Israel Bible Quotes

Whether we are reading the Bible for the first time or standing in a field in Israel next to a historian and an archaeologist and a scholar, the Bible meets us where we are. That is what truth does

It is not that God's help and presence must still be proved in our life; rather God's presence and help have been demonstrated for us in the life of Jesus Christ. It is in fact more important for us to know what God did to Israel, in God's Son Jesus Christ, than to discover what God intends for us today. The fact that Jesus Christ died is more important than the fact that I will die. And the fact that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead is the sole ground of my hope that I, too, will be raised on the day of judgment

Now, this is what the Lord says, "Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze. For I am the Lord, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.

Jesus was God’s climax to Israel’s story, but he was not bound to that story. He pushed at its boundaries, transformed it, and at times left parts of it behind.

And for Christians, the gospel has always been the lens through which Israel’s stories are read—which means, for Christians, Jesus, not the Bible, has the final word. The story of God’s people has moved on, and so must we.

The idea that women should be kept weak, uneducated, and dependent on a man in ancient civilization was somewhat misinterpreted and misused, if they were referring to biblical support. In fact, in Ancient Israel women could own property. The Book of Proverbs describes an ideal woman as a woman who has the means and capacity to make financial and business decisions. It says 'she considers a field and buys it'. (Proverbs 31:16) - Raising A Strong Daughter: What Fathers Should Know by Finlay Gow JD and Kailin Gow MA

They found grace out in the desert, these people who survived the killing. Israel, out looking for a place to rest, met God out looking for them!" God told them, "I've never quit loving you and never will. Expect love, love, and more love! And so now I'll start over with you and build you up again, dear virgin Israel. You'll resume your singing, grabbing tambourines and joining the dance. You'll go back to your old work of planting vineyards on the Samaritan hillsides, And sit back and enjoy the fruit— oh, how you'll enjoy those harvests! The time's coming when watchmen will call out from the hilltops of Ephraim: 'On your feet! Let's go to Zion, go to meet our God!

The point is, if you pay attention to the women, a more complex history of Israel's conquests emerges. Their stories invite the reader to consider the human cost of violence and patriarchy, and in that sense prove instructive to all who wish to work for a better world.

So whom does God wrong in commanding the destruction of the Canaanites? Not the Canaanite adults, for they were corrupt and deserving of judgment. Not the children, for they inherit eternal life. So who is wronged? Ironically, I think the most difficult part of this whole debate is the apparent wrong done to the Israeli soldiers themselves. Can you imagine what it would be like to have to break into some house and kill a terrified woman and her children? The brutalising effect on these Israeli soldiers is disturbing.

As Luke’s story unfolds, Jesus continues to undermine expectations involving political power and Jewish identity. In his first public appearance, in a synagogue service, he claims to be the messiah, which creates quite a buzz of support—until he tells them that he will bless Gentiles and be rejected by his own kinsmen. The crowd responds by trying to throw Jesus off a cliff. Israel’s messiah isn’t supposed to say things like this.

Of course, the fact that a single biblical text can mean many things doesn’t mean it can mean anything. Slave traders justified the exploitation of black people by claiming the curse on Noah’s son Ham rendered all Africans subhuman. Many Puritans and pioneers appealed to the stories of Joshua’s conquest of Canaan to support attacks on indigenous populations. More recently, I’ve heard Christians shrug off sins committed by American politicians because King David assaulted women too. Anytime the Bible is used to justify the oppression and exploitation of others, we have strayed far from the God who brought the people of Israel out of Egypt, “out of the land of slavery” (Exodus 20:2).

Contrary to what many of us are told, Israel’s origin stories weren’t designed to answer scientific, twenty-first-century questions about the beginning of the universe or the biological evolution of human beings, but rather were meant to answer then-pressing, ancient questions about the nature of God and God’s relationship to creation.

biblical history did not take place in either the particular era or the manner described. Some of the most famous events in the Bible clearly never happened at all.

The character of Moses, as stated in the Bible, is the most horrid that can be imagined. If those accounts be true, he was the wretch that first began and carried on wars on the score or on the pretence of religion; and under that mask, or that infatuation, committed the most unexampled atrocities that are to be found in the history of any nation. Of which I will state only one instance: When the Jewish army returned from one of their plundering and murdering excursions, the account goes on as follows (Numbers xxxi. 13): 'And Moses, and Eleazar the priest, and all the princes of the congregation, went forth to meet them without the camp; and Moses was wroth with the officers of the host, with the captains over thousands, and captains over hundreds, which came from the battle; and Moses said unto them, 'Have ye saved all the women alive?' behold, these caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the Lord in the matter of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the Lord. Now therefore, 'kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known a man by lying with him; but all the women- children that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for Yourselves.' Among the detestable villains that in any period of the world have disgraced the name of man, it is impossible to find a greater than Moses, if this account be true. Here is an order to butcher the boys, to massacre the mothers, and debauch the daughters. Let any mother put herself in the situation of those mothers, one child murdered, another destined to violation, and herself in the hands of an executioner: let any daughter put herself in the situation of those daughters, destined as a prey to the murderers of a mother and a brother, and what will be their feelings? In short, the matters contained in this chapter, as well as in many other parts of the Bible, are too horrid for humanity to read, or for decency to hear.

the whole Bible is itself a missional phenomenon. The writings that now comprise our Bible are themselves the product of and witness to the ultimate mission of God. The Bible renders to us the story of God's mission through God's people in their engagement with God's world for the sake of the whole of God's creation. The Bible is the drama of this God of purpose engaged in the mission of achieving that purpose universally, embracing past, present and future, Israel and the nations, "life, the universe and everything," and with its centre, focus, climax, and completion in Jesus Christ. Mission is not just one of a list of things that the Bible happens to talk about, only a bit more urgently than some. Mission is, in that much-abused phrase, "what it's all about.

Yet all agree that the Pentateuch is not a single, seamless composition but a patchwork of different sources, each written under different historical circumstances to express different religious or political viewpoints.

Because the griots who compose these texts are part of a patriarchal system that frequently devalues women, we should not be surprised that their portrayals of YHWH allow the Divinity silently to consent to the women's abuse.

Yahweh had chosen to accomplish his ends through imagers loyal to him against imagers who weren’t. This commitment to humanity, his original imagers on earth, is one often-missed reason why, when humanity (Israel) failed to restore God’s rule, God took matters into his own hands by becoming human in Jesus Christ.

