Zionists Out of the Peace Movement: Jesus the Israelite

Zionists Out of the Peace Movement

To defeat the aggressors is not enough to make peace durable. The main thing is to discard the ideology that generates war. —Ludwig von Mises, Human Action (4th ed.), p. 832.

The General Assembly ... Determines that zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination. —UN GA Resolution 3379 (XXX).

There are three distinguished in fierceness: Israel among the nations, the dog among animals, and the cock among birds. —Rabbi Simeon, Tractate Bezah 25b, Babylonian Talmud (Quincentenary ed.), Soncino Pr.

Where is it possible to find a group of Jews who are committed to Israel, and whose children are likely to honor that commitment? The answer is, in a synagogue on the Sabbath. —Elliott Abrams, "Can Jews Survive?"

It is a fact that the Jewish religion is above all Jewish nationalism ... One must be a Jew first and a human being second. —Moses Hess, Rome and Jerusalem, as quoted in The Decadence of Judaism in Our Time by Moshe Menuhin.

Why, then, does truth generate hatred ... unless it be that truth is loved in such a way that those who love something else besides her wish that to be the truth which they do love. ... Therefore, they hate the truth for the sake of whatever it is that they love in place of the truth. —Augustine of Hippo, Confessions (Bk. X, Ch. XXIII, 34)

Thursday, October 25, 2007

Jesus the Israelite

I have written several posts dealing with the relationship of Jesus and Judaism, most notably "We killed Jesus, we'll kill you too!" and Jesus and the Last Supper as Passover Seder. To put matters succinctly, Jesus was neither a Jew nor a Christian as Judaism and Christianity simply did not exist in his life time. Which brings me to the point of this post.

Last July, the Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus published "Jesus the Israelite Was Neither a 'Jew' Nor a 'Christian': On Correcting Misleading Nomenclature" by John H. Elliott of the University of San Francisco. I recommend this scholarly article to readers interested in the subject. Mistaken and anachronistic notions about Jesus and Jews are bad religion that fuels harmful movements like Christian Zionism, which in turn has had a dangerous geopolitical impact on the Middle East.

Elliott's article and the subject in general have stimulated some interesting discussion in the blogosphere, see the links below to posts on The Busybody blog (the most recent post is at bottom).

Labels: Christianity, Jesus, Judaism, Zionism