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PDF versionAcrimony with Israel clouds close of Middle East Synod
by John L Allen Jr on Oct. 25, 2010
By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
In some ways, the surprise of the Oct. 10-24 Synod of Bishops for the Middle East may not be that it ended amid acrimony involving Israel, the Vatican, and the mostly Arab bishops of the region. Instead, the surprise may be that it took so long to happen.
As the synod wrapped up on Sunday, Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon complained that it had turned into “a forum for political attacks on Israel, in the best history of Arab propaganda.”
Ayalon specifically objected to a comment made at the synod’s closing press conference on Saturday by Greek Melkite Archbishop Cyrille Salim Bustros, who’s actually based in Newton, Massachusetts.
| Read NCR's full coverage of the Synod of Bishops for the Middle East: Index of stories from the Synod. |
Bustros was commenting on a line in the synod's final message, which rejected use of the Bible to justify injustice.
“We Christians cannot speak of the ‘promised land’ as an exclusive right for a privileged Jewish people,” Bustros said. “This promise was nullified by Christ. There is no longer a chosen people – all men and women of all countries have become the chosen people.”
Some Jews took that line as an expression of theological "Supercessionism," meaning that the coming of Christ "cancelled" God's covenant with Israel -- a view that the Second Vatican Council and subsequent papal teaching has been understood to reject. Some Israelis likewise saw it as a rejection of Israel as a "Jewish state."
In a statement to reporters on Monday, a spokesperson appeared to try to distance the Vatican from those impressions.
"If you want a synthetic expression of the positions of the synod, you have to look at the 'Message,' which is the lone written text actually approved by the synod," said Jesuit Fr. Federico Lombardi -- suggesting that individual comments at press conferences don't carry the same weight.
Lombardi insisted that the overall tone of the synod was positive.
Earlier, Ayalon blasted Bustros' statement as “a libel against the Jewish people and the State of Israel.”
Likewise, Rabbi David Rosen, a longtime veteran of Catholic/Jewish dialogue who had been invited to address the synod, charged that Bustros’ words “reflect either shocking ignorance or insubordination in relation to the Catholic Church’s teaching on Jews and Judaism flowing from the Vatican II declaration Nostra Aetate.”
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Given the depressingly binary nature of the politics of the Middle East, it's probably par for the course that while Israelis objected to Bustros' comments and the synod documents, they have been hailed both by officials of the Palestinian National Authority and the Mubarak government in Egypt.
Heading into the synod, Vatican officials had quietly warned that it shouldn’t turn into a forum for Israel-bashing. The concern was based on the fact that the tiny Christian minority of the region, anxious to prove its Arab credentials, is often outspokenly supportive of the Palestinians and critical of Israeli policy.
Coupled with centuries of ambivalence in the broader Catholic/Jewish relationship, the perceived “Palestinian bias” of church leaders in the Middle East makes Israeli media and political leaders keenly sensitive to anything that strikes them as imbalanced or unfair.
Early on there seemed some flirtation with that danger, as speakers outside the synod hall lined up to complain about a proposed new loyalty oath in Israel for non-Jewish citizens. By itself, however, that position didn’t seem to stir much resentment in Israel, possibly because many Israelis – including Rosen himself – have themselves questioned the wisdom of the oath.
As the synod unfolded, there was actually precious little direct commentary on Israel, beyond generic expressions of solidarity with the Palestinian people. Instead, there was a strikingly frank discussion of the difficulties Christians often experience in several Muslim-dominated societies in the region, such as Iraq, Egypt, and some of the Gulf States, above all Saudi Arabia.
By the end, however, some Israelis obviously felt things had reverted to form.
If the only point of reference had been the synod’s official documents – its final message and its set of 44 propositions submitted to Pope Benedict XVI – perhaps the reaction on the Israeli side would not have been as ferocious.
The concluding message does refer to the damaging consequences of Israeli “occupation,” as well the security wall, military checkpoints, political prisoners, and efforts to alter the demographic balance of Jerusalem. However, it also acknowledges the “suffering and insecurity in which Israelis live,” and at the policy level did no more than reiterate the Vatican’s long-standing commitment to a two-state solution.
The statement also condemned anti-Semitism, along with “anti-Christianism and Islamophobia. Proposition 41 rejected “anti-Semitism and anti-Judaism,” albeit adding “while distinguishing between religion and politics.”
In perhaps the most incendiary bit of rhetoric, the final message said that “recourse to theological and Biblical positions which use the Word of God to wrongly justify injustices is not acceptable,” and that line came in the context of a paragraph on relations with Judaism – suggesting a bit of finger-pointing at Israel and traditional Jewish claims to the “Promised Land.”
That was the line that occasioned Bustros’ comments at the closing press conference.
Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesperson Yigal Palmor actually asserted that the bishops at the synod were “committing a sin towards the truth” by ignoring the fact that “Israel is the one country in the region that is welcoming to Christians.”
The claim that Christians in Israel are better off than anywhere else in the Middle East was made during the synod by Rosen, and in the run-up to the event by the Israeli Embassy to the Holy See, which released census data showing that the Christian population inside Israel itself is growing.
(Official Vatican data released at the beginning of the synod about the Catholic population in Israel showed that it’s grown since 1980 in raw numbers, but declined as a percentage of the overall population. New Christian immigrants in Israel tend to be disproportionately Orthodox, from the former Soviet Union.)
On the other hand, several synod participants disputed those claims. Bernard Sabella, a Palestinian Catholic at Bethlehem University, said that recent polling shows the same percentage of young Arab Christians inside Israel as in the Palestinian Territories wants to emigrate, because they perceive themselves as second-class citizens in Israel.
Other voices in the synod argued that Christians are at least as well off in Syria and Jordan as in Israel.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of those claims, it seems clear that the Synod of Bishops for the Middle East is likely to be remembered as yet another flash point in relations between Israel and the Vatican, as well as Israel and the Christian leaders of the Middle East.
The fallout could have consequences for open issues in Israeli/Vatican relations, including long-running negotiations over the legal and tax status of church institutions in Israel. Facing theoretically crippling tax liability, church negotiators have been hoping for help from the Foreign Ministry – precisely the department that seems most vexed about the statements at the synod.
One potentially interesting twist is this: During the synod, there was a brief contretemps over the “Kairos Document,” a recent ecumenical statement from Christian leaders in the Middle East which was critical of Israeli policy, and, most explosively, suggested a disinvestment strategy similar to the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa.
While the former Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Michel Sabbah, was among the presenters of the document, his successor, Fouad Twal, insisted on the margins of the synod that the “Kairos Document” had not been formally endorsed by the Catholic church.
While both Sabbah and Twal are Arabs and clearly supportive of a Palestinian state, there is a key difference: Sabbah was born in Nazareth in 1933, and is therefore himself a Palestinian. Twal is Jordanian, and hence has a bit more personal distance from the Israeli/Palestinian dispute.
