape. Concern for the Jewish people was not exactly an unconditional love, but rather on the basis of their end-time expectations. Their reading of Scripture indicated to them that Jesus would only return to this Earth once the Jewish people were restored to their Messiah and to their land. In fact two English Puritans, Joanna and Ebenezer Cartwright, petitioned the British and Dutch governments in the mid 1600s to become “the first and the readiest to transport Izraell’s sons and daughters in their ships to the Land promised by their forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob for an everlasting Inheritance.”

Oliver Cromwell was even urged to accept the Jews back into England, a country seemingly devoid of Jews at that time, as it was thought that first the Jews needed to be dispersed to all nations for God’s end-time plans to unfold. To the Puritans, the Jews (as well as themselves) were God’s chosen people and so began the first reversal of Jewish fortune in the Christian world since the Pope stopped being Jewish.

There seem to be three possible motivations for this swing in attitude towards the Jewish people. The first is a common humanity, idealised at the time of the Enlightenment, when the idea went around that all men were created equal and should be treated as such. These people would accept Jews for the people they are as individuals, rather than tainted by the negative images circulated by the medieval “Christian” world. Although this is actually a Biblical and a Christian (as well as Jewish) ideal, you don’t need to be religious to follow it. These people would say Jews are my friends and actually mean it, rather than saying, my best friends are Jewish and not mean it for one minute!

The second motivation is a humanitarian response to the various injustices handed out to the Jews, a sort of ‘protective’ impulse to compensate for the default ‘destructive’ impulses held by society as a whole. Again this is a Biblical principal and again you don’t need to be religious to hold it. These people would say you may hate them but I am proud to have them as friends. A common view of some people, such as Winston Churchill, in this category is undisguised admiration for the achievements of the Jewish people.

The third motivation is strictly a Biblical, Christian one. This one identifies Jews as the ‘chosen people’ of God, still chosen after all these years, despite what the Church may say. These people see Jews as central to God’s plan for mankind and their destiny a key issue. These people are responsible for the movement known as Christian Zionism. These people would say, we must be friendly to the Jews; they are special people.

Zionism is a word to describe the yearning in the Jewish heart to return to the Land of Israel. It became a Jewish political movement in the mid to late 1800s. Yet British Christians had beaten them to it. As Christian Zionists, they had been advocating the restoration of a Jewish state in the land for the previous 200 years. As we read earlier, it started with the Puritans, but it didn’t end there; it seems that a spark had been ignited in the British Christian soul.

In 1733 the brilliant scientist, Sir Isaac Newton, in his “Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St John” suggested that the end-time scenario necessitated that another nation assist the Jews to return to their promised land. Later that century another British scientist, Joseph Priestly, wrote, “The land is uncultivated and ready to receive you, but the Turks control it. Their power must first fall. Therefore, I earnestly pray for its dissolution. But it may not happen for some time.” Books by other Christians followed, expressing the same sentiment.

The 19th Century in Britain brought the birth of Christian Zionism. It came out of an explosion of interest in Biblical prophecy, particularly that which majored on the Second Coming of Jesus. The Jews were at the centre of it all. Without their role in the matter there could be no Second Coming! The theology of these Christians demanded a return of the Jews to their promised land and it expected their complete spiritual restoration. An early pioneer of this thinking was Charles Simeon, who regarded the conversion of the Jews ‘as perhaps the warmest interest of his life.’

Here are some quotes from influential Christians of that time (and one or two from an earlier time):

CHARLES HADDON SPURGEON

“I think we do not attach sufficient importance to the restoration of the Jews. We do not think enough of it. But certainly, if there is anything promised in the Bible, it is this.” 46

JOHN CALVIN

”When the Gentiles shall come in, the Jews also shall return from their defection to the

obedience of faith; and thus shall be completed the salvation,... which must be gathered from both; and yet in such a way that the Jews shall obtain the first place, being as it were the first born in God’s family, as Jews are the first born…”47

JONATHAN EDWARDS

“... When they shall be called, that ancient people, who alone were so long God’s people for so long a time, shall be his people again, never to be rejected more. They shall be gathered together into one fold, together with the Gentiles…”48

MATTHEW HENRY

“Now two things he exhorts the Gentiles to, with reference to the rejected Jews: – to have a respect for the Jews, notwithstanding, and to desire their conversion. This is intimated in the prospect he gives them of the advantage that would accrue to the church by their conversion.” 49

A. W. TOZER

“Every time a Christian picks up his Bible he is reminded of his debt to the Jews. It is an

astonishing thing that multitudes of Bible students and lovers of the truth should calmly

overlook their obligation to Israel.”

A distinguished gallery of writers, clerics, journalists, artists, and statesmen accompanied the awakening of the idea of Jewish restoration in Palestine. Lord Lindsay, Lord Shaftesbury, Lord Palmerston, Disraeli, Lord Manchester, George Eliot, Holman Hunt, Sir Charles Warren, Hall Caine, Robert Murray McCheyne – all appear among the many who spoke, wrote, organised support, or put forward practical projects by which Britain might help the return of the Jewish people to Palestine.

There were some who even urged the British government to buy Palestine from the Turks to give it to the Jews to rebuild. In 1798 Napoleon invaded Egypt and Palestine and the British were concerned, both politically and spiritually.

Politically, because they feared that trade routes to India would be blocked and spiritually, because evangelical Christians were starting to ponder the subject of the restoration of Israel. At that time a German Jew, Joseph Frey, became a believer in Jesus the Messiah. He trained as a missionary, intending to work in Africa, until he visited Whitechapel, London and saw the state of the poor Jews who lived there. He there and then decided to work there with Jewish people, beginning at a small Methodist chapel in Aldgate.

But soon he realised he needed more resources, human and financial, to do the job properly and managed to find likeminded people. In May 1809 they formed the London Society for the Promotion of Christianity Amongst the Jews, which was a bit of a mouthful and so was also known as the London Jews Society. It was soon endorsed by the great and the good of the land. Supporters included William Wilberforce and

Charles Simeon and the Duke of Kent was to become Patron.

Other missionary organisations directed towards the Jews were formed in London at that time, such as the Mildmay Mission to the Jews. At the beginning of each year Hudson Taylor, the legendary missionary to China, sent a cheque to them, inscribed on the back of which were the words of Romans 1:16, “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation for all who believe, to the Jew first …” John Wilkinson, of the mission organisation, would then write a cheque for the same sum and promptly return it marked “… and also to the Greek.” Another organization was the Barbican Mission to the Jews, operating as a medical mission, particularly to the poorest Eastern European Jews. In the window of the mission hall would be displayed tracts in Yiddish, which would be dispensed, along with the medicine, as a condition of the free treatment.

In 1868, Benjamin Disraeli was made British Prime Minister. It was a turning point for Jews in England and, curiously, it could never have happened if it wasn’t for a petulant act of his father, Isaac D’Israeli. After a row with his synagogue, Bevis Marks (still functioning now), he never had his son barmitzva-ed.

Instead, he had Benjamin baptized. Hence a Jew, now a paid up member of the British establishment and the Church of England, was able to reach the highest office in the land. About that time George Eliot, the British novelist wrote Daniel Deronda, concerning the struggle of a Jew to retain his identity. The book was concerned with the idea of Israel as an eventual homeland for the Jewish people and was read by

a Russian Jew named Yehuda Perlman who agreed with these central ideas. This man was to become Eliezer Ben Yehuda, the person responsible for the rebirth of the ancient Hebrew language in the modern nation of Israel.

In Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, there is an area known as the Avenue of the Righteous among the Nations, a parade of trees planted in honour of those Gentiles who stood by the Jews in their sufferings during the Holocaust.

By the end of 2010, 23,788 Gentiles have been so honoured. Here are just two examples:

Francis Foley was the head of the passport division in the British Embassy in Berlin in the 1930s. He helped thousands of Jews to leave Nazi Germany by handing out visas willy-nilly, without the necessary red tape.

The whole Nation of Denmark was also honoured. Virtually alone among the defeated nations, the Danish Government reached an agreement with the Nazis that no Jews would be harmed and none were, all being transferred safely to Sweden and out of harm’s way. For the Israelis, the action of Denmark “stands out in the history of the period as an outstanding act of moral and political responsibility.”

Now here is my own ‘Avenue’ of Righteous Gentiles, a list of Gentile Christians who have bucked the trend in Christendom and have displayed a sincere “philo-Semitism”, a genuine love for the Jewish people, a love that showed itself as direct action, sometimes with negative consequences for themselves.

Corrie Ten Boom

Corrie Ten Boom lived during the Second World War as the daughter of a watchmaker in Holland. She had a brother and two sisters and lived in a home where the Bible formed the centrepiece of their lives, used as a living guidebook, rather than as a doorstop or a weapon of hate. Her family was poor, but happy and by all accounts nothing very remarkable happened to this lady until she was just about to approach her middle-age years. Then the Nazis came to town. Anti-Semitism first reared its ugly head in the form a young German apprentice who worked at their shop. For no apparent reason other than joining the Nazi party (which, I suppose was a pretty good reason), he had started to regularly beat up the old man who’d worked at the shop for years. For a kindly and godly lady, it was a profound shock to see how hatred can just flare up for no apparent reason.

The apprentice was immediately sacked. The following year the Nazis had invaded Holland and her life was to turn upside down.

The Ten Boom family had many Jewish friends, including the local rabbi, and were appalled at what they saw going on around them. Jews now had to wear a six-pointed star on their clothing at all times and were slowly being forced out of society – banned from restaurants, jobs, even their own homes. The family were also to witness Jews being taken away in trucks, officially to ‘work camps’, but in reality to ‘death camps’. But this was no ordinary family. Rather than turning a blind eye they actively prayed for situations where they could show solidarity with the Jews. Their chance came and they gave shelter to three homeless Jews, despite the extreme dangers attached to this act. Corrie ten Boom, then in her fifties, became a resistance leader of the Dutch underground, with special responsibilities for finding safe havens for the Jewish population of her town. The watchmaker’s shop became a centre of resistance activity, with all members of the ten Boom family actively participating, motivated by their Christian faith and knowledge that they were doing God’s work.

After nearly two years Corrie had built up a network of eighty workers and had helped hundreds of Jews. But things were getting harder and harder, as the Nazis increased their grip, and the dangers were immense. One day they were visited by a captain in the Nazi army of occupation; it was the same German apprentice they had sacked years earlier! Although his suspicions were fuelled by old resentments he found nothing suspicious in this innocent watchmaker’s shop. But this luck had to give out and they were finally betrayed by a local man, Jan Vogel. The Gestapo arrived and rounded up the family. They were then split up and Corrie and her sister Betsie were placed in prison, in solitary confinement for their ‘crimes’. Her father, a frail old man, was also imprisoned and died ten days later. Three months later the sisters were both transferred to Vught Concentration Camp.

It wasn’t a death camp, rather one where you worked until you dropped. Corrie was employed making radios for the Germans. Soon this camp was dismantled and the ‘guests’ were moved to a far more sinister and dreaded place, Ravensbruck Concentration Camp, in Germany. The work there was much harder, the regime more cruel. While she was an inmate her spirit was never broken; her faith sustained her, even after her sister died in captivity. She lived totally for others in the camp, even the guards, sharing her faith. She survived the camp, by virtue of a clerical error – if she had stayed a week longer she would have been put to death along with all of the other women of her age!

Corrie ten Boom lived the rest of her life as a missionary to the world, travelling extensively and speaking to audiences in every corner of the globe, telling them about her faith and her experiences in Ravensbruck. It was through her kindness to Jewish people, without any regard for her personal safety, that she lived through those years of hell in prison and concentration camps. Yet not once did she regret her actions and she died with a prayer to God on her lips.

Lord Balfour

This man has been described as perhaps the most effective British friend the Jews have ever had. I’m sure you’ve all heard of the Balfour Declaration, the piece of paper that gave official British recognition of the need for a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Well, here is the man behind it. His full name was Arthur James Balfour and he was British Prime Minister in 1902. He wasn’t very good at the job and was replaced in 1905, but bounced back when he became foreign secretary during the First World War.

Politically, he had made many friends with influential Jews, such as Theodore Herzl, the first ‘Zionist’. His most significant friendship, though, was with Chaim Weizmann, the Jewish chemist and Lenin look-alike. When they met in 1914 Balfour stated that the Jewish question would remain insoluble until either the Jews here (in Britain) became entirely assimilated or there was a normal Jewish community in Palestine. In the meantime Uganda was offered as a possible homeland for the Jews. This was rejected.

Balfour asked Weizmann why Uganda was rejected and why were the Jews so hung up on Palestine? Weitzman responded by asking why the British were hung up on London. Balfour replied that the British currently had London but the Jews did not have Jerusalem. Weizmann replied, “We had Jerusalem when London was a swamp.” That was enough to persuade Balfour to begin to argue for Palestine for the Jews.

As the First World War progressed, Weizmann made himself invaluable to the British war effort through his discovery of a process to produce synthetic acetone, a chemical needed to make cordite, a naval explosive. His reward was the Balfour Declaration, contained within a letter to Lord Rothschild, the most prominent Jew of the day. Here is the letter:

The Balfour Declaration

Foreign Office

November 2nd, 1917

Dear Lord Rothschild,

I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of His Majesty’s Government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations which has been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet.

“His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”

I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation.

Yours sincerely,

Arthur James Balfour

Lord Balfour had a Christian upbringing and it was his deep familiarity with the Old Testament that motivated his favourable attitude towards the Jews, rather than a particular love for the Jewish people. It mustn’t be forgotten that, as Prime Minister in 1905, he had introduced the Aliens Bill, to limit Jewish immigration to Britain, at a time when they were still being severely persecuted in the east. A decade later he seems to have softened his attitude, saying “The treatment of the race has been a disgrace of Christendom” and viewed the establishment of a Jewish State as a way of making amends. Although he didn’t live long enough to witness the eventual birth of the State of Israel, his name is commemorated throughout the land in streets, a forest and a moshav (agricultural community).

Lord Shaftesbury

The idea of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, though present in Jewish hearts since the start of the Galut, really started to take hold of Christian minds at the start of the 19th Century. It all started (probably) with the Frenchman, Napoleon Bonaparte, who promised Palestine to the Jews. The trouble is that he failed to conquer the land, so it wasn’t his to give away! But nice touch, Napoleon, your heart was in the right place. From that time on, particularly in Britain, we start to see many prominent people – writers, artists, statesmen – all with one mind on the Jewish issue; the need for a Jewish homeland.

Lord Shaftesbury was the most loved politician and one of the most effective social reformers in 19th Century England. He became interested in the Jews through his study of Biblical prophecy – he was so keen to understand the Old Testament that he forced himself to learn Hebrew for that very purpose. He became convinced that the Jews should be encouraged to return to Palestine, their God-given home and urged Palmerston, the British Foreign Secretary to do something about it politically. Such was the might of the British Empire in those days that it seems the British were free to do what they liked because, as a result of Shaftesbury’s prompting, Michael Alexander, a Jewish Christian, was sent to the Holy Land as the first Bishop of Jerusalem. Although this man only lived for another couple of years, and the scheme only lasted for fifty years, it represented solid achievement in the desire for an eventual Jewish homeland in Palestine.

Lord Shaftesbury never gave up his vision and constantly prompted key movers of 19th Century Britain to share this vision. It was said that he was sent a ring from Jerusalem that was engraved with the Hebrew words of a Psalm, “Oh, pray for the peace of Jerusalem; they shall prosper that love thee.” He wore this ring for the rest of his life. Curiously the statue of Eros in Piccadilly Circus, London, was dedicated to him, which doesn’t make that much sense as he did little to promote the cause of minor Greek deities!

Winston Churchill

This man needs no introduction. Younger readers will remember him as the inventor of the “two-fingered gesture”, the V-for-Victory sign. Older readers and students of history will acknowledge him for encouraging the bulldog spirit of the British people and rousing them, through his inspiring speeches, to victory (with help from the Americans of course) in the Second World War.

Winston Churchill was a great friend of the Jewish people, whom he admired greatly. In fact he was known as “the last romantic Zionist Gentile”. As early as 1908 he spoke of “full sympathy … with their aspirations of establishing a Jewish homeland.” 50

Sometimes, among the British Government, he seemed to be their only friend. Here are some relevant episodes from his life:

◊ In 1921 when asked by the Canadian Prime Minister about his opinions of the Balfour Declaration, Churchill replied “To do our best to make an honest effort to give the Jews a chance to make a national home for themselves.”

◊ In 1922, as a result of his pro-Zionist views, he ended the current ban on immigration of Jews to Palestine (although in the following year the British reduced the proposed homeland by 75%, to form Transjordan for the Arab Palestinians).

◊ Churchill said that the Jews were the most remarkable race on the earth and their religious contribution “is worth more than all other knowledge and all other doctrines.”

◊ During the Second World War, as Prime Minister, he was in favour of increased Jewish immigration to Palestine, to save them from Nazi atrocities, but was over-ruled particularly through the efforts of the Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden who was too worried about what the Arabs would think of it, reinforced by the fact that many were pro-Nazi.

◊ Churchill was the only real supporter in both Allied governments for the bombing of the Auschwitz death camp factory.

◊ Churchill was the only supporter of the idea of a Jewish strike force against the Germans. He got his way and the 25,000 strong Jewish Brigade was formed. The experience gained by these Jewish fighters became invaluable when they had to subsequently fight for their existence during the Arab-Israeli wars.

Lloyd George

Yes, it’s another British political figure, this time the Prime Minister at the time of the First World War. Here was another man convinced by his reading of the Bible as to the destiny of the Jewish people and their rights to the Holy Land. His inclusion in this list follows the willing role he played in the political dramas taking place at the time, particularly concerning the efforts of Chaim Weizmann and other Jewish Zionists. It is clear that it was well within his power to block the Balfour Declaration, yet he chose to sponsor it, to his credit.

David Lloyd George was one of the prominent politicians targeted by Chaim Weizmann, who also ‘nobbled’ Winston Churchill and Lord Balfour, creating Zionists of the three of them, (and therefore deserving the highest honour paid to him by becoming the first president of the State of Israel). It was when Lloyd George had taken over the War Office from Lord Kitchener (he of the war poster – Your country needs you – fame), that things really got moving. More resources were diverted to the war effort in the Middle East, culminating in the taking of Palestine from the Turks.

Things got even better when Lloyd George took over as Prime Minister from the anti-Semitic Asquith. It just wasn’t realised at the time that the man now elected to run the country was a philo-Semite and a fervent Zionist. In fact after a war meeting with prominent financiers, including Lord Rothschild, he was heard to remark ‘Only the old Jew made sense’. Weizmann and Herbert Samuel, another Jewish politician, cleverly worked on Lloyd George by reminding him of how Palestine was the same size as his own homeland, Wales, and constantly mentioning place names in the Holy Land that they knew would be familiar to him, as they knew he was a Bible-thumper. But I’m sure Lloyd George, not a stupid man, was a willing convert to the cause.

When the First World War was over both Lloyd George and Lord Balfour were determined that if any good was to come out of this pointless war it would be to establish a home for the Jews. Lloyd George even told Weizmann at one time that ‘Palestine was the one interesting part of the war’.

Orde Wingate

Here was a truly great friend of the Jews, a practical one too – he taught them how to fight! A devout Christian, Captain Charles Orde Wingate of the British Army was an ardent Christian Zionist and during the 1936-1939 Arab riots in Palestine undertook the training of special Jewish Commando Units, who worked under cover of darkness under the name of the night squads. Many of Israel’s future military leaders had their initial military experience under this man. Moshe Dayan had this to say about him, “There were times when he would march on, driven by an iron will. He had an unshakeable belief in the Bible. Before going into action, he would read the passage in the Bible relating to the places where we would be operating and find testimony to our victory – the victory of God and the Jews.”

He was well loved by the Jews in the land, who named him Ha-Yedid, ‘the friend’. Unfortunately the British high command wasn’t too pleased with the activities of this maverick and he was withdrawn from Palestine in 1939 with the following endorsement in his passport, “The bearer … should not be allowed to enter Palestine.”

His dream was always to lead the army of the future Jewish state, though, sadly, he was to die in a plane crash in Burma in 1944. He loved the Jews right up to the end; a year before his death he wrote this in a letter to a friend, “If I forget thee O Jerusalem …”. This brave man is now commemorated in Israel by a children’s village, a College of Physical Education, a forest and a Square in Jerusalem.

Lewis Way

Here was another product of the religious awakening of the 19th Century. Although this man was well off and a member of a respected and prominent family, the main part of Lewis Way’s life was spent on one single purpose, the restoration of Israel.

In 1817 he made an extensive journey through Europe at his own expense, visiting Holland, Germany, Russia and Poland. On the reports he made to his missionary society, the Church Ministry to the Jews, missions were opened in Poland, Holland and Germany. When in Russia, he met the Emperor, Alexander I, with the expressed intention of reminding Russia of her ‘Christian’ duty to help restore the Jewish people to their homeland. Ironically, the subsequent treatment of Jews by the Russian people, through state-sponsored pogroms, did drive out many, though not just to the promised land, but also to Britain and America and other places.

In 1821 he placed his country home at the disposal of his missionary society, as a training school for Jewish Christians.

In 1840 he died and was eulogised by a later historian thus, “The best earthly friend whom Almighty God has vouchsafed to the Society. God raised him up for this great work and furnished him with all the talents which it required; learning, genius, wealth, fervent piety and a heart overflowing with love

for His ancient people.”

William Hechler

The father of modern Zionism was an Austrian Jew called Theodore Herzl, who in his pamphlet The Jewish State, began to turn the far-fetched idea of a Jewish land in Palestine to a believable reality for many Jews. What isn’t so well-known was that he probably couldn’t have done it without a British Christian Zionist, William Hechler. Here was a remarkable man, he had even prophesised that the Jews would return to their land by the start of the 20th Century.

One day Hechler found a copy of Herzl’s The Jewish State and became so excited that he searched him down and they became fast friends. Herzl considered Hechler to be a religious zealot but became interested when Hechler could provide him with an introduction to the German Kaiser and the British Prime Minister. This latter relationship was to bear fruit, as we read earlier. Hechler was to work alongside Herzl right until the death of the Austrian.

Last word

It is interesting and significant that, apart from Corrie Ten Boom, all of the above list were British! It is not a contrived list, borne out of misplaced patriotism. It is a lot easier to compile a list of anti-Semites, believe me, a list that would span both the centuries and the continents. But you have a more limited choice when you wish to list the philo-Semites and two factors do stand out sufficiently to make them statistically probable – adherence to the Christian faith and a British birth. To make it more interesting, it seems that the period of greatest ‘philo-Semitism’ shown by the British people co-incided with the rise and flourishing of the British Empire. But this attitude seemed to change after the Second World War; something to do with Arab oil, I believe. Is it a co-incidence that the subsequent lamentable record of the British Government towards Israel has co-incided with the dramatic and swift collapse of the British Empire? It’s worth a brief consideration, surely?

NOTES

46 The Restoration and Conversion of the Jews Vol. 1 pg 214

47 Calvin’s Commentaries, Vol 19, Epistle to the Romans, Baker House, pg 434 to 440.

48 The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol 1 Banner of Truth Trust, 1976, pg 607.

49 Rom. 11:12, 15. Matthew Henry’s Commentary, V 6, MacDonald Publishing Company, pp 448-453.

50 Jewish Chronicle (Sept 3 2004 p25)

Chapter Fifteen: Dreams of Home

In 1816, a comfortable English family produced a baby boy. Young John grew up to be a keen sportsman with a lively intelligence and was destined for the family business. It all went wrong when the family business collapsed and, as a last resort, John was ordained into the Church. He eventually became the first Bishop of Liverpool, but it was his writings that cemented his place in history. Because, you see, J.C. Ryle was a Christian writer of rare clarity and prophetic insight. It was said that he ‘changed the face of the English Church’. Of interest to us, he published a sermon entitled ‘Scattered Israel to be gathered’51, at a time when the Jews were indeed scattered to the ends of the Earth, a despised and unloved people, stateless and without real hope … or so it seemed.

The text of his sermon was taken from Jeremiah 31:10, ‘Hear the Word of the Lord, O ye nations, and declare it in the isles afar off, and say, He that scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him, as a shepherd doth his flock’.

He then wrote on four points. Firstly, in the light of the Replacement Theology that had become the norm in the Church, he defined his understanding of the word ‘Israel’ as being ‘the whole Jewish nation’ and urged his listeners to ‘cleave to the literal sense of Bible words, and beware of departing from it, except in cases of absolute necessity. Beware of that system of allegorising and spiritualising, and accommodating, which the school of Origen first brought in, and which has found such an unfortunate degree of favour in the Church’.

The second point he made concerned the ‘present condition of Israel’, which, of course, was the situation in the mid 19th Century, a full century before Israel was to become a recognised nation. He noted that ‘scattered as they are, there is a national vitality among them which is stronger than that of any nation on earth’.

He then addressed the vital question that cuts to the very heart of the matter and that is the most troubling issue of all. Why so painful, why so long? The exile to Babylon only lasted 70 years or so, but this one had lasted for 1800 years and there was no sign of an end to it! Why, why, why? J.C. Ryle was very clear in his understanding. It was a result of their many sins. ‘Their hardness and stiffneckedness, their impenitence and unbelief, their abuse of privileges and neglect of gifts, their rejection of prophets and messengers from heaven, and finally their refusal to receive the Lord Jesus Christ, the King’s own Son, these were the things which called down God’s wrath upon them.’

This is heavy stuff, highly politically-incorrect by today’s standards. He used the Jewish people as an object lesson to the Gentile Church, a warning against spiritual pride and self-righteousness and the exaltation of men’s traditions over the divine Word of God. He warns the Church against its own complacency in these matters.

“Let us each look to ourselves and take heed to our own souls. The same God lives who scattered Israel because of Israel’s sins. And what says He to the Churches of Christ this day? He says, ‘Be not high-minded, but fear. If God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest He also spares not thee’” (Romans 11:20-21)

This is a strong lesson and a hard one, particularly when one considers the consequences of this divine policy. After all, the horrors of the Holocaust were arguably the natural outcome of centuries of ‘Christian anti-Semitism’, Hitler even using as justification of his anti-Jewish rantings in the writings of Martin Luther, the chief architect of the Reformation.