After the Jews crossed the sea and the desert, they reached the Promised Land. Scouts were sent to look at the land before settling. When the scouts came back, they reported that the people in the land were giants. “We looked at them and they looked at us as if we were grasshoppers,” they said. Sometimes when we make a decision to make a change in our lives, we feel just like those scouts. However, if you pay attention to the words of the Bible, it was not the giants living in the land of Israel who believed that the Jews looked like grasshoppers. It was the Jews’ own perception. When they looked at the giants, they believed they were the grasshoppers.

The Adam story, then, is not simply about the past. It’s about Israel’s present brought into the past—even as far past as the beginning of the human drama itself.

What the Deuteronomistic historian wanted to say is simple and powerful: there is still a way to regain the glory of the past.

Aside your dreams to improve your community, country and continent, dare to save a soul for God. Show compassion, show love... Feed hungry souls and let God be glorified!

God gave the Ten Commandments in the no-man’s land of a desert rather than in the land of Israel, to signify these laws do not just belong to one people, but to all humanity.

Cramming the stories of Israel into a modern mold of history writing not only makes the Bible look like utter nonsense; it also obscures what the Bible models for us about our own spiritual journey. On that journey, what matters most is not simply where we’ve been—the triumphs or the tragedies—but where we are with God now in the moment. All great spiritual leaders will tell us that living in the moment is key to vibrant communion with God. The now is where God’s presence is found, where neither past memories nor the future with its idle speculations dominates.

Surely God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart. But as for me, my feet had almost slipped; I had nearly lost my foothold. For I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

If you want to know what time it is on God’s clock, look at Israel. Understand Israel—it’s the only nation that has its origin, history, ups and downs, and destiny all written out in advance for the diligent.

It was during my study in Israel that I came to the realization that most of what I had learned in my courses in religion in the United States was outdated or in error. In order to understand what the biblical position is on any subject and, particularly on the subject of sex, one has to do it from a Hebrew perspective.

When Pharoah restored the chief butler to his position as foretold by Joseph in his interpretation of the butler's dream, he forgot Joseph. "Yet the chief butler did not remember Joseph but forgot him." (Genesis 40:23). Why does the Bible use this repetitive language? It is obvious that if the butler forgot Joseph, he did not remember him. Yet both verbs are used, "not remembering" and "forgetting." The Bible, in using this language, is teaching us a very important lesson. There are events of such overbearing magnitude that one ought not to remember them all the time, but one must not forget them either. Such an event is the Holocaust.

The need to explain Jesus as both surprise ending and deeply connected to Israel’s story drove the Gospel writers to do some creative reading. Sticking to what the Bible says wasn’t their goal. Talking about Jesus was.

17 I shall see him, but not now: I shall behold him, but not nigh: there shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel, and shall smite the corners of Moab, and destroy all the children of Sheth.

God had to break Jacob to make him useful. In the breaking process, Jacob—the deceiving “heel-catcher”—became Israel, a “prince with God” who purposed to serve God rather than himself. Natural leaders often need to be broken. Consider your natural ability to lead a gift from God, but your character a gift to present back to God. Remember: Every time you stand up under the weight of adversity, you are being prepared, as Jacob was, to better serve God and lead people.

It should come as no surprise to any writer that all this emotional suffering produced some quality literature. Jewish scribes got to work, pulling together centuries of oral and written material and adding reflections of their own as they wrestled through this national crisis of faith. If the people of Israel no longer had their own land, their own king, or their own temple, what did they have? They had their stories. They had their songs. They had their traditions and laws.

Pharaoh was the son of Re. Israel was explicitly called the son of Yahweh in the confrontation with Pharaoh (Exod 4:23; cf. Hos 11:1). Yahweh and his son would defeat the high god of Egypt and his son. God against god, son against son, imager against imager. In that context, the plagues are spiritual warfare. Yahweh will undo the cosmic order, throwing the land into chaos.2

Since the word Jew (Yehudi) basically means, ‘he who thanks God,’ the entire life of a Jew consists of an ongoing practice of blessing, praising, magnifying, and thanking God for His deeds,” says Israel Bible Center professor Dr. Eli Lizorkin-Eyzenberg

Sanctifying the Sabbath is part of our imitation of God, but it also becomes a way to find God’s presence. It is not in space but in time, he writes, that we find God’s likeness. In the Bible, no thing or place is holy by itself; not even the Promised Land is called holy. While the holiness of the land and of festivals depends on the actions of the Jewish people, who have to sanctify them, the holiness of the Sabbath, he writes, preceded the holiness of Israel. Even if people fail to observe the Sabbath, it remains holy.

The comparison of Lam 1:1 and Re 18:7 cannot be ignored. If Babylon the Great is actually rejected mother-Judah, brought back to life by the United Nations, then Is 47:7-10 connects divorced-ancient Israel to modern-day Israel. Remember, Jehovah removed His name. (Is 50:1) Thus, we see why Jehovah’s ex-wife took on many names from her many husbands, such as “Babylon.” (Is 1:21) Lamentations, pg 2

I am about to go the way of all the earth,” he said. “So be strong, act like a man, and observe what the LORD your God requires: Walk in obedience to him, and keep his decrees and commands, his laws and regulations, as written in the Law of Moses. Do this so that you may prosper in all you do and wherever you go and that the LORD may keep his promise to me: ‘If your descendants watch how they live, and if they walk faithfully before me with all their heart and soul, you will never fail to have a successor on the throne of Israel.

Death moved in the night, in search for blood, and when it found Life, it passed on by, like a cloud that moves by the face of the moon. When he found those dead without the red, he took the life before them born first, and the mourning emptied itself till the morning.

First, if you are a homosexual or feel that inclination, keep yourself pure. If you are unmarried, you should practice abstinence from all sexual activity. I know this is difficult, but really what God is asking you to do is pretty much the same thing that he requires of all single people. That means not only keeping your body pure, but especially your mind. Just as heterosexual men should avoid pornography and fantasizing, you, too, need to keep your thought-life clean. Resist the temptation to rationalize sin by saying, “God made me this way.” God has made it very clear that He does not want you to indulge your desires, but to honor Him by keeping your mind and body pure. Finally, seek professional Christian counseling. With time and effort, you can come to enjoy normal, heterosexual relations with your spouse. There is hope.