Perhaps, therefore, Twal can play a role in smoothing the waters with Israel in the wake of the synod – without taking the sting out of the point that the bishops wanted to make, which is the call for a “sincere, just and permanent peace.”
You are incorrect about
You are incorrect about Vatican II overturning the traditional (and Apostolic!) teaching regarding the old covenant. First, Vatican II did not define any new dogmas; neither did it overturn any which were old, or explain them in a way contrary to their traditional understanding. Second, both Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI (as Cardinal Ratzinger) explicitly stated that the old covenant has been abolished, being superseded with the new:
“Thus the Sinai [Mosaic] Covenant is indeed superseded” (Many Religions – One Covenant, p. 70). (Cardinal Ratzinger)
“Christ fulfills the divine promise and supersedes the old law.” (Redemptoris Mater, Pope John Paul II)
Since Vatican II did not overturn or re-explain in a contrary manner any old dogmas or doctrines, they are to be understood in the traditional manner:
Pope Pius XII, Mystici Corporis, para. 29: “…the New Testament took the place of the Old Law which had been abolished…but on the gibbet of His death Jesus made void the Law with its decrees fastened the handwriting of the Old Testament to the Cross”;
The Catechism of the Council of Trent: “…the people, aware of the abrogation of the Mosaic Law…”;
Council of Florence: “that the matter pertaining to the law of the Old Testament, of the Mosaic law…although they were suited to the divine worship at that time, after our Lord’s coming had been signified by them, ceased, and the sacraments of the New Testament began”;
Council of Trent: “but not even the Jews by the very letter of the law of Moses were able to be liberated or to rise therefrom”
The Church Fathers are also in accord with these views:
St. John Chrysostom: “Yet surely Paul’s object everywhere is to annul this Law….And with much reason; for it was through a fear and a horror of this that the Jews obstinately opposed grace” (Homily on Romans, 6:12); “And so while no one annuls a man’s covenant, the covenant of God after four hundred and thirty years is annulled; for if not that covenant but another instead of it bestows what is promised, then is it set aside, which is most unreasonable” (Homily on Galatians, Ch 3)
St. Augustine: “Instead of the grace of the law which has passed away, we have received the grace of the gospel which is abiding; and instead of the shadows and types of the old dispensation, the truth has come by Jesus Christ. Jeremiah also prophesied thus in God’s name: ‘Behold, the days come, says the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah…’ Observe what the prophet says, not to Gentiles, who had not been partakers in any former covenant, but to the Jewish nation. He who has given them the law by Moses, promises in place of it the New Covenant of the gospel, that they might no longer live in the oldness of the letter, but in the newness of the spirit” (Letters, 74, 4);
Justin Martyr: Now, law placed against law has abrogated that which is before it, and a covenant which comes after in like manner has put an end to the previous one; and an eternal and final law – namely, Christ – has been given to us, and the covenant is trustworthy…Have you not read…by Jeremiah, concerning this same new covenant, He thus speaks: ‘Behold, the days come,’ says the Lord, ‘that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah…’” (Dialogue with Trypho, Ch 11).
There is also the teaching of Christ to the Jews:
"Therefore I say to you, that the kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and shall be given to a nation yielding the fruits thereof." (Matthew 21:43)
If you understand Papal teaching to be in favor of the dual-covenant heresy, then you're mistaken.
You may understand Papal teaching to reject the traditional Catholic views regarding the old covenant
If Jews thought the synod
If Jews thought the synod would turn into an Israel-bashing session, why even bother to show up? Israel wanted a stage and they used the synod for that purpose. The covenants, whether abrogated or not, are not the issue here.
Jews believe their covenant is still binding regardless of what Catholics think or teach. Vatican II--a pan Roman synod-- is not an ecumenical council recognzied as having any force outside Catholicism anyway.
International law and the international community couldn't care less about covenants, or what popes teach about them. The REAL world dismisses them as myths and simply engaging in fits of religious fantasy based upon unreliable or spurious documentary sources.
Religious people see the hand
Religious people see the hand of God in history.
To deny that God's hand is behind the rebirth of Israel is to deny God Himself.
It is written time and again in the Bible that God will return the nation of Israel to the land of Israel.
The Church will have to come to terms with this theologically. You cannot bury your heads in the sand and pretend that this is not the case. Biblical prophesy and reality in front of your own eyes attest to the Truth.
God promised. God is delivering as we, the nation of Israel, always knew He would. Welcome and support this and you will be blessed. Deny it and fight against it and you will be cursed.
It is your choice.
Catholic-, Orthodox- and
Catholic-, Orthodox- and Lutheran Christian faith is not about manipulating the world history by supporting ethnic cleansing and state discrimination based on ethnicity and religion. Their concept of religion is something qualitatively different!
Catholic- Orthodox and Lutheran Chistians will fight evil whereever it appears - in Nazi Germany or in Zionist Israel - with compassion for those who suffers! For them faith is not a power game - belonging to the group who have the money and can do the propaganda to brainwash people to believe that injustice is good and right - and that God is on "our side whatever we do". No, this is not the concept of the Living God in Traditional Christianity.
Traditional Christians support International Law and Justice, which the Jew Abe Foxman in the Anti-Defamation League seems to know nothing about
http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=192195
Our choice is to follow Jesus the Messiah in His compassion - and maybe we only can understand really why He is the Messiah when we read about the beliefsystem of the "anonymous".
When the ancient Israelites
When the ancient Israelites conquered cities in Canaan and put all its men, women, and children "to the ban" (ie, offered them as human sacrifices) it was an atrocity they excused by claiming it was God's will. As usual, the winners get to tell the story from their self-serving perspective, even in the Word of God.
But somehow it is even worse when modern Jews who know the horrors their own people have suffered, do the same thing and systemmatically oppress the Palestinians.
A long time ago, I supported Israel, but I have gradually changed my mind. In a world struggling for peace, I cannot imagine that it is God's will to support fifty or a hundred more years of the kinds of things we have seen since 1948. A word to the Israeli writing above: Short of doing what your ancestors did and putting all the Palestinians to the ban, just how do you propose to bring peace to your blighted part of the world?
Your argument is illogical.
Your argument is illogical. You take for granted that the ancient Israelites annihilated the ancient Canaanites. Yet you question whether it was G-d's will by reducing the Divine command to annihilate them to an excuse/claim made by the Israelites. The same document that records the annihilation of the Canaanites by the Israelites (which you assume to be a historical fact) clearly states repeatedly that G-d commanded their annihilation. If you assume the Bible is correct and it is proof of the annihilation of the Canaanites by the Israelites, then you must also assume that G-d commanded it. You cannot have it both ways. Either the Bible is your prooftext and reliable, or it is not. In which case, you have no evidence that they did annihilate the Canaanites. No evidence, no "crime" committed. Or they did commit the annihilation, at G-d's behest, and again no "crime" committed, because He is the Creator and can do with His Creation what He wants--including wipe it out, if He so desires, to wit, the Flood of Noah's generation, the fire upon Sodom and Gomorrah, and the Canaanites by the Israelites. ON ANOTHER ISSUE: People frequently deny Israel the right to use the Bible, the Prophets, etc., to justify its territorial claims (something which successive Labor and Likud governments of Israel have never done, being secular), yet today they beat us Jews over the head with all sorts of biblical quotes, stories and events (or even the New Testament's crucifixion). Again, you cannot have it both ways. If you use the Bible to justify your pro-Palestinian views, or use the New Testament for pushing Liberation Theology ideas, or advocate "Peace, Goodwill to all men," or even some kind of "universal justice," then you have no right to deny Jews (those who are religious) their right to quote the Bible as we traditionally interpret it. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.