The problem of the Gentile Church over these centuries is adequately summarised by a neat saying from the mouth of Jesus himself, ‘Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your eye?’ (Matthew 7:3)

The sins of the Jewish people leading to their exile were played out in our full view, because, after all, wasn’t it one of the main themes of the Bible? We read of God’s faithfulness to His chosen people, repaid by their rejection of His prophets and their Messiah. We use these episodes as teaching points, but we can easily forget that these important lessons have been bought at a heavy price for the Jewish people, in Biblical times and thereafter.

We read of the sins of David, of Solomon, of the Kings of Israel and Judah, of the scribes and Pharisees and we are quick to judge them, we are ready to criticise them by saying ‘How could they repay God back for all He did for them’. ‘He gave them manna in the desert, He gave them victory in battle, He gave them healing and salvation through the ministry of Jesus. How could they have turned their back on him – no wonder He turned His back on them!’ It is easy for us, from the comfort of our armchairs, to make these accusations, isn’t it? Yet, consider this …

The interactions of God with humanity can also be seen in the pages of history, almost a third testament, to be considered alongside the Old Testament and the New Testament. We’ll call it the ‘Last Testament’. He wasn’t going to add in any more covenants, after all the ministry of Jesus was the final word as far as salvation is concerned and the covenant with Abraham was pretty watertight too. No, the purpose of the Last Testament is to be simply a record of the historical Church, from the time of the Church Fathers to the present. The books of this Last Testament would be a series of letters (or e-mails?) by a modern day ‘Paul’ to the Church at large.

There would be much that was good, life-affirming and heartening. But there would also be some dark chapters, reminiscent of the gloomier sections of the Old Testament prophets. Book titles could be, ‘Concerning the Crusades’, ‘Concerning the Inquisition’, ‘Concerning Church traditions’, ‘Concerning Holy War’, but the main thrust would be a modern day ‘Romans’, perhaps we’ll call it ‘Jerusalem’. This would be a letter specifically written to Jewish Christian fellowships in Jerusalem and would be a list of all the sins committed by an unforgiving and self-righteous Gentile Church against the Jewish people over the centuries, ranging from the insults and accusations, to deportation, murder and massacre. It would mention the fact that all of these actions were committed by ‘Christians’ working from a fundamentally flawed understanding of the mind of God, carrying out judgements, on behalf of God, on a people it considered cursed.

Now the point of all this is that the sins that so called ‘Christians’ over the centuries have committed are at a level far exceeding anything the Jews did. Yet the Jews received a 1900 year exile for their misdemeanours! What does the ‘Gentile Church’ deserve? You may point out the fact that the Jews were ultimately exiled (and ‘rejected’) for their rejection of Jesus their Messiah, but is that any worse than the indescribably evil acts committed by ‘Christians’ in the name of Jesus? The Jews rejected salvation through their Messiah, but were the hymn-singing ‘Christian’ Crusaders, who waded through the blood of slaughtered Jews and Muslims in Jerusalem, truly following the words of Jesus?

Let’s say that the Gentile Church received the same punishment as the Jews of old and we’re now in the 25th Century looking back, reading the Last Testament, noticing that the descendants of those Gentile Christians are themselves wandering the world without a home. Would we read about their sins and call them an accursed people too? ‘Do not judge or you too will be judged. For in the same way as you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you’ (Matthew 7:1-2). So the lesson we should take from this is that God alone is our judge and only God is in a position to judge others, whether Christian, unbeliever, Jew or Gentile.

Returning to J.C. Ryle, his third point concerned ‘the future prospects of Israel’. This is interesting because, what was still very much in the future for this 19th Century writer, is now largely in the present. In fact he admitted that he was moving into the area of ‘unfulfilled prophecy’. He was utterly convinced of the restoration of the Jewish people to their land and mentions that ‘out of the sixteen prophets of the Old Testament, there are at least ten in which the gathering and restoration of the Jews in the latter days are expressly mentioned’.

He then chooses a single Scripture from each of these ten prophets, allowing them to speak for themselves. I have taken the liberty of emphasising the key points in bold.

‘In that day the Lord will reach out his hand a second time to reclaim the remnant that is left of His people from Assyria, from Lower Egypt, from Upper Egypt, from Cush, from Elam, from Babylonia, from Hamath and from the islands of the sea. He will raise a banner for the nations and gather the exiles of Israel; he will assemble the scattered people of Judah from the four quarters of the earth’. (Isaiah 11:11-12)

‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I will take the Israelites out of the nations where they have gone. I will gather them from all around and bring them back into their own land’. (Ezekiel 37:21)

‘The people of Judah and the people of Israel will be reunited, and they will appoint one leader and will come up out of the land, for great will be the day of Jezreel … For the Israelites will live for many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred stones, without ephod or idol. Afterwards the Israelites will return and seek the Lord their God and David their king. They will come trembling to the Lord and to His blessings in the last days.’ (Hosea 1:11;3:4,5)

‘Judah will be inhabited for ever and Jerusalem through all generations’ (Joel 3:20)

“‘I will bring back My exiled people Israel; they will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them. They will plant vineyards and drink their wine; they will make gardens and eat their fruit. I will plant Israel in their own land, never again to be uprooted from the land I have given them,’ says the Lord your God.’ (Amos 9:14,15)

‘But on Mount Zion will be deliverance; it will be holy, and the house of Jacob will possess its inheritance.’ (Obadiah 1:17)

“’In that day,’ declares the Lord, ‘I will gather the lame; I will assemble the exiles and those I have brought to grief. I will make the lame a remnant, those driven away a strong nation. The Lord will rule over them in Mount Zion from that day and for ever.’” (Micah 4:6-7)

‘At that time I will deal with all who oppressed you; I will rescue the lame and gather those who have been scattered. I will give them praise and honour in every land where they were put to shame. At that time I will gather you; at that time I will bring you home. I will give you honour and praise among all the peoples of the earth when I restore your fortunes before your very eyes,” says the Lord.’ (Zephaniah 3:19-20)

‘Though I scatter them among the peoples, yet in distant lands they will remember Me. They and their children will survive, and they will return. I will bring them back from Egypt and gather them from Assyria. I will bring them to Gilead and Lebanon, and there will not be room enough for them.’ (Zechariah 10:9-10).

“The days are coming,’ declares the Lord, ‘when I will bring My people Israel and Judah back from captivity and restore them to the land I gave to their forefathers to possess,’ says the Lord … I am with you and will save you,’ declares the Lord. ‘Though I completely destroy all the nations among which I scatter you, I will not completely destroy you. I will discipline you but only with justice; I will not let you go entirely unpunished.’ “ (Jeremiah 30:3,11)

These are just a very small sample of the vast quantity of verses that speak on this subject. Some have argued that these verses speak of the Jewish return from Babylon, which is very hard to justify for most of these verses. As has been earlier stressed, I will let the plain simple meaning of these verses speak for themselves and clear away any doubt as to their true meaning.

J.C. Ryle makes an interesting comment regarding this regathering. ‘I might show you by scriptural evidence that the Jews will probably first be gathered in an unconverted state, though humbled, and will afterwards be taught to look to Him whom they have pierced, through much tribulation.’ Remember, this is not the ‘prophecy of justification’ after the event. This is an Anglican Bishop’s reading of Scripture a full century before the World has started to see the incredible fulfilment of the Word of God.

There is a fourth point to Bishop Ryle’s sermon, but I will leave that until a later Chapter, when it is more relevant to the discussion.

Reminding ourselves of Isaiah 11:11-12, we read: ‘In that day the Lord will extend His hand yet a second time to recover the remnant which is left of His people, from Assyria, from Egypt, from Pathros, from Ethiopia, from Elam, from Shinar, from Hamath, and from the coastlands of the sea. He will raise an ensign for the nations, and will assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.’

The first regathering had been from the Babylonian Empire around 2,500 years earlier. This was now the second regathering and God’s prophetic timetable had kicked in after centuries of silence.

In the 19th Century, Palestine was a poor country, ruled by absentee Turkish landlords, as part of the crumbling and corrupt Ottoman Empire. By all accounts the land was largely barren and uninhabited, its population either nomadic or mainly involved with agriculture, despite the poor environment. Sir John William Dawson, writing in 1888, said, ‘No national union and no national spirit has prevailed there. The motley impoverished tribes which have occupied it have held it as mere tenants at will, temporary landowners, evidently waiting for those entitled to the permanent possession of the soil’ 52. In 1835, Alphonse de Lamartine wrote, ‘Outside the gates of Jerusalem we saw indeed no living object, heard no living sound, we found the same void, the same silence …’ 53

Thanks to the Turks, the land had been totally neglected. Hundreds of years of abuse had turned the country into a treeless waste, with malaria-ridden swamps, a sprinkling of towns and an unliveable desert in the south. This was the position in 1880, and this is incontestable fact.

But now we start to get discrepancies. How many people did live in the land at that time, and who were they? Jewish sources put the figure at between 100,000 and 250,000. Arab sources put the figure at about 480,000 (456,000 Arab, 24,000 Jewish).

And who were these Arabs? Arab sources would simply say that these were indigenous people, Arabs who have lived in this land for generations. Jewish and independent sources say otherwise. They would point to immigrations from Egypt (to escape heavy taxes), Algeria, Turkey and elsewhere. There are suggestions that up to 25% of the Muslim population of Palestine in the 19th Century were immigrants.

A final word here from the author of ‘Tom Sawyer’ and ‘Huckleberry Finn’. According to the American author Mark Twain’s independent eye-witness account in 1867, ‘The Innocent’s Abroad’, the land was barely populated, just a collection of small villages in a dry, barren land. This complete book is available on the Internet, so you can check it for yourself. Here’s his summary.

‘Of all the lands there are for dismal scenery, I think Palestine must be the prince … It is a hopeless, dreary, heart-broken land … Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes. Over it broods the spell of a curse that has withered its fields and fettered its energies … Nazareth is forlorn; about that ford of Jordan where the hosts of Israel entered the Promised Land with songs of rejoicing, one finds only a squalid camp of fantastic Bedouins of the desert; Jericho the accursed, lies a moldering ruin, to-day, even as Joshua’s miracle left it more than three thousand years ago … Renowned Jerusalem itself, the stateliest name in history, has lost all its ancient grandeur, and is become a pauper village … Capernaum is a shapeless ruin; Magdala is the home of beggared Arabs; Bethsaida and Chorazin have vanished from the earth … Palestine is desolate and unlovely. And why should it be otherwise? Can the curse of the Deity beautify a land? …’ 54

Palestine was simply an outpost of the Ottoman Empire, a part of Greater Syria. It was not a country or a state in the manner of, say, England or Germany at that time. It was simply a collection of villages that happened to exist within the geographical region known as Palestine. Although many Arabs did own their own homes, the majority were the poor ‘fellahin’, who worked as hired hands for the landowners. There was no nationalism in the land, no feeling of belonging to a ‘people’, loyalty was to the local clan or village. Arabs did not see themselves as ‘Palestinians’ and often referred to their homeland as Southern Syria.

Jews had lived in the land right from Biblical times, though, in the 19th Century, they were very much the minority. The first major wave of Jewish immigration started in the 1880s and, by the end of the 19th Century, Jewish population had tripled to over 80,000 (Arab sources).

This included the foundation of the Jewish settlement of Rishon-le-Zion, where 40 Jewish families settled – followed later by more than 400 Arab families from Egypt and elsewhere. This was a community that worked and was at peace. The Arabs saw the benefits of what the Jews were doing to the land and joined them. Between 1882 and 1914 pioneering Jews started, slowly, to transform the land. They worked on the swamps and the undrained rivers. Life was tough; if you didn’t die of malaria, you could be killed by Bedouins. Soon Jewish villages were springing up all over, and the towns of Jerusalem, Tiberias, Safed and Haifa started to grow. In 1909 they founded the first modern Jewish city, Tel Aviv. Life was still tough, although disease wasn’t so much the problem.

Attacks by Arab neighbours increased, even though, through the efforts of these Jewish pioneers, life for all in the land was improving – including for the Arab neighbours. The motivation for this new zeal for the land was the secular and political movement called Zionism, a desire to return to Zion, their name for this historic homeland of the Jewish people. This shows us that God doesn’t just use believers to achieve His ends. He could also use Theodore Herzl, a Jewish atheist working as a journalist in France.

Appalled at the anti-Semitism that he observed as the result of the Alfred Dreyfus case, he realised that, even in the civilized countries of France and Germany, Jews were still viewed with suspicion. He wrote a book called Der Judenstaat – the Jewish State – as an expression of his political Zionism, his desire to see a modern Jewish state, with a country, a flag and an identity. And, of course, there could be only one place for the realisation of this dream, Palestine, the historical Land of Israel.

Newspapers and other media sources today give the impression that Israel ‘occupies’ land once owned by people living in a ‘Palestinian state’. But evidence is to the contrary. For a start, the Arabs in no way saw themselves as ‘Palestinians’. When the First congress of Muslim-Christian Associations met in Jerusalem in February 1919, the agreement was that ‘we consider Palestine as part of Arab Syria’. The only people who considered themselves ‘Palestinians’ in the first half of the 20th Century were the Jewish inhabitants. Even the Jewish national newspaper was called ‘The Palestine Post’ (now called ‘The Jerusalem Post’).

At the beginning of the 19th Century, the London Jews Society, one of the first missionary groups targeting the Jewish people in the World, had opened a building complex in Bethnal Green to act as their centre for missionary operations. They were thinking of a name for it. What did they come up with? Palestine Place. Interesting, why would they have named their headquarters after a territory and a people, with which they had absolutely no connection? Simple answer – it was because the only people at that time who mainly identified with the land of Palestine were the Jews.

The other point concerns ownership of the land. Did Jewish immigrants seize it or was the land acquired legally? Land settled in by these first immigrants in the 1880s was bought from the absentee Turkish landlords, who were eager for the extra cash. The land initially settled in was the uncultivated, swampy, cheap and empty land. Later on they bought cultivated land, some of it at exorbitant prices. In his memoirs, King Abdullah of Jordan wrote ‘… The Arabs are as prodigal in selling their land as they are in useless wailing and weeping’55. Before the formation of the State of Israel in 1948, no land was seized or acquired in any way other than through legal means.

In the 20th Century, Arabs as well as Jews were immigrating into Palestine, mainly from Egypt, Transjordan, Syria and Lebanon. Between 1922 and 1931, when the country was administered by the British, illegal Arab immigrants (i.e. extra to the agreed quotas) comprised almost 12% of the Arab population. The Hope Simpson Report acknowledged in 1930 that there was ‘uncontrolled influx of illegal immigrants from Egypt, Transjordan and Syria’56.

The first key event of the 20th Century was the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire, thanks to them joining the losing side in the First World War. After the war, responsibility for the Land of Palestine fell to the British. In 1917, just weeks before the end of the First World War, Lord Balfour, British Foreign Secretary, wrote the Balfour Declaration (mentioned earlier) to the Jewish community, promising a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine.

On the 11th December 1917, General Edmund Allenby, a devout Christian, was handed the keys of Jerusalem, as Britain’s representative, by the defeated Turks. The rest of the country was conquered in the following year and Palestine became British responsibility. At the San Remo conference in 1920, the League of Nations rubber-stamped this situation and Britain was officially given the Mandate for Palestine. Britain was now able to implement the Balfour Declaration and it would have done if it hadn’t made similar promises to the Arabs.

Jerusalem was declared an International enclave, neither Jewish nor Arab. So, with typical Britishness, a compromise was offered. The whole eastern part of the Mandate was given to a prominent Arab, Emir Abdullah, to thank him for helping them in their fight against the Turks. This became Transjordan, later to be renamed Jordan. Interestingly, the Emir wanted to call his land Palestine – if he had then perhaps he would have done us all a favour! So 80% of the British Mandate was handed to the Arabs and Jewish immigration was completely banned in this area.

The rate of Arab immigration increased during the early 1930s, which was a period of prosperity in Palestine. The Syrian Governor of Hauran admitted in 1934 that 30,000- 36,000 people from his district entered Palestine that year and settled there. In 1939, Winston Churchill said ‘Far from being persecuted, the Arabs have crowded into the country and multiplied until their population has increased more than even all world Jewry could lift up (increase) the Jewish population’57.

This is an important (though much contested) point, because it dispels the myth that the Palestinian people have lived there for generations. When we talk about Palestinian refugees, displaced as a result of the formation of the State of Israel, consider how many of them would have been as recent to the land as the Jews themselves.

Jewish immigration continued and in 1929 there were about 150,000 Jews in the land, among 700,000 Arabs. But for Arab leaders this was unacceptable and there were many clashes, including a particularly nasty massacre of Jews praying at the Western Wall in Jerusalem and a similar one at Hebron. Incredibly, the British refused to allow Jews to defend themselves and 133 Jews were killed in subsequent riots. The British were becoming restless and, in 1937, set up the Peel Commission, to suggest a further partitioning of the land. This would have given the Jews just the coastal plain, Galilee and Golan, a corridor up to and surrounding Jerusalem to the British, and the rest, the largest area, to the Arabs.

Surprisingly the Jews accepted this. Even more surprisingly, the Arabs rejected it, declaring that no Jewish State of any shape or form was acceptable, so this was a waste of time and Arab revolts continued right up to the outbreak of World War Two, when the Arab leaders gladly opted for the side of the Nazis.

In 1939 Britain, at a conference in London, suggested a new partition, proposing an Arab-dominated state, with 75,000 Jews allowed in by 1944 and where, subsequently, the Arabs could decide how many Jews to let in. Amazingly, the Arabs rejected this too! Yet, the 75,000 quota was adhered to, a tragic state of affairs considering what was now beginning to happen in Europe. In early 1942, a ship with 769 Jewish refugees was refused landing permission in Haifa and later sank. Then there was another ship, the Exodus in 1947, where the British refused 4,500 immigrants, sending them back, ultimately, to holding camps in Germany of all places.

Through these actions, Britain was vilified by world opinion, particularly now that the horrors of the Holocaust had been uncovered. It was also totally fed up with the terrorism of both the Arab and Jewish extremists and finally decided that enough was enough. Besides, it was having enough problems of its own, holding together the ailing and crumbling British Empire. So they handed over the problem to be sorted out by the newly formed United Nations.

What was proposed was a partitioning of the land into three portions, an Arab state, a Jewish state and an international area based around Jerusalem. The Jewish state was to be a strange twisted area, lasso-ed at two points and destined to be the ugliest looking bit of geography on the map. The Arab state fared little better, being the photographic inverse of the Jewish state except for a large hole in the middle, the international area. Only a committee could have come up with such a hotchpotch!

On November 29th 1947 the General Assembly of the United Nations met to see what to do about the situation. We’ll see what happened there in the next chapter, but first, what did God think of all this?

It is difficult for us, with our imperfect mortal minds, to understand that God would still remember the Jews after so long. After all, thanks to the actions of the Christian establishment over the previous 13 centuries, their existence had been extremely precarious. As unlikely as it may have seemed, the fact remains that God was going to have His way despite the actions of the Church. He was going to honour His Covenant with the descendants of Abraham. Let us remind ourselves what it involved. We read in Genesis 13:14-15, “The Lord said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him, ‘Lift up your eyes, and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward; for all the land which you see I will give to you and to your descendants for ever.’”

And now, after centuries of exile, they had returned to start to see the fulfilment of this ancient promise.

Just as He had ensured the existence of Judah, when Israel had been absorbed into the Gentile Assyrian world, He was not going to abandon His people now. He worked in the way He always works, for His Name’s sake, as an expression of His holiness. He is a consistent, honourable God. If He makes a promise, then He will make sure He keeps it, despite the actions of others, even those who claim to be His followers.

It is worth remembering here the words of Jeremiah the prophet, in Chapter 31, verses 35-37, ‘Thus says the Lord, who gives the sun for light by day and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar--the Lord of hosts is His name: If this fixed order departs from before Me, says the Lord, then shall the descendants of Israel cease from being a nation before Me for ever.’ Thus says the Lord: ‘If the heavens above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth below can be explored, then I will cast off all the descendants of Israel for all that they have done, says the Lord.’

How clear can you get! The sun, moon and stars would cease functioning before God would give up on His people, the Jews. Every inch of the heavens and the earth would be explored and measured before His people are cast away! So the Jews were kept intact not only through the hostile Empires of Bible times – the Babylonians, Greeks and Romans – but also during the 13 centuries of ‘State Christianity’, surviving

marginalisations, expulsions, massacres and pogroms at the hands of the followers of the Jewish Messiah!

But survive they did, so much so that when we arrive at the year 1947, this nation without a land could not remain so any longer.

NOTES

51 Ryle, J.C. Are you ready for the end of time? Christian Focus Publications 2001,105-124

52 Dawson, Sir John William Modern Science in Bible Lands New York 1890, 449-450

53 De Lamartine, Alphonse Recollections of the East, Vol I London 1845, 268

54 Twain, Mark The Innocents Abroad New York 1966, summary of Palestine visit.

55 The full quote from the memoirs of King Abdullah, is: “It is made quite clear to all, both by the map drawn up by the Simpson Commission and by another compiled by the Peel Commission, that the Arabs are as prodigal in selling their land as they are in useless wailing and weeping” (taken from Hope-Simpson report http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_mandate_hope_simpson.php)

56 Quoted in article by CFI UK on https://www.cfi.org.uk/downloads/From%20Time%20Immemorial.pdf From time immemorial

57 Gilbert, Martin Churchill, vol 5, 1072

Chapter Sixteen: A Nation is Born

We now arrive at the point of focus, the one single issue at the heart of the major conflict of the modern World. It doesn’t just divide Jew and Muslim or Palestinian and Israeli, but also Christian and Christian. It is the one issue where Mr. Roots and Mr. Shoots totally part company and Christian unity makes way for heated debate.

It is the question of The State of Israel.

Israel is a tiny country, the size of Wales we’re told. It occupies less than 0.5% of the land mass of its 21 hostile Arab and Muslim neighbours. It’s so tiny, that at one point it is barely 9 miles across, yet the World screams at it for being expansionist. It’s also the World’s foremost political and religious hotspot, giving rise to more United Nation resolutions than all other nations put together! It’s both hated and loved

by more people than any other.

‘How can this be? How can such a tiny place generate such heat?’ This is an understandable reaction for someone who believes that the State of Israel is the product of historical processes, in much the same way as the other 300+ nations of the World. This is also the reaction of Mr. Shoots, whose theological views lead him to the conclusion that the Bible has absolutely no relevance to modern day Israel.

There can be no compromise. It is impossible to hold to Mr. Shoot’s theological position and admit that the survival of the Jewish people and the formation of Israel have anything at all to do with God.

The formula is set in stone. If the Church is the ‘New Israel’, then the Jews of the ‘Old Israel’ are a people discarded by God and, although they have somehow survived through 2000 years of prejudice, hatred and extermination, it is just an accident. God is simply not interested in them; in fact, they seem to have survived despite His best efforts. They even survived the Holocaust, the biggest ever organised attempt at mass genocide, which seemed, against all the odds, to lead to the first ever re-emergence of a nation some 3000 years since it was last a sovereign state.

A historical accident? Sure. Whatever. Just as an atheist sometimes has to show extraordinary faith in his belief in the absence of God, so Mr. Shoots must exercise astounding faith in his position in the face of growing evidence to the contrary!

Be warned. If Mr. Shoots is forced to make even the slightest concession of divine favour to the Jews, then his whole argument collapses and a rethink is needed. If the Jews possess just a crumb of divine favour then perhaps the ‘Old Israel’ is still a part of God’s plan and what we are seeing with the Jewish people and Israel today, is a survival of a remnant, a particularly typical feature of God’s plans for mankind, whether through the prophets at the time of Elijah, or, more pertinently, the remnant chosen by grace in Romans 11:5. Take time to read this chapter of Romans and meditate on verses 11 and 12, which speak of the Jewish people.

‘Again I ask: Did they stumble so as to fall beyond recovery? Not at all! Rather, because of their transgression, salvation has come to the Gentiles to make Israel envious. But if their transgression means riches for the world, and their loss means riches for the Gentiles, how much greater riches will their fulness bring!’

Mr. Roots looks at the evidence around him and comes to a rather different conclusion. He believes that the Bible has every relevance to modern day Israel. He remembers the eternal Covenant that God made with Abraham, promising their continuance as a nation, their blessings to mankind (through Jesus) and their inheritance of the land of Canaan.

He sees the exile from the land as a necessary outworking of God’s righteousness concerning the enjoyment of the land, but he also sees the other side of the coin. He looks at the survival of the Jews and the formation of the State of Israel and he sees miracle, after miracle, after …

Miracle One: The time: November 29th 1947. The place: United Nations General Assembly. The occasion: Voting to decide on the UN Partition Plan to create a Jewish State and an Arab State.

Fifty seven nations voted. Naturally the Moslem countries – Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, Yemen and Afghanistan – voted against the plan, not wanting any official declaration of a Jewish nation in their midst. Britain, to its shame considering its century-old relationship with the Jews, abstained; wounded pride at its failure in the area (Its desire to cultivate oil-fields – sorry, I mean, relationships – with their Arab friends were contributory factors here).

The biggest mystery concerned the attitude of Russia, which actually saw the Jewish Zionists, with their socialist leanings as potential allies in the Middle East. So Russia and its allies joined with Europe and most of the free World and voted for the partition plan. Without this unexpected support, the United Nation partition plan would never have been accepted, as it needed a two thirds majority to be carried through. It was carried through, and the State of Israel was born into the international community.

Israel was once again a nation, after centuries of exile and the words of Isaiah 66:8 seemed to speak volumes: ‘Who has ever heard of such a thing? Who has ever seen such things? Can a country be born in a day or a nation be brought forth in a moment? Yet no sooner is Zion in labour than she gives birth to her children.’

But the birth was not an easy one. We fast-forward to May 14th 1948, the date of the declaration of the State of Israel. A nation was born. Miracle two.

The odds were 200 to 1; seven Arab nations with population of over 140 million, against one fledgling Jewish nation with 650,000 people. The Arabs were driven by hatred and pride, the Jews driven by the need for survival and the desire to put the Holocaust behind them. The Jews had no backing from any other country. The Arabs had, amongst other advantages, a British-sponsored army called the Arab Legion. Israel was fighting on four fronts; Transjordan to the east, Syria and Lebanon to the north, Iraq and Syria in the north east and Egypt in the south. It was 1948 and this was Israel’s War of Independence.