The history of the Jews is…intensely peculiar in the fact of having given the Western world its concept of origins and monotheism, its ethical traditions, and the founder of its prevailing religion, yet suffering dispersion, statelessness, and ceaseless persecution, and finally in our times nearly successful genocide, dramatically followed by fulfillment of the never-relinquished ream of return to their homeland. Viewing this strange and singular history one can not escape the impression that it must contain some special significance for the history of mankind, that in some way, whether one believes in divine purpose or inscrutable circumstance, the Jews have been singled out to carry the tale of human fate.

This understanding of themselves as a people who wrestle with God and emerge from that wrestling with both a limp and a blessing informs how Jews engage with Scripture, and it ought to inform how Christians engage Scripture too, for we share a common family of origin, the same spiritual DNA. The biblical scholars I love to read don’t go to the holy text looking for ammunition with which to win an argument or trite truisms with which to escape the day’s sorrows, they go looking for a blessing, a better way of engaging life and the world, and they don’t expect to escape that search unscathed.

It is interesting to note that Israel cannot live in her land today and have peace while she continues to reject God. It is not Russia or the Arabs that are giving Israel so much trouble; it is God. Israel is God’s chosen people. He is going to bring them back to their land someday in faith and belief. They are returning to the land today in unbelief, and they do not have peace. This is the evidence of the hand of God in the affairs of the world.

One of the questions asked by al-Balkhi, and often repeated to this day, is this: Why do the children of Israel continue to suffer? My grandmother Dodo thought it was because the goyim were jealous. The seder for Passover (which is a shame-faced simulacrum of a Hellenic question-and-answer session, even including the wine) tells the children that it's one of those things that happens to every Jewish generation. After the Shoah or Endlösung or Holocaust, many rabbis tried to tell the survivors that the immolation had been a punishment for 'exile,' or for insufficient attention to the Covenant. This explanation was something of a flop with those whose parents or children had been the raw material for the 'proof,' so for a time the professional interpreters of god's will went decently quiet. This interval of ambivalence lasted until the war of 1967, when it was announced that the divine purpose could be discerned after all. How wrong, how foolish, to have announced its discovery prematurely! The exile and the Shoah could now both be understood, as part of a heavenly if somewhat roundabout scheme to recover the Western Wall in Jerusalem and other pieces of biblically mandated real estate. I regard it as a matter of self-respect to spit in public on rationalizations of this kind. (They are almost as repellent, in their combination of arrogance, masochism, and affected false modesty, as Edith Stein's 'offer' of her life to expiate the regrettable unbelief in Jesus of her former fellow Jews.) The sage Jews are those who have put religion behind them and become in so many societies the leaven of the secular and the atheist.

In Exodus, chapter 14, Moses must lead the Jews out of Egypt and to safety by parting the Red Sea. This story teaches us a valuable lesson about how we must face the future. I want to draw your attention to two verses in particular. Exodus (14:15) reads: “And the Lord said to Moses, ‘Tell the people of Israel to march forward.’” Exodus (14:16) reads: “Lift up your rod and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it.” The thing to note here is that Moses is instructed to raise his rod to divide the sea only after telling his people to march forth into the water. The Israelites were actually in the water, some of them up to their necks, and were told to keep marching before the water split. And yet no one complained or feared drowning because the message from God was very clear: walk first into the water and the ocean will split afterwards. Had the Israelites waited around for the waters to part, they would have been waiting a long time—perhaps forever. They had to bring about their own miracle, a truth we can deduce from the peculiar order of these two verses, which is no accident as there are no accidents in Scripture. To succeed at life and business, you too must face the future as the Israelites did at the Red Sea. Get moving now. Do not wait for the bridge. Cross now and the way through will present itself.

Peter’s Jesus of Nazareth, the one who lived and died and who was raised and ascended and enthroned, is both Messiah of Israel and Lord of the whole world. Those are the terms of the early gospeling in the book of Acts, and if we want to be faithful to the Bible, those should be our terms as well. Those titles for Jesus tell the gospel Story of Jesus.

And you shall be to Me a †kingdom of priests and a †holy nation.’ These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel.

Again the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying,  b“Go, number Israel and Judah.

5Ought you not to know that the LORD God of Israel  fgave the kingship over Israel forever to David and his sons by  ga covenant of salt?

3:14 And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.

12But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and the more they spread abroad. And the Egyptians were in dread of the people of Israel.

7 b“So you,  tson of man, I have made a watchman for the house of Israel.  bWhenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them warning from me.

Not one word of all the good promises that the LORD had made to the house of Israel had failed; all came to pass.

The process that we describe here is, in fact, the opposite of what we have in the Bible: the emergence of early Israel was an outcome of the collapse of the Canaanite culture, not its cause. And most of the Israelites did not come from outside Canaan—they emerged from within it. There was no mass Exodus from Egypt. There was no violent conquest of Canaan. Most of the people who formed early Israel were local people—the same people whom we see in the highlands throughout the Bronze and Iron Ages. The early Israelites were—irony of ironies—themselves originally Canaanites!

The fig tree without fruit is symbolic, in my opinion, of the nation Israel. The owner of the fig tree expected it to bear fruit and was disappointed when it was barren. He had the unquestioned right to take the fruit and to act in judgment by cutting down the tree. Israel had been promised blessings if they walked in the light God had given them and curses if they rejected the light.

4“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. [16] 5You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6And these words that I command you

Some may object that to speak of election or predestination is to limit the kingdom of God to a few. Does it make God a capricious tyrant? We must answer that such objections usually stem from a refusal to accept that we are faced here with a mystery that is not given to us to solve. There is also a radical misunderstanding which maintains that God's sovereignty in election removes man's responsibility. Such is not true. How divine sovereignty and human responsibility work together we cannot know. The Bible makes it clear that they do. // Let us remember that Jesus discriminated and limited the numbers of the saved: 'Small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it' (Matthew 7:13-14). This is in line with the Old Testament teaching that only a faithful remnant of Israel would be saved.