Of course we are all God's
Of course we are all God's Chosen People. Jesus didn't have to tell us that.
Any sane person would understand that no one nationality, race or gender would be chosen by God exempting all others. It just takes an intelligent person to realize this. Catholics for a long time believed they were the only people who could go to heaven. How infantile! We are all God's people and WE ALL will go to where God is.
Is this another way of
Is this another way of believing in universal salvation?
The official statement can be
The official statement can be read here:
http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Synod-for-the-Middle-East:-a-Message-to-t...
The Church has been clear that the Jewish people are still "chosen" by God. "Divine election" or "Divine choice" is, of course, simply another way of saying the Jewish people are "chosen by God." One will note that the council fathers describe Jews who have not received the Gospel as being chosen, *in the present tense*.
"Finally, those who have not yet received the Gospel are related to the People of God in various ways. There is, first, that people to which the covenants and promises were made, and from which Christ was born according to the flesh (cf. Rom: 9:4-5): in view of the divine choice, they are a people most dear for the sake of the fathers, for the gifts of God are without repentance (cf. Rom 11:28-29)." [LG 16]
"Even so, the apostle Paul maintains that the Jews remain [manent] very dear to God, for the sake of the Patriarchs, since God does not take back the gifts he bestowed or the choice he made." [NA 4]
"The undersigned Fathers of the Council humbly yet urgently beseechingly pray that the Holy Ecumenical Council of the Vatican deign to come to the aid of the unfortunate nation of Israel with an entirely paternal invitation; that is, that it express the wish that, finally exhausted by a wait no less futile than long, the Israelites hasten to recognize the Messiah, our Savior Jesus Christ, truly promised to Abraham and announced by Moses; thus completing and crowning, not changing, the Mosaic religion."
"On one hand, the undersigned Fathers have the very firm confidence that the holy Council will have compassion on the Israelites, because they are always very dear to God on account of their fathers, and because it is from them that the Christ was born according to the flesh."
[Postulatum pro Hebrais - Although not officially promulgated and therefore not strictly magisterial, the document nevertheless witnesses to the beliefs of the very bishops who defined the dogma of papal infallibility.]
And the Holy Father has written:
"Q: God has not, then, retracted his word that Israel is the Chosen People?"
"A: No, because he is faithful. Of course, we can see that Israel still has some way to go. As Christians, we believe that they will in the end be together with us in Christ. They they are not simply done with..." (God and the World, p. 150)
It's a pity the Synod didn't
It's a pity the Synod didn't speak more directly to the main problem for Christians in the Middle East - their persecution by Muslims.If Christianity is to survive in the Muslim countries then a clear stand must be taken against their unwillingness to allow freedom for Christians to worship without being persecuted.
I totally agree. Christians
I totally agree. Christians leave the Middle East and African countries because they are treated as second class citizens. Dhimmi taxes, employment discrimination and harassment are daily experiences for them.
Human Totalitarianism in whatever guise be it fascism, communism, organized crime or religion, is evil and must be opposed.
Here are a few comments from
Here are a few comments from various media commenters,
Who gave the Catholic Church the right to declare sovereignty over a piece of land within Rome's city limits? Divine right? I thought this synod just said there is no divine right to take over a piece of land justifying it with scripture
They are a State within Rome Italy. They own shares in most transnationals-They even own shares in a condom factory, yet they are against condoms, thus having increased AIDS amongst African Catholics They will not allow Mosques to be built in the Vatican. Is the Vatican a Democratic State? Strange, whenever a Pope dies they cast ballots and some white smoke appears. Do they have a transparent banking system? NO.Do they hold stolen Nazi treasure? YES. Do they own properties and pay no tax? YES. Are they controlling pedophilia amongst their clerics? NO. So who are they? No one knows. Really ?
Agree. Arab Iberia, the Al Andaluz, should be returned to the Arabs from where they were kicked out by the CATHOLICS after nearly 800 years of occupation. Also Catholic Spain should leave the Moroccon Perejil island, Ceuta, Melilla and Tétuan.
While the Vatican's at it, how about demanding that the United States government vacate land granted to Indians as their sovereign land about 200 years ago; and grant Puerto Rico and other territories independence, the Russia should pull back from Polish territory it annexed after WWII; Canada shold give Quebec its independence; Russia should pull out of Cechnya; China should leave Moslem lands; India and Pakistan should give Kashmir its independence; the Brits should return the Falklands to Argentina, etc.
I believe it is inevitable
I believe it is inevitable that we come to that sort of conflict. Because it is true that the Bible is instrumentalized by the ideology of the Eretz Israel.
What does the phrase "Israel
What does the phrase "Israel is instrumentalized" mean?
I am hoping that religious
I am hoping that religious people who are bound to forgive by the Sacred Scriptures will come to a just agreement that will lead to peace. I wonder what Jesus would say to all this acrimony? The bottom line is that peace among peoples is a great testimony to religion itself.
Jesus was from Bethlehem in
Jesus was from Bethlehem in Judea (that is what the New Testament calls it) and therefore would be considered a "West Bank settler".
No, Jesus cannot be
No, Jesus cannot be considered a "West Bank settler". His actions are contrary to any settler ideology of stealing land,
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101021/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_israel_palestinians
destroying poor peasants livelihood - olive trees:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/24/west-bank-olive-harvest-attacks
, intending to kill youths on purpose:
http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/settler-leader-drives-into-two-pale...
http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/tag/settlers-celebrate-kill...
, spitting at women, throwing feaces at people etc protected by Israeli soldiers and government.
http://mondediplo.com/2010/01/20palestine
The message of Jesus is incompatible with the the view on other ethnic people that the former chief rabbi of the sefardic jews in Israel told his fellow Jews this week: Rabbi Ovadia Yosef says in Saturday sermon that 'Goyim have no place in the world - only to serve the People of Israel'
http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/adl-slams-shas-spiritual-leader-for-...
And he is not the only one who think like this:
A group of 18 prominent rabbis, including the chief rabbi of Safed, signed a call urging Jews to refrain from renting or selling apartments to non-Jews.
"The neighbors and acquaintances [of a Jew who sells or rents to an Arab] must distance themselves from the Jew, refrain from doing business with him, deny him the right to read from the Torah, and similarly [ostracize] him until he goes back on this harmful deed," the letter reads.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/safed-rabbis-urge-jews-to-refr...