The Jews had little military equipment, especially arms and ammunition – at times two soldiers had to share a single rifle. During the war they used weapons foraged and specially created, such as improvised armoured cars and Molotov cocktails. They also had a mixture of small arms leftover from World War II, light artillery and machine guns, some anti-tank bazookas, and jeeps and half-tracks with mounted machine guns. The Arab armies, on the other hand, were heavily armed with the latest equipment from Britain.

But God hadn’t brought His covenant people, the Jews, this far just to leave them in the lurch. The war lasted over eight months, punctuated by the occasional truce. The Israeli victory was such that only a quick intervention by British delegates in the U.N. saved the Arabs from a more disastrous defeat.

The war that was provoked by the Arabs to annihilate the new State of Israel not only brought a pride-thrashing defeat for them, but rewarded the Israelis with an increase of more than 40% of extra land, over and above that promised to them through the U.N. Partition Plan, including West Jerusalem! It was only thanks to the effectiveness of Sir John Glubb and his Arab Legion that the Israelis didn’t take the whole of Jerusalem, including the Western (‘Wailing’) Wall, the holiest site in Judaism.

Let us forget the politics, though, and think of what it was really all about. Do you honestly think that God wanted Jerusalem, His city, to be governed by an international committee? Do you really think that it was going to be easy for His people to be resettled in their ancient land? Of course not. As Christians, we must forget politics and human rights where God is concerned. He plays His own tunes. When the Children of Israel under Moses and Joshua were driving all before them, God instructed them to completely ‘ethnically cleanse’ the pagan villages, man, woman and child. This is the same God today, though such barbaric means are not on the agenda. We’re tempted to say, if we’re honest, ‘Thankfully He’s more civilized now’, but we must stop and think about the human consequences of divine actions. Yes, Israelis in 1948 were not, and are not now, as pure and spiritual as we’d like them to be. They were, and are, just as secular as the other nations around them, Britain included.

They didn’t deserve the land by virtue of holiness, but they inherited the land by virtue of their chosenness. God chose them to inherit the land in Genesis 15:18-21,

“On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram and said, ‘To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates – the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites.”’

Scripture is Scripture; it is everlasting and never lies. We may not always like what it says in our ‘politically correct’ society, but that’s just a measure of how far away from God we have come and how secularism and humanism have replaced faith in a sovereign God. Let’s not argue over the small print and the politics. Instead, let’s get into the ‘sacred print’ and the spiritual picture. If we don’t, then as Christians, we become distracted and bogged down by human issues, rather than divine ones.

When the 1950s came, Jordan quietly annexed East Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, calling it the West Bank. It never belonged to them; it was an illegal act. Only Britain and Pakistan recognised this move. Rather than calling the West Bank the occupied territories, we should remember Jordan illegally occupied it first!

It was June 1967. God rested on the seventh day and was pleased with His creation. The Israelis, similarly, had much to be pleased about on their seventh day. Seven days earlier they looked south and saw Egyptian tanks at the border with a blockade on Israeli shipping; to the north Syria was bombarding Israeli villages from the Golan Heights; to the east Jordan and Iraq were gnashing their teeth, ready and waiting. War had not been officially declared, but you’d hardly believe it. The airwaves around Israel were full of the boasting rhetoric of Arab nations vying with each other to be first to ‘liberate’ Palestine. Nassar, the Egyptian leader, declared a jihad, a holy war against the infidel Israel. Israel was outnumbered 5 to 1 in troops, 3 to 1 in tanks and nearly 3 to 1 in combat aircraft. Like schoolyard bullies her enemies postured and posed, growling and threatening trouble.

But the Israelis hadn’t read the script, especially as it was written in Arabic, in blood. Orde Wingate, their British military mentor from the 1930s, would have been proud of them as they clinically unleashed one of the most decisive battle plans in military history.

On June 5th, Israel attacked. It destroyed almost all of Egypt’s air force, the largest in the Middle East, in three hours. Most aircraft hadn’t even taken off. To all intents and purposes the war was over. From then on confusion and fear reigned in the Arab forces. By the end of the week Israel had captured Sinai and the Gaza Strip from Egypt, the West Bank and the rest of Jerusalem from Jordan and the Golan Heights from Syria. Israel had increased its size by an incredible 300%! Historian Cecil Roth later described the Six Day War as ‘perhaps the most brilliant campaign in military history … the Israeli army had shown itself the best fighting force in the world’.

The truly interesting fact concerns Jerusalem. Jerusalem wasn’t included in the original U.N. Partition Plan agreed by the Jews, yet they took the Western part of it as spoils of war in the War of Independence. Also, knowing that any battle for Jerusalem would be costly, the Israeli leadership tried to come to a compromise with Jordan over it, during the Six Day War.

But Jordan refused, having been confused by a false report that Egypt had destroyed the Israeli air force! So the Israelis took the whole of Jerusalem after the heaviest fighting of the war. It seems that Jerusalem was being coaxed into Jewish hands, by fate, providence … or do we dare to say, through a miracle of God?

Jerusalem was in Jewish hands for the first time in 1,897 years. We are reminded of Scripture. Luke 21.24 says ‘They will fall by the sword and will be taken as prisoners to all the nations. Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.’ Could this be the end of the times of the Gentiles, that began when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem in AD 70? Perhaps it was the beginning

of the end of the times of the Gentiles. However you look at it, God was on the move.

We move on to 1973. So you want miracles? Then read on. The following extracts have been taken from the book, Battle for Israel, by Lance Lambert, an English Jew who was living in Israel at the time of this war.

‘The Yom Kippur War should have been the annihilation of the State of Israel. People think of the 1967 Six Day War as a miracle, but it was nothing compared with the Yom Kippur War and in the years that lie ahead, when the whole truth comes out, we shall see that it was beyond all reason that Israel was not annihilated.’ 58

He goes on to remark that at one point in the war only ninety battered Israeli tanks stood between the powerful Egyptian army and Tel Aviv and that both Egypt and Syria could have beaten Israel but were inexplicably prevented. Two episodes stand out. The first Egyptian tank division that crossed over the Canal had nothing to prevent it, and the ones that followed behind, from advancing into central Israel. Yet it stopped … inexplicably. To the north of Israel the Syrians poured out of the Golan Heights, yet when they got within sight of the Israeli HQ and the Sea of Galilee they also mysteriously halted. What made this story incredible was that the HQ was manned by just ten men and two tanks!

Another story concerns an Israeli captain, a man without any religious beliefs. As he was fighting in the Golan he looked up into the sky and saw a great grey hand pressing downwards as if it were holding something back. Lance Lambert’s conclusion as to what was behind all of these incredible events was that ‘without the intervention of God, Israel would have been doomed’.

The Yom Kippur war was an all-out attack on Israel by Egypt and Syria that took the country completely by surprise, not only because it happened on the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, but because, for the first time, the military and the defence establishment were totally unprepared. Unlike the Six Day war, this time Israel started out at a complete and utter disadvantage, with the element of surprise (helped by Soviet spy satellites) used against them. Yet, just like the other war, and all other preceding conflicts, the outcome was totally in her favour.

At the start of the war, the World looked on, seemingly indifferent, preparing their best suits and mourning dresses for Israel’s funeral. The United Nations held back for reasons that were all about politics, rather than intervening out of compassion for a fledgling country barely 25 years old. But, wait, another miracle! Israel didn’t read the script because very soon, against all the odds, she began to throw back the invading forces. She was near to the gates of Damascus, the capital of Syria and had surrounded the Egyptian third army in the south, with Cairo in her sights. The United Nations was unprepared for this; it had already prepared the eulogy for the death of a brave nation and it wasn’t expecting such territorial aggression by the Zionist imperialists! It was incensed and immediately voted for a cease-fire before Israel completely re-wrote the map of the Middle East!

It was a great victory but a costly one for Israelis – $7 billion in money and 2,552 in lives, with over 3,000 wounded. Although the Arab losses were far greater in numbers, proportionally to the size of the nation, these figures were a disaster for Israel. Very few families survived the war without having to mourn a personal loss.

Then there was the Gulf War. Operation Desert Storm was a war fought between the oil-hungry West and a fanatical dictator called Saddam Hussein who’d just invaded the nursery and pinched a few toys. Put it this way; if Kuwait produced fruit and not oil, no-one would have given a fig. When political and economic interests are concerned, moral issues can go out of the window! Britain and other western nations had been profitably arming Iraq since the Iraq/Iran conflict. All of a sudden the Iranians, who had recently been excommunicated, were now our friends along with the Syrians. Let’s forget the Salman Rushdie fatwa, we’re all friends now, at least until we get our toys back! If you think that’s crazy and mixed up, spare a thought for King Hussein of Jordan at this time, on the one hand English educated and a friend of the British Royal Family, but on the other suddenly now Saddam’s biggest (and only) chum!

So where does Israel fit into all this? While the might of the coalition forces was destroying Iraq’s infrastructure and playing war games with computers and thinking missiles, Iraq was lobbing over 40 or so Scud missiles at the Zionist Entity, hoping to lure Israel into the conflict. A miracle of this indiscriminate and unprovoked attack was that only 2 people died as a direct result of the missiles, although others died of heart attacks brought on by stress. One interesting statistic that came out of this was that, during this time, less Israelis died than they would have done if life had been normal – less road accidents for example.

After forty days (a ‘biblical’ number if there ever was one) of missile attacks on Israeli cities the war came to an end. And the biggest miracle of it all was that of all the days that the war could have ended, it had to end just before the most poignant day of all – Purim. Purim is the day of Jewish deliverance.

A festival day of national rejoicing now had a special ring to it. The evil Haman, who (as we read in an earlier chapter) tried to annihilate the Jews at the time of Queen Esther, now became the evil Saddam, who tried to knock out the Jews with the Scud missiles. Saddam joined the long line of ‘Hamans’, symbols of anti-Semitic hate and a natural successor to Hitler, the previous ‘Haman of this age’.

The intervening years from the Gulf war until today have repeated more of the same. Israel with her back to the wall has become increasingly isolated, while Arab nations still plot her downfall and the Western powers formulate whatever selfish strategy they can to keep the oil pumping. Intifada, suicide bombing, propaganda – all these have been thrown at Israel, with increasing ferocity. Modern times have become the most nerve-racking days in Israel’s brief history, with each day adding a new twist. There must be barely a moment when an Israeli, whether under siege in a settlement, in the comparative safety of Tel Aviv, or in the uncertain streets of Jerusalem, doesn’t wonder ‘What’s going on, what’s it all about?’ To find an answer they must look upwards and inwards towards the God who, for the most part, they have deserted but Who will never, according to His promises, desert them, the ‘apple of His eye’.

When we think about all that has gone on so recently, it is difficult not to get sucked into a fiery cauldron of emotion and political spin. Humanly speaking, it is hard to imagine a workable solution that would bring true peace to the region. Let us review some of the personal implications of this recent history.

In a nutshell, what happened was that the day after Israel became a country, it was invaded by Egypt, Transjordan, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq. Within a matter of weeks, against all odds, Israel was victorious, resulting in an expansion of territory and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Arabs who had been living in Palestine.

As a result of these events not one but two refugee situations were created.

Just under 750,000 Arabs (U.N. estimate) lost their homes. These became the Palestinian refugees. They lost their homes for two main reasons. Some were driven out by the Jewish (Israeli) army and others fled after being told to do so by Arab army commanders, who were expecting an eventual victory (i.e. when the Jews would be driven out of the land), at which time people could return to their homes. Apart from extremists on either side, people generally accept these as the main reasons, though the proportions (i.e. what percentage were driven out or told to leave) would vary wildly, depending on your viewpoint.

The United Nations were strangely silent at the time, viewing the moving of populations and the creation of refugees as an unavoidable consequence of war. But they did have something to say about the Arab attitude, suggesting that they brought the whole thing on themselves. In a report of the United Nations Palestine Commission just before hostilities they stated, ‘Arab elements, both inside and outside of Palestine, have exerted organized, intensive effort toward defeating the purposes of the resolution of the General Assembly. To this end, threats, acts of violence and infiltration of organized, armed, uniformed Arab bands into Palestinian territory have been employed … The organized efforts of Arab elements to prevent the partition of Palestine; the determined efforts by Jews to ensure the establishment of the Jewish State as envisaged by the resolution; and the fact that the Mandatory Power, engaged in the liquidation of its administration and the evacuation of its troops, has found it impossible fully to contain the conflict, have led to virtual civil war in Palestine’59. If the Arabs had accepted the United Nations resolution then, arguably, there would have been no refugee crisis.

The Palestinian website, http://muslimwiki.com/mw/index.php/Palestine concedes that ‘about half probably left out of fear and panic …’, which is a grudging concession to the Jewish view. The quote continues ‘… while the rest were forced out to make room for Jewish immigrants from Europe and from the Arab world’. This leads us to examine the second refugee situation, the lesser known and the largest one.

Up until 1948, Jews had lived in most of the Arab Muslim countries of the Middle East. In most cases they had been there over 1000 years before Islam even existed.

From 1947 hundreds of Jews in Arab lands were killed in government-condoned rioting, leaving thousands injured and millions of dollars in Jewish property destroyed. In 1948 Jews were forcibly ejected from Iraq, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria, who confiscated property from the fleeing Jews worth tens of billions in today’s dollars. Of the 820,000 Jewish refugees created by this situation, 590,000 were absorbed by Israel.

All the facts presented so far are from an endlessly contested history. People have argued about these facts until the cows come home and have got nowhere in the process. So I’m now going to ask you to move on from the murkiness of endless debate and into the light of certainties.

The certainty is as clear cut as they come. You can witness it with your very eyes. It is a fact that cannot be contested. Palestinian refugees still exist, in camps, on the West Bank, in Gaza and elsewhere, why should this be?

The 820,000 Jewish refugees who were forcibly ejected from Arab countries where they had often lived for thousands of years were all welcomed and integrated into Israel or the Jewish world elsewhere, where they became full citizens.

There are no Jewish refugee camps.

The 750,000 Arab refugees who were displaced in 1948, were largely placed into squalid refugee camps by fellow Arabs who had just gone to war (and lost) on their behalf  but were unwilling to pay for the consequences. Incredibly, over 70 years later, more than a million of these poor people are still in these camps, despite billions of dollars of relief paid by rich Arab states, the United Nations, the EU and others.

Where on earth has this money gone and why are they still in camps and not integrated into Arab society?

Palestinian Arabs are no doubt a peaceful, welcoming and gifted people, but they have been the greatest victims of the whole sorry affair, pawns in a wider struggle orchestrated by their powerful Arab brethren. For reasons known only to their political and religious masters, they have lived for two or three generations within the bounds of these camps. Isn’t a refugee camp meant to be a temporary home, as it has been for millions of refugees in other situations, until the people could be relocated to homes of their own? Not so here.

Palestinians were never allowed to be ‘ordinary’ refugees. They have been kept in a form of forced captivity for a sinister purpose. A purpose that has succeeded in transforming a peace-loving, gentle people into terrorist pariahs and has provided an atmosphere where it is considered holy and noble to send your young men and women out as living weapons of destruction to blow up other young men and women. What must this do to their national psyche, when suicide is seen as a positive ideal?

Let’s be honest here and consider who is really responsible for this tragedy. It is not Israel. Can’t they see who their real enemy is?

But they lost their homeland, you may say. This is true, though, as I have suggested earlier, many would have been recent immigrants to the land, rather than having lived there for generations, as suggested by the propaganda; and of course, they were surrounded by oil-rich neighbours who shared their race, culture and religion. A homeland in Jordan, for example, would have been perfectly possible and logical. But let’s look at it in a wider context. When I walk the streets of Israel and look around I see people of every hue and shade, I hear accents ranging from the Russian Urals to the Hindu Kush. These are not people who have been born in this country; these are people who have relocated here, many as refugees. There is nothing unique about Palestinians. Let’s look at other recent refugee situations. Quoting from Encyclopaedia Britannica:

‘The Russian Revolution of 1917 and the post-revolutionary civil war (1917-21) caused

the exodus of 1,500,000 opponents of communism. Between 1915 and 1923 over

1,000,000 Armenians left Turkish Asia Minor, and several hundred thousand Spanish

Loyalists fled to France in the wake of the 1936-39 Spanish Civil War. When the People’s Republic of China was established in 1949, more than 2,000,000 Chinese fled to Taiwan and to the British crown colony of Hong Kong. Between 1945 and 1961, the year that the communist regime erected the Berlin Wall (opened 1989), over 3,700,000 refugees from East Germany found asylum in West Germany … The partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947 resulted in the exchange of 18,000,000 Hindus from Pakistan and Muslims from India--the greatest population transfer in history. Some 8,000,000-10,000,000 persons were also temporarily made refugees by the creation of Bangladesh in 1971 … During the 1980s and early ‘90s, the principal source of the world’s refugees was Afghanistan, where the Afghan War (1978-92) caused more than 6,000,000 refugees to flee to the neighbouring countries of Pakistan and Iran. Iran also provided asylum for 1,400,000 Iraqi refugees who had been uprooted as a result of the Persian Gulf War (1990-91). The breakup of Yugoslavia, for example, displaced some 2,000,000 people by mid-1992.’ 60

Then, of course, the Jews themselves, over the last 3000 years, have been ‘relocated’ more times than you could count.

And what of the West Bank or the ‘occupied West Bank’, as it is more often known? It is true that Israel “occupy” the land, since gaining it as a result of the victory in the Six Day War in 1967, but who did they occupy it from? Well, actually, the West Bank itself was illegally seized by Jordan after 1948.

After doing so, they made it an area forbidden to Jews! Who did Jordan take the West Bank from? Before 1948 the West Bank was part of the area administered by the British as part of the British Mandate. It didn’t belong to them, they were just caretakers. Before that, the West Bank – called Judea and Samaria by the Jews – was just the eastern part of Palestine, occupied by whoever happened to live there, Jew or Arab.

It was not land owned by any state, as Palestine was just a neglected province of the crumbling Ottoman Empire. So, in reality, the West Bank has not legally ever belonged to any State in modern history. When Jewish settlers make their home there, they are doing so on land that has been legally bought, not seized from anyone else, whether a State or individuals.

In a sense the political muddle is at centre stage because this is the time when God is taking a direct hand in the process, as foretold in His word.

His declaration is in Ezekiel, chapter 36. It’s a long chapter, so I will just list the pertinent verses, though I urge you to read the full chapter yourself. I have also highlighted key parts. Firstly, verses 1 to 12.

“Son of man, prophesy to the mountains of Israel and say, ‘O mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord. This is what the Sovereign Lord says: The enemy said of you, ‘Aha! The ancient heights have become our possession.’‘ Therefore prophesy and say, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Because they ravaged and hounded you from every side so that you became the possession of the rest of the nations and the object of people’s malicious talk and slander, therefore, O mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Sovereign Lord: This is what the Sovereign Lord says to the mountains and hills, to the ravines and valleys, to the desolate ruins and the deserted towns that have been plundered and ridiculed by the rest of the nations around you— this is what the Sovereign Lord says: In My burning zeal I have spoken against the rest of the nations, and against Edom, for with glee and with malice in their hearts they made my land their own possession so that they might plunder its pasture-land.’ Therefore prophesy concerning the land of Israel and say to the mountains and hills, to the ravines and valleys: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I speak in My jealous wrath because you have suffered the scorn of the nations. Therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I swear with uplifted hand that the nations around you will also suffer scorn. ‘But you, O mountains of Israel, will produce branches and fruit for My people Israel, for they will soon come home. I am concerned for you and will look on you with favour; you will be ploughed and sown, and I will multiply the number of people upon you, even the whole house of Israel. The towns will be inhabited and the ruins rebuilt. I will increase the number of men and animals upon you, and they will be fruitful and become numerous. I will settle people on you as in the past and will make you prosper more than before. Then you will know that I am the Lord. I will cause people, my people Israel, to walk upon you. They will possess you, and you will be their inheritance; you will never again deprive them of their children.”

So, where exactly are these mountains of Israel, where God’s people, Israel, shall return to and settle and rebuild? Look at any relief map of Israel and you’ll see where the mountains are. They are not in the great centres of Jewish population – Tel Aviv, Haifa or even Jerusalem. They are in the central and eastern regions. Ironically it is the very region offered to (and refused by) the Arabs by the United Nations in 1947. The land known as Judea and Samaria, also known as the West Bank.

The most controversial area in the Middle East also happens to be the very place earmarked by God as an area of Jewish immigration. No co-incidence.

The Jewish villages in this area are known as yishuvim. Israel calls them ‘communities’. Outside Israel they are known as ‘settlements in occupied territories’, words tinged with the whiff of illegality. The World sees them as the chief obstacles to peace in the region. The settlers themselves, by and large observant Jews, would give just a single justification for their actions. They are just obeying God’s word, from their reading of Ezekiel 36. Israel is a dangerous enough place to live in at the best of times, but the West Bank doubly so. Yet these Jewish settlers choose to live there, at whatever danger to themselves and their families. Most, including many in Israel proper, would call them deluded and provocative and wish they weren’t there, but perhaps we should consider them in the same way as Christian missionaries in the jungles of Borneo.

They are simply following the Word of God in their own way. It is worth continuing to read from Ezekiel, chapter 36, to remind ourselves about God’s purposes in all of this. We read verses 22 and 23.

‘Therefore say to the house of Israel, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am going to do these things, but for the sake of My holy name, which you have profaned among the nations where you have gone. I will show the holiness of My great name, which has been profaned among the nations, the name you have profaned among them. Then the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Sovereign Lord, when I show Myself holy through you before their eyes.’

Yes, it is all in God’s plan. The West Bank is not the focus of the World’s attention by accident or because the perceived injustices there deserve more newspaper coverage than the scores of other conflicts and age-old hatreds elsewhere in the World. God is intending this as a wake-up call. The settlers are not reading their Scriptures selectively. They can see that their return to the mountains of Israel is not for their own wellbeing; they are doing this for the sake of the Lord’s name.

They should be commended for this, particularly as these verses are not exactly full of praise for the Jewish people. The World doesn’t yet know our Lord, but the verses here tell us that, in a mysterious way that is yet to be unfolded, God is going to use this situation to reveal Himself.

He gives a hint of this in the very next verses, verses 24 to 28.

“‘For I will take you out of the nations; I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put My Spirit in you and move you to follow My decrees and be careful to keep My laws. You will live in the land I gave your forefathers; you will be My people, and I will be your God.”

The Jewish people are not so intrinsically holy that their return to their ancestral land would create a shining light as a society of perfect morality, impeccable ethics and an example for the World to emulate. This has been the mistake of many commentators who point at the State of Israel and say, “They’re no better than any of us. How can they call themselves the ‘chosen people’”. This perception is so incorrect that it is downright laughable and shows a complete misunderstanding of the meaning of chosen-ness. God chose the Jews not because of any superior qualities they may possess. He chose them because He chose them, with the ultimate purpose of revealing Himself to mankind, as we read earlier in verses 22

and 23.

This is what J.C. Ryle knew a century earlier, as we have already read. The Jewish people are to return to the land in a state of unbelief. Only once they are in the land, at some unspecified time, would God ‘sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put My Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees

and be careful to keep My laws. You will live in the land I gave your forefathers; you will be My people, and I will be your God’.

This is still, at the time of writing, in the future, despite the growing number of Jews discovering Jesus their Messiah in Israel and elsewhere. But, when the time comes, God will act according to His words in verses 33 to 38.

“‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: On the day I cleanse you from all your sins, I will resettle your towns, and the ruins will be rebuilt. The desolate land will be cultivated instead of lying desolate in the sight of all

who pass through it. They will say, ‘This land that was laid waste has become like the garden of Eden; the cities that were lying in ruins, desolate and destroyed, are now fortified and inhabited.’ Then the nations around you that remain will know that I the Lord have rebuilt what was destroyed and have replanted what was desolate. I the Lord have spoken, and I will do it.’ ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Once again I will yield to the plea of the house of Israel and do this for them: I will make their people as numerous as sheep, as numerous as the flocks for offerings at Jerusalem during her appointed feasts. So will the ruined cities be filled with flocks of people. Then they will know that I am the Lord.’”

Again, this is still to come, but make no mistake, when it does, the Jews and the whole World will know Who is truly in charge.

But, meanwhile, Israel has to live, as the Zionist Entity, with the clearly stated, but now for reasons of political correctness not talked about aim of its enemies to ‘drive the Jews into the sea’. This statement, made by the Egyptian leader Nassar in 1967, has never been publicly revoked and remains to every Israeli the stated purpose of Palestinian political pressure. The reason why it is not mentioned in Arab propaganda is for the simple reason that it wouldn’t go down well in the corridors of power, newsprint and media channels in Europe and the USA.

Since September 11th, 2001, the public has become more aware of the catalogue of hate and invective directed towards Israel and the Jews from their Muslim Arab neighbours, but this is unnecessary for me to repeat as a daily reading of internet, satellite and terrestrial news sources would suffice.

The key factor is blind hatred and, rather than reacting to it on an emotional level, we should seek to understand it in a wider context.

Why so much hate? Why have the Jews and everything associated with them attracted such negativity from those around them, whether Christian, Arab, Gentile, Muslim, or even other Jews! Is it because they are a cursed people and we are just seeing the outworking of this, or is it because they are a blessed people, attracting resentment and anger? They can’t be both, only one can be true … but which one is it?

NOTES

59 The UN Palestine Commission report to the Security Council on 16 February 1948

60 Encyclopaedia Britannica CDROM, Refugees

Chapter Seventeen: Who Are These People?

Good question. First, here’s what they’re not, just to clear up some misconceptions.

There was a website that acts as the mouthpiece of the IJC, the International Jewish Conspiracy. It spoke of the mysteries of kabbalah, Jewish infiltration of both fundamentalist Christianity and the Moonies, secret signs and a newsletter from the Elders of Zion.

Sinister, indeed. In fact, it was a hoot, intentionally so, as it was a spoof. A clue was a news story on the home page, speaking of an ancient document recently found, The Book of Shlomo, telling of the time Moses parted the Atlantic Ocean and visited Bermuda for a one-week vacation with room, half-board and discounted wind surfing lessons included in the price of the parting! But I wonder how many were taken in by this clever, tongue-in-cheek website, before the penny dropped (the website seems to be no more). That’s the problem; that’s the tragedy.