I shall see him, but not now: I shall behold him, but not nigh: there shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel, and shall smite the corners of Moab, and destroy all the children

Notice that when the Philistines returned the ark to Israel, they put it on a cart. Nothing is going to happen to them for putting it on a cart. Do you know why? Very candidly, they did not know any better. God is not going to hold them responsible for this act. But Israel knew better, and we will see that God judged the Israelites because of the way they handled the ark. Why the difference? They knew better, friend.

To begin with, there is an almost compulsive promiscuity associated with homosexual behavior. 75% of homosexual men have more than 100 sexual partners during their lifetime. More than half of these partners are strangers. Only 8% of homosexual men and 7% of homosexual women ever have relationships lasting more than three years. Nobody knows the reason for this strange, obsessive promiscuity. It may be that homosexuals are trying to satisfy a deep psychological need by sexual encounters, and it just is not fulfilling. Male homosexuals average over 20 partners a year. According to Dr. Schmidt, The number of homosexual men who experience anything like lifelong fidelity becomes, statistically speaking, almost meaningless. Promiscuity among homosexual men is not a mere stereotype, and it is not merely the majority experience—it is virtually the only experience. Lifelong faithfulness is almost non-existent in the homosexual experience. Associated with this compulsive promiscuity is widespread drug use by homosexuals to heighten their sexual experiences. Homosexuals in general are three times as likely to be problem drinkers as the general population. Studies show that 47% of male homosexuals have a history of alcohol abuse and 51% have a history of drug abuse. There is a direct correlation between the number of partners and the amount of drugs consumed. Moreover, according to Schmidt, “There is overwhelming evidence that certain mental disorders occur with much higher frequency among homosexuals.” For example, 40% of homosexual men have a history of major depression. That compares with only 3% for men in general. Similarly 37% of female homosexuals have a history of depression. This leads in turn to heightened suicide rates. Homosexuals are three times as likely to contemplate suicide as the general population. In fact homosexual men have an attempted suicide rate six times that of heterosexual men, and homosexual women attempt suicide twice as often as heterosexual women. Nor are depression and suicide the only problems. Studies show that homosexuals are much more likely to be pedophiles than heterosexual men. Whatever the causes of these disorders, the fact remains that anyone contemplating a homosexual lifestyle should have no illusions about what he is getting into. Another well-kept secret is how physically dangerous homosexual behavior is.

As I live, declares the Lord GOD,  jI have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live;  kturn back, turn back from your evil ways,  kfor why will you die, O house of Israel?

am not making any predictions, but the Bible seems to indicate that instead of the Palestinians taking over the West Bank, the Israelis will in due course establish some kind of governmental control over the East Bank. You may say, “That is not what the experts anticipate.” Frankly, that does not disturb me! There is no situation in modern history about which the “experts” have been so consistently wrong as the reestablishment of Israel.

Now Christianity proposes a completely different account of how history comes to a climax and what precisely constitutes the new order of the ages—which helps to explain why so many of modernity’s avatars, from Diderot to Christopher Hitchens, have specially targeted Christianity. On the Christian reading, history reached its highpoint when a young first-century Jewish rabbi, having been put to death on a brutal Roman instrument of torture, was raised from the dead through the power of the God of Israel. The state-sponsored murder of Jesus, who had dared to speak and act in the name of Israel’s God, represented the world’s resistance to the Creator. It was the moment when cruelty, hatred, violence, and corruption—symbolized in the Bible as the watery chaos—spent itself on Jesus. The resurrection, therefore, showed forth the victory of the divine love over those dark powers. St. Paul can say, “I am certain that neither death nor life, neither angels nor principalities, nor any other creature can separate us from the love of God,” precisely because he lived on the far side of the resurrection.

Salvation in the Old Testament meant love for Yahweh alone. One had to believe that Yahweh was the God of all gods, trusting that this Most High God had chosen covenant relationship with Israel to the detriment of all other nations. The law was how one demonstrated that love—that loyalty. Salvation was not merited. Yahweh alone had initiated the relationship. Yahweh’s choice and covenant promise had to be believed. An Israelite’s believing loyalty was shown by faithfulness to the law.

When Lebanese Muslims and Palestinians declared jihad on Christians in 1975, we didn’t even know what that word meant. We had taken the Palestinians in, giving them refuge in our country, allowing them to study side by side with us in our schools and universities. We gave them jobs and shared our way of life with them. What started as political war spiraled very fast into a religious war between Muslims and Christians, with Lebanese Muslims joining the PLO fighting the Christians. We didn’t realize the depth of their hatred and resentment toward us as infidels. The more that Christians refused to get involved in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and to allow the Palestinians to use Lebanon as a launching pad from which to attack Israel, the more the Palestinians looked at us as the enemy. Muslims started making statements such as “First comes Saturday, then comes Sunday,” meaning first we fight the Jews, then we come for the Christians. Christian presence, influence, and democracy became an obstacle in the Palestinians' fight against Israel. Koranic verses such as sura 5:51—"Believers, take not Jews and Christians for your friends. They are but friends and protectors to each other"—became the driving force in recruiting Muslim youth. Many Christians barely knew the Bible, let alone the Koran and what it taught about us, the infidels. We should have seen the long-simmering tension between Muslims and Christians beginning to erupt, but we refused to believe that such hatred and such animosity existed. America also failed to recognize this hatred throughout all the attacks launched against it, beginning with the marine barracks bombing in Beirut in 1983 all the way up to September 11, 2001. It was that horrible day that made Americans finally ask, What is jihad? And why do they hate us? I have a very simple answer for them: because you are “infidels.

In addition to these physical problems, sexually transmitted diseases are rampant among the homosexual population. 75% of homosexual men carry one or more sexually transmitted diseases, wholly apart from AIDS. These include all sorts of non-viral infections like gonorrhea, syphilis, bacterial infections, and parasites. Also common among homosexuals are viral infections like herpes and hepatitis B (which afflicts 65% of homosexual men), both of which are incurable, as well as hepatitis A and anal warts, which afflict 40% of homosexual men. And I haven’t even included AIDS. Perhaps the most shocking and frightening statistic is that, leaving aside those who die from AIDS, the life expectancy for a homosexual male is about 45 years of age. That compares to a life expectancy of around 70 for men in general. If you include those who die of AIDS, which now infects 30% of homosexual men, the life expectancy drops to 39 years of age. So I think a very good case can be made out on the basis of generally accepted moral principles that homosexual behavior is wrong. It is horribly self-destructive and injurious to another person. Thus, wholly apart from the Bible’s prohibition, there are sound, sensible reasons to regard homosexual activity as wrong.