I can assure "Anonymous" that Jesus is among the rightous Palestinian Arabs - who are Catholic and Orthodox Christians and Sunni Muslims - natives to the Holy Land - you can still find aramaic words in their Palestinian Arabic dialect - the language Jesus Himself spoke. They honor Him as Messiah and Prophet.
Look at the photos from the Israeli Human righ organization Breaking the Silence below and just imagine who has the compassion of Jesus:
http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=192607
Or at this new documentary which The New York Times featured this week:
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/23/palestinians-sentenced-for-c...
The Truth will set you free!
The truth shall set you free?
The truth shall set you free? Do you believe what you quote? Then read your New Testament. Read the lineage of Jesus in the Gospels. He was a Jew from the House of David, from the tribe of Judah. As for Aramaic, come on! You'd better be able to reason better than that. A smattering of Aramaic words in Arabic dialect proves nothing. Aramaic is still used today in Israel, in the study of ancient writings of the rabbis and was read throughout the centuries. We even use Aramaic words in modern Hebrew today. Abba (Aramaic) is used for father. Sabba (Aramaic) is grandfather. Shall I continue and name a few hundred, thousand more words? Your comment proves nothing. The Arabs came to "Palestine" around 638 A.D., with the jihadist conquest of much of the Middle East. Palestinians have no ethnic connection to the Philistines or Canaanites, who disappeared from the historical record centuries before the Romans conquered Israel/Judea. No serious historian would ever peddle the idea that Palestinians are decendants from those two ancient groups. No, Jesus was not a Palestinian, not an Arab, no matter how much you twist and turn the truth. He was a Jew.
I believe that The National
I believe that The National Catholic Reporter editorial staff have the obligation to do the appropriate research and set the record straight as to whether the "Old Covenant" is abolished by the "New covenant" and the accuracy of Archbishop Bustros' comment: “We Christians cannot speak of the ‘promised land’ as an exclusive right for a privileged Jewish people,” Bustros said. “This promise was nullified by Christ. There is no longer a chosen people – all men and women of all countries have become the chosen people.”
Indeed, John Allen typically presents himself as an authority on everything and anything related to the Roman Catholic Church and the Vatican; therefore. I think it was unconscionable that he put this article out without providing a true and authoritative commentary for its interpretation. Now it's up to NCR to set the record Straight.
Anonymous
In case you haven't noticed,
In case you haven't noticed, this article was a piece of reporting. All good reporters attempt to avoid commentary in the middle of a report. It is the job os the reader to way the information in the report and draw their own conclusions. Obviously you have done so, and so have I.
The following article
The following article addresses the relationship among Christians, Jews and God:
http://www.cuf.org/laywitness/LWonline/ja09forrest.asp
Allen writes: "the tiny
Allen writes: "the tiny Christian minority of the region, anxious to prove its Arab credentials, is often outspokenly supportive of the Palestinians and critical of Israeli policy." I do not like the way Allen imposes the motive "anxious to prove its Arab credentials" to the bishops. Any dispassionate observer with a social conscience would be "often outspokenly supportive of the Palestinians".
Allen also writes: "During the synod, there was a brief contretemps over the “Kairos Document,” a recent ecumenical statement from Christian leaders in the Middle East which was critical of Israeli policy, and, most explosively, suggested a disinvestment strategy similar to the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa." Of course there has to be disinvestment - that is the only lever the international community has to force Israel to negotiate. The simplest way would be for Washington to turn off the tap - and Israel would be at the negotiating table in five minutes.
Thank you, John Prior!
Thank you, John Prior! Usually I appreciate reading John Allen, but reading this article I wonder if he is just as biased in everything else he writes!
The NCR readers who want real information about the Synod and the situation for Palestinian Catholic- Orthodox- and Lutheran Christians in the Holy Land should read:
http://www.lpj.org/
In all matters Christian, the
In all matters Christian, the ultimate authority is and always will be God's Word. The question is not what do we surmise and muse about the situation, but what did God tell us through his prophets?:
"God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said and shall he not do it?" Num 23:19 He did choose the Jewish nation to be His people and nowhere does it state that he's "repented"of that: "And I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will be their God." Ex 29:45, Deut 7:6, Deut 26:18,19, Ex 6:7, Ps 132:13, Ps 147:19, 20 "And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written... For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance" The Apostle Paul- Rom 11:26-29
Jesus himself told us that: "salvation is of the Jews" John 4:22 The Apostle Paul states: "Hath God cast away his people? God forbid. For I (Paul) also am an Israelite... God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew." Rom 11:1,2
No human being is of higher authority than Jesus, the Apostle Paul and Ezekiel. The Catholic synod has overstepped their bounds, their conclusions and statements are unsupportable by biblical doctrine.
Each nation has been chosen
Each nation has been chosen by God: "Are not you and the Cushites all the same to me, children of Israel? declares YHWH. Did i not bring Israel up from Egypt and the Philistines from Caphtor, and the Aramaeans from Kir?" (Amos 9:7)"Chosen by God" is not a privilege but a responsibility.
Anyone familiar with the
Anyone familiar with the "long running negotiations over the legal and tax status of church institutions in Israel" can understand the state of Israeli Palestinian peace negotiations. Israel got what it wanted from the Vatican, namely recognition and diplomatic relations. Some fourteen years later, the Vatican is still trying to get the legal and tax status of church institutions protected by Isaeli law.
I don't think God would break
I don't think God would break a covenant with his people.
Israel does not want
Israel does not want peace....it wants pieces of land which does not belong to them. The injusticea to the Palistinians is monumental. Our U.S. government has protected Israeli aggression and we continue to perpetuate the
indefensable land grabbing and building of settlements. Our Congress is beholden to American Jews who pad their pockets. Even our destruction and invasion of Iraq was carried out for the sake of Israel. "The Jews rule the world and they get other people to fight for them".....so said a diplomat from Indonesia. Europeans believe this as well. We will never have peace in the middle east or elsewhere until justice prevails.
The Old Covenant has been
The Old Covenant has been superseded only in this respect: that God has extended his Promise and his Covenant with the Jews to all of humanity. But some Jews, like the elder brother in the parable of the prodigal son, are unable to reconcile themselves with God's generosity. They want to be His special pets. And that is the crux of the difficulties surrounding Jewish-Christian relations.
John Allen states in his
John Allen states in his Synod article that "Sabbah was born in Nazareth in 1933, and is therefore himself a Palestinian." Nazareth is in Israel, rather than the Palestinian Territories, and therefore Patriarch Emeritus Michel Sabbah is, I think, technically an Israeli Arab, not a Palestinian. A small point, perhaps, but I thought it important to let you know.