We love conspiracies, whether involving moon landings, the death of presidents, movie stars or princesses, or fevered speculations about items of complete trivia, dreamed up by media moguls to increase circulation figures. Then there are the outlandish theories of who exactly is pulling the strings in the world today. Many candidates have been put forwards from the disguised lizards of David Icke, to the secret societies of the Freemasons, the Illuminati, the Jesuits, the Bilderburgs, the Knights Templar, the Rosicrucians, the Club of Rome and … yes, of course, the Jews.

And we’re not talking of just one alleged Jewish conspiracy; there’s a whole swathe of them. Whispers are heard of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Zionism is seen as a front for world domination, with the Israeli secret service (Mossad) pulling the strings. Then there are the Illuminati, the Freemasons, the United Nations, the New World Order, the Communists, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and the World’s press. Apparently all have been sucked into the Jewish web! Jews have been put forwards as the primary cause of most of the major problems that have weakened European society in the past 200 years such as: World War I, World War II, communism, socialism, liberalism, capitalism, mass immigration, forced integration, racial preference laws, and media bias. Such busy bees, we’ve been!

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is probably the most well known weapon in the armoury of anti-Jewish conspiracy nuts. It is also a complete forgery, but why should the truth get in the way of a good yarn? It is claimed to be the minutes of a meeting of Jewish leaders at the first Zionist congress in Basel, Switzerland in 1897 (or, as some say, a graveyard in Prague), when the Jews were hatching an audacious plot to take over the World!

What it actually was is not that easy to follow. It seems to be based on a pamphlet written at the turn of the 20th Century by a Russian forger as a means to discredit reforms in that country and bolster the influence of the Czar. This forger took material from a satire on Napoleon III by Maurice Joly and from a novel by Hermann Goedesche, a 19th Century German anti-Semite. The final form of the Protocols first appeared in Russia in around 1905, becoming a best seller by 1920 and promoted in the USA by none other than Henry Ford, who when he wasn’t building cars was ranting and raving about Jews. It was first exposed as a forgery by Philip Graves of The Times in 1921, not before one Adolph Hitler had a chance to

read it and believe it.

Possibly after noticing that car sales were plummeting in parts of New York, Henry Ford was forced to make a public retraction, admitting that the book that he wrote in 1920, “The International Jew”, was based on the Protocols. 61 He said, “I am deeply mortified that this journal, which is intended to be constructive and not destructive, has been made the medium for resurrecting exploded fictions, for giving currency to the so-called Protocols of the Wise Men of Zion, which have been demonstrated, as I learn, to be gross forgeries, and for contending that the Jews have been engaged in a conspiracy to control the capital and the industries of the world, besides laying at their door many offences against decency, public order and good morals…I deem it to be my duty as an honourable man to make amends for the wrong done to the Jews as fellow men and brothers, by asking their forgiveness for the harm which I have unintentionally committed, by retracting, as far as lies within my power the offensive charges laid at their door by these publications, and by giving them the unqualified assurance that henceforth they may look to me for friendship and good will … ”

Mind you, this didn’t stop him from being the first American recipient of a Nazi award bestowed upon non-Germans in 1938.

Of course anti-Semites of all persuasions are not going to let the fact that it is pure fiction get in their way as it is freely distributed these days by Muslim hate groups and neo Nazis. One recently broadcast Egyptian TV series, “A Knight without a horse”, is even based partly on it – there’s a scene where three old Jews are sitting in a room filled with religious artifacts and are heavily perspiring and conspiring as they plot and plan. This series even sparked a debate at the highest level between the Presidents of Israel and Egypt, the latter stating “The series is no more than an artistic comment on the history of Egypt and the region at large produced and directed in accordance with Egyptian laws.”

Naturally the Nazis made good use of the Protocols as a justification for their paranoid hatred of the Jews. Since then, their main use has been as justification for Arab nationalism, and Muslim hatred against the State of Israel. The Protocols were translated into Arabic from the French edition probably in the late 1920s and by the 1950s the forgery could be found all over the Arab world, from Cairo to Beirut. They were even authenticated by Egyptian president Nasser whose brother published a new edition in 1968, under the title, “Brutukulat Hukama Sahyun wa-Ta`alim at-Talmud” (“Protocols of the Learned Men of Zion and Teachings of the Talmud”).

Commenting on the Jewish/Zionist conspiracy to take over the World, one article, translated from the Russian to English and featured on an anti-Jewish Islamic website, 62 ranted and raved about the evil Jews, then summarised the situation thus, “The only reliable method of putting matters in order for literally everyone, both Jews and the entire Gentile population of the Earth, is that the Jews should renounce their

aims of taking over the world – in fact, that means that they should renounce Zionism – and that they should be resettled in Israel.”

It just shows you how anti-Semites have hijacked the word Zionism, corrupted its intended meaning of a Jewish yearning to return to their homeland, and turned it into a sinister conspiracy to take over the World. The real point of Zionism is to resettle in Israel; renouncing it will defeat the whole point of it!

Most of the other so-called Jewish conspiracies are simply variations on the theme or strategies to achieve World domination over the last few hundred years. Let’s summarise a few of them:

◊ in 1775 Jews finance the American Revolution.

◊ in 1933 Jews conspired against the Germans and caused World War II.

◊ in 1990 Jews conspired against the Iraqis and caused the Gulf War.

◊ in 1999 Jews conspired to incite the bombing of Serbs in Serbia (The Serbian Defense League website, is subtitled documenting Zionist genocides on Serbs.)

◊ in 2001 Jews were the real instigators of 9-11.

◊ Jews have instigated, supported and financed World War I, the Cold War, the Korean War, the Vietnam War as part of a perpetual Jewish war against the rest of the World.

◊ Jews control the United States government through an organization known as ZOG (Zionist Occupation Government.)

Just think, if all the above were true, it speaks as much about Gentile stupidity as it does of Jewish cunning, blindly allowing themselves to be led through every major calamity in history by just 0.19% of the population. It was this kind of thinking that made the “Final Solution” against the Jews acceptable to the German mind in the 1930s. It was forced into their minds through every possible channel of propaganda until one was unable and unwilling to disbelieve it. It made it possible for ordinary Germans to turn a blind eye, first to the expulsions and exclusions, then to the shop burnings and Jew-baiting and

finally to journeys in cattle wagons to far off places in Poland, never to be seen again.

Finally, the most repulsive, sinister and intellectually corrupt claim of all; the one that affirms that the Holocaust never happened, despite thousands of Jewish (and Gentile) eye witnesses, Nazi documents, newsreels and other photographic evidence. They suggest that the Holocaust was a Jewish conspiracy, a lie simply to engender sympathy from the World for the Jewish plight and yearning for a homeland of their own.

One such Holocaust-denier, David Irving, sued an American academic, Deborah Lipstadt, in 2002 for claiming that he is a ‘Hitler partisan’ who twists history to cast the German dictator in a better light. He lost his case and his house and was declared bankrupt.

The concept of the scapegoat is a Jewish one. It was one of the two goats received by the Jewish high priest in ancient Jerusalem on the Day of Atonement, as described in Leviticus 16. The priest laid his hands upon the scapegoat as he confessed the people’s sins, before sending it out into the wilderness. Today, a person who has been blamed for something which is the fault of another is referred to as a scapegoat. The Jews have always been a convenient scapegoat for others, allowing them to ignore their own shortcomings or giving them a channel to vent their frustrations and misfortunes. By blaming Jews for every low point in human history, from the Black Death, to communism and the Second World War, it may make one feel superior and justified, but it’s doing nothing more than feeding a lie.

“So justice is driven back, and righteousness stands at a distance; truth has stumbled in the streets, honesty cannot enter. Truth is nowhere to be found, and whoever shuns evil becomes a prey. The Lord looked and was displeased that there was no justice.” (Isaiah 59:14-15)

Talking of conspiracies, what is less well known are the ones that are against Jewish people. The plots and subterfuge initiated against the Nation of Israel, by friend and foe alike, could furnish plots for a dozen Frederick Forsyth novels. In fact the insistence of a Jewish conspiracy to control the World is a conspiracy itself, if the truth be told. One day the truth will be told and then there will be many heads hung in shame. Until that day we’ll just have to put up with the fact that ZOG controls the White House, the Pope is a secret Jew and the Hollywood film industry is just a front for the Israeli Secret Service!

So, OK, that’s who they’re not. So who are the Jews? Let us now concern ourselves with the Jewish people, focusing on what they have contributed to the World as a people group among all other people groups. But, first we embark on a whistle-stop tour of their times in exile.

As we read earlier, the Jews were truly spread worldwide, driven from country to country by waves of persecution. For each country that banished them from their borders, another reluctantly absorbed them. But how did they live and how did they flourish in these strange lands? What was it that kept them together as a distinct people, knowing that assimilation – absorption into the general population – would have been a better bet for individual, if not racial, survival.

The one thing that they had that bound them together was the Torah, the teachings. To understand this, first we need to define what we mean. In the first instance the Torah is the first five books of Moses, referred to by the Jewish people as the Chumash, or the Pentateuch, which are the books of Genesis,

Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. Sometimes the definition is extended to include the whole Hebrew Bible, called the Tanakh, the Old Testament. It can also include the oral (spoken) as well as the written law, bringing other Jewish writings such as the Mishna, the Midrash and the Talmud into the equation. 63

This final definition is the one most used by Orthodox Jews, Jews who take their religion the most seriously. They would define the Torah as both the initial reason for Galut, the exile, and the reason for its continuation. The Torah was entrusted to the Jews as a sacred responsibility and their failures to meet its demands resulted in Galut. That is the accepted position within Judaism. The continuation of exile is also attributed to their self-confessed failure to spread Torah principles to the nations that surround them, to be a blessing to the nations.

That’s how they consider the working out of the Abrahamic Covenant, as defined in Genesis 12:2-3. So Torah was both a blessing and a curse to them. It provided them with a strict moral framework for living as strangers and pariahs in foreign communities. It ensured a high degree of literacy and cleanliness, setting them apart from the ignorant, superstitious masses who viewed them with such disdain. But it ironically worked against them too. Jews were accused of creating the Black Death simply because their higher standards of hygiene ensured that fewer Jews succumbed to it, though this didn’t stop 20,000 of them being killed for supposedly poisoning the wells.

A cornerstone of the Jewish community in Galut was and is the family home. In the absence of a Temple, the rabbis referred to the home as a substitute, a place of sanctuary, set aside for holy purposes, such as prayer, study and serving the community. The Sabbath and Festivals, in particular, drew these elements together, with the dinner table as central focus.

As well as eating and drinking, the other sacraments of Bible study, songs of praise and prayer took place around this table. It cemented the family together, with the father as head, his wife at his side, making sure the next generation receive adequate instructions in the way of Torah. Every father took on this responsibility as a sacred duty, a duty thoroughly validated by biblical teaching.

“These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children …” (Deuteronomy 6:6-7)

Although Jewish people through the ages have kept their identity and distinctiveness as a community bound by the Torah, the last 60 years or so has seen many changes. As the world opens up and communities mix more freely, Jews are diffusing into the culture of their host nations, taking on their morality and ethical framework. Although there are still strongholds of Jewish orthodoxy, holding onto the (perceived) restrictions of Torah, each new generation of Jews are sucked further into the secular society, with as much danger of losing their distinctiveness as other immigrant communities, such

as the Asian one. In Medieval times almost 100% of Jews in Europe would have been observant of the Torah – what we today would call orthodox – but that figure has now dropped to around 10%. The rest either celebrate their religion in a more “culturally-sensitive” sense, as liberal Jews or would just not celebrate their Judaism at all, save for the occasional Passover, Yom Kippur and a weekly subscription for their burial plot.

For Christians who may still be wondering about what possible role Jews could have in God’s plans during the Galut, when the Church considered them cursed and hated by God, consider this – without them and their faithfulness and their stubbornness, you would not have the Bible today in its current form. I am not referring to the original writers of the Bible, but the driven, obsessed people who painstakingly again and again made copies of aged manuscripts, ensuring that, by the time Bibles, such as the King James Bible, were printed in English, the Old Testament portion was guaranteed virtually 100% free of error. Meet the Masoretes, Jewish scribes from the 1st Century to the 9th Century.

There’s no room here to give their whole story but just one aspect of their working practice will serve to illustrate their contribution to Biblical scholarship. Consider the fact that, when copying from an old scroll to a fresh parchment, no word or letter could be copied from memory and, if a single tiny mistake was made, the parchment would be destroyed and they would start again. Thank goodness our standards have dropped, otherwise this particular book would never have reached you, if I had to scrap my work every time I made a mistake! This behaviour of the Masoretes may seem over obsessive to us, but it ensured that the manuscripts that were used as sources for the Bibles that we read today were extremely accurate, a fact that has been born out since the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

When is a Jew a Jew?

Until recently, Jews have been a people without a land, a people in exile. They lived then, as most Jews today do (unless they are living in Israel), in the Galut. Although the Biblical tradition states that ‘Jewishness’ comes through the male line (which is why the genealogies, apart from the odd exception, only showed the men), the rabbis stated that, to be a true Jew you need, as a minimum requirement, a ‘Yiddishe Momma’ (a  ‘Jewish mother’ ). This deviation was brought about through practical reasoning. During times of extreme persecution, the identity of one’s father was sometimes doubtful and, even when the father was known, one didn’t particularly want one’s child brought up as a Russian Orthodox or as a Cossack. You always knew who your mother was and, even if you had the blond hair and blue eyes of an unknown father, you would still be brought up under the protection of the Jewish community as one of their own.

Of course intermarriage has also occurred on a voluntary basis and explains why Jews from a given country, such as Germany, France or Ethiopia, in many cases look just like Gentiles from the same country. When the Ethiopian airlift arrived in Israel at the time of the African famines, many a voice was heard to exclaim, “But they’re schwartzers!”, only to be answered, “Yet heimische schwartzers, nu?” Roughly translated into the Queen’s English this becomes, “I say, these chappies are coloured chappies!” followed by, “Oh yes, my good man, but they’re one of us!”

Others have become Jews through marriage (e.g. Elizabeth Taylor) or preference (e.g. Sammy Davis Junior). To become a Jew, a non-Jew has to undergo some formal study. In the orthodox tradition a man still has to undergo circumcision and a woman has to learn how to make a good chicken soup (I think, though I may be wrong). It’s a lot easier in the reform tradition, which just goes for the basic studying and a formal declaration. If this is all in the context of a marriage, it is sometimes referred to as a ‘mitzvah marriage’, defining it as a mitzvah or a ‘good works’, by adding to the household of Israel.

It’s not so straightforward to stop being a Jew. Of course you can simply deny your background and not tell anyone. This is quite easy to do if you move solely in Gentile circles, though your racial characteristics, to say nothing of ritual scars, may prove a bit of a give-away! Sometimes, particularly when you’re going through a time of personal rebellion, you say to yourself, ‘I’m an individual, I don’t want to be labelled’. You don’t want the cultural baggage of a ‘different tradition’, particularly one that, as a rule, is looked down upon by your peers. I know of at least three cases in my family alone when

first names or surnames have been changed to hide one’s Jewish identity. Many entertainers, particularly those from immigrant families, have changed their names in order to further their career. It is doubtful if Sid James (of ‘Carry-on’ fame) would have been so endearing to the British public if he had kept his name – Solly Cohen!

In March 2009, Rabbi Meir Lau, former chief rabbi of Israel, told a group of 300 rabbis from across Europe and Israel that assimilation, where for one reason or another Jewishness is lost, is the biggest threat to the Jewish community today. It has been estimated that now, in the UK, about half of Jewish marriages involve a non-Jewish partner, with this figure rising to 72% in the USA. This is an unprecedented situation and could be seen, at worst, as a form of national suicide on the part of the Jews of the Galut. At this rate surely Jews outside Israel could end up as a marginalised minority community, with little or no influence on society.

During the 19th Century there were many cases of Jews becoming Christians, in name only, in order to further their career in society at large, usually in the realm of politics. An example of this was Benjamin Disraeli, the English prime minister and Karl Marx, the philosopher, who were both, in fact, brought up as ‘Christians’ by Jewish parents. In earlier times, during the time of the Spanish Inquisition, some Jews in Spain and Portugal, as an alternative to death, accepted a form of conversion to Christianity, though still preserving Jewish traditions in private. These were the Marranos, mentioned earlier. In the Talmud, one of the books of Jewish tradition, it says that ‘an Israelite, even though he sin, remains an Israelite’. This basically means, once born a Jew, you remain one, whatever mischief you’ve been up to and whether you like it or not.

Many books have been written exploring the issue of Jewishness and trying to define whether a Jew belongs to a nation, a race, a tradition, a religion or a state of mind. I don’t wish to add any more to this discussion except to mention one interesting fact …

When is a Jew not a Jew?

The best test you can have of your ‘Jewishness’ is to see if the State of Israel would grant you citizenship. In 1950 the Knesset, the parliament of Israel, formulated the ‘Law of Return’. This states that any Jew can receive Israeli citizenship the moment he or she sets foot on Israeli soil. It doesn’t matter if you do or don’t believe in God or the Bible, or whether you’re a communist, an astrologer, or even a convert to Hinduism – as long as you’ve got the papers to prove you’re a Jew, you’re welcome. This was later widened, in 1970, to include spouses of Jews and those with Jewish ancestry, ironically, as defined

by the sinister Nuremberg Laws of Nazi Germany, where having a Jewish grandparent was sufficiently kosher to mark you as a Jew.

There is only one group of people who are definitely not welcomed with open arms and they are Jewish Christians, or Messianic Jews. In 1989, the Israeli Supreme Court decided that Messianic Jews were not eligible to immigrate to Israel under the Law of Return, because they have changed religion (although some have since challenged this ruling on legal technicalities and have won their case). It was (and still is) considered by the Jewish community as a whole that Jewish converts to Christianity are no longer Jews! They are now considered Christians, as if a foreskin has grown back, knowledge of Yiddish, chicken soup recipes and Shabbat prayers have been mystically blotted out, replaced by a new zeal for car maintenance, Irish stew and hiking. Seriously, one should not joke of such things. Instead we must try to understand why it should be that the highest court in the land of Israel should be so moved to completely and utterly disown any Jew who has professed a faith in Jesus, but to accept any Jews who have embraced Buddhism, Hinduism, atheism, Satanism, even Islam! Interestingly, at the time of the new law a poll was published in the Jerusalem Post, which found that 78% of the Israeli public favored Messianic Jews coming into Israel under the Law of Return, provided that the immigrants were really of Jewish lineage, held to their historic heritage, and served in the army when called upon to do so.

It was OK if you have no belief in God, or believe that God is another name for Nature or even believe that God has three heads and a tail! All of these were acceptable; Israel would have welcomed you with open arms. But if you believed that the Jewish Messiah had come and his name was Jesus Christ (actually Yeshua Ha Mashiach, his proper Jewish name), then, in the eyes of the Jewish establishment you had ‘lost your Jewishness’. You had become the enemy, or, in the eyes of the Orthodox, you’d died and, if you came from an Orthodox family, a funeral would have been conducted for you!

These were strong reactions indeed. You could have been a mass murderer or a compulsive adulterer, but you could still be Jewish and would have been allowed your very own place in the State of Israel – albeit in a maximum security prison. But in the eyes of a State that claims, as a whole, not to even be religious, your Jewishness could have been stripped away like the skin off a banana, simply by believing in something they disagreed with. Now take one step back and with a clear, rational mind just consider for a moment what you’ve just read. Why should one’s beliefs provoke such a reaction? Is it rational, or is there something going on here that needs further investigation?

The reason for the decision by the Israeli Supreme Court was simply a fear, a justifiable fear borne out of the lamentable treatment Jews had received for centuries at the hands of the “Christian” Church, culminating (but not ending) with the Nazi Holocaust, an event considered by many Jews as a Christian-inspired event. The Church has so much to answer for. Thanks to many in the Christian world who have woken up to the sins of the past, the Christian Zionists and others with a sincere love for the Jewish people, the Israeli government has been able to be reassured that Christendom has changed with the times and that the worst kinds of anti-Semitism (i.e. that involving physical violence) seems to be coming more from the Muslim world these days. That is not to say that “Christian” anti-Semitism is no more; it’s just that it doesn’t have the power to threaten Jewish lives, although, sadly, it is still very active behind the scenes poisoning minds and souls.

There’s something special about these folk

Even the most rabid anti-Semite would have to admit that there is definitely something special about these folk. We read the statistics in the Introduction.

There are just over 13.4 million Jews world-wide (2010 figures), indicating that about 0.19% of the World is Jewish – about 1 person out of every 520. So the expectation is that 0.19% of the Worlds’ scientists, musicians, entertainers, writers would, on average, be Jewish. Not so. Just looking in the period since the mid-19th Century we find that about 25% of the World’s scientists have been Jews and that 22% of all Nobel Prize winners in the 20th Century were Jewish.

Here is a roll of honour – this is a partial list of people of Jewish ancestry who have ‘made it’ in the world at large in the last couple of hundred years: 64

WRITERS

Isaac Asimov, Saul Bellow, Judy Blume, Anita Brookner, Jackie Collins, Edwina Currie, Noam Chomsky, John Diamond, Andrea Dworkin, Harlan Ellison, Ben Elton, Nora Ephron, Martin Gilbert, Albert Goldman, William Goldman, Zoe Heller, Joseph Heller, Arthur Koestler, Judith Krantz, Erica Jong, Franz Kafka, Primo Levi, Ira Levin, Norman Mailer, David Mamet, Arthur Miller, Dorothy Parker, Boris Pasternak, Harold Pinter, Chaim Potok, Marcel Proust, Harold Robbins, Jack Rosenthal, Philip Roth, Oliver Sacks, J.D.Salinger, Hugh Schonfield, Will Self, Sidney Sheldon, Neil Simon, Isaac

Bashevis Singer, Muriel Spark, Danielle Steele, Tom Stoppard, Jackie Susann, Leon Uris, Irving Wallace, Elie Wiesel.

ACTORS, ENTERTAINERS AND PERSONALITIES

Edward G Robinson, John Garfield, Lee J Cobb, Kirk Douglas, Tony Curtis, Robin Williams, Melvyn Douglas, Bette Midler, Richard Dreyfuss, Walter Matthau, Lawrence Harvey, Winona Ryder, Gene Wilder, Maureen Lipman, Dustin Hoffman, Richard Benjamin, Elliot Gould, Michael Douglas, Anouk Aimee, Sarah Bernhardt, Al Jolson, Eddie Cantor, Barbra Streisand, Alma Cogan, Helen Shapiro, Milton Berle, George Burns, Danny Kaye, Lenny Bruce, The Marx Brothers, Bud Flanagan, Sid Caesar, Woody Allen, Harrison Ford, Mel Brooks, Sophie Tucker, Dinah Shore, Eddie Fisher, Carole King, Neil Sedaka, Paul Simon, Art Garfunkel, Topol, Billy Crystal, Marty Feldman, Jerry Lewis, Sid James, Jack Benny, Frankie Vaughan, Bob Dylan, Elkie Brookes, Neil Diamond, Leonard Cohen, Harry Houdini, Howard Werth, Peter Green, Paul Kossoff, Paula Abdul, Jackie Mason, Theda Bara, Fanny Brice, Bernard Bresslaw, Bernie Winters, Alexie Sayle, Ben Elton, Joan Rivers, Lionel Blair, Marjorie Proops, Claire Rayner, Uri Geller, Ruby Wax, Dani Behr, Tania Bryer, Muriel Gray, Ron Moody, Warren Mitchell, David Baddiel, Jeff Goldblum, David Schwimmer, Leonard Nimoy (Mr Spock), William Shatner (Captn Kirk), Saatchi & Saatchi, David Copperfield, David Suchet, John Suchet, Lou Reed, Mark Knopfler, Goldie Hawn, Vanessa Feltz, Stephen Fry, Debra Winger, Vidal Sassoon, Linda McCartney, Marc Bolan, David Schneider, John Bluthal, Miriam Karlin, Miriam Margolyes, Janet Suzman, David Kossof, Alicia Silverstone, Caprice, Rachel Stevens, Gwyneth Paltrow, Amy Winehouse, Nigella Lawson, Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Roseanne Barr, Lenny Kravitz, Jerry Springer, Judd Hirsch, Jason Biggs, David Blaine, Sacha Baron Cohen (Ali G), Ronnie Ancona, Henry Winkler, Jerry Seinfeld, Zero Mostel, Adam Sandler, Paul Newman, Jo Brand, Krusty the Clown, Sharon Osbourne, Madeleine Kahn, Rodney Dangerfield, Harvey Fierstein, Adrien Brody, Andrew Sachs, Simon Amstel, Michael Grade, Michael Green, Claudia Winkleman, Esther Rantzen.

PRODUCERS/DIRECTORS

The Warner Brothers, William Fox, Louis B Mayer, Samuel Goldwyn, Louis Selznick, Adolph Zukor, Jack and Harry Cohn, Jesse Lasky, Lew Grade, Lord Delfont, Steven Spielberg, Sam Wannamaker, Michael Winner, David O Selznick, Joseph Mankiewicz, Alexander Korda, Billy Wilder, Roman Polanski, Richard Benjamin, Peter Bogdanovich, James L Brooks, Ethan and Joel Coen, David Cronenberg, Cecil B DeMille, Sergei Eisenstein, Nora Ephron, Stephen Frears, William Friedkin, Sam Fuller, Lawrence Kasdan, Stanley Kubrick, John Landis, Fritz Lang, Mike Leigh, Richard Lester, Barry Levinson, Sidney Lumet, Jonathan Lynn, Sam Mendes, Frank Oz, Sydney Pollack, Otto Preminger, Harold Ramis, Carl Reiner, Rob Reiner, Ivan Reitman, John Schlesinger, Don Siegel, Oliver Stone, J.J. Abrams.

POLITICS

Benjamin Disraeli, Sir Herbert Samuel, Anatoly Scharansky, Leslie Hore-Belisha, Manny Shinwell, Leon Blum, Leon Brittain, Lord Young, Nigel Lawson, Gerald Kaufmann, Malcolm Rifkind, Michael Howard, Greville Janner, Golda Meir, Henry Kissinger, the Millibands.