The Christian canon consists of two different, separate voices, indeed of two different choirs of voices. The Old Testament is the voice of Israel, the New that of the church. But beyond this, the voice of the New Testament is largely that of a transformed Old Testament which is now understood in the light of the gospel.

First, concerning terms that refer to God in the Old Testament: God, the Maker of heaven and earth, introduced himself to the people of Israel with a special personal name, the consonants for which are YHWH (see Exodus 3:14–15). Scholars call this the “Tetragrammaton,” a Greek term referring to the four Hebrew letters YHWH. The exact pronunciation of YHWH is uncertain, because the Jewish people considered the personal name of God to be so holy that it should never be spoken aloud. Instead of reading the word YHWH, they would normally read the Hebrew word ’adonay (“Lord”), and the ancient translations into Greek, Syriac, and Aramaic also followed this practice.

I'm of the opinion that many Christians are in deep denial about the reality of there being 'real' Evil in this world. Evil that cannot be reasoned with; is reprobate, incorrigible, determined, un-appeasable, violent, murderous, and unrelenting. I find this denial shocking in that the Bible clearly shows that in the end this battle is all about Good vs. Evil. This is a very real and present danger to the leaders and people of Israel. They know the truth and are not in any denial about it!!! It's harsh, yes! However, it is Real and a danger to those in Israel. This is not my first rodeo!!! Combat brings me no joy!!! But, God has His holy warriors who risk their lives so others can have the luxury to live in denial!!! Israeli's have no such luxury!!!

I am interested in the literature and religion of ancient Israel. I focus on biblical law in its ancient Near Eastern context and on the way that biblical law was later reinterpreted in the Dead Sea Scrolls and other Second Temple literature. I have also explored the relation of the Bible to later western intellectual history. In my latest book, A More Perfect Torah: At the Intersection of Philology and Hermeneutics in Deuteronomy and the Temple Scroll, I explore the relationship between biblical composition history and its reception history at Qumran and in rabbinic literature. At the University of Minnesota, I have department affiliations with the Center for Jewish Studies and the Program in Religious Studies and am also an affiliated faculty member of the Law School.

9Nicodemus said to him, x “How can these things be?” 10Jesus answered him, “Are you the teacher of Israel y and yet you do not understand these things? 11Truly, truly, I say to you, z we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen, but z you [6] do not receive our testimony. 12If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?

Aaron’s Blessing 22The LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 23“Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, Thus  zyou shall bless the people of Israel: you shall say to them, 24 The LORD  abless you and  bkeep you; 25 the LORD  cmake his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; 26 the LORD  dlift up his countenance [3] upon you and give you peace. 27 e“So shall they put my name upon the people of Israel, and I will bless them.

Foolishly, the people continue to seek a military alliance and a political solution. The people in captivity may not be too different from people today. If people in contemporary society spent as much time praying for God's mercy as they did watching television and listening to political rants, society might be more stable. Busyness, noise, and distrust abound. But, the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel said, "In returning and rest shall you be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength" (Isaiah 30:15). Do you rest in the Lord? Do you spend quiet time with Him? Is your strength found in trusting in the Lord or in others? "Therefore, the Lord waits to be gracious to you; therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him (Isaiah 30:18)." Take some time to wait on God.

Blessed are you, O LORD, the God of Israel our father, forever and ever. 11 aYours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom, O LORD, and you are exalted as head above all. 12 bBoth riches and honor come from you, and you rule over all.  cIn your hand are power and might, and in your hand it is to make great and to give strength to

But the Catholic Church had another agenda for the Black (Israelite) people living in Africa.  They had to change what the natives in Africa already knew about the Old Testament and then add the New Testaments teachings, but with a “White Supremacy” Europeanized twist.  The first thing they had to do was establish the “Whiteness” of the Bible starting with Adam, Eve, Abraham, Jacob, the Children of Israel all the way down to Yeshua Mashiach (Jesus Christ).  They had to do away with the Sabbath and force the slaves to forget their laws.  They had to explain the Black Negro slaves’ role in the bible as “Cursed Canaanites”.   The “Gentile” Europeans (Greeks, Romans etc.) had to write and insert themselves into the Bible using the Apocrypha Books with the mysterious appearance of the White Greek Jewish Maccabean family.   Many of the Blacks in Africa bought this lie and continued to teach this to their children generation after generation. 

The Bible is written for us (i.e., we are supposed to benefit from its divine message as we interact with our cultural river), but it is not written to us (not in our language or against our culture). The message transcends culture, but it is given in a form that is fully ensconced in the ancient cultural river of Israel. This message may well give us meaningful information as we think about our cultural river, but it does not address the specifics of our cultural river.

Studying the Bible and trying to make sense of it in our own lives has been called "thinking God's thoughts after him." The Bible is unique among books because it is written from God's point of view. Let's pause over that for a moment, because it is a staggering claim. That claim could not be made if it were not for one conviction: that God has truly revealed himselfin his Word. If it is true, then the Bible - despite the assertions of a great many textual critics and historians of religion - is written not from the point of view of North or South, Israel or Egypt, Jew or Gentile, but from God's point of view. And God knows what he is doing with his right hand and what he is doing with his left. We don't, but he does. And it is God's right hand that does his proper work, his ultimate work. His left hand is doing his penultimate work, his alien work, the work of judgment that will finally be taken up into his saving work, the work of his right hand.

32“Likewise, when a foreigner, who is not of your people Israel, comes from a far country for the sake of your great name and your mighty hand and your outstretched arm, when he comes and prays toward this house, 33hear from heaven your dwelling place and do according to all for which the foreigner calls to you, in order that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you, as do your people Israel, and that they may know that this house  kthat I have built is called by your name.