David Andrews-Brown, Jerusalem
I am sorry to tell you that
I am sorry to tell you that Patriarch Emeritus Michel Sabbah is a Palestinian Catholic Christian with an Israeli citizenship:
" Patriarch Michel Sabbah (Arabic: ميشيل صباح), born in March 19 1933 to a Palestinian Christian family in Nazareth, Palestine, is the Archbishop and Latin (Roman Catholic) Patriarch Emeritus of Jerusalem from 1987 to 2008.
Patriarch Sabbah began his priestly studies at the Latin Patriarchal Seminary of Beit Jala in October 1949 and was ordained a priest for the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem in June 1955. He was a parish priest for a few years before being sent to the University of St. Joseph in Beirut to study Arabic language and literature. Shortly thereafter, he became director of schools for the Latin Patriarchate. He served in that position until the Arab-Israeli war in 1967. He then moved to Djibouti to teach Arabic and Islamic studies until 1973, when he began doctoral studies in Arabic philology at the Sorbonne. In 1980, he was named President of the Bethlehem University. In 1987, Pope John Paul II appointed him Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, making him the first native Palestinian to hold the office since centuries.
Since 1999, Patriarch Sabbah has been the International President of Pax Christi, a Catholic organization promoting peace. Sabbah has also spoken in support of Palestinian rights, the two-state solution and the Palestinian refugees' right of return. He has criticized the apartheid wall and called for an end of the Israeli occupation.
Sabbah resigned as Patriarch on March 19 2008, after reaching the age of 75, the age of retirement.
He is currently the Grand Prior of the chivalric Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, one of the knightly orders founded in 1099.
On the 11th of December 2009 Patriarch Sabbah together with other prominent Christian Leaders launched the Kairos Palestine Document in an international conference in Dar Annadwa in Bethlehem, Palestine. Among the authors of this historical document, Archbishop Attalah Hanna, Rev. Mitri Raheb , Rev. Naim Ateeq and father Jamal Khader. For more information about Kairos Palestine, please visit: http//www.kairospalestine.ps "
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Patriarch-Emeritus-Michel-Sabbah-albtryrk-...
What utter
What utter rubbish:"..."Supercessionism," meaning that the coming of Christ "cancelled" God's covenant with Israel -- a view that the Second Vatican Council and subsequent papal teaching has been understood to reject."
What are the sources in "(the documents of) the Second Vatican Council and subsequent papal teaching" that may be understood as rejecting "Supercessionism"?
In fact, supercessionism is not just a theological opinion, it's foundational to Christianity - no matter the loony Christian-Zionists and their sympathizers.
as you know, i have never
as you know, i have never included this next sentence in any of my talkbacks, but here goes: a truly good analysis!!
and yet, the saddest point of all escapes, and that is that by defocussing, the picture becomes blured. people are actually dying o0ut there, and had the synod focused, perhaps something positive and constructive could have happened. i refer most strongly to moynihan's pieces on the silence of the iraqis, and though the situation may not be as bad as it CAN be, there and in other places there is a real problem.
had those honorable men truly wanted to begin the route towards helping solve the problem, they would have spoken more forcefully - yes, and risked making it worse.
but it's a bit like pius 12's claim that speaking out would have made it worse for the jews.... how, exactly could it have been much worse?
If Exile was a punishment
If Exile was a punishment then Return must be a reward.
According to the Church Fathers the Jews were exiled from their Promised Land and ceased to be elected because they had rejected Jesus.
St. Augustine developed this idea into the theory of the mark of Cain, namely, that the Jews were to roam the earth eternally as witness to their sin.
Throughout history this view was generally accepted by the Church.
In the light of the creation of the State of Israel and the self-evident disproof of the mark of Cain thesis would it not be appropriate for the Church to repudiate this now palpably false theory and admit that the Church Fathers themselves erred?
Indeed the Church Fathers' spurious thesis was the cause of deep injustice and great suffering for the Jews throughout the generations.
Should not, therefore, the Church reverse this doctrine and declare the Return of the Jewish people from Exile and the creation of the State of Israel a blessed event of momentous, theological significance?
Some would even view it as a milestone in Salvation history requiring profound soul-searching and theological reappraisal.
To continue to insist in the circumstances that Israel is a purely political phenomenon is logically inconsistent with the Church's own position down through the ages...
The modern day Jew is a
The modern day Jew is a spiritual descendant of the Pharisees that Jesus had harsh words for and rejected -- after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE Pharisaic beliefs became the basis for Rabbinic Judaism, which ultimately produced the normative traditional Judaism which is the basis for all contemporary forms of Judaism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharisees
Judaism is not the religion of the Old Testament. Catholicism is the religion of the Old Testament.
Anything that claims to be the religion of the Old Testament must have a Temple, a priesthood, and sacrifice. After the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD, Judaism had none of these things, but the Church had all of them.
The Temple was Christ, who explicitly stated that he was its replacement.
The Church also had the priesthood, which celebrated the new sacrifice, which was the unbloody sacrifice of the Mass.
How then can it be asserted that "the Second Vatican Council and subsequent papal teaching has been understood to reject the coming of Christ "cancelled" God's covenant with Israel?" -- when the modern day Jew is not even a blood descendant of the Old Testament Jew rather the offspring of a converted Khazar?
http://mondediplo.com/2008/09/07israel
Let me support your link with
Let me support your link with the review of Shlomo Sand's book in Haaretz by professor Israel Bartal at the Hebrew University. This link is no longer available at www.haaretz.com on the internet - so I post the whole article:
Last update - 18:46 06/07/2008
Jewish History
Inventing an invention
By Israel Bartal
Tags: Khazars, Israel Bartal
According to Shlomo Sand, everything you ever thought you knew about the Jewish people as a nation with ethno-biological origins is false. Israel Bartal, however, says Sand didn't do his homework
Mattai ve'ekh humtza ha'am hayehudi?
(When and How Was the Jewish People Invented?), by Shlomo Sand
Resling (Hebrew), 358 pages, NIS 94.
The first sentence of "When and How Was the Jewish People Invented?" reads: "This book is a historical study, not a work of pure fiction. Nevertheless, it will open with a number of stories rooted in a collective memory that has been adulterated with a considerable degree of imagination." I recalled these words when I found myself utterly astounded by the statements of the author of this learned, fascinating study, concerned with the "period of silencing" in the "Jewish-Israeli collective memory," a period that, to quote Sand, gave rise to a total avoidance of "any mention of the Khazars in the Israeli public arena."
This assertion, according to which an entire chapter in Jewish history was deliberately silenced for political reasons, thrust me back to my days as a ninth grader, in the late 1950s. I recalled the Mikhlal Encyclopedia, an almost mythological reference text that nearly every Israeli high school student relied on in those years, the flagship of what is termed "mainstream Zionism," in the lean Hebrew of 21st-century Israel. My ears still reverberate with the introduction to the encyclopedia's entry on "Khazars": "A source of consolation and hope for the scattered Jewish communities of the Diaspora during the Middle Ages, the story of the Khazar kingdom today has the ring of pure mythology. Nonetheless, that story is one of the most wonderful chapters in Jewish history."