BUSINESS/COMMERCE/LAWYERS

Milton Friedman, The Rothschilds, The Samuels, the Sassoons, The Montefiores, The Goldsmiths, The Montagus, The Mocattas, George Soros, Michael Dell, Alan Sugar, Robert Maxwell, Roman Abramovitch, Mitchell Glazer, Alan Dershowitz, Anthony Julius, Victor Mishcon, Baron Pannick

(went to school with him!)

MUSIC AND ART

Itzhak Perlman, Isaac Stern, Yehudi Menuhin, Sir George Henschel, Gustav Mahler, Mendelsohn, Offenbach, Georges Bizet, Benny Goodman, George and Ira Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein, Leonard Bernstein, Lionel Bart, Larry Adler, Steven Sondheim, Sammy Cahn, Jacob Epstein, Marc Chagall, Jerome Kern, Alan Jay Lerner, Frederick Loewe, Burt Bacharach, Marvin Hamlisch, Lucian Freud, Roy Lichtenstein, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Don Black, Aaron Copland, Jerry Goldsmith, Michael Kamen, Carole King, Lucien Freud.

SCIENCE, MEDICINE AND PHILOSOPHY

Albert Einstein, William Herschel, Neils Bohr, Albert Michelson, Heinrich Hertz, James Franck, Paul Ehrlich, Robert Oppenheimer, Edward Teller, Isidor Rabi, Claude Levi-Strauss, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Martin Buber, Karl Marx, Heinrich Heine, Spinoza, Sigmund Freud, Alfred Adler, Jonas Salk, Carl Sagan, Chaim Weissman, Jacob Bronowski, Benoit Mandlebrot, Paul Ehlrich, Nostradamus, Max Born, Richard Feynman, Wolfgang Pauli, Robert Winston, Jonathan Miller, Alfred Ayer, Karl Popper.

SPORT

Harold Abrahams, Mark Spitz, Max Baer, Daniel Mendoza, Jack ‘Kid’ Berg, Gary Jacobs, Ronnie Rosenthal, Eyal Berkowitz, Yossi Benayoun, Joel Stransky, Phil Cohn (as we’re struggling in this category, I’m putting forward my grandfather, a useful boxer in the ‘20s in the East End, I’m told, and the first and last time he’ll ever be written about).

OK, it’s just a list of names, but to put it into perspective let’s just look at one area, the musical theatre. The following musicals were composed by Jews: Fiddler on the Roof, Oliver, West Side Story, The Sound of Music, Show Boat, Porgy and Bess, South Pacific, The King and I, Annie Get your Gun, Cabaret, Camelot, Carousel, Chicago, A Chorus Line, Fame, 42nd Street, Funny Girl, Gigi, Godspell, Guys and Dolls, La Cage aux Folles, Les Miserables, A Little Night Music, Little Shop of Horrors, Mary Poppins, Miss Saigon, My Fair Lady, Oklahoma!, The Producers and The Wizard of Oz. It’s harder to find one that isn’t Jewish!

The only major composer in the most prolific period (mid-20th Century) who wasn’t Jewish was Cole Porter, who explained how he made the leap to Broadway theatres: “I’ll just write Jewish tunes”. Irving Berlin, one of the major songwriters of the 20th Century, was to write White Christmas (ironic, eh?), Easter Parade (even more ironic), God Bless America and There’s no Business like Show Business. In 1924 it was remarked that “Irving Berlin has no place in American music. He is American Music.”

And if you think this is a bit contrived and selective, here’s a well known answer to anti-Semites by the Jewish comedian, Sam Levinson.

“It’s a free world; you don’t have to like Jews, but if you don’t, I suggest that you boycott certain Jewish products, like the Wasserman test for syphilis; digitalis, discovered by a Dr. Nuslin; insulin, discovered by Dr. Minofsky; chloral hydrate for convulsions, discovered by Dr. Lifreich; the Schick test for diptheria; vitamins, discovered by Dr. Funk; streptomycin, discovered by Dr. Z. Woronan, the polio pill by Dr. A. Sabin and the polio vaccine by Dr. Jonas Salk. Go on, boycott! Humanitarian consistency requires that my people offer all these gifts to all people of the world. Fanatic consistency requires that all bigots accept syphilis, diabetes, convulsions, malnutrition, infantile paralysis and turberculosis as a matter of principle.You want to be mad? Be mad! But I’m telling you, you ain’t going to feel so good!”

How can this be?

Let’s face it, most books you have read on the subject would have just left it with the above lists in order to leave the impression in your mind of “Look at us, aren’t we great! Don’t the facts speak for themselves?” But we need to say what is usually not said explicitly. There is something special about these folk. But what is it? Is it in the genes, a biologically inherited characteristic?

Is it the environment, perhaps something about being herded into ghettos and forced into inward contemplation? These are definitely contributory factors probably in the same way (and it has to be said) why those of African descent excel at music and sport (how many white sprinters / heavy-weight boxers / basketball players etc. do you know?) But Jewish people have impacted the World in so many different spheres and have influenced the thinking of the World so dramatically, that we need to look deeper at this situation. As mentioned in the Introduction, the three men who have, arguably, most influenced the 20th Century, Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud and Karl Marx, were all Jewish, as were the founders of two of the main world religions, Judaism and Christianity.

The Jews. What’s it all about? They seem to be at the forefront of everything, whether it’s science, the media, fashion, the arts, the literary world, politics or whatever. Just look at the Times Obituary columns and see how many Jews figure among the great and the good in our society. No wonder some paranoid malcontents look around and think conspiracy!

It is a conspiracy, but it’s not of man. There’s no doubt that – and this is as politically incorrect as it gets – God has sprinkled Jewish people with some form of magic dust. It’s a form of grace, undeserved favour. It doesn’t guarantee salvation or a spiritual high standing. It doesn’t even come with conditions that this gift must be used for the common good. There have been Jewish gamblers, swindlers, gangsters and rogues who have used this gift for personal gain and have died in their sins. It’s a mystery and, I believe, a by-product of the covenant God made with Abraham. It is hinted at in the wording of the Covenant: “I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” (Genesis 12:2-3)

I believe that Jesus is the fulfillment of the above, but there are many Biblical precedents for partial fulfillments of prophecy and this could very well be one of them. Now I hope this doesn’t sound arrogant, because it is not meant to be. Some things need to be spelt out; sometimes we must go beyond the expectations of polite society and restrictive political correctness and say it as it is. Black people are superb athletes and musical innovators! Asians are hard working and clever! British people are creative and stubbornly independent! Americans are energetic and marketing geniuses! The Japanese are highly productive and polite. And Jews are all of the above, except the first and the last – when’s the last time you met a polite Jewish athlete (or even an impolite one)? Just look at Israel. Look at what the people of this country, one of the youngest and smallest countries in the World, have achieved. It has a larger economy than all of its immediate neighbours combined and the highest ratio of university degrees to population in the World. Israel also produces more scientific papers per capita than any other nation and has the largest number of startup companies in the World.

Yet, in December 2001, Daniel Bernard, the former French ambassador to England, referred to Israel as “that s***** little country.” It seems that not everyone has felt so positive about Jewish contributions to society. Oh well, never mind. God had the last word with this “delightful” little man (he lost his job

and was demoted soon afterwards).

NOTES

61 More information about Henry Ford and his relationship with the Jews can be found at http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/ford.html

62 For examples of such Islamic anti-Semitism go cautiously to www.radioislam.net

63 The Mishnah is a collection of Jewish tradition and teaching that was originally communicated by word of mouth from Biblical times. When it was completed, commentaries known as the Gemara were added and both together comprise the Talmud. The Midrash are separate collection of moral teachings, parables and legends.

64 For a fuller list (about 100 times larger than mine) go to www.jewogle.com

Chapter Eighteen: The People of Promise

There is an important statement I must make. I have made it before, but I am going to make it again. It is so important that I am going to write it in CAPITAL LETTERS. It’s simple, obvious to some, but others continue to get it wrong and allow it to influence their thoughts, attitudes and behaviour towards Jewish people. The statement is this: INDIVIDUAL JEWISH PEOPLE ARE NOT SAVED UNLESS THEY ACCEPT JESUS AS THEIR MESSIAH. It has to be stated clearly and explicitly as so many people get it wrong. Jews in the world, whether in the UK, the USA or even in Israel are as dead in their sins as those who surround them unless they have made a sincere commitment to their Jewish Saviour, who came to the world 2000 years ago to save them and who still reaches out to them with outstretched arms, saying, ‘These arms are getting tired now, but they’re still waiting for you.’

Christians who express a love of Israel and the Jewish people have to honestly and sincerely examine their motivation on this matter. Christian Zionists, spoken about in Chapter 14, are people who have seen the sorry history of the treatment of the Jews by Christians in the past and have woken to these errors, seeking to fight against anti-Semitism and to affirm Jewish people and their Biblical rights to the Land of Israel. But there can be a danger of going too far here, highlighted lucidly by Kay Wilson, in her paper, “An expose of favourable discrimination towards Jewish people within Christian Zionism, and its subsequent effect upon Jewish- Gentile relations.”

She goes as far as to say, “Those very same Christians who seek to fight discrimination against the Jewish people are now in danger of ignorantly perpetuating it”. She justifies her comments by examining how some Christians are also exercising discrimination, albeit a positive one, in blind support of Israel and the Jewish people. If this is on the basis of God’s promises to the Jewish people, then it puts added expectations on relationships with individual Jews, elevating them to some perceived and unrealistic super-spiritual role that is simply not true.

It is true that, as discussed in the previous chapter, there have been some remarkable achievements by individual Jews over the last few centuries and there is a mysterious aspect to this but the assertion by Shylock, in the Merchant of Venice, works both ways, “If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? …” As individuals, God sees Jew and Gentile as equals, there is no personal favouritism for the Jew. That’s the point of the verse in Galatians, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28)

We must learn to distinguish between Jewish people and a Jewish person. God’s covenants with Abraham, Moses and David are for the Jewish people as a whole, the Jewish nation, wherever it may be in the World. These covenants speak of big things, important things. They tells us that a Saviour was to come from the seed of a given people, that these people will inherit the land now known (by most of us) as Israel and that these people are going to have a hard time of it until they return to this land. These people are the Jewish people. Individual Jews have no relationship with the Saviour, except through faith. Not every Jew (I believe) is automatically going to emigrate to Israel, though all are urged to. Individual Jews have only had a hard time of it in history if they have lived demonstrably as members of the Jewish race. Many have assimilated – living as non-Jews – and escaped persecution, pogroms and the death camps.

Also individual Jews have free will to accept or reject Jesus as their Messiah. But not so for the Jewish nation. It has an inescapable destiny, in fact a glorious one in the future, from which it can never escape.

Look at an army of ants. Here they go, shifting twigs, leaves and food along a conveyor belt of individual worker ants. Working as a group, often numbering in the thousands, they corporately achieve great things, though the individual effort of each ant is minimal. When disaster strikes, like a sudden downpour or the intervention of a human child, their goal can be thwarted, an ant hill destroyed or a production line disrupted. This is a disaster for the whole group, not necessarily for an individual ant, who could have survived to live another day. Picture a single ant, like ‘Z’ in the animated film, Antz. He had free will. He was free to woo the princess and do his own thing. (Interestingly this character was mouthed by an archetypal modern Jew, Woody Allen.)

When disaster comes, he can always hide or run away. It’s not a complete picture and may not necessarily help you to understand the Jewish people, but it’s the best I can come up with.

It seems that when a Jew becomes a believer in Jesus he enters not only into a new life but also into a new debate. Apparently, it is not enough for a Jew to simply call himself a Christian like any other new believer and be done with it. A new Jewish believer finds himself deluged with labels. He may find himself called a Hebrew Christian, A Messianic Jew, a Completed Jew or a Jewish believer but only rarely a common-or-garden Christian. You don’t see Hindu Christians or Messianic Muslims, so why burden the Jews with labels, why can’t they just merge into the background and humbly accept their new station as part of the ‘Body of Messiah’ as a new creation?

Some Gentile Christians may shrug their shoulders and say, ‘Just like the Jews, they still think they’re specially chosen. Why can’t they just be like us?’ Yet it is often Gentiles who treat us differently to start with. I have found that it is rare to find a Gentile Christian who is indifferent to my background.

From just plain curiosity, to a vague respect born out of the ‘blessed is he who blesses’ view of the Jew, we always manage to invoke some sort of response. Although I initially found it quietly humorous and touching to be consulted on all things Hebrew and Jewish (if only they knew that my knowledge and training stopped on the afternoon of my Barmitzvah), it can be a bit wearing after a time.

But it’s not all the fault of Gentiles. We Jews are a proud people and are not exactly reticent when nudged onto a pedestal. Perhaps we see it as a recompense for two thousand years of persecution; it makes a welcome change being lifted up in honour rather than being struck down in hatred. The question we really need to address as Jewish believers in Jesus is, ‘How does God see us? Does He see us any differently

from other believers?’ Of course not, as I said earlier. But I will repeat it anyway.

On an individual basis, in terms of our personal salvation, we are no different and no better than any other component of the ‘Body of Messiah’ (‘There is neither Jew nor Greek’ Galatians 3:28). Jews are not saved through Judaism, but through Jesus, like everyone else. (‘Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.’) (Acts 4:12.)

On a national level, as the ‘remnant of Israel’ (i.e. Jews who believe in Jesus, the Jewish Messiah), we have a different responsibility, towards our natural family (unsaved Jews) and spiritual family (fellow believers, Jew and Gentile). To our unsaved Jewish family our responsibility is to give a priority to their salvation (‘… first for the Jew ‘ Romans 1:16). To our spiritual family our responsibility is to help to restore the balance that has been lost to the Church as a result of over 1500 years of Gentile domination.

However little we can contribute to this, I am increasingly aware of the duty of Jewish believers to spend time studying our roots and culture, so that we can feed a Church that is becoming increasingly hungry for such nourishment.

The only covenant that is currently in operation for individual Jews is the New Covenant. It is clearly stated as a prophecy in Jeremiah 31:31:

“The time is coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them,” declares the Lord. “This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after that time,” declares the Lord. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.”

The covenant was kick-started through the life and death of Jesus of Nazareth. Just like the ones with Abraham, Moses and David, it was a covenant with the Jewish people. Jesus came, first, for his own people, the Jews. How do we know this? Well, he spoke of it, himself:

“These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: “Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans. Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel.” (Matthew 10:5-6)

Paul, the dominant writer of the New Testament, also wrote of it:

“I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.” (Romans 1:16 ‒ emphasis mine)

It makes sense really. The Jews were God’s people, the keeper of His covenants and His Scriptures (i.e. the Bible). They may have wandered away from the centre of God’s will, but they were God’s best chance, at that time, for a people of His New Covenant. Just look at the alternatives – Greeks, Romans and others, thoroughly immersed in a thoroughly pagan culture and religious system. He could hardly use them to get things going. The Jews had a head start – 2000 years of it! It doesn’t need the mind of a genius to understand why God was going to get the new deal going with the Jews first (those who were willing to listen).

Paul sets the scene quite adequately in Romans 9:4-5, “Theirs is the adoption as sons; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of Christ, who is God over all, for ever praised!”

The raw material had been nursed and developed over 2000 years of turbulent history. It was time for God to redeem His investment.

And many Jews did accept the new deal, at the start. All Jesus’ disciples were Jews, as were the first new believers, all 3000 of them on the first Day of Pentecost in Jerusalem, when the Church was born.

But what came next was totally unexpected, to the Jews at least. After all, they’d had God to themselves since He first beckoned Abraham out of the eastern lands! But it couldn’t last. Could they really believe that God would only be interested in one tiny nation and would be happy for the rest to (literally) go to hell? Didn’t they realize that they, the Jewish nation, were simply God’s chosen instrument to establish a bridgehead among the nations?

Does a trowel complain when the builder uses it to create a house?

God gave a clue at the beginning of the story. “The Lord had said to Abram, “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you. “I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” (Genesis 12:1-3)

All peoples on earth were going to be blessed here, not just a favoured few. It was a theme repeated by the great Old Testament prophet, Isaiah.

“And now the Lord says—he who formed me in the womb to be his servant to bring Jacob back to him and

gather Israel to himself, for I am honoured in the eyes of the Lord and my God has been my strength— he says: “It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth.” (Isaiah 49:5-6)

Of course it was too small a thing. We’re talking of Heaven and Hell here!

“All the nations you have made will come and worship before you, O Lord; they will bring glory to your name.” (Psalm 86:9)

The nations could hardly give glory to God if they didn’t know Him. So they had to get to know Him first. Jews weren’t natural evangelists, particularly to the hated Gentiles, who had never done them any favours.

Remember the story of Jonah and his distaste for preaching to the Gentile city of Nineveh? “How could God be so merciful to such a wicked city?” cried Jonah. “How could God be so merciful to such a wicked people?” cried Jesus’ chief disciple, Simon Peter, until God sent him a dream to change his mind and send him to Cornelius, the Gentile Centurion.

“Then Peter began to speak: “I now realise how true it is that God does not show favouritism but accepts men from every nation who fear him and do what is right.” (Acts 10:34-35)

The scene was set for the explosion of the gospel of Jesus, from Jerusalem, to Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth, a process that is still in full flow today. So the Gentiles were allowed in, but they were never intended to dominate. The ideal situation, of Jew and Gentile in balance, is described by Paul in the letter to the Ephesians:

“Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called “uncircumcised” by those who call themselves “the circumcision” (that done in the body by the hands of men) — remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility.” (Ephesians 2:11-16)

A bold ideal, but not one that has ever been achieved in the Christian world (although the Puritans tried it, but without a single Jew in sight) – a Christianity where Jew and Gentile live together in harmony and understanding, each contributing towards the relationship, creating a shining witness to the World of a people to be envied. Within a few generations of allowing the Gentiles in, they had totally dominated, stripped away the Jewish roots of the faith and, in their place, taking on pagan practices from the cultures of the World.

It was a tragedy, not just for the Jews, but for the Gentiles too. If they only had read and understood what Paul had to say in his letter to the Romans, they may have tempered their treatment of the Jewish people. Countless Jews may have lost their lives during this period, but what do you think was the condition of the souls of the Christians at the forefront of the anti-Semitism that was relentlessly perpetrated?

Paul explained it very clearly in his letter to the Roman Gentile Christians. He turns us all into gardeners. He tells us to imagine an olive tree, not so easy for modern people, particularly in the dodgy British climate. For the Jews at the time of Jesus it was a tree of great importance, a source of much that was needed for daily living. It provided olives for eating and olive oil for cooking, fuel for lamps, in medicine and as anointing oil. It may not have been pretty to look at but it was a king among trees. The olive leaf and branch have been a symbol of peace to this day, from the days of Noah’s flood.

In Romans Chapter 11, he helps us to get a grip of the relationship between Jews and Gentiles in the Body of Messiah. Cast your mind back to the early days of Abraham and, with your spiritual eyes, imagine God planting an olive seed and watching as the first shoots burst from the ground. Then, as Isaac and Jacob appear on the scene, a tiny young olive tree has appeared in the spiritual landscape. As the Messianic line unfolds from Judah through to David, branches thrust their way into the sky until, by the time we get to the days of Jesus, the tree is well established. It is starting to grow now at an alarming rate. Every new Jew born has a branch in this tree. Growth is satisfactory until something strange happens. Branches are starting to fall to the ground.

For every new branch that appears, seemingly another is broken away, falling to the ground. Eventually, in their place other branches appear, but these are not branches growing out of the tree itself, but are fully grown branches taken from a wild olive tree, added to the tree in the gaps left by the broken branches.

These grafted-in branches are added at a faster and faster pace until, before long, the upper branches of the olive tree are totally dominated by these unnatural additions. These wild olive branches may be contrary to nature, yet they still produce fruit. But the natural branches are few and far between.

Now that I’ve set the picture, read the Scriptures, then return to the description above.

“If some of the branches have been broken off, and you, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root,” (Romans 11:17)

The olive tree up to the time of Jesus is clearly representing, in some way, the Jewish people. The tree itself seems to be the place of God’s blessing and all the branches are Jewish. We can imagine a massive pruning exercise must have taken place at the time of the exile of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, branches being lopped off as the Jews of the Northern tribes disappear into obscurity and outside of God’s purposes.

But now, at the time of Paul’s writings, he speaks of the branches that were falling to the ground, natural branches representing Jews who have rejected Jesus and consequently fall away from the place of blessing. Their place was (and still is) taken by Gentiles who have accepted Jesus as their Messiah. These are the wild olive shoots, grafted into the gaps and feeding from the tree, receiving the blessings. They are not the natural branches, so it’s not a perfect fit, but they benefit nevertheless.

“Do not boast over those branches. If you do, consider this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you.” (Verse 18)

Paul warns the Gentiles, the wild olive branches, that they should be thankful for their position and should always be aware that theirs is a position of favour. The argument continues:

“You will say then, “Branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in.” (Verse 19)

Branches were broken off because there were some Jews who failed to believe in Jesus. Their position was taken by the Gentiles. Then comes a warning.

“Granted. But they were broken off because of unbelief and you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant, but be afraid.” (Verse 20)

Do not be arrogant, but be afraid is the warning. The reason is then given. ““For if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you either. Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God: sternness to those who fell, but kindness to you, provided that you continue in his kindness. Otherwise, you also will be cut off.” (Verses 21, 22)

Bearing in mind that faith is a gift of God, if He is seemingly so willing to abandon the natural branches, the Jews, how more willing will He be to do the same for the unnatural ones.

“And if they do not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again.”

(Verse 23)

Some say the Jews are finished. Paul doesn’t and God certainly doesn’t. He is willing and able to re-graft the Jews, the natural branches, into the olive tree, the place of blessing and salvation.

“After all, if you were cut out of an olive tree that is wild by nature, and contrary to nature were grafted into a cultivated olive tree, how much more readily will these, the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree!” (Verse 24)

Paul summarises his warning to the Gentiles who have been added to the tree in the place of Jews. He reminds them of their grace and favour and that the Jews, the natural branches, could be re-grafted as a much better fit into the olive tree.

“I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in.” (Verse 25)

It’s all a mystery, at the end of the day. Although none may know the mind of God, He wants us to appreciate the outworkings of this mystery. Again it’s a warning to the Gentiles, to stop them getting puffed-up and conceited. There is something very deep and mystical going on here. The Jews, through their persistent unbelief as a race, have suffered the same fate as the Pharaoh at the time of Moses, as well as many others in Biblical history.

They have experienced a hardening. God has allowed their hearts to harden, in their rejection of Jesus as Messiah and the result of this is to allow those wild olive branches, the Gentiles, a place in the olive tree of blessing. The Jews, as a whole (not all of them, as I and many others can personally testify) have rejected Messiah and it has allowed the Gentiles in. It’s an awesome fact, but it is true and what is often ignored is that a time is going to come when the full number of Gentiles has come in and then God’s favour is going to swing back to the Jews. And when that happens … well, read on …

“And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: “The deliverer will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob.” (Verse 26)

This verse has been discussed and debated by the theological giants, so I won’t enter that particular arena except to say that, to some degree, God is going to soften those hard hearts and the light of the gospel is going to shine in places that have been closed to it for many generations.

And when that happens, the World is going to be transformed. Paul speaks of it earlier in that same chapter, just before his warning to the Gentiles. He is talking to them about the Jews here:

“Again I ask: Did they stumble so as to fall beyond recovery? Not at all! Rather, because of their transgression, salvation has come to the Gentiles to make Israel envious. But if their transgression means riches for the world, and their loss means riches for the Gentiles, how much greater riches will their fulness bring! I am talking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch as I am the apostle to the Gentiles, I make much of my ministry in the hope that I may somehow arouse my own people to envy and save some of them. For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?” (Verses 11 – 15)

I will let the above passage speak for itself. It is a further evidence of the future role for the Jewish people in God’s plan, indeed, their future speaks of a glorious future for the whole World.

And can you imagine it? Look back at the list of Jewish movers and shakers in Chapter 17. Can you imagine what blessings could flow to the world from the coming to faith of such as Steven Spielberg, Will Self, Jonathan Sacks or Alan Sugar. Nothing less than life from the dead, as it says. So, where are we now? We’ve just read of God’s plan of salvation for the Gentiles and the role played by the Jewish people in this. Earlier we read of the balance that God intended, of a Church with Jew and Gentile working together and worshipping together.

The Church needs to find this balance like never before, but to achieve this there are dangers for both Jewish and Gentile believers.

Jewish believers need to keep a tight rein on how far they go in this important task of helping to restore the balance. At the end of the day they are, as are all Christians, Our Lord’s representatives on Earth. There’s a danger that they may start ‘believing the publicity’, of those Christians, discussed earlier in this chapter, who, perhaps unintentionally, place Jewish believers on a pedestal. One such pastor always joked when he met me of touching the hem of my garment and receiving a blessing. Is it a joke, or is there something else there?

We must not give into pride. It’s one thing being proud of your heritage, but it’s another to use this to feel superior to other, Gentile, believers. It’s just not on and can do nothing but harm to this precarious balance we strive for. Of all the  ‘deadly sins’, pride is said to be the most lethal, as it is the one that places us at the centre of everything, and relegates God to a mere bit-part in the scheme of things. We must continue to remind ourselves that God originally chose the Jews, despite themselves, not because of a natural superiority. He chose them for no other reason than it was them that He chose! So no boasting over the grafted-in branches!

The danger for Gentile believers, when they strive to restore this balance, is also to go too far. Messianic fellowships have been founded, where Jews and Gentiles meet together, with an emphasis given to a Hebraic expression of faith in the teaching, liturgy and worship. They tend to still be predominantly Gentile in the UK, with typically no more than 30% of the membership being from a Jewish background. In areas with few Jews I have heard of some such fellowships with not a single Jew in the congregation. One can respect and understand the needs and motivation behind such expressions of faith, but one can also sense the dangers. Imagine an unsaved Jew arriving at a Messianic fellowship with few (or no) Jews, where Hebrew songs are sung, Jewish festivals are celebrated and where many of the prayers are based on the Jewish prayer book. Would this be a good witness to a Jew, conscious of a history of persecution and hatred by the Christian world? His immediate impression is to see the natural and horrific conclusion of 17 centuries of Jewish persecution at the hands of Christians. They have stolen our possessions, our wellbeing, and our lives and now they steal our culture and heritage! Have they left us nothing?

