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Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Jesus Used in Fight Over Jerusalem

Nadene Goldfoot                                                              

                                            Christian Church in Jerusalem

The latest weapon being used against Israel by the Arabs is to say that Jesus of Nazareth was a "Palestinian."  When you hear a statement like that, you immediately think of him as an Arab, because today "Palestinians" refer to the Arabs that call themselves Palestinian Arabs.  The city of Nazareth has been taken over by the Arabs. It is the largest Muslim majority city in Israel today.  It has a population of 60,000 of which 2/3 are now Muslim.   So has Bethlehem, which was turned over to the Arabs in 1995.  It has a population of 30,000.  Christian Arabs have become a minority in these places.    These used to be Christian communities and of course before them, Jewish communities.

The fact is that until May 14, 1948, both Arabs and Jews were referred to as "Palestinians."  The land was called Palestine from 135 CE on, renamed by the Romans.  But Jesus wasn't alive in 135.  He was living in Judah in the northern Galilee as the nation of  Judah existed up till the year of 70.

 Palestine was never a country.  It was simply the name given to the previous "Israel and Judah" that came to be owned by the Ottoman Empire from their take-over.  After the Romans had taken Judah, there was the Umayyad Dynasty, Abbasid Empire, Khanids and Mamluks, Safavid and then the Ottomans of Turkey.  None of them lived in this desolate swamp/desert weed filled dried out piece of land except mosquitoes and camels and maybe the few nomads that rode camels.  It was a place to tramp through to get to the other side.

 Turkey held onto it until they lost it in WWI and the British were given the mandate as to carry out the League of Nations' decision to turn it over to be a Jewish Homeland.  Jews were considered "wanderers," people without a nation who lost theirs to the Romans.  Even a plant was named, "Wandering Jew."  Yes, we had wandered through many a nation in the last 2,000 years looking for a home.

Of course this is a false claim.  The story of a Jewish Jesus puts him in the position of being born December 25th, and the year would be 1 CE as the calendar places it.  He was to have died from crucifixion at the age of 37. According to the Christians, who own this story, he was Jewish, not a pagan Arab.   Some put his death at 29 CE.  The name, Jesus, is the Greek translation of Joshua, a Jewish name as Joshua was the leader of the Israelites who was given the title and responsibility  by Moses.  The branches separating Arabs from Jews from their common relative of Abraham, born  in the 2nd millennium BCE  was about 2,000 years previously.

 It was in the year 70 CE that Jerusalem was attacked by the Romans where it was destroyed and burned down.  Almost all the Jews were either taken away as slaves or fled in different directions.  Some were able to hide and stayed.  By 132 CE a Jewish man by the name of Simon Bar Kokhba, descended from King David, made a last stand against the Romans when the Romans were rebuilding  Jerusalem as a Roman colony and not allowing circumcision for the Jewish inhabitants still there.  By 133 the Romans held a counterattack with 35,000 soldiers led by Hadrian as Kokhba had retaken Jerusalem, but he was killed in 135 and the revolt ended in a slaughter.  It was then that the Romans renamed the land  in Latin, the language of the Romans, as Palaestina, now called Palestine.  They did that  to erase the connection of the Jews to the land of Israel.

Now, logistically and truthfully, Jesus was not alive then nor was he an Arab of that period.  How could he have attended a Synagogue?  No, the whole argument about Jesus has always been that he was a Jewish person, son of Mary who was married to Joseph, and both of them were Jewish.

What the Arabs are doing is trying to connect all Christians to their side of the fight of taking away all of Israel from the Jews and giving it to the Arabs.  Don't fall for such nonsense.  The Toronto Star Newspaper has.  Write them a letter telling them they have fallen for propaganda against Israel.  "Anti-Israel adherents continue to peddle the fiction that Jesus was a “Palestinian” who preached Islam."  They're peddling the idea that he was a "Shahid."  They have the concept of Christianity and Islam all mixed together to use against Israel.  

Resource:  http://www.honestreporting.ca/toronto-star-columnist-wrongly-portrays-jesus-as-palestinian/12872/print/
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vie/Nazareth.html
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vie/Bethlehem.html

1 comment:

Nadene Goldfoot said...

http://www.blog.standforisrael.org/articles/haneen-zoabis-threat-to-nazareths-christian-heritage