Sand suggests that it was "the wave of decolonization of the 1950s and 1960s [that] led the molders of Israeli collective memory to shield themselves from the shadow of the Khazar past. There was a profound fear that, should the Jews now rebuilding their home in Israel learn that they are not direct descendants of the ?Children of Israel,' the very legitimacy of both the Zionist enterprise and the State of Israel's existence would be undermined."
With considerable trepidation, I returned to my yellowing copy of volume IV of the Mikhlal Encyclopedia. Could I perhaps have been mistaken and could it be that my teachers in the Socialist-Zionist city of Givatayim wanted to brainwash me with an ethno-biological perception of my parents' origin?
When I reread the entry on the Khazars, my mind was put at rest. It was not the Zionist education to which I, as an Israeli teenager, was exposed that tried to make me forget the fact that the members of gentile tribes converted to Judaism in the Khazar Kingdom; instead, it is the author of this book about the "invention of the Jewish people" who has invented an ethno-biological Zionist historiography.
Here is what was written about the conversion of the Khazars, a nation of Turkish origin, in the Zionist Mikhlal Encyclopedia that the State of Israel's Zionist Ministry of Education recommended so warmly during that "period of silencing": "It is irrelevant whether the conversion to Judaism encompassed a large stratum of the Khazar nation; what is important is that this event was regarded as a highly significant phenomenon in Jewish history, a phenomenon that has since totally disappeared: Judaism as a missionary religion.... The question of the long-term impact of that chapter in Jewish history on East European Jewry -- whether through the development of its ethnic character or in some other way -- is a matter that requires further research. Nonetheless, although we do not know the extent of its influence, what is clear to us today is that this conversion did have an impact." Sand, a professor of modern European history at Tel Aviv University, comments further on the silence of the historians: "Israel's academic community developed a violent attitude toward this issue.... Any mention of the Khazars in the public arena in Israel was increasingly considered eccentric, a flight of fancy, even an open threat."
Zionist historiography, he claims, concealed the possibility that the millions of Yiddish-speaking Jews were actually descendants of the Khazars and that even today Israeli historians deny the existence of an early Jewish nucleus that was augmented by immigrants who moved from Ashkenaz (present-day northern France and western Germany) to Eastern Europe.
These claims are baseless. Sand, for example, does not mention the fact that, from 2000 onwards, a team of scholars from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem labored on a monumental task: the production of a three-volume study on the history of the Jews of Russia.
In the first volume, which will shortly be published in Hebrew by the Zalman Shazar Center for Jewish History (another "Zionist" institution), considerable attention is devoted to the question of the origin of the East European Jews and to their link with the history of the Khazar kingdom.
Sand repeats the method he employs vis-a-vis the place of the Khazars in Jewish historiography in connection with other topics as well, presenting readers with partial citations and edited passages from the writings of various scholars. Several times, Sand declares what his ideological position is. Like him, I am not one of those who support the injustices committed by a number of Israeli government agencies against minority groups in this country in the name of arguments pretending to represent "historical values." However, critical readers of Sand's study must not overlook the intellectual superficiality and the twisting of the rules governing the work of professional historians that result when ideology and methodology are mixed.
Sand's desire for Israel to become a state "representing all its citizens" is certainly worthy of a serious discussion, but the manner in which he attempts to connect a political platform with the history of the Jewish people from its very beginnings to the present day is bizarre and incoherent.
Descendants of pagans
What is Sand trying to prove in this study? In his view, the homeland of the Jewish people is not Palestine, and most Jews are descendants of the members of different nations who converted to Judaism in ancient times and in the medieval period. He claims that the Jews of Yemen and Eastern Europe are descendants of pagans.
According to Sand, this historical truth was concealed by Zionist thinkers, who developed an ethno-biological ideology, and the so-called "Jewish people" was invented as late as the 19th century. Furthermore, he argues, the idea of a "nation" that was exiled from its homeland in ancient times and which is destined to return to it in the modern age so as to rebuild its independent state is merely an invented myth.
Sand also maintains that, in the era preceding the emergence of European nationalism, the Jews were an ethnic group, not a nation. In his eyes, the argument promulgated by the Zionists and by their successors in the Israeli political arena concerning our "right to this land" rests on a biological-genetic ideology; that argument became the "narrative of the ruling group" thanks to the fact that the "authorized scholars of the past" have concealed the truth concerning the real, impure origin of the Jews.
My response to Sand's arguments is that no historian of the Jewish national movement has ever really believed that the origins of the Jews are ethnically and biologically "pure." Sand applies marginal positions to the entire body of Jewish historiography and, in doing so, denies the existence of the central positions in Jewish historical scholarship.
No "nationalist" Jewish historian has ever tried to conceal the well-known fact that conversions to Judaism had a major impact on Jewish history in the ancient period and in the early Middle Ages. Although the myth of an exile from the Jewish homeland (Palestine) does exist in popular Israeli culture, it is negligible in serious Jewish historical discussions. Important groups in the Jewish national movement expressed reservations regarding this myth or denied it completely.
Sand's references to "authorized" historians are absurd, and perpetuate a superficial pattern of discussion that is characteristic of a certain group within Israeli academe. The guiding principle in this pattern of discussion is as follows: "Tell me what your position is on the past and I will tell you the nature of your connection with the agencies of the regime."
The kind of political intervention Sand is talking about, namely, a deliberate program designed to make Israelis forget the true biological origins of the Jews of Poland and Russia or a directive for the promotion of the story of the Jews' exile from their homeland is pure fantasy.
Sand points to three components in the structuring of the Jewish national past. First, the national historical narrative, especially the Zionist narrative, emphasizes the "ethno-biological" identity of those who belong to the imaginary Jewish nation.
Second, this identity is directly connected with a nationalist ideology that is a substitute for the religious link between Jewish communities in the Diaspora that has considerably weakened in the present era of secularization. Third, an aggressive political establishment that controls the dissemination of knowledge is concealing vital information on what really happened in the past, preventing the publication of sources that can serve as an alternative to the recommended national narrative, and censoring dangerous passages in published texts.
The central book of the Zionist "Jerusalem School," "Toldot am yisrael" ("History of the Jewish People," published in 1969), speaks extensively of the Jewish communities that existed in the Diaspora before the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem and whose total population exceeded that of the tiny Jewish community in Palestine. As one would expect from a work that reflects a profound knowledge of scholarly studies in the field, the Zionist "Toldot am yisrael" explains that the number of Jews in the Diaspora during the ancient period was as high as it was because of conversion, a phenomenon that "was widespread in the Jewish Diaspora in the late Second Temple period .... Many of the converts to Judaism came from the gentile population of Palestine, but an even greater number of converts could be found in the Jewish Diaspora communities in both the East and the West."