I have been to such fellowships where Gentiles have worn skullcaps and prayer shawls, speak Yiddish and declare, in their testimony, that Messianic Judaism (rather than Jesus) has saved them! I know this is an extreme case, but, to repeat an earlier verse, Gentiles, particularly those who profess to love the Jewish people, must realise that salvation has come to the Gentiles to make Israel envious. Are your actions in

accordance with this command?

Gentile Christians who have studied the Jewish roots of their faith have been mightily enriched, particularly when they are able to teach others in their churches or worship with likeminded believers in Messianic fellowships. But – and this is a BIG BUT – unless there is a genuine and demonstrable love for the Jewish people – it can be seen as a selfish exercise, carried out just for personal blessing. It may bless you but in no way is it blessing the Jewish people or providing a balance in our expressions of our faith. Sure, you can learn from the Jewish roots, but don’t neglect the very people who literally shed their blood to ensure that these teachings have survived to enrich you. It’s not rocket science. Just treat your Jewish neighbor first as a human being and the Holy Spirit will do the rest.

Returning to the article by Kay Wilson, it is worth paying heed to her conclusion.

“We must learn to embrace the paradox, through making a distinction between relationships with individual Jews and our views of the Jewish people as a whole. This will invite the God of Israel back onto centre stage and in doing so spur the Christian Zionist into the greatest expression of Biblical support for the Jewish people, first and foremost a Spirit-led relentless proclamation of the crucified and resurrected Jewish Messiah, the sole true hope and comfort of Zion. With the priority of salvation binding Jew and Gentile together, both will be able to stand in mutual depravity yet God-given dignity before the throne of Messiah. Only then will both be able to wonder in awe at the election of Israel; only then will the tension between God’s fairness and His sovereign choices be truly understood.”

Chapter Nineteen: The Land of Promise

What’s the connection between Kerala in India, Yorkshire in the UK and the USA in general? They have all been variously described as God’s Own Country. Trouble is that these Indians, Yorkshiremen and Americans are all totally mistaken. There is only one country that God calls His own; Israel. The conflict over who owns the land is not a two way fight between Jew and Arab; there are three ‘corners’ in this ring and there can only be one winner – God Himself. You may accuse me of repetition, but it is now good to remind ourselves of the tableau of history as it has unfurled in the pages of this book.

The four thousand year history of the Promised Land, from Canaan to Israel, by way of Judea/Samaria and Palestine, can be summarised in one word – covenant. Simply put, this is a contract or agreement between two parties. One of these parties was God and, for the covenant in question, the other party was Abram, renamed Abraham after the covenant was cut, in Genesis 17:7-8. ‘I will establish my covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you. The whole land of Canaan, where you are now an alien, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you; and I will be their God.’ With regards to the land in question, history between then and now is simply the outworking of this everlasting, unconditional covenant.

The first point to remind ourselves (yet again – it’s important!) is that the Land belongs to God and God only. He confirms this in Leviticus 25:23, ‘… because the land is Mine and you are but aliens and My tenants’. Jews were, and still are, God’s tenants, albeit on a very long lease. Everyone else, according to the Bible, has no rights at all to the land, except the very transitory rights of conquest, claimed by a whole swathe of Gentile invaders and occupiers, including Canaanites, Philistines, Greeks, Romans, Turks and British.

In an ideal world, Abraham and his descendants would have dug in their heels and continuously occupied the land as legal tenants from then to now. But this is not an ideal world and other factors came into play, not least the actions of these tenants. These actions, whether idolatry, faithlessness or corruption, would never cause God to tear up the tenant’s agreement, because the small print contained no conditions

that the tenants should abide by. But their actions could result in the loss of blessings through expulsions from the land for varying periods.

God laid this out clearly through the writings of Moses in the Book of Deuteronomy, in the blessings of obedience and the curses of disobedience. He summarises the situation in Chapter 30, verses 19-20, ‘This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.”

All they had to do was choose life, which simply meant following the Lord and obeying His commands. Blessings for obedience are laid out in Chapter 28 – healthy children, good crops, defeat of enemies, rain and prosperity. Yet curses are also laid out for disobedience – hunger, disease, destruction by enemies and, ultimately, expulsion. God in His wisdom forsees all these things, knowing in advance that His people would turn against Him and reap the consequences. Having said that, He also looks ahead, in Chapter 30 to a regathering from exile.

The words used are ‘gather you again from the nations’ and ‘bring you to the land that belonged to your fathers’ and hope is therefore offered to His people with a reminder that He has never forgotten their tenancy of the Land, even in their years of exile.

The first exile from the land was at the hands of the Assyrians and the seeds were sown during the reign of King Solomon. Hints of strife to come were first given to David after his adultery with Bathsheba, but it was Solomon who really messed things up. In 1 Kings 11:9 we read, ‘The Lord became angry with Solomon because his heart had turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel’. Solomon, despite all of the blessings that God had given to him earlier in his reign, finally succumbed to the seductive whispers of his hundreds of foreign wives and concubines and ‘followed other gods’.

The penalty was significant. The Kingdom would be torn in two, Judah and Israel, and it was going to happen in the following generation.

Things got worse for the northern kingdom of Israel in that next generation. The ruler, Jereboam, was even more of an idolator than his predecessor. 1 Kings 14:15 outlines the punishment for his crime. ‘… He will uproot Israel from this good land that he gave to their forefathers and scatter them …’ The fate of the northern kingdom was sealed and it disappeared from history in the 8th Century BC.

The full thrust of the curses for disobedience therefore came into play for the kingdom of Israel. You’d think it would serve as a warning to Judah, the southern kingdom. Unfortunately it didn’t. Judah sank into the same sins and the only reason why it didn’t suffer the same fate was given in 2 Kings 8:19. ‘Nevertheless, for the sake of his servant David, the Lord was not willing to destroy Judah. He had promised to maintain a lamp for David and his descendants for ever.’

So when the Babylonians arrived in the 6th Century BC and Judah was led into captivity for its sins, the exile was only to be a temporary one.

A few decades later, the Jews were allowed back into their land by the Persians and stayed there for another six hundred years, despite suffering ‘under the cosh’ of Greeks or Romans for much of that time. They may have been in the land, but not always as a free people. They were not particularly reaping the blessings as outlined in Deuteronomy, though their disobedience didn’t warrant destruction or exile.

But something was going to happen during the Roman occupation that would change this situation for the worst, even though, ironically, this event was intended as a blessing to end all blessings. That event was the coming of Jesus the Messiah. Jesus came as the promised ‘anointed one’ of Israel, prophesied in the Hebrew Scriptures. This was a momentous event. Jesus was the fulfilment of the Torah and the Prophets (Matthew 5:17) and the agent of the New Covenant as prophesied in Jeremiah 31:31-33. Yet, as we read in John 1:11, ‘He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him’.

The Jews as a nation rejected his claims and ultimately rejected him. His mission during his lifetime was to the Jews. In Matthew 15:24 he says, ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel’. Yet, apart from a few apostles and disciples, he was rejected by these ‘lost sheep’ and left for the Romans to administer their brutal justice in the form of crucifixion outside the city walls of Jerusalem.

A few days earlier he had prophesied over those very walls, “Look, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord’” (Matthew 23:38-39). He knew what was coming around forty years later, when those walls would be breached by the Romans and the city destroyed. He was also stating the conditions for his return. The World was, and is, having to wait a long time for that particular event.

When the Romans came in 70 AD and sacked Jerusalem, there was to begin a period of Jewish exile, the Galut, that was to last around 1800 years. The Babylonian exile was just 70 years and was for the sin of idolatry, so what sin could have been committed this time to warrant an exile of such a magnitude?

The Jewish Christian teacher, Arnold Fruchtenbaum, has a view that may be uncomfortable for some. He harks back to a key passage in Matthew. In Chapter 12, verses 30-32, we read ‘He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters. And so I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. Anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.’

The context of this proclamation is Jesus’ healing of a demon-possessed man and the Pharisees assertion that this was only possible because Jesus himself was demon-possessed, rather than indwelled by the Holy Spirit. This was the blasphemy against the Spirit, or the unpardonable sin, a sin so awesomely bad that it cannot be forgiven.

According to Dr. Fruchtenbaum, this is a national, rather than a personal sin, being ‘the national rejection by Israel of the Messiahship of Jesus while he was present on the grounds of him being demon-possessed’. This, he adds, ‘is the most important single event in the life of the Messiah with the exception of his death and resurrection, because it sets the stage for Jewish history for the next 1800 years or so.’ 65

In short, the Jewish nation (specifically the religious leaders) brought on themselves the 1800 year diaspora by not just rejecting Jesus as Messiah, but by attributing his miraculous powers to the work of Satan.

Another view harks back to the proclamation of Bar Kochba as the Jewish messiah in 132 AD, as mentioned earlier. This was a very public denial of the claims of Jesus and instigated the final split between Church and Synagogue.

However we justify this exile theologically, there’s no doubt that the full weight of the curses of Deuteronomy 28 came into play.

Consider the following in the light of history;

◊ Being scattered among all the nations, from one end of the earth to the other (verse 64),

◊ Finding no peace anywhere, no place to call your own, being overwhelmed with anxiety, hopelessness and despair (verse 65),

◊ Your life always being in danger, day and night filled with terror, living in constant fear of death (verse 66),

◊ Hearts pounding with fear at everything you see, every morning wishing for evening, every evening wishing for morning (verse 67).

It all sounds so horribly familiar when we consider the precarious history of the Jewish exile, from the early rejections in the 5th Century to the Holocaust of the 20th Century.

It is at this point that Mr. Roots and Mr. Shoots part company. For Mr. Shoots, the Jews now leave the story as far as God is concerned. They are no longer the true Israel and so no longer belong to God. Trouble is that they never did go away, did they? For Mr. Roots, the story continues.

If the latter verses of Chapter 28 of Deuteronomy refer to the Galut, then what of Chapter 30? As mentioned earlier, in this chapter God also speaks of a regathering, an end to the exile. Ever since the middle of the 19th Century, thanks to the enlightened efforts of evangelical Christians, particularly in Britain, Jewish people were beginning to be attracted to Jesus, their Messiah. About the same time Britain was experiencing the Great Evangelical Awakening. Also at the same time, Zionism was born and Jews were returning in numbers to their ancient land. Could this all be connected? Scripture seems to think so as a reading of the first few verses testify, ‘When all these blessings and curses I have set before you come upon you and you take them to heart wherever the Lord your God disperses you among the nations, and when you and your children return to the Lord your God and obey him with all your heart and with all your soul according to everything I command you today …’

Were these conditions being met, even if in a small way? God seemed to think so for, as the verses continue, ‘… then the Lord your God will restore your fortunes and have compassion on you and gather you again from all the nations where he scattered you’. Scripture was clearly indicating an end of this exile. It continues. ‘Even if you have been banished to the most distant land under the heavens, from there the Lord your God will gather you and bring you back. He will bring you to the land that belonged to your fathers, and you will take possession of it.’ Jews were returning from as far afield as China, Australia, Brazil, all of them ‘most distant lands’.

Then came 1967 and the restoration of Jerusalem to Jewish hands. Was it a co-incidence that, at that time, there was an explosion of Jewish people becoming believers in Jesus the Messiah, particularly in the USA? The momentum has continued ever since and we are now in a situation of having more Jewish believers in Jesus worldwide that at any time in history since the early days of the Church. Jewish people were becoming blessed the world over – returning to the land for some, returning to Jesus for others.

Some were even doubly blessed, with both.

Of course, it has not been an easy journey. There are forces out there for whom these double blessings are a curse. World opinion, Islam and Arab nations are all in opposition, but it is satan who is most grieved. He has very special reasons for wanting the destruction of the Jewish people and for certainly not wanting them in their land and embracing their Messiah.

Anti-Semitism, wherever it may be found, was his invention and it had failed. Jews had survived, as God had always promised. And they were back in their land, according to God’s covenant with Abraham. When we look at the current unfolding crisis in the Middle East, we are mistaken if we see it just as another Bosnia or Northern Ireland or South Africa. It is not a local disagreement; it is a crisis of World proportions. It’s not just a ‘Jew and Arab’ thing and ‘why can’t they learn to live together’? It’s not an

‘evil Zionist empire disregarding the rights of the Palestinians’ thing. It’s not even a ‘heartless Arab terrorists killing innocent Israelis’ thing.

It is a spiritual battle, not a physical battle. God is telling us that Israel (including the West Bank) is His land and the Jews are His legal tenants and it is satan saying otherwise and using all within his arsenal to fight with, whether false religion, materialism or nationalism. Above all, he uses confusion as his main tactic.

Don’t you find it strange that the really important things are so confusing? The Book of Revelation is the only Bible book that tells us that we’re going to be blessed by reading it (Rev 1:3), yet it’s the one we find the most confusing, so we tend not to read it.

In the same way, the Middle East situation is a confusing one, so we tend to ignore it or be content to have a superficial understanding, usually based on whatever has been fed to us by the media.

It is every Christian’s duty, in these perilous times, to take the time to grasp the important issues, because one day you may be taken to task over your opinion. You owe it to your God, who has given you life in this world and the next, to understand what’s really going on in Israel.

A grave danger is to be side-tracked by human issues. Yes, the Palestinians have had a hard deal, though not just at the hands of Israelis. Yes, they have suffered to an extent under Israeli rule, just as they suffered in Jordan and Lebanon. Prejudices are a fact of fallen humanity – ask a black man in the USA, or an aborigine in Australia. These are issues of human rights and inequality. But all these concerns pale into

insignificance when divine issues come into play.

One of the hardest concepts for us to accept is that of election, how God makes His sovereign choices. God chose the Jews to inherit the Land and it’s not up to us to take issue with Him over this choice. Romans 9:15 says, ‘I will have mercy on whom I have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion’. He makes His choices and doesn’t feel the need to explain them or justify them to us.

God chose the Jews to provide us with the Bible and the Messianic line leading to Jesus. He chose them to suffer, for His own reasons – we don’t see people arguing with that fact. But He also chose them to inherit the Land of Israel, unconditionally and forever. We have to learn to accept that fact.

And then there is Jerusalem. Zechariah 12 provides us with an intriguing and alarmingly accurate modern commentary. Verse 2 proclaims, ‘I am going to make Jerusalem a cup that sends all the surrounding peoples reeling. Judah will be besieged as well as Jerusalem’. This is happening now; we are living in those times predicted over 2000 years ago. Recently the United Nations made a resolution about Jerusalem whereby ‘the decision of Israel to impose its laws, jurisdiction, and administration on the Holy City of Jerusalem was illegal and, therefore, null and void’66. Not a single nation supported Israel in this resolution – with 145 in favour of it and 5 abstentions.

But, be warned, where the will of the nations are in opposition to the word of God, there can only be one winner. Returning to the next verse in Zechariah 12, ‘On that day, when all the nations of the earth are gathered against her, I will make Jerusalem an immovable rock for all the nations. All who try to move it will injure themselves.’

The Land of Israel belongs to God, it is His land. The city of Jerusalem also belongs to God, it is His city. In Psalm 132:13 we read, ‘For the Lord has chosen Zion (Jerusalem), he has desired it for his dwelling’. Can you think of any other city, anywhere in the world, that could attract such attention? Jerusalem is unique. Just over a century ago it was a wasted, ruined city, yet now it is the focus of World attention.

Any explanation other than the ‘spiritual’ one is folly. We are entering dangerous times, prophetic times.

We must learn to read the ‘signs of the times’ because there is much deception around. Above all, we must hold onto God’s Word regarding that parcel of land in the Middle East that can rightly be called

“God’s own country”. Don’t listen to the World and its rantings and don’t get sucked into politics; it is just a distraction. Hold fast to the truth and pray for the peace of Jerusalem. As for the future, it is already being written as you read this.

NOTES

65 Fruchtenbaum, Arnold The Life of the Messiah from a Jewish Perspective tape series, Anchor Recordings

66 Report of 79th plenary meeting, 14th December 1993 at http://www.un.org/documents/ga/res/48/a48r059.htm

Chapter Twenty: You Don’t Mess with God!

How can I prove to you that anti-Semitism is alive and well and flourishing very much on the World stage in the 21st Century, despite the never-again declarations by those who watched the Holocaust unfold? It’s easy, just look at the United Nations and its shenanigans.

The establishment of Israel as a sovereign nation provided a new twist, presenting a supposedly acceptable alternative to those looking for a politically-correct way to express their hatreds. The World looked on at a version of what was happening in the Middle East and, thanks to effective Arab propaganda, perceived Israel as the great villain of the piece, flexing its expansionist, colonial, racist muscles against the poor defenceless Palestinians.

The upshot of this has become a strange hybrid of Muslim fundamentalism and secular left-wing peace campaigners, united by a common cause, anti-Israelism or anti-Zionism, the political version of anti-Semitism. We can even find some politically active Jews subscribing to this view; self-hating Jews, no less, if only they knew it! This unholy alliance had also been reflected on the World stage, with the coming together of Islamic nations and communist nations, under the auspices of the United Nations, with the shared aim of defying the USA and its allies, particularly Israel.

Don’t be fooled for a minute, it’s just a new expression of an old hatred. Granted there may be elements of inequality and injustice in the Palestinian situation in the Middle East, but there’s far worse raging in every corner of the globe! Yet we don’t coin a phrase to describe our position on these issues, do we? In drawing rooms and dinner parties across Britain, misled folk can openly declare themselves anti-Zionists and still have best friends who are Jewish! Attacking Israel on any level is just a comfortable and acceptable way of venting one’s anti-Semitism.

The longest hatred has found a new outlet and the World just doesn’t see it.

It didn’t see it in 2001 at Durban, South Africa at a United Nations Conference entitled “the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance”. It is fair to say that this conference was hijacked by this unholy alliance, with an assault on the legitimacy of Israel orchestrated by Iran, that bastion of love, peace and tolerance. Canada and the USA, to their credit, walked out half way through this conference and the European Union refused to be sucked into the venomous atmosphere being generated by the Arab representatives. But it was just a part of the drip, drip, drip of anti-Israelism, working on the sad truth that if a lie is told over and over again, some may start believing it.

This worked very well in Nazi Germany in the hoodwinking of ordinary German people into believing that Jews were the very devil incarnate; and it seems to be working even in these “enlightened times”.

Did you know that around 40% of United Nations Human Rights Council resolutions are against just one nation, Israel, more than the actual worst human rights offenders combined! 67 In 1975, the unholy alliance of nations managed to get a resolution passed by the U.N., resolution 3379, which stated, Zionism is a form of racism. The movement with the single aim of trying to protect Jews against racism, was now defined as racism. This nonsense was further embellished in the 2009 U.N. Anti-racism Conference by that staunch defender of human rights (except in his own country), the Iranian president Ahmadinejad, who stated that Zionism is not only racist but is the true root of racism throughout the World. This of course is the man who denies the Holocaust and repeatedly calls for Israel’s annihilation.

Although the far left is no friend of Israel, there can be little chinks of light, as individuals shake themselves free of their conditioning. One such writer is Pilar Rahola, a Spanish politician, journalist and left wing activist. In a speech given at a conference in 2009, she said: 68

“ …They want to listen to me, because they ask themselves why, if Pilar is a serious journalist, does she risk losing her credibility by defending the bad guys, the guilty? I answer provocatively – You all believe that you are experts in international politics, when you talk about Israel, but you really know nothing. Would you dare talk about the conflict in Ruanda? In Chechnya? – No. They are jurists, their turf is not geopolitics.. But against Israel, they dare, as does everybody. Why? Because Israel is under the permanent media magnifying glass and its distorted image pollutes the world’s brains. And, because it is part of what is politically correct, it seems solidarity, because talking against Israel is free. And so, cultured people when they read about Israel, are ready to believe that Jews have six arms, in the same way that during the Middle Ages people believed all sorts of outrageous things. The first question, then, is why so many intelligent people, when talking about Israel, suddenly become idiots … Why, of all the World’s conflicts, only this one interests them? Why a tiny country which struggles to survive is criminalized? Why does the manipulated information triumph so easily? Why are all the people of Israel, reduced to a simple mass of murderous imperialists? Why is there no Palestinian guilt? Why is Arafat a hero and Sharon a monster? Finally, why when it is the only country in the World which is threatened with destruction, it is the only one that nobody considers a victim?”

A brave lady, to fight against such a tide of ignorance. She asks why so many intelligent people, when talking about Israel, suddenly become idiots. She can sense that there’s something wrong, something going on that she can’t quite grasp. Yet she hit the nail on the head later on in her speech:

“Just as it is impossible to completely explain the historical evil of anti-Semitism, it is also not possible to totally explain the present-day imbecility of anti-Israelism. Both drink from the fountain of intolerance and lie. If, also, we accept that anti-Israelism is the new form of anti-Semitism, we conclude that contingencies may have changed, but the deepest myths, both of the Medieval Christian anti-Semitism and of the modern political anti-Semitism, are still intact. Those myths are part of the chronicle of Israel.”

In September 2011, as I am writing this, Palestine presented a case to the United Nations for full recognition as a Nation. The majority of the United Nations delegates were clearly in favour, whether out of conviction or coercement, if we judge it by the rapturous applause that greeted the Palestinian president, Abbas, before his speech to the assembly and compare this with the muted response to Netanyahu’s speech.

I could comment on the speeches, but words are not important, it’s the resulting actions that make the real difference. One last thing – the document that the Palestinian leadership presented to the U.N. had a small map on the top right hand corner. The map, part of the Palestinian emblem, was of the whole land of Israel, not just the West Bank and Gaza. So where were the Jews? In the sea? Yes, that is the intention, but the World still doesn’t get it!

But enough about politics, it is time to get to the nitty-gritty, to the One who laughs at our politicians and leaders.

Why do the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the Lord and against his Anointed One. “Let us break their chains,” they say, “and throw off their fetters.” The One enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord scoffs at them. Then he rebukes them in his anger and terrifies them in his wrath, saying, “I have installed my King on Zion, my holy hill.” I will proclaim the decree of the Lord: He said to me, “You are my Son; today I have become your Father. Ask of me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession. You will rule them with an iron scepter; you will dash them to pieces like pottery.” Therefore, you kings, be wise; be warned, you rulers of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry and you be destroyed in your way, for his wrath can flare up in a moment. Blessed are all who take refuge in him. (Psalm 2)

There’s a deluded vicar living in Wales who decided that he so detested some passages in the Old Testament – the ‘negative nasty bits’ – that he cut them out and displayed them as an art installation. He regarded the “god” of the Old Testament as a cruel and vile God, as distinct from the nice Jesus of the New Testament. Thus that age-old heresy, Marcionism, mentioned in an earlier chapter, is still alive and well and reminds us that there really is nothing new under the sun in terms of how Christians, even with 2,000 years of intelligent debate behind them, can still get it so, so wrong.

Of course, this is just the rotten heart of Replacement Theology, representing a worldview that doesn’t just want to replace Israel with the Church, but (not always consciously) seeks to do the same with “nasty Old Testament” Yahweh (God) and the Torah, replacing them with New Testament Jesus and grace. If this rotten heart could be examined we would be able to see what it really is all about; the replacing of

the centrality of faith itself with human reason, the replacing of God with man. (For more on this, may I recommend my book, “To Life!”)

So here we are in the second decade of the 21st Century faced with a God who many are determined to explain away with clever arguments, but Who is clearly acting in the affairs of mankind, as He did in Bible times. And why shouldn’t He? We may have changed, but He certainly hasn’t. And if He declared then that the land of Israel is His and His only  (Leviticus 25:23) and that the people of Israel are the apple of His eye (Zechariah 2:8), then what gives us the arrogance to declare that it is any different now?

Our fragmented Christian World with its 38,000+ denominations is populated with a sprinkling of self-declared “prophets”, many no more than fortune-tellers with shiny white teeth, but some declare that they are speaking on behalf of God in the affairs of the nations. In most cases, they declare sugar coated generalities of revivals and rumours of revivals, because they want to stay in business and figure out that the best way to do so is to give the people what they want to hear. Oh shades of the days of Jeremiah.

“Then the Lord said to me, “The prophets are prophesying lies in my name. I have not sent them or appointed them or spoken to them. They are prophesying to you false visions, divinations, idolatries and the delusions of their own minds. Therefore, this is what the Lord says about the prophets who are prophesying in my name: I did not send them, yet they are saying, ‘No sword or famine will touch this land.’ Those same prophets will perish by sword and famine. (Jeremiah 14:14-15)

If you want to know what God is saying to us today, then there is only one place to look; Israel and, particularly, Jerusalem, the place where He put His Name.

“ … In this temple and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I will put my Name forever. (2 Kings 21:7)

We mess with God’s people, land and city at our peril, however un-PC that statement is. Facts are facts and, believe me, there are many historical facts that back this up. Many such facts are documented in the book, Eye to Eye: Facing the Consequences of Dividing Israel, by Bill Koenig (About Him, 2008), so this is not just from my fevered imagination!

Allow this to sink in, because it is awesome, but God ain’t very pleased with us at present and He’s not afraid to demonstrate this displeasure. Let’s face it, He has plenty to grumble at, even putting the Israel/Jews issue aside, with the abortion rate so high, the corruptions in society, disbelief in the Church and the rise of pagan worldviews, just to get started on. But nothing prompts Him more into direct action

than when people mess with His land.

Now what I am about to say may rankle with you, even if you have been in broad agreement with what I’ve already spoken about. My thesis is, as already stated, that God still speaks to us, particularly through nature, when He feels the need to correct us.

For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment; and did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven others, when He brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; and if He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing them to ashes, having made them an example to those who would live ungodly lives thereafter; and if He rescued righteous Lot, oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men (for by what he saw and heard that righteous man, while living among them, felt his righteous soul tormented day after day by their lawless deeds), then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment.

(2 Peter 2:4-9)

I will narrow things down and repeat what I’ve already said concerning Israel, that God would be expected to speak clearly when people mess with His land.