What a revolution! In less than a century the persecuted church had become a persecuting church. Its enemies, the “heretics” (those who “selected” from the totality of the Catholic faith), were now also the enemies of the empire and were punished accordingly. For the first time now Christians killed other Christians because of differences in their views of the faith. This is what happened in Trier in 385: despite many objections, the ascetic and enthusiastic Spanish lay preacher Priscillian was executed for heresy together with six companions. People soon became quite accustomed to this idea. Above all the Jews came under pressure. The proud Roman Hellenistic state church hardly remembered its own Jewish roots anymore. A specifically Christian ecclesiastical anti-Judaism developed out of the pagan state anti-Judaism that already existed. There were many reasons for this: the breaking off of conversations between the church and the synagogue and mutual isolation; the church’s exclusive claim to the Hebrew Bible; the crucifixion of Jesus, which was now generally attributed to the Jews; the dispersion of Israel, which was seen as God’s just curse on a damned people who were alleged to have broken the covenant with God . . . Almost exactly a century after Constantine’s death, by special state-church laws under Theodosius II, Judaism was removed from the sacral sphere, to which one had access only through the sacraments (that is, through baptism). The first repressive measures

I don’t know how I didn’t see it for so many years of Bible reading, but I didn’t.  Paul didn’t teach the Gentiles not to follow the law, he didn’t teach people not to have their sons circumcised (in fact he himself had Timothy circumcised in Acts 16:3).  And Paul himself kept the law.  Otherwise, James would have been telling Paul to lie about what he was doing.   So we traded Christmas for Sukkot, the true birth of Messiah during the Feast of Tabernacles, which is a shadow picture of Him coming back to reign for a thousand years.  When we keep that feast, we are making a declaration that we believe He was, is, and is coming.  We keep Yom Kippur, which is a declaration that we believe that Yeshua is the salvation of the nation of Israel as a whole, that “all Israel shall be saved.”  We keep Yom Teruah, the day of Trumpets, which occurs on “the day and hour that no man knows” at the sighting of the first sliver of the new moon during the 7th biblical month of Tishri.  We traded Pentecost for Shavuot, the prophetic shadow picture of the spirit being poured out on the assembly, as we see in the book of Acts,  just as the law was given at Mt Sinai to the assembly, which according to Stephen was the true birth of the church (Acts 7:38) – not in Jerusalem, but at Sinai. We also traded Easter for Passover, the shadow picture of Messiah coming to die to restore us to right standing with God, in order to obey Him when He said, “from now on, do this in remembrance of Me.”  We traded Resurrection Sunday for First Fruits, the feast which served as a shadow of Messiah rising up out of the earth and ascending to be presented as a holy offering to the Father.  In Leviticus 23, these are called the Feasts of the LORD, and were to be celebrated by His people Israel forever, not just the Jews, but all those who are in covenant with Him. Just like at Mt Sinai, the descendants of Jacob plus the mixed multitude who came out of Egypt.    We learned from I John 3:4 that sin is defined as transgression of the law.  I John 1:10 says that if we claim we do not sin we are liars, so sin still exists, and that was written long after the death of the other apostles, including Paul.  I read what Peter said about Paul in 2 Peter 3:15-16 – that his writings were hard to understand and easily twisted.  And I began to see that Peter was right because the more I understood what everyone besides Paul was saying, the more I realized that the only way I could justify what I had been doing was with Paul’s writings.  I couldn’t use Yeshua (Jesus), Moses, John, Peter or any of the others to back up any of the doctrines I was taught – I had to ignore Yeshua almost entirely, or take Him out of context.  I decided that Yeshua, and not Paul, died for me, so I had to

If America, for instance, used the Bible to shape its warfare policy, that policy would look like this. Enlistment would be by volunteer only (which it is), and the military would not be funded by taxation. America would not stockpile superior weapons—no tanks, drones, F-22s, and of course no nuclear weapons—and it would make sure its victories were determined by God’s miraculous intervention, not by military might. Rather than outnumbering the enemy, America would deliberately fight outmanned and under-gunned. Perhaps soldiers would use muskets, or maybe just swords. There would be no training, no boot camp, no preparation other than fasting, praying, and singing worship songs. If America really is the “new Israel,” God’s holy nation as some believe, then it needs to take its cue from God and His inspired manual for military tactics. But as it stands, many Christians will be content to cut and paste selected verses that align with America’s worldview to give the military some religious backing. Some call this bad hermeneutics; others call it syncretism. The Israelite prophets called it idolatry.

PSALM 121 I  vlift up my eyes to  wthe hills. From where does my help come? 2  xMy help comes from the LORD, who  ymade heaven and earth. 3 He will not  zlet your foot be moved; he who  akeeps you will not slumber. 4 Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. 5 The LORD is your keeper; the LORD is your  bshade on your  cright hand. 6  dThe sun shall not  estrike you by day, nor the moon by night. 7 The LORD will  akeep you from all evil; he will  akeep your life. 8 The LORD will keep your  fgoing out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore.

4And if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his nearest neighbor shall take according to the number of persons; according to what each can eat you shall make your count for the lamb. 5Your lamb shall be  hwithout blemish, a male a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats, 6and you shall keep it until the  ifourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight. [1] 7“Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the  jtwo doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it.

So, once more, the question is: Does the Bible forbid homosexual behavior? Well, I’ve already said that it does. The Bible is so realistic! You might not expect it to mention a topic like homosexual behavior, but in fact there are six places in the Bible—three in the Old Testament and three in the New Testament—where this issue is directly addressed—not to mention all the passages dealing with marriage and sexuality which have implications for this issue. In all six of these passages homosexual acts are unequivocally condemned. In Leviticus 18.22 it says that it is an abomination for a man to lie with another man as with a woman. In Lev. 20.13 the death penalty is prescribed in Israel for such an act, along with adultery, incest, and bestiality. Now sometimes homosexual advocates make light of these prohibitions by comparing them to prohibitions in the Old Testament against having contact with unclean animals like pigs. Just as Christians today don’t obey all of the Old Testament ceremonial laws, so, they say, we don’t have to obey the prohibitions of homosexual actions. But the problem with this argument is that the New Testament reaffirms the validity of the Old Testament prohibitions of homosexual behavior, as we’ll see below. This shows they were not just part of the ceremonial laws of the Old Testament, which were done away with, but were part of God’s everlasting moral law. Homosexual behavior is in God’s sight a serious sin. The third place where homosexual acts are mentioned in the Old Testament is the horrifying story in Genesis 19 of the attempted gang rape of Lot’s visitors by the men of Sodom, from which our word sodomy derives. God destroyed the city of Sodom because of their wickedness. Now if this weren’t enough, the New Testament also forbids homosexual behavior.