Choosing to ignore all this, Sand categorically states in his book that, "the mass conversions that created such huge Jewish populations throughout the Mediterranean region are scarcely mentioned in Jewish national historiography." Apparently, he is obsessed with the idea of proving that the Zionist historians (including Nahum Slouschz, who wrote about the North African Jewish warrior-queen Dahia
al-Kahina) were "ethnocentric nationalists." It is irrelevant to Sand what these historians actually wrote: To hell with the facts -- the argument is what really counts!
Sand bends over backwards to prove that the great Jewish historians (such as Simon Dubnow, Salo Baron and Benzion Dinur), who, in their works, linked Jewish nationalism with liberalism, radicalism and socialism, were simply racists. Here's what he writes, for example, about Israeli historian Haim Zeev Hirschberg (1903-1974), who studied the Jews of North Africa: "His continual attempts to prove that the Jews were a race of people that had been displaced from its ancient homeland and which had been condemned to wander from country to country as an exiled nation ... dovetail beautifully with the directives of mainstream Zionist historiography." According to Sand, Hirschberg never managed to liberate himself from a "purifying substantive ideology." Does this sound familiar? When and where did you last read that Zionism was a racist movement?
Scattered communities
I will now refer briefly to the connection between the book's conceptual underpinnings and the author's main historical argument, namely, that, prior to the modern period, the Jews constituted only a group of "scattered religious communities." Sand defines national identity in the spirit of the ideas of the French Revolution. Not only does he reject the concept of an ethnic identity that is not dependent on the existence of a political entity confined within clearly defined borders, he even rejects an identity whose possessors' claim is founded on a cultural or political entity that is not subject to control or management by the agencies of the central regime. In his view, such identities are merely "invented identities" and he does not believe that pre-modern identities can survive in the modern era. In fact, Sand advocates the position that was heard in the French National Assembly in December 1789: "The Jews must not be allowed to constitute a special political entity or to have a special political status. Instead, each Jew must on an individual basis be a citizen of France." However, whereas the champions of the Emancipation in Paris did recognize the non-religious essence of the pre-modern Jewish nation, Sand does not.
I was unable to find in Sand's book any innovations in the study of nationalism. The author is stuck somewhere between historians such as Eric Hobsbawm, Benedict Anderson and Ernest Gellner -- a generation behind what is happening today in the field. As far as I can discern, the book contains not even one idea that has not been presented earlier in their books and articles by what he insists on defining as "authorized historians" suspected of "concealing historical truth." "When and How Was the Jewish People Invented?" is a marvelous blend of clearly modernist arguments, drawn from the legacy of 18th-century European Enlightenment, with a moderate, but disturbing (because of its superficiality), pinch of Foucaultian discourse from a previous generation.
Moreover, the author's treatment of Jewish sources is embarrassing and humiliating. What serious reader who knows the history of modern Hebrew literature can take seriously the views expressed in a book that defines "Bohen tsadik" (Investigating a Righteous Man), a satirical (fictional!) work by the Galician intellectual and supporter of the Haskalah Yosef Perl (1773-1839), as something that was written by a person named Yitzhak Perl and which "contains 41 letters from rabbis that relate to various aspects of Jewish life"? Who would attest to the accuracy of facts in a research study where it is stated that historian Joseph Klausner (1874-1958) -- a scholar who never was (despite his burning ambition to do so) a professor of history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and who, instead, served there as a professor of Hebrew literature -- "was in fact the first official historian of the ?Second Temple period' at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem"? Does such sloppiness reflect the author's attitude to the subject of his research? Or, perhaps, because everything is an invention anyway, it does not really matter whether the "imagined object" is black or white?
The lugubrious Israeli combination of aggressive one-dimensional conceptuality and blatant disrespect for details (a characteristic mix among writers at both ends of the political spectrum) will undoubtedly captivate the hearts of the public relations executives of the electronic media. However, we, the skeptical historians, who are buried between mountains of books and piles of archival files, can only continue to read what has really been written and to write about what has really been read.
Prof. Israel Bartal is dean of the humanities faculty of the Hebrew University. His book "Cossack and Bedouin: Land and People in Jewish Nationalism" was published by Am Oved in its Ofakim series (Hebrew).
Haaretz Books, July 2008
The Khazar myth is peddled
The Khazar myth is peddled today mostly by Jews with an anti-Israel bias and anti-Semites for obvious reasons. They hope to deny the right of Jews to their own state in the Middle East by claiming European Jews are not really Semites, but decendants of the Khazar Turkic people who converted to Judaism in the Middle Ages.
To date, DNA studies have been conducted on many ethinic groups. Notably, such tudies have been conducted on Jews more than any other group, partly to prevent certain so-called Jewish diseases, such as Tay-Sachs, etc., from being carried to further generations. Every ethnic group has its share of peculiar diseases, that is, they are more predominant in one group than others. As a result of this effort to identify Tay-Sachs carriers and for other reasons, the Jewish DNA markers are well known. These studies have proven that most Jews (whether Ashkenazi or Sefardic, whether from the USA or from Germany, from Iraq or from Yemen) carry certain markers peculiar only to Jews and with some similarity to other "Semitic" groups in the Middle East. Jews from all these groups do not in general match the DNA markers of Turkic groups, which the Khazars belonged. Further, such DNA studies have also been conducted on Kohens (that is, members of the priestly group, decendants of Aaron), again among Sefardic and Ashkenazi groups, among American Jews and Yemenite Jews, etc., etc. Again within the Kohen group, there have been found similar genetic markers proving a continuity and small degree of intermarriage over the centuries (up until today).
In fact, one can predict a time when a specific ethnic grouping emerged using DNA statistics. The studies dealing with this issue have so far indicated an origin time of roughly 3,500 years for the Kohens, just around the time of the Exodus from Egypt.
Certainly, other groups have converted into Judaism, mixed with the Jews, and are considered as Jewish as Moses and as Aaron the High Priest. And their genetic matter has become part of the Jewish peoples' genetic pool. However, the idea that most Jews are not Semites, but Khazars has been blown apart, even if some Jewish authors continue to peddle the idea, even some writers as great as Arthur Koestler. Science does not support the Khazar myth.
No rabbi would ever consider using DNA or genetic tests to prove Jewishness, since it is a matter of faith. Nor would it be used to prove Jewishness in Israel. However, for anthropological/historical purposes, it can be useful to trace intermarriage rates, mixing of peoples, and other relevant issues.
The Khazar myth has been debunked for some time now. I guess some people are still reading old news.
Thank you John Allen for an
Thank you John Allen for an excellent explanation of the Mid-East Synod. Much appreciated. Thanks, too, to Thomas above for a clear and relevant analysis of the the true position of the Church regarding the supercession. Astonishing comment by Anonymous above: God promised. "God is delivering as we, the nation of Israel, always knew He would. Welcome and support this and you will be blessed. Deny it and fight against it and you will be cursed.
"It is your choice." Something tells me that Anonymous is not Jewish, but a Christian Zionist. Regardless, he is wrong.