“I will gather all nations and bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat. There I will enter into judgment against them concerning my inheritance, my people Israel, for they scattered my people among the nations and divided up my land”. (Joel 3:2)

“O God, do not keep silent; be not quiet, O God, be not still. See how your enemies are astir, how your foes rear their heads. With cunning they conspire against your people; they plot against those you cherish. “Come,” they say, “let us destroy them as a nation, that the name of Israel be remembered no more.” With one mind they plot together; they form an alliance against you-- the tents of Edom and the Ishmaelites, of Moab and the Hagrites, Gebal, Ammon and Amalek, Philistia, with the people of Tyre. (Psalm 83:1-7)

When the Israelis bowed to international pressure (particularly from the USA) and forced the Jews to leave their homes in Gaza, followed almost immediately by Hurricane Katrina, which forced a similar number of Americans from their homes in New Orleans … could God have been speaking?

When the G8 nations met in the UK on 6th July 2005 and issued an official declaration that Israel must give up land for peace and the very next day Islamic terrorists hit London with the atrocity known ever since as 7/7 … could God have been speaking?

When the Advertising Standards Authority in the UK banned a poster advert from the Israel Tourist Board that featured the Western Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem on the grounds that Jerusalem is not a part of Israel, then the very next day a volcanic eruption in Iceland grounded all holiday flights from the UK (for many days) … could God have been speaking (and laughing)?

The three days of collective madness that terrified Britain in August 2011 with unprecedented rioting and looting started the day after the UK Foreign Office spokesman on the Middle East and his counterpart in the EU ( a British woman) both condemned Israel for building houses in the outskirts of Jerusalem … could God have been speaking?

This is not a random, contrived selection. The aforementioned book lists on its back cover the following historical consequences for USA turning against Israel: Nine of the ten costliest insurance events ever, six of the seven costliest hurricanes ever, three of the four largest tornado outbreaks, nine of the top ten natural disasters and the two largest terrorist events in US history.

All food for thought, so see what reaction you get at the water cooler or at the next dinner party. You’ll probably be laughed under the table, which is a sad indictment of the faith atmosphere in modern society (but great credit to you for your bravery!)

It is very difficult to write about specifics in a situation that is literally changing daily, so I have tended to concentrate on principles and generalities and leave it to you to fill in the gaps with all latest attacks – whether literal or propaganda – on Israel or the Jewish people wherever they find themselves in the World.

What you do with this information is, of course, up to you. This thing won’t finish until God decides that it’s time to wrap things up.

NOTES

67 Taken from Youtube video – Understanding UN Bias Against Israel,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7Mupoo1At8 , – available at www.durban3nyc.com

68 This speech was given December 16, 2009 at the Conference in the Global forum for Combating Anti-Semitism in Jerusalem. It can be seen in full at http://www.hebrewroots.com/node/824

Chapter Twenty-One: Unavoidable Questions

When we consider the story so far there may seem to be two parallel conflicts, over the Land and the People. In actual fact there is just one battle, an eternal battle, fuelled by the longest hatred, anti-Semitism, but instigated by a covenant. This was God’s eternal covenant, cut all those thousands of years ago with Abraham, which may have involved the Land, but it was with the People. The Jewish people, the people of the covenant, not the Land of Israel, are at the real heart of this conflict.

We kick off with two questions:

1. How have the Jews managed to survive so long? How many other people have a history that stretches back 4000 years? The Assyrians, still a distinct people after centuries of dispersion, are their only serious competition, though they are over a 1000 years younger.

2. Why have they been so hated by so many other people for so many different reasons? Christ-killers, Children of Satan, Child kidnappers, Conspirators of Zion, Capitalists, Communists – and that’s just the ‘C’s!

These questions are connected, though, and should be held in tension with each other. In fact, they can become one question, one urgent, anguished plea: How have the Jews managed to survive so long despite being hated by so many people? This can be seen to be one of the most central mysteries of history, alongside the big ones (how did life begin?) and knocking the smaller ones (who shot JFK?) into a cocked hat.

It’s such a big question because it uncovers a drama that has been unfolding for thousands of years, but hidden to most. The drama is a classic conflict between good and evil, between two great powers that have been in opposition since time began. If we concede this possibility, then perhaps the evidence can start to make sense. We can see that the reason that the Jews have survived so long is that a great power has been protecting them and that the reason that they have been hated for so long is that another great power has been attacking them. This provides us with an answer to our key question.

The reason the Jews have managed to survive so long despite being hated by so many people is because the power that is protecting them is greater than the power that has been attacking them. God against satan, the devil. No contest.

The story is told of Frederick II of Prussia asking his doctor for a proof of the existence of God. The reply was immediate.

“The Jews, your majesty”, replied the good doctor.

Why on earth should this be? Could the evidence we have presented be so smothered by the fingerprints of God, that a forensic sceptic would have to be blinkered to ignore it? Can the story of the Jews really point us to God? Can you think of any other explanations? It is, in my estimation, one of the most powerful apologetics for the existence of God and not to be dismissed lightly, particularly now you have had time to examine the evidence of history in this book.

We can imagine King Fred asking a second question, asking the doctor for a proof of the existence of the devil. Equally immediately the answer could have come. “Anti-Semitism, your majesty”, would be the reply, “hatred of the Jews.”

The question that we asked – how have the Jews managed to survive so long despite being hated by so many people? – can not be answered by referring to the wisdom of historians, philosophers, psychologists, politicians or sociologists. They have all failed, as you found out earlier. There is only one solution, a spiritual one, but, in our materialistic way of peering at the world, it’s probably the last thing we want to hear. It goes against the grain of our secular world-system, but that doesn’t make it any less true.

The truth is so plain to see that we should be shouting it from the treetops. There is an awesome, unseen battle going on for our hearts and minds. It’s a battle that will continue long after we die and, indeed, the consequences of this battle affect all of us regardless of whether we believe in God or the devil or whatever. At the end of your life you will be pitched into this battle whether you like it or not, whether you have lived your life as a committed Christian or a committed atheist. Truth is truth, it’s not all in the eye of the beholder; it’s a solid, unchanging truth that is going to determine where you

end up after death.

To help your understanding on why a loving God could allow the Holocaust, it may help to look at the situation from a different angle. God could have chosen to protect his “chosen people” through these turbulent times when anti-Semitism has ruled the roost. To counter the seeds of hatred planted in the heart of men against the Jews by the devil, God could instead have put a supernatural love in the heart of all Christians, but surely that would have taken away their free will (the devil has no problem with people’s free will; he just wishes to dominate and influence souls in the best way he can). In the

final analysis, we all have free will to make our own decisions, whether to accept Jesus as our Saviour or whether to love or hate God’s “chosen people”, the Jews. The choice is yours – it’s free, but there is, ultimately a cost, so use it wisely.

Whether you consider the subject material of this book relevant to your lifestyle is not important. What is important is that the story of the Jews serves to help you to realise that there’s more to this World than what you can see, hear, touch, smell or feel.

If you are Jewish, then you must realise that your heart has been wrapped in chains and securely locked up for centuries. But there is a key to this lock. It has grown rusty and has been more commonly used as a weapon against you, but it is coming back into view. That key is Jesus of Nazareth. He is the key to understanding and the key to life. Be bold, you have nothing to lose. You will receive such knowledge, wisdom and understanding that you will regret that you never found him earlier. I certainly did.

In the words of Moses, “This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live” (Deuteronomy 30:19)

Choose life!

For Gentile Christians among you, given that I consider the only valid explanation to the questions posed is that there are spiritual forces afoot, what exactly do I mean? I will bow to the insights and knowledge of the sorely missed Derek Prince to furnish an explanation. In his teaching letter (No. 7) on The Root of Anti-Semitism, he says this:

“While I was preaching in our local church in Jerusalem, quite unexpectedly I heard

myself say, “Anti-Semitism can be summed up in one word – MESSIAH!!” At that moment I understood that from its beginning anti-Semitism had one source – Satan – who was motivated by the knowledge that the One who was to be his conqueror, the Messiah, would come through a people that would be specially prepared by God.”

God has provided us with the Bible to guide us towards a godly life and to allow us to know His ways. We follow the words, are blessed by them and, often, are spurred into action by them. In the case of Mr. Shoots and Mr. Roots, the action taken can be, and certainly has been, most significant because the actions taken are often most visible. One’s theology in this case determines one’s views on a whole people, the Jews, and a whole nation, Israel. Because the question of Israel is one of the true ‘hot chestnuts’ in the World today, one will naturally be drawn into the discussion.

In the case of Mr. Shoots, 2000 years of history has determined what can be a possible outcome of such views and, so, when it comes to analyse how Mr. Shoots comes to his particular theological position there can be a typical ‘chicken and egg’ situation. Either he is convinced by his theological arguments first, leading to his particular view of history regarding Israel and the Jews or … vice versa. And it’s the vice versa that is borne out by the dark side of Christian history over the past 2000 years, borne out by the tragedies of the Crusades, the Inquisition, forced expulsions and, ultimately, the Holocaust.

Is a particular reading of Scripture regarding the Jews a justification for the blind hatred that has been shown by those professing a religion of love and forgiveness, or did the hatred come first? People who subscribe to the theological arguments of Mr. Shoots should be aware of its limitations and implications because the “spiritualising” of Scripture has provided the theoretical justification for some of the most

shameful episodes in Church history.

This is not to say that Mr. Shoots is anti-Semitic, just to say that ‘Christian’ anti-Semitism has often found a fertile ground in the views expressed by Mr. Shoots.

If my words have offended you then I apologise, because I know that taking this theological view doesn’t automatically mean you are anti-Semitic. The vast majority of you are, I am sure, completely sincere in your beliefs and have arrived at your position with an open mind. All I would ask you to do is to persevere with my argument and then agree to disagree, amicably and in Christian brotherhood.

Arguments presented by Mr. Shoots have been used by such church luminaries as John Chrysostom, Augustine, Tertullian, Origen, Irenaeus and Martin Luther, mentioned in the first Chapter. And it wasn’t long before their theology and teachings gave way to practical action in the form of persecution, expulsion and extermination, solely on the basis of the arguments that the Jews had been replaced by the Church.

Although, these days, the Church has laid aside this practical action, the theology that inspired it is still with us and you must really examine what God’s views would be on a particular interpretation of His Scripture that could inspire such shameful behaviour by leading Christian teachers throughout history.

It is a sad fact of history that one of the most unifying concepts through church history has not been theology or the teachings of Jesus, but negativity towards the Jewish people. That is putting it mildly!

Anti-Semitism is alive and well and thriving in a Church that has not heeded the errors of history. Martin Luther may have been the guiding light of the Reformation, but his anti-Semitism gave the green light for 20th Century German Lutherans to endorse the demonic views of Adolf Hitler, who even made a mention of him in Mein Kampf.

Now let’s ask some more questions. These are questions that we must try to answer ourselves, especially in the light of all we have discussed so far.

◊ Do you believe the Jewish People are eternally cursed as a result of their rejection of Jesus?

◊ Do you believe they have forfeited their right to be the ‘chosen people’?

◊ Do you believe that Christians have supplanted the Jewish People as the only ‘People of God’?

If you still truthfully believe in this final statement, ask yourself one fresh question:

◊ If God can reject his Old Testament people for their sins, why would a God of justice not reject his New Testament people (i.e. you and me) for committing the very same sins and more (any reading of Church history will bear testament to this)?

Now what I am not saying is that Jewish people as individuals have automatic entry to the blessings of eternal life. A Jew does not have personal salvation just because he was born a Jew.

There is only one way to salvation, for Jew and Gentile, and that is through Jesus Christ. This book is not about individual Jews, it is about Jews as a nation, as a people, particularly in relation to those living in the Land of Israel.

‘This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus’ (Ephesians 3:6)

Returning to the article in The Spectator by Melanie Phillips, she received a lot of flak from Christians as a result of what she wrote. She subsequently wrote, on a website, ‘Many mainstream Christians went into denial. I had spoke to exceptions on the fringe, they protested, and replacement theology no longer existed. But it is quite clear, not just from what I was told but from what I have read of very influential Christian texts, that a hatred of Israel is being underpinned by a theological analysis which implies, at root, that the Jews must be punished by the loss of their homeland for their refusal to believe in Christ.’69

She was saddened and frightened by the re-emergence of an anti-Semitism that many thought dead and buried in the gas ovens of the holocaust and, like many secular Jews was amazed and horrified to find it still alive and well in the Church, of all places. Her conclusion is poignant, but a cutting indictment.

‘In the depths of this moral darkness in which the Jews now find themselves besieged and almost alone and in which Israel’s existence is threatened, the voices of the Christian Zionists (the Mr. Roots) are unwavering in their support and solace. Yet mainstream Christians denounce them. The Christian Zionists, they say, are no friends to the Jews since they would eventually have them all converted at the Second Coming. Well, if it comes to a choice between that and those Christians who would deny us our right to self-determination, make excuses for those who wish to kill us, peddle lies and write books inciting hatred against us, I think I know rather better where my friends are to be found.’

If we return to the Derek Prince article, he goes on to explain that the Jews, the people in question, were targets of satan through their whole history, either through being enticed into idolatry (early history) or through complete destruction (later history). The reason for this hatred is that he knows that his days are numbered, a countdown culminating at the return of Jesus the Messiah. But this event won’t happen until two conditions are fulfilled.

Firstly, the Christian gospel is to be preached to all nations, “And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.” Matthew 24:14

Secondly, the Jews must be in place and in a position to ask Jesus to return. In Matthew 23:38-39, Jesus had said to the Jews in Jerusalem, “See, your house is left to you desolate, for I say to you, you shall see Me no more till you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.’”

The Jews must be in place, in this final drama at the end of all things, to ask Jesus to return. Who knows what the circumstances will be, but they are likely to be fairly extreme and desperate. Their hearts will be ready, the hardening spoken of in Chapter 18 would have been broken down. As it says in Zechariah 12:10: “And I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication; then they will look on Me whom they have pierced; they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a first-born.”

And when they do that … anti-Semitism will be no more, because the root cause of it will have been taken away. I pray that those Christians who have been hardened to Israel and the Jewish people don’t have to wait until then to realise the truth of their errors.

“Shout and be glad, O Daughter of Zion. For I am coming, and I will live among you,” declares the Lord. “Many nations will be joined with the Lord in that day and will become my people. I will live among you and you will know that the Lord Almighty has sent me to you. The Lord will inherit Judah as his portion in the holy land and will again choose Jerusalem.” (Zechariah 2:10-12)

At that time God’s scales of justice will take a sudden swing in favour of His people, the Jews. When that happens, all who have perpetrated anti-Semitism, who have acted against ‘the apple of His eye’, will be punished accordingly. By that time the Jews, who have been scattered to the four winds, will have returned to their land, Israel. In this future time God will live with His people, who will be taken from all nations. Yes, you hear me right – it’s not a case, at this time, of us living in heaven with God, but rather of God coming down to earth and living with us.

The interesting verse is verse 12 which gives a pretty good description of God’s view of the future and the land of Israel. Because here God explicitly states that Judah (the southern part of Israel), and, particularly Jerusalem, will be where He chooses to live in this future time, not London or New York or Paris. And the people He will choose to live with will be taken from the Jews, the apple of His eye, along with all others from the nations (Gentiles) who have been ‘granted membership’ into the fellowship of believers.

So, be warned. Seek blessing, not judgement, by aligning yourself with God’s purposes towards His ancient and modern people, the Jews.

And what of the future? For Mr. Roots, the future of our World is very much affected by the future of Israel and the Jewish people.

God’s future for Israel? It’s either an easy one to answer, or a hard one, depending on how you look at it. The easy answer is that, one day, Jesus will return and all will be neat and wonderful (at least for those who believe in him). The hard bit is when we try to fill in the details between now and that glorious day.

So what do we know about the return of our Messiah? Jesus himself spoke of it in Matthew 24. He mentioned the signs that would precede that day, the deceptions and false prophets, the wars and rumours of wars, the famines and earthquakes, the persecutions, the falling away, the preaching of the gospel to all nations. There has also been a hidden clock ticking away, visible but largely ignored. This clock is the Jewish people themselves and it’s all to do with ‘times and seasons’.

We start with what the apostle Paul calls a mystery. He is speaking, in Romans 11 about the future of the Jewish people. In verses 25-26 he says, ‘I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you may not be conceited. Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved …’.

There are three points to make here.

Firstly, as I pointed out in Chapter 19, it is a mystery and so we’ll never really understand it and nor should we try, as our brains are simple incapable for the task. Some groups hate this idea, they feel that they should be able to explain everything and are unwilling to accept that there are some things in God’s word that are just for Him to understand. If God says something is a mystery we should just accept it and work through the consequences. Let’s face it, when Jesus was asked about the timing for the end of the World, he said ‘No-one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father’ (Matthew 24:36) and that should be good enough for us.

The consequences here are that there has been a hardening in Israel. This is a sacrificial hardening, though Jews have largely been unaware of their sad role. Jews have been hardened in some way as to allow Gentiles into the kingdom. Remember this is a mystery, so I don’t have to explain it, but you’ll do well to read the whole of Romans 11 and ask God to explain Himself to you. The hardening is also temporary and is due to end when the full number of the Gentiles has come in and all Israel will be saved, whatever that means.

We would do well to look at the current World situation, with Jews flocking to the Gospel of Jesus the World over, like never before, or at least since the time of the Book of Acts and consider the possibility that this hardening is finally coming to an end. This would therefore indicate that we are also approaching the time when the full number of the Gentiles have come in. This ties in with one of Jesus’ signs for his return, in Matthew 24:14, ‘And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations and then the end will come.’

There is another thread that also speaks of ‘times of the Gentiles’ and the idea that this will one day come to an end. This is in Luke 21:24 and was also part of the same ‘end time’ speech by Jesus. It reads ‘Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled’.

Jerusalem has, since 1967, been in Jewish hands and this is not a situation likely to change, despite the posturing and rantings of the nations of the World. Jerusalem is the place where the lonely and isolated Outcast Nation of Israel will come into stubborn conflict with the rest of the World. But again, be warned, nations of the World, because we can carry on reading in Zechariah 12:4, ‘I will keep a watchful eye over the house of Judah, but I will blind all the horses of the nations’. We can expect God to protect His people, which doesn’t bode too well for Israel’s enemies, whoever they are.

We now return to Jesus’ speech on the signs of the end of the age or, to be precise, his last words to the religious and political leaders of Israel, just before he explains himself to his disciples. He spoke prophetic words in Matthew 23:37-39, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord’”.

This echoes part of Psalm 118, a Messianic Psalm looking ahead to the Messiah. It is also a theme in Hosea, Chapter 5, verse 15, ‘then I will go back to my place until they admit their guilt. And they will seek my face; in their misery they will earnestly seek me.’

Taking an informed glance into the future I would suggest that there is going to be a time, perhaps soon, when the political and religious leaders of the Nation of Israel are going to have to acknowledge the God of Israel. They are going to have to swallow their pride, despite having the third largest army in the World and the brains and ingenuity to deploy this army in unexpected ways. They are going to have to realize that it was the God of Israel who sustained them through the perilous times of the 20th and 21st Centuries in the land, just as He had sustained them in the preceding 18 centuries outside the land. I’m afraid the journey to this realisation from where they are now is not going to be an easy one and we can only pray that it will be short. Pride is surely the deadliest sin of all and needs to be dealt with convincingly, before God can really work with His people.

God needs His people to call out to Him, to cry out to Him, before He can really act. In fact, the whole World needs this to happen, as we just read in Matthew, Chapter 23, verse 39, “For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord’”.

Jesus is giving a key condition for his return. He will only return when they, the leaders of the Jewish nation ask him to return. Jesus will only return when the current leaders of Israel, from the Chief Rabbi to the Prime Minister, ask him to return. And for that to happen we are looking at a real miracle, because, before they can ask him to return, they have to believe in him in the first place. They have to believe that he came, 2000 years earlier, as their Messiah. And to do that they will have to admit that they made a grave, tragic, heart-wrenching mistake, a mistake that led to 1800 years of sheer misery. And to do that their pride has to be broken, so that God can do a mighty work in the heart of the nation of Israel.

Incidentally, Mr. Shoots, if the Jews are no longer God’s people, what could Matthew 23:39 be speaking about? As there are no subsequent Biblical records of Jesus appearing to the Jewish people ‘en masse’, then this verse can only be referring to some future time when Jews will again see their Messiah.

It may seem unlikely, but Scripture says it’s going to happen. Returning to Zechariah Chapter 12, we see this theme repeated again and again. In verse 5, “Then the leaders of Judah will say in their hearts, ‘the people of Jerusalem are strong because the Lord Almighty is their God’”. This is at the time when the nations of the World come against Jerusalem and the warning that I gave earlier concerning these nations must be repeated, because verse 9 pronounces a dire warning, ‘On that day I will set out to destroy all the nations that attack Jerusalem’.

What an awesome day that will be. God will show His power, stronger than any Cruise or Scud missile and the whole World is going to realise what a terrible mistake it has made in turning its back on the One True God. The Jewish people will particularly be affected as the truth finally dawns on them.

Their reaction to this knowledge will be significant. We read in the very next verse, verse 10, ‘And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on Me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for Him as one mourns for an only child and grieve bitterly for Him as one grieves for a first-born son’.

The awful realisation of the identity of Jesus their Messiah, the ‘one they had pierced’, will initiate a national repentance, the like of which the World has never seen before. The next three verses bear testimony to this, speaking of every clan in the land weeping and mourning. Then, perhaps led by their religious leaders, Orthodox and Messianic believers together (though, of course, all will now be ‘Messianic’), they will sing the Messianic Psalm, Psalm 118, as Matthew 23:39 tells us, and the Lord Jesus will return.

And where will he return? Certainly not the World capitals of London, Paris, New York or Washington. A clue is given in Acts, Chapter 1. The scene is the Mount of Olives, overlooking Jerusalem on the east side. Jesus is with his disciples for one last time, then, suddenly, a cloud hid him from their sight and he is taken back into heaven. His last words to them are in verse 11, ‘This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.’

He is going to return in the same way that he went – down from heaven, on the Mount of Olives. If you complain that I’m reading into the text, then head to Zechariah, Chapter 14.

We read another account of that final battle over Jerusalem. More depressing details, are given but again we are told that it is God Himself, or specifically, the Messiah who will fight against these armies of the nations. In fact it’s the first thing he does when he returns. Verse 4 tells us, ‘On that day his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem, and the  Mount of Olives will be split in two from east to west, forming a great valley, with half the mountain moving north and half moving south.’

It is going to be a truly awesome sight and the very geography of the region is going to be altered as a result. The Mount of Olives will be split in two and we read of a great river forming, flowing from east to west.

Jesus will return as Messiah King. No longer the suffering servant, the Son of Joseph of his first coming. This time he will come to reign among his people, as the Son of David. He will come to live out those Old Testament Scriptures that were not fulfilled by his first coming. For example, Isaiah 2:3-4, “Many peoples will come and say, ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in His paths.’ The law will go out from Zion, the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.”

Did any of this happen in his first coming? Of course not! As Christians we defend ourselves against our scoffers, particularly Jewish ones, who quote from the above verses and say, ‘Your Jesus didn’t bring in this great Messianic age, so, obviously, he failed!’ We answer this by talking of a Second Coming, when he will return as King to judge the World. Yet, as Christians, when some of us say, from a clear reading of Scripture, that the Jews are returning to the land a second time, other Christians become scoffers. It’s strange, isn’t it?

Anyway, back to the narrative …

Among the many other similar prophecies, we read another in Daniel 7:13-14,

‘In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all peoples, nations and men of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and His kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.’

This is a picture of the Messiah that was not fully fulfilled when Jesus came 2000 years ago.

If we continue with our look at Zechariah 14 we fill in some of the details. In verse 9 we read that Jesus will now be King over all of the earth, a physical ruling King. And where will he rule from? Verse 16 onwards tells us.

‘Then the survivors from all the nations that have attacked Jerusalem will go up year after year to worship the King, the Lord Almighty and to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles. If any of the peoples of the earth do not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord Almighty, they will have no rain.”

One day, the Lord Jesus is going to rule from Jerusalem, his city. This is the importance of Jerusalem, of Israel. This is also the importance of the Jewish people today living in the land promised to Abraham, 4000 years ago. Without Jews in the Land, in Israel, the Word of God, in Zechariah and in many other places, just couldn’t come to pass. The Bible would become a lie, which could never be allowed to happen.

When God was cutting that sacred covenant with Abraham, He knew that, despite everything that was to happen, history would come to pass as He had planned, despite the pain and difficulties that He was to share with His people.

This is a good place to examine ourselves and consider the questions posed in this book. This time we consider the Land, rather than the People.

The fact remains that either:

◊ God has utterly rejected the Jews because of their sins and has abandoned them, demoting them from ‘favoured nation’ state to being just one people among many …

Or

◊ In exiling the Jews from the land, God was just punishing His covenant people, but ever holding up the promise of restitution to the land in the future.

They can’t both be true!

One thing comes to mind, though, and this concerns the very character of God Himself. If God had rejected the Jews after their rejection of Jesus then He would have well known the consequences of this act.

He would have known that the Gentile Church would have taken this personally, would have taken on the role as proxy accuser and executioner, following the example of God’s treatment of His other ‘rejected’ people, the Canaanites, who were ‘ethnically cleansed’ by divine appointment, culminating in the 1900 years of subsequent anti-Semitism. In effect, if you excuse my directness, He was an accessory before the fact in this major crime, in committing an action that the Church felt empowered to follow through to its sad conclusion! Or, perhaps, I’m being a little too strong here and allowing my emotions to rule.

On the other hand, if all God was doing was punishing His chosen people, then the Church has been acting in direct opposition to His commands, heaping curse upon curse onto themselves in the process. Any objective reading of Church history will bear evidence to the fact that it has hardly been a continuous catalogue of blessings, has it?

In Chapter 8 I issued a warning to Mr. Shoots. I suggested that if he is forced to make even the slightest concession of divine favour to Jews, then his whole theological system collapses. If the Jews possess just a crumb of divine favour then perhaps the ‘Old Israel’ is still a part of God’s plan and what we are seeing with the Jewish people and Israel today, is a survival of a remnant, a particularly typical feature of God’s plans for mankind, whether through the prophets at the time of Elijah, or, more pertinently, the remnant chosen by grace in Romans 11:5.