Valentine’s concept of introversion includes traits that contemporary psychology would classify as openness to experience (“thinker, dreamer”), conscientiousness (“idealist”), and neuroticism (“shy individual”). A long line of poets, scientists, and philosophers have also tended to group these traits together. All the way back in Genesis, the earliest book of the Bible, we had cerebral Jacob (a “quiet man dwelling in tents” who later becomes “Israel,” meaning one who wrestles inwardly with God) squaring off in sibling rivalry with his brother, the swashbuckling Esau (a “skillful hunter” and “man of the field”). In classical antiquity, the physicians Hippocrates and Galen famously proposed that our temperaments—and destinies—were a function of our bodily fluids, with extra blood and “yellow bile” making us sanguine or choleric (stable or neurotic extroversion), and an excess of phlegm and “black bile” making us calm or melancholic (stable or neurotic introversion). Aristotle noted that the melancholic temperament was associated with eminence in philosophy, poetry, and the arts (today we might classify this as opennessto experience). The seventeenth-century English poet John Milton wrote Il Penseroso (“The Thinker”) and L’Allegro (“The Merry One”), comparing “the happy person” who frolics in the countryside and revels in the city with “the thoughtful person” who walks meditatively through the nighttime woods and studies in a “lonely Towr.” (Again, today the description of Il Penseroso would apply not only to introversion but also to openness to experience and neuroticism.) The nineteenth-century German philosopher Schopenhauer contrasted “good-spirited” people (energetic, active, and easily bored) with his preferred type, “intelligent people” (sensitive, imaginative, and melancholic). “Mark this well, ye proud men of action!” declared his countryman Heinrich Heine. “Ye are, after all, nothing but unconscious instruments of the men of thought.” Because of this definitional complexity, I originally planned to invent my own terms for these constellations of traits. I decided against this, again for cultural reasons: the words introvert and extrovert have the advantage of being well known and highly evocative. Every time I uttered them at a dinner party or to a seatmate on an airplane, they elicited a torrent of confessions and reflections. For similar reasons, I’ve used the layperson’s spelling of extrovert rather than the extravert one finds throughout the research literature.

Firmly grounded in the divine dream of Israel’s Torah, the Bible’s prophetic vision insists that God demands the fair and equitable sharing of God’s world among all of God’s people. In Israel’s Torah, God says, “The land is mine; with me you are but aliens and tenants” (Lev. 25:23). We are all tenant farmers and resident aliens in a land and on an earth not our own. The prophets speak in continuity with that radical vision of the earth’s divine ownership. They repeatedly proclaim it with two words in poetic parallelism. “The Lord is exalted,” proclaims Isaiah. “He dwells on high; he filled Zion with justice and righteousness” (33:5). “I am the Lord,” announces Jeremiah in the name of God. “I act with steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth, for in these things I delight” (9:24). And those qualities must flow from God to us, from heaven to earth. “Thus says the Lord,” continues Jeremiah. “Act with justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor anyone who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the alien, the orphan, and the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place” (22:3). “Justice and righteousness” is how the Bible, as if in a slogan, summarizes the character and spirit of God the Creator and, therefore, the destiny and future of God’s created earth. It points to distributive justice as the Bible’s radical vision of God. “Ah, you who join house to house, who add field to field,” mourns the prophet Isaiah, “until there is room for no one but you, and you are left to live alone in the midst of the land” (5:8). But that landgrab is against the dream of God and the hope of Israel. Covenant with a God of distributive justice who owns the earth necessarily involves, the prophets insist, the exercise of distributive justice in God’s world and on God’s earth. All God’s people must receive a fair share of God’s earth.

For example, in opposition to the rumor that Jesus was born illegitimate, Matthew and his predecessors found vindication for their faith in Jesus in Isaiah 7:14. There the Lord promises to give Israel a “sign” of the coming of God’s salvation. Apparently Matthew knew the Hebrew Bible in its Greek translation, where he would have read the following: “The Lord himself shall give you a sign: Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son; and shall call his name Immanuel—God with us” (Isaiah 7:14). In the original Hebrew, the passage had read “young woman” (almah), apparently describing an ordinary birth. But the translation of almah into the Greek parthenos (“virgin”), as many of Jesus’ followers read the passage, confirmed their conviction that Jesus’ birth, which unbelievers derided as sordid, actually was a miraculous “sign.”21 Thus Matthew revises Mark’s story by saying that the spirit descended upon Jesus not at his baptism but at the moment of his conception. So, Matthew says, Jesus’ mother “was discovered to have a child in her womb through the holy spirit” (1:18); and God’s angel explains to Joseph that the child “was conceived through the holy spirit.” Jesus’ birth was no scandal, Matthew says, but a miracle—one that precisely fulfills Isaiah’s ancient prophecy.

Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.” 11But Moses said to God,  o“Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?” 12He said,  p“But I will be with you, and this shall be the sign for you, that I have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt,  qyou shall serve God on this mountain.” 13Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” 14God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” [1] And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel:  r‘I AM has sent me to you.

That peculiar feeling—it was only a feeling, you couldn’t describe it as an activity—that we used to call “Church.” The sweet corpsy smell, the rustle of Sunday dresses, the wheeze of the organ and the roaring voices, the spot of light from the hole in the window creeping slowly up the nave. In some way the grown-ups could put it across that this extraordinary performance was necessary. You took it for granted, just as you took the Bible, which you got in big doses in those days. There were texts on every wall and you knew whole chapters of the O.T. by heart. Even now my head’s stuffed full of bits out of the Bible. And the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the Lord. And Asher abode in his breaches. Followed them from Dan until thou come unto Beersheba. Smote him under the fifth rib, so that he died. You never understood it, you didn’t try to or want to, it was just a kind of medicine, a queer-tasting stuff that you had to swallow and knew to be in some way necessary. An extraordinary rigmarole about people with names like Shimei and Nebuchadnezzar and Ahithophel and Hash-badada; people with long stiff garments and Assyrian beards, riding up and down on camels among temples and cedar trees and doing extraordinary things. Sacrificing burnt offerings, walking about in fiery furnaces, getting nailed on crosses, getting swallowed by whales. And all mixed up with the sweet graveyard smell and the serge dresses and the wheeze of the organ.

The Bible is an ancient book and we shouldn’t be surprised to see it act like one. So seeing God portrayed as a violent, tribal warrior is not how God is but how he was understood to be by the ancient Israelites communing with God in their time and place. The biblical writers were storytellers. Writing about the past was never simply about understanding the past for its own sake, but about shaping, molding, and creating the past to speak to the present. “Getting the past right” wasn’t the driving issue. “Who are we now?” was. The Bible presents a variety of points of view about God and what it means to walk in his ways. This stands to reason, since the biblical writers lived at different times, in different places, and wrote for different reasons. In reading the Bible we are watching the spiritual journeys of people long ago. Jesus, like other Jews of the first century, read his Bible creatively, seeking deeper meaning that transcended or simply bypassed the boundaries of the words of scripture. Where Jesus ran afoul of the official interpreters of the Bible of his day was not in his creative handling of the Bible, but in drawing attention to his own authority and status in doing so. A crucified and resurrected messiah was a surprise ending to Israel’s story. To spread the word of this messiah, the earliest Christian writers both respected Israel’s story while also going beyond that story. They transformed it from a story of Israel centered on Torah to a story of humanity centered on Jesus.

Unlike ancient Israel, America is not a covenant nation. God has made no promise to our physical ancestors that guarantees our national status. If Israel had to fulfill the conditions for divine blessing, even though God had covenanted with them as His chosen people, America certainly has no inviolable claim on the blessing of God. As long as unbelief and disobedience to the Word of God color the soul of our nation, we simply cannot expect the blessing of God. Israel didn’t get it in her unbelief. But for those of us who are Christians, the covenant blessings do apply. “If you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise” (Gal. 3:29). All the promises of salvation, mercy, forgiveness of sins, and spiritual prosperity are ours to claim as long as we remain faithful to God. That is why the spiritual state of the church in our nation is the key to the blessing of the nation as a whole. If God is going to bless America, it will not be for the sake of the nation itself. He blesses the nation, and has always done so, for the sake of His people. If we who are called by His name are not fulfilling the conditions for divine blessing, there is no hope whatsoever for the rest of the nation. On the other hand, if the church is fit to receive God’s blessing, the whole nation will be the beneficiary of that, because the Word of God will be proclaimed with power, God will add to His church, and spiritual blessings of all kinds will result. And those are the truest blessings of all.

The Magnificat Words of Our Lady from Luke 1:46-55. MY SOUL doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour, because He hath regarded the humility of His handmaid: for behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed, because He that is mighty hath done great things to me, and holy is His Name. And His mercy is from generation unto generations, to them that fear Him. He hath showed might in His arm: He hath scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart. He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble. He hath filled the hungry with good things, and the rich He hath sent away empty. He hath received Israel His servant, being mindful of His mercy, as He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his seed forever. Amen. The

Blessed be the Lord  hGod of Israel, for he has  ivisited and  jredeemed his people 69 and  khas raised up  la horn of salvation for us min the house of his servant David, 70  nas  ohe spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old, 71  pthat we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us; 72  qto show the mercy promised to our fathers and  rto remember his holy  scovenant, 73  tthe oath that he swore to our father Abraham, to grant us 74 that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve him  uwithout fear, 75  vin holiness and righteousness before him  wall our days. 76 And you, child, will be called  xthe prophet of  ythe Most High; for  zyou will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, 77 to give knowledge of salvation to his people ain the forgiveness of their sins, 78 because of the  btender mercy of our God, whereby cthe sunrise shall dvisit us [8] efrom on high 79 to  fgive light to  gthose who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into  hthe way of  ipeace.

5And David went out  fand was successful wherever Saul sent him, so that Saul set him over the men of war. And this was good in the sight of all the people and also in the sight of Saul’s servants. Saul’s Jealousy of David 6As they were coming home, when David returned from striking down the Philistine,  gthe women came out of all the cities of Israel, singing and dancing, to meet King Saul, with tambourines, with songs of joy, and with musical instruments. [1] 7And the women  hsang to one another as they celebrated, i“Saul has struck down his thousands, and David his ten thousands.” 8And Saul was very angry, and this saying displeased him. He said, “They have ascribed to David ten thousands, and to me they have ascribed thousands, and what more can he have but  jthe kingdom?” 9And Saul eyed David from that day on. 10The next day  ka harmful spirit from God rushed upon Saul, and  lhe raved within his house while David was  mplaying the lyre, as he did day by day.  nSaul had his spear in his hand. 11And Saul  ohurled the spear, for he thought, “I will pin David to the wall.” But David evaded him twice. 12

27And they told him, “We came to the land to which you sent us. It  xflows with milk and honey,  yand this is its fruit. 28 zHowever, the people who dwell in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large. And besides, we saw the descendants of Anak there. 29 aThe Amalekites dwell in the land of the Negeb. The Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites dwell in the hill country.  bAnd the Canaanites dwell by the sea, and along the Jordan.” 30But  cCaleb quieted the people before Moses and said, “Let us go up at once and occupy it, for we are well able to overcome it.” 31 dThen the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we are.” 32So  ethey brought to the people of Israel a bad report of the land that they had spied out, saying, “The land, through which we have gone to spy it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants, and  fall the people that we saw in it are of great height. 33And there we saw the  gNephilim (the sons of Anak, who come from the  gNephilim), and we seemed to ourselves  hlike grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.

sHe waited seven days, the time appointed by Samuel. But Samuel did not come to Gilgal, and the people were scattering from him. 9So Saul said, “Bring the burnt offering here to me, and the peace offerings.” And he offered the burnt offering. 10As soon as he had finished offering the burnt offering, behold, Samuel came. And Saul went out to meet him and greet him. 11Samuel said, “What have you done?” And Saul said, “When I saw that the people were scattering from me, and that you did not come within the days appointed, and that the Philistines had mustered at Michmash, 12I said, ‘Now the Philistines will come down against me at Gilgal, and I have not sought the favor of the LORD.’ So I forced myself, and offered the burnt offering.” 13And Samuel said to Saul,  t“You have done foolishly.  uYou have not kept the command of the LORD your God, with which he commanded you. For then the LORD would have established your kingdom over Israel forever. 14But now  vyour kingdom shall not continue. The LORD has sought out a man  wafter his own heart, and the LORD has commanded him to be prince [2] over his people, because you have not kept what the LORD commanded you.

Moses my servant is dead. Now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people, into the land that I am giving to them, to the people of Israel. 3 cEvery place