It is clear Jesus has made His choice whilst He lived in His mortal life. "Therefore I say to you, that the kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and shall be given to a nation yielding the fruits thereof." (Matthew 21:43) When Jesus foretold to His apostles the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple 37 years before it happened, He wept over the city, for His people "did not know the time of their visitation." It is totally absurd, even blasphemous, to assert that the "chosen people" are those who reject the Christ, the Savior. Strange kind of "chosen" indeed. Why are the Jews "chosen" after the coming of Christ? Unless one means the Jews who accepted Him? The kingdom of God, the new Israel, is the one, true Church, established by Jesus on Peter. It is the Mystical Body of Christ, revealed in the Eucharist, on Mount Sion in the Upper Room at the Last Supper. The Church, His Body, is the new and everlasting Sion. That is, the living members, in grace, who will reign with Christ forever in heaven.
Anonymous says: "To deny that God's hand is behind the rebirth of Israel is to deny God Himself. It is written time and again in the Bible that God will return the nation of Israel to the land of Israel."
"Written time and again?" Cite the "time and time again" texts please. Well, Jeremais seems to foretell the conversion of the "remnant" of the Jews,in the latter days, after their return to Israel (23;3). And, this does work by the will of the divine providence. But the coming of the antichrist is also foretold (permitted by God; ought we then to be heralding his coming rather than opposing his diabolic precursors, like Arius, Mohammed, Luther, Stalin, Hitler, and Mao? I could name even more darker influences who work for antichrist behind the scenes, corrupting what was once Christendom.
"And I will gather together the remnant of my flock, out of all the lands into which I have cast them out: and I will make them return to their own fields, and they shall increase and be multiplied." And, in the Book of Revelation, we have the two "witnesses" (Henoch and Elias) who have never died returning to Jerusalem, one will preach to the gentiles, the other (Elias) to the Jews, but to "convert" them to Christ, not to confirm them in unbelief. Those days are yet to come.
In any event, most of the Jews coming to Israel since the establishment of the "state" after WWII are Askenazim. Ashkenaz is a Jewish term to describe their people who lived in Poland and along the Rhine and elsewhere in eastern Europe, especially since the late Middle Ages and after. Ashkenaz is the grandson of Japheth (Genesis 10) and not of the seed of Sem, as were the Jews in ancient Palestine. 93% of the world's Jews are Ashkenazim today. So, what do these prophecies exactly mean? Hard to say, as far as race is concerned. As far as religion, the Ashkenazim are certainly Mosaic and Talmudic Jews. The Talmud is anti-Christian, oral traditions and commentaries, written down by rabbis in Babylon centuries after Christ, and this book is considered among the rabbis to be THE holy book. As one of their sayings goes, the common Jew reads the Torah, the rabbis and God read the Talmud (or words to that effect.
Our Lord spoke of the "elect." He was not speaking of a race, but of those who believed in Him, were baptized, and kept His commandments. His blood was shed for the redemption of all men, but only the "elect" (the many of whom He spoke in instituting the Eucharist) would receive the efficacious grace of election unto salvation. These are those who cooperate with grace unto death. Israel's covenant is now fulfilled; not destroyed. So, yes, it will always last because the figure has given way to the Reality. The New Convenant in His Blood. Conceived of the water and blood that flowed from the side of Christ by the piercing of His Heart the lance and born at Pentecost with the coming of the Holy Spirit.
It would be great if people
It would be great if people would know the subject matter about which they're writing. Ashkenaz may be a son of Japhet, however, the usage of the term by Jews does not imply that they are decendants of Ashkenaz. It is only a term referring a geographic region, not an ethnic term, when used by Jews. I may be an American Jew or a South African Jew or an Ashkenazic Jew (referring to geographic origin in Germany and parts of Eastern Europe). Please, some of these things are so basic.
I was happy you corrected the
I was happy you corrected the statistical analysis from an earlier blog which appeared to say that Christian population in Israel had greatly increased.
I was also happy that some experiences of Arab Christians in and bordering Israel was addressed with a bit of realism. I'm sorry at the same time that the bishops were "forewarned" not to get into it regarding living conditions.
Why is it OK to do one kind of public complaining of living conditions where Christians are minorities in Arab-dominated countries, but not they are a minority in the Israeli-dominated location?
For reference, Biblically
For reference, Biblically speaking there are God's Chosen People Israel, (Jewish/Hebrew Nation: Deuteronomy 7:6 / Deuteronomy 14:2 / 1 Kings 3:8 / 1 Kings 8:16 / 2 Chronicles 6:5 / Psalm 105:43 / Isaiah 65:9 ), AND God's "chosen people" extends to those who believe in, follow and are saved from God's wrath by Jesus Christ: (Jews and Gentiles: Colossians 3:12 / 1 Peter 2:4 / 1 Peter 2:9). The statement by the Bishop; "all men and women of all countries have become the chosen people" is absolutely false and not based on Biblical Scripture, nor is it representative of common sense knowledge of the Bible, (even by non-believers)!
First,the authors of some
First,the authors of some comments do not even know how to spell "supersessionism." Second, those who advocate boycotting Israel may end up regretting it when infuriated Jews start a counterboycott of Palestinians and Palestine. The petty attacks on some coffee ship or cosmetic store owned by Israelis abroad has no impact because Israel's economy is based on billions earned by Israeli inventions used worldwide. But the Palestinian economy is based on mssive handouts to the Palestinian Authority and UNWRA from Western governments. So whenever the counterboycott of Palestinians begins, they will be devastated. The boycotters of Israel are sowing the wind and will reap the whirlwind (allusion to "superseded" OT).
People and even Vatican
People and even Vatican Synods may deny Israel (or were Christian Zionists also included?) the right to use the Bible, the Prophets, etc., to justify its territorial claims (something which successive Labor and Likud governments of Israel have never done, being secular), yet today such people and Vatican Synods beat us Jews over the head with all sorts of biblical quotes, stories and events (or even the New Testament's crucifixion some 2,000 years ago!). Even more, just read the text of the 44 decisions and the speeches at the Vatican Synod and you'll see how many times reference is made to the Bible directly or indirectly. Again, you cannot have it both ways. If you use the Bible to justify your pro-Palestinian views, or use the New Testament for pushing Liberation Theology ideas, or advocate "Peace, Goodwill to all men," or even some kind of "universal justice," or even some fuzzy-warm "Jesus-loves-all-people" or "G-d-loves-all-nations" idea, then you have no right to deny us Jews (those who are religious) our right to quote the Bible as we traditionally interpret it. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. Yes, we can use our Bible (after all, we wrote it) to promote our territorial claims (even if we choose, not to act on that right), as much as you may try to deny our claims through your misinterpretations of biblical quotes. You may not like our interpretation, you may even call it an attempt to use the Bible to justify violence (sorry, but we never declared a holy war based on our Scriptures, as other religions have done or still do) in some twisted relativist thinking. But, at least, be honest about your own misapplication of the Bible for political, pro-Palestinian purposes. Less than that is hypocritical.
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