Take time to read this chapter of Romans and meditate on verses 11 and 12, which speak of the Jewish people. ‘Again I ask: Did they stumble so as to fall beyond recovery? Not at all! Rather, because of their transgression, salvation has come to the Gentiles to make Israel envious. But if their transgression means riches for the world, and their loss means riches for the Gentiles, how much greater riches will their fullness bring!’

Mr. Shoots, one last challenge for you. Let’s remind ourselves of these historical facts before you lay the matter to rest.

◊ The continued existence of the Jewish people – contrasted against the disappearance of every other ancient people – after 2000 years of severe persecution.

◊ The continued existence of Jewish culture – despite concerted efforts of assimilation into Gentile culture – after 2000 years of severe persecution.

◊ Despite constituting 0.19% of the world’s population, since the 19th Century around 25% of scientists have been Jewish.

◊ The three main architects of the 20th Century were Jewish – Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud and Albert Einstein (who was also declared man of the 20th Century by Time magazine Dec 31st 1999).

◊ The re-emergence of Hebrew, a dead language, as the spoken language of Israelis (Do Italians speak Latin?).

◊ The formation of the State of Israel in 1947 by majority vote despite the fact that the majority of UN members were by inclination against the idea.

◊ The survival of Israel after the 1948 War of Independence with more land than actually agreed upon in the UN Partition Plan.

◊ Jerusalem returning to Jewish hands in the 1967 Six Day War, virtually by accident.

◊ The continued existence of the State of Israel despite being surrounded by 21 hostile neighbours bent on its destruction.

And finally we return to J.C. Ryle, our 19th Century English Bishop. If you can cast your mind back to Chapter 15, you’ll remember that he wrote a sermon entitled, ‘Scattered Israel to be gathered’.

He made four points and the first three were, ’Who is Israel’, ‘The present condition of Israel’ and ‘The future prospects of Israel’. His fourth and final point was, ‘The duty which the Gentile churches owe to Israel.’

He urges them to pray for and work towards the spiritual conversion of Israel. Then he commands them to take stumbling blocks out of the way of Israel. He teaches them not to follow the way of their forbears, by doing nothing to disgust Jewish people with Christianity or hinder their conversion. Also, he reminded them of the special blessings which God has promised to all who care for Israel. Everyone wants to be blessed, don’t they? He quotes Psalm 122:6, concerning Jerusalem, ‘They shall prosper that love thee’ and Numbers 24:9, concerning Israel, ‘Blessed is he that blesseth thee and cursed is he that curseth thee’. We would do well to meditate on these words.

I am very wary of debates, whether on TV, or radio or in a packed hall. This is because, like many, I am easy prey for a silver tongue or an argument put forward with eloquence, authority and skill. On some issues, my views are so influenced by whichever articulate person I heard or read last, that I can change my mind a dozen times a day. This is both laziness on my part and an acknowledgement that others are so much better informed than I, that I’m happy for them to do my thinking for me. Now the arguments in this book may (or may not) be convincing to you. Equally you could read books that promote the opposite viewpoint and be equally convinced. Now, as I’ve said many times, the issue of Israel is too important for us to waste our time in endless debates rather than positive action, which is why I have laboured the point in this book.

I propose that we now move our attention away from these debates and, if you are still unconvinced by my arguments or if you are the type of person who needs more than words to convince you, then read on. Let us, instead, look at the evidences, the historical facts.

The evidences for the new life provided for those who have embraced the Christian Gospel are plain to see – it is in the new attitudes and actions inspired by their new birth. Equally we can look at evidences for Biblical teachings concerning the Jewish people and look again at the two hypotheses that I stated earlier.

If, according to Mr. Shoots, God has utterly rejected the Jews because of their sins and have abandoned them, demoting them from ‘favoured nation’ state to being just one people among many, where is the evidence?

If, according to Mr. Roots, the Jews were exiled from the land as punishment from God, who still held up the promise of restitution to the land in the future, where is the evidence?

The fact is that Jews have survived 2000 years of extreme prejudice, returning to their ancestral land, a return accompanied by incontestable miracles. Does this point to a people cursed and abandoned by God, or a people returning, for whatever reason, into God’s favours?

If you are still unconvinced just spare a thought for the most ardent enemies of the State of Israel – militant Islam and secular humanism (man-centred philosophy). Now spare a thought for the most ardent enemies of Biblical Christianity in today’s World. I would suggest the same two – militant Islam and secular humanism.

Is this co-incidental or significant?

Where now do you think God is in our debate over Israel and for which of our two hypotheses do you think these facts provide evidence for? I’ll leave you to answer that question.

There is a massive deception in the World today, that has even infiltrated much of the Church. It goes like this: If those stubborn and wicked Israelis give the stolen land back to the Palestinians, all other conflicts will also go away.

Apparently the Muslim world would be so placated that such people as Ahmedinajad and Abbas would just down their arms and the World would be a friendlier, happier place. Here are a couple of quotes that put a halt to that particular delusion:70

“Our aim is liberating all of Palestine from the River to the Sea.” (Hamas leader, Khalid Mishal)

“When we come to power we shall not allow the Zionist regime to live a single moment,”

(Ramadan Abdallah Shallah, Leader of Islamic Jihad for Palestine)

Land for peace? You’ve got to be joking. Israel has become the scapegoat of the World, a role quite familiar to its Jewish inhabitants. In the Gulf War they were at the receiving end of Scud missiles, the World Trade Centre outrage was blamed on them by the Arab World and the highly anti-Semitic Protocols of the Elders of Zion is a best seller among Egyptians, amongst others.

And the West has bought into this idea, too, though it has often remained unspoken. When it is spoken, the words used are, ‘If you take away the cause of the Middle East conflict then the Muslims would stop hating us’, meaning, ‘Why doesn’t Israel get its act together!’ A demonstration in London against a war with Iraq, had as many slogans, displayed or chanted, concerning the Israel/Palestinian situation as there were concerning Iraq. If Tokyo was hit by an earthquake, I wonder how long it would be before the Jews were blamed?!

We are nearly at the end of our story. This is as good a place as any to provide a short summary of the position held by Mr. Roots, a collection of his best arguments to provide you, at the very least, with food for thought after you put this book down. So here are his Top Ten arguments:

◊ Mr. Roots interprets the Bible using principles followed by the earliest Christians, the Protestant Reformers and Jesus himself and that is to give priority to the plain literal reading of Scripture.

◊ Mr. Roots stresses God’s faithfulness in not breaking His promises (covenants) with the Jews. If He could, then why couldn’t He do the same with Christians?

◊ Mr. Roots doesn’t need to re-interpret Old Testament Scriptures in the light of the New Testament, which leads to confusion, uncertainty and the need to rely on the teachings of theologians (who don’t always agree with each other, anyway).

◊ Mr. Roots doesn’t have to avoid the clear teaching of Romans 9-11.

◊ Mr. Roots sees the Old Testament and the New Testament as a continuous whole rather than diminishing the importance of the Old Testament.

◊ Mr. Roots takes a clear, sensible view of Biblical prophecy, with literal rather than vague symbolic fulfilments. He is also able to view current World events through Biblical eyes.

◊ Mr. Roots doesn’t have to ignore the clear teaching in the Psalms and Prophets of God’s continuous love for the Jewish people e.g. Jeremiah 31:37, “Thus says the Lord: ‘If the heavens above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth below can be explored, then I will cast off all the descendants of Israel for all that they have done, says the Lord’.”

◊ Mr. Roots offers God’s mercy and forgiveness to the Jewish people rather than proving the theological foundation for extreme hatred and persecution.

◊ Mr. Roots offers reasonable explanations for the continuous existence of the Jewish people, the miraculous formation of Israel and the undeniable contributions of Jewish people to society.

◊ Mr. Roots considers it more than a co-incidence that God and Israel share the same common foes in the World today.

Jews everywhere are rediscovering the faith of their ancestors (though a revival, as such, has not yet arrived). There is a great hunger for true meaning amongst God’s chosen people. There is equally a new hunger among many Christians to return to their Jewish roots. I’m not saying that suddenly it’s become

fashionable to be Jewish and that Gentiles are mysteriously discovering Jewish ancestors, perhaps finding a great grandfather who lopped off a -stein or -berg from the end of their name. What I’m saying is that they are actually discovering the Jewishness of the Bible and that the early Christians, including Jesus, were all Jewish! There are Christians about, believe me, who still don’t realise that Jesus and his disciples

were as Jewish as Woody Allen or the Marx Brothers; instead they have re-invented Him as a faux Gentile.

If you go to any Messianic fellowship these days you’ll find as many Gentiles as Jews, usually more. More and more are waking up to the need to bring back the Jewishness of the original Christians, to start to read the Bible with Jewish eyes. Many (I hope) will be reading this book, which is proof in itself, as you wouldn’t have got so far if an interest hadn’t been kindled. If you are a Christian and wonder where you can go next, as a response to what you have read in this book, then have a look at the Appendices.

There you will find a reading list, information about ministries who work for Israel and the Jewish people and, thanks to Fred Wright, there is a suggested order of service that can be followed by churches and fellowships wishing to make amends for the tragic history of the Jewish people in the Christian world.

The current battle over the Holy Land is an important spiritual one. A battle is going to be fought over Jerusalem and don’t be fooled into believing that this is a local event, just an Arab-Israeli dispute. It is the God of Israel against all who oppose Him. It is no less than the climax of history, as unbelievable as it seems. We are indeed living in incredible times. Please pray for the peace of Jerusalem and the salvation of the Jews and the Lord will surely bless you.

‘God is spirit, and his worshippers must worship in spirit and in truth’ (John 4:24)

As Christians the whole point of our existence is to worship the Lord in Spirit and Truth, anything less just will not do. If your conscience is clear and you are being true to the promptings of the Spirit within you and true to the evidence of the written Word of God then you are truly blessed.

Blessings to you all.

Recommended Reading

Bennett Ramon. When Day and Night cease: Arm of Salvation 1992

Fruchtenbaum Arnold. Jesus was a Jew: Ariel Ministries 1981

Wilson Marvin R. Our Father Abraham: Eerdmans 1989

Cohn-Sherbok Dan. The Crucified Jew: HarperCollins 1992

Richards Rob. Has God finished with Israel: Word Publishing 2000

Dimont Max I. Jews, God and History: Penguin 1994

Fisher, Julia. Israel: The Mystery of Peace, Authentic, 2003

Gilbert, Martin. The Atlas of Jewish History, William Morrow & co, 1993

Maltz, Steve. How the Church Lost the Truth, Saffron Planet, 2011

Wright, Fred. Father, Forgive us, Monarch, 2001

Evans, David. Christians and Israel – the Heart of the Matter, Reshet 2010

Organisations working for Israel and the Jewish People

This is not an exhaustive list, just an alphabetic list of ministries that I know of or have come into contact with personally.

Bridges for Peace www.bridgesforpeace.com  is a Jerusalem-based Christian organisation supporting

Israel and building relationships between Christians and Jews worldwide through education and practical deeds expressing God’s love and mercy.

Christian Friends of Israel www.cfi.org.uk  are Christians who love Israel and its peoples and believe that God has a special place for them in His Kingdom purposes before the return of Messiah.

Christian Witness to Israel www.cwi.org.uk  exists to make the Good News of Messiah known to the Jewish people, to make Gentiles aware of the spiritual and material debt they owe to the Jews, and to promote a positive attitude to Israel and the Jewish people.

Church’s Ministry among Jewish People www.cmj.org.uk  aim to encourage Jewish people to come to faith in Yeshua (Jesus) as their Messiah, to support them in serving him as Lord in the light of God’s purpose for them, and to equip the church to be involved in this mission.

CL Ministries www.clministries.org.uk  features Bible teaching from Chris Hill, who has led many Bible tours of Israel, an experience that has greatly enriched Chris’s ability to present the Hebrew background to the Scriptures in his teaching.

49:22 Trust www.4922trust.org  exist to assist the Jewish people as they move to Israel, to provide holistic care, education and mentoring for Jewish orphans and underprivileged children and to build Jewish- Christian relations.

Focus on Israel www.focus-on-israel.org  is committed to God’s continuing purposes through fulfillment of the prophetic scriptures.

Hatikvah Film Trust www.hatikvah.co.uk  aims to promote the advancement and understanding of the

Christian faith and of Biblical prophecy through the production of documentary films, television and audiovisual programmes.

Jews for Jesus www.jewsforjesus.org.uk  exist to make the Messiahship of Jesus an unavoidable issue to our Jewish people worldwide.

Land & Life www.landandlife.co.uk  co-ordinates large and small tours to Israel for Christians.

Light for the Last Days www.lightforthelastdays.co.uk features the teaching ministry of Tony Pearce, pointing to the connection between current world events and the Bible prophecies concerning Israel and the second coming of Jesus.

Messianic Testimony www.messianictestimony.com  is a Christian witness to the Jewish people.

Moriel Ministries www.moriel.org  is a teaching ministry to believers stressing the need to rediscover the scriptures as Hebraic literature. It features the teaching ministry of Jacob Prasch.

Operation Exodus www.ebenezer-ef.org  is an organization called by God to help Jewish people return to Israel in fulfillment of Biblical prophecy.

Prayer for Israel www.prayer4i.org  are praying for Jewish and Arab believers and for the salvation of all the people in the Biblical Land of Israel.

Reshet Ministries www.reshetministries.org.uk  are a network of Christians promoting a Biblical understanding of the significance of Israel and its relevance to the Church today.

Revelation Television www.revelationtv.com  is a UK based Christian satellite TV channel (SKY 581) with a special heart for Israel and the Jewish people.

Saffron Planet www.saffronplanet.net  is my web radio discussion website. Many of the chats are relevant to the material in this book, with an accent on the Hebraic understanding of God’s plans for us.

Saltshakers www.hebrewroots.com  is my web ministry (since 1996) to resource the Church on the Hebraic background to the faith and the importance of Israel.

The Joseph Storehouse www.visionforisrael.com  are a charitable organisation established to help rebuild the nation of Israel, both spiritually and physically.

A Liturgy of Reconciliation

Here is a liturgy adapted, with permission, from Appendix I, ‘A Liturgy for Yom Ha Shoah’, which appears in Fred Wright’s book, ‘Father, Forgive Us’.

The liturgy is a suggested order of service for Churches or small groups to address the issue of the Christian contributions and indifference to Jewish suffering over the last two millennia.

A plea for strength and courage to face the problems of Christian anti-Semitism and the bloodstained history of Jewish- Christian relationships is included. The liturgy concludes with a prayer for reconciliation. Throughout there is the theme of the continuity of Judaism and Christianity. This liturgy would have special significance for Yom Ha Shoah, the Jewish day of remembrance for the Holocaust.

Preparation A table should be set with two plain candles.

A bowl of water may be included for symbolic hand washing.

Leader Blessed art Thou O Lord our God, King of the Universe who has brought us to this time. We light a candle of Remembrance for all those who died as victims of hatred without cause. Let us take a moment to remember them.

One or two minutes with a quiet musical background – preferably a Jewish lament.

Leader We are gathered together on this night in memory of those Jews who have died at the hands of others, particularly as a result of the “Final Solution of the Jewish Problem” under the tyranny of Nazi Germany. At the same time we remember all those Jewish people, men, women and children who suffered and died at the hands of Christians as a result of hatred without cause. We pray that the Holy One of Israel in His infinite mercy will grant us a place of intercession for the Church, that the hatred without cause will end, that there will be reconciliation between Jew and Gentile and that the Church will abandon replacement theology and relate in a Biblical manner to the State of Israel.

Let us a take a moment to come before the Lord and confess our personal sins, that we might enter the Holy Place with clean hands and a pure heart. Are we in right relationship with God, our spouses, our children, each other and the Church we belong to? (At this stage a washing of hands may be appropriate as an expression of clean hands and a pure heart).

To express our solidarity with the Jewish people we will sing the Shema:

Shema Israel Adoni Eloheynu Adoni echad Baruch Shem kavod malchuto le olam Va-ed

Leader Why is this night not like other nights?

Congregation Because this night we confess the sin of the Church against the Jewish people, we remember their sufferings and declare our intent that the Holocaust and its kind, past and present, will not happen again.

Congregation We confess the sin of anti-Semitism in the Church from its early days. We refute all anti-Semitic teaching, all anti-Jewish sentiments, the misreading of scripture, removing Jesus from his Jewishness and any theology where the Jewish people are abandoned by Church and replaced by the Church. We confess that Christ loved the Church and gave His life for those who would be part of it, both Jew and Gentile. We have failed to make Israel jealous and in our history many times the cross of reconciliation has become a sword of destruction. Lord have mercy upon us according to your unfailing love. Amen.

Leader Let us confess our position concerning the Jewish people.

Congregation We proclaim that they have not been rejected, that they have not fallen beyond recovery. Theirs remain the adoption as sons, theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the Temple worship and the promises. Theirs are the Patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of Christ, who is God over all, forever praised. Amen.

Leader Praise the Lord.

Congregation The Lord’s Great Name be praised forever and to eternity. May the high praises of God be in our hearts and our mouths and may both we and the house of Israel exalt His name together.

Leader Magnified and sanctified be His great name in the world that He has created. According to His will may He establish His kingdom during our life and our days and during the life and the days of the house of Israel. May there be shalom upon both upon us and upon the House of Israel.

Congregation May there be abundant peace from heaven and well springs of life. May He who makes peace on the high places make unto us shalom and shalom to the House of Israel. Amen.

Worship A song of peace

Leader We appeal to You, O Lord Most High, to restore the testimony of the Church to the Jewish people.

Congregation O good and merciful Father, what can we say, what can we speak, before your face of righteousness and justice. Our needs are many and our wisdom is slender, but our hope is in You. Restore, O Lord, the honour of Your Name and that of Your son Yeshua (Jesus) the Messiah of Israel in the testimony of Your Church. Shame covers us as often as the remembrance of the teaching of Yeshua and Your unending love confronts us. No longer let the Name of Yeshua bring reproach, but let it be received with joy by Your people. Amen.

Leader We acknowledge before your throne of mercy, O Lord, the sin of indifference and ambivalence.

Congregation Forbid it Lord, that, as in times past and particularly in the Holocaust, we should stand idly by crowned with indifference as your people suffer. Give us a courageous spirit to stand up against all injustice and anti-Semitic positions. Forgive all silence where there should have been speech, forgive us for abandoning your children to the flames.

Leader May Your loving-kindness and mercy not depart from us. Create in us a heart of love for your people and deliver us from all future reproach.

Congregation Blessed is the man that walks not in the council of the wicked nor stands in the ways of sinners or sits in the seat of scoffers. Let our delight be in You, O Lord, and Your word.

Leader We give thanks that Your word is a lamp to our feet and a light unto our path and we walk in darkness at our peril. Lord, let us be good and faithful hearers and teachers of Your word.

Congregation Lord we acknowledge that Your word is our fence and our safety. Let us walk in the light of Your word and live our lives accordingly. We believe that as faithful students of Your word we will be equipped to deal with anti-Semitism in the Church and the World at large.

Worship A song of reconciliation

Leader We now turn to specifics and we will respond by repudiating and renouncing the causes of anti-Semitism and recognising the activities of sin. In as much as it depends upon us we will ensure that such things never happen again.

Leader For the anti-Semitism of the early Church fathers, the demonisation of the Jews and the charge of “Christkillers.”

Congregation We reject and renounce this teaching in Jesus’ Name.

Leader As for the teaching of contempt.

Congregation We renounce all blood libels, charges of profaning the host, and conspiracy theories in Jesus’ Name.

Leader As for the demonisation of the Jews.

Congregation We renounce and acknowledge as sin the demonisation of Jewish people. We renounce all negative stereotypes in Jesus’ Name. We confess that the Jewish people remain your beloved.

Leader As for the Crusades.

Congregation We acknowledge that the Crusades brought a dark stain to the history of the Church when the cross was turned into a sword. We renounce the Crusaders’ activities as an expression of Christ and His Kingdom. As for all movements that persecuted and destroyed your people in the name of Jesus and his Church we acknowledge these as sin.

Leader As for the Office of the Inquisition.

Congregation We acknowledge the persecution of Jews and Marranos as sin and renounce the practices of this office and its inheritance in Jesus’ Name.

Leader As for the anti-Semitism of the Reformation.

Congregation We renounce and reject the anti-Semitism of the Reformation and its ongoing effects.

Leader As for the failure of the Church to respond to Naziism and Fascism and for its collaboration in some areas.

Congregation We renounce cowardice and failure to respond to such challenges in Jesus’ Name.

Leader As for Replacement Theology.

Congregation We renounce and reject replacement theology as contrary teaching to your word and your purposes.

We confess that the Jewish people are not redundant, cast aside, forgotten, or without hope or purpose. We believe that they have a hope and a future.

Leader We recall the words that remembrance leads to deliverance whilst forgetfulness leads to destruction.

Congregation We proclaim before heaven that is Your throne and earth that is your footstool that as much as it depends upon us we will combat anti-Semitism in all its forms. We will remember those who have died because of hatred without cause. We pray that, by our endeavours, their flame may not be extinguished, their names that were consigned to ashes and dust will be remembered and be a blessing for the future and their deaths might not be meaningless.

Leader As we have approached Your throne of grace and mercy we boldly request, O Lord our Father, that You will use us to correct the anti-Semitic ills of the past and use us as instruments of Your grace and mercy from this time forth.

Worship A song of strengthening.

Conclusion

Leader We have gathered together today in the presence of Almighty God to state our purpose and intent to depart from the anti-Semitic inheritance of the Church. It is an awesome thing to be in the presence of the living God. We will now light a candle of Hope from the candle of Remembrance and ask that the symbol of the two candles will remind us of the transaction that has taken place here today.

Aaronic Blessing

(Hebrew read by Leader and English by Congregation)

Y’varekh’kha Adonai v’yishmerekha

[May the Lord bless you and keep you]

Ya’er Adonai panav aleikha vichunekka

[The Lord make His face shine upon you and show you His favour]

Yissa Adonai panav eleikha v’yasem l’kha shalom

[May the Lord lift up His face toward you and give you peace]

The Lord’s shalom be upon you, your house, those you love and upon the House of Israel.

Amen

Now Why Don’t You … ?

At the current time six of my books are still available for purchase, either through Amazon, Christian bookshops or directly from www.sppublishing.com

To Life! Rediscovering Biblical Church

Have you ever asked the question, where does the World end and the Church begin? Is the 21st Century Church truly the best it could possibly be?

“In this fine book, Steve Maltz addresses the issue of religious tradition and its power to force out biblical truth, thus creating disarmed and impotent churches. It is a warning we must heed.” Chris Hill, Bible teacher, writer, broadcaster

How the Church lost The Way… … and how it can find it again

The story of how the Church has been infiltrated by a pagan virus that has worked its way through every facet of our Christian life and how we can start fighting back.

“With great insight, explaining many concepts simply, Steve Maltz brings us back to the root of our Christian faith. I believe that every pastor and ordinand in the country will benefit from reading this book.” Mark Weeden, Senior Pastor, Worthing Tabernacle

How the Church lost The Truth…… and how it can find it again

What has happened to some key battlegrounds of Christian Truth and how it is that the Church has managed to lose so much that had been revealed to it in the Bible.

“I really enjoyed reading it. You are the master of epigrams, full of Jewish wit and humour, which I love. These keep you reading and make the whole interesting. It’s so important to add gravy to the meat and you are a good chef. I hope this book will reach those who need it most though I fear they will be irritated, if not infuriated, by your dismissal of so many of their heroes!” David Pawson, international Bible teacher

Jesus, the Man of Many Names A Fresh Understanding from the dawn of time to the End of Days

Are you prepared for a new book about Jesus that does offer fresh insights without boasting new revelations? Drawing on sources from the Jewish world, ancient and modern, the author will take you on an exhilarating, lively and entertaining exploration of the life and times of the Jewish Messiah.

“Steve Maltz has a gift for combining pacy writing with crystal-clear distillation of his own careful study of scholarly resources and a firm grip on the Gospel. The result is a fascinating new landscape of insight” David Andrew, editor Sword Magazine

The Truth is out there The Ultimate World Conspiracy. Who really is pulling

the strings?

Is history just a random sequence of events, or are there secret manipulations? What makes us tick? How did the World as we see it come to be? Read this book if you are prepared to be challenged.

Steve Maltz has a rare gift of being able to communicate complex ideas in a way that leaves you thinking that you have read the work of a genius but can still follow his argument clearly. A brilliant read for an evangelist to engage with a sceptic or to give as a gift for “food for thought” Tim Leffler, The GoodBookstall.org.uk

The (other) F-Word Faith, the Last Taboo

A presentation of the Gospel for the modern world. It is direct, uncompromising, engaging and is written to be relevant to the everyday person. Dare you go where modern man fears to tread? You’ll either be inspired or provoked, either way it should be an interesting experience.

“Steve here shows simple depth in his approach to faith, a subject that has so often been misunderstood by so many people … This book says it like it is in a very straightforward, entertaining & unwordy manner, read and be enlightened.” Howard Werth, rock musician

Table of Contents

Copyright

Reviews for Land of Many Names

Reviews for People of Many Names

Preface

Introduction

ACT ONE Covenant

Chapter One: All about Abraham

Chapter Two: Jacob’s Follies

Chapter Three: The Kingdom of Priests

Chapter Four: The Kingdom of Kings

Chapter Five: First Exile

ACT TWO Exile

Chapter Six: Preparing the Land

Chapter Seven: The Fulcrum of History

Chapter Eight: Galut

Chapter Nine: To the Ends of the Earth

Chapter Ten: The Other Brother

Chapter Eleven: The Longest Hatred

Chapter Twelve: Some of My Best Friends …

Chapter Thirteen: Jude!

ACT THREE Return

Chapter Fourteen: A Welcome Respite

Chapter Fifteen: Dreams of Home

Chapter Sixteen: A Nation is Born

Chapter Seventeen: Who Are These People?

Chapter Eighteen: The People of Promise

Chapter Nineteen: The Land of Promise

Chapter Twenty: You Don’t Mess with God!

Chapter Twenty-One: Unavoidable Questions

Recommended Reading

Organisations working for Israel and the Jewish People

A Liturgy of Reconciliation

Now Why Don’t You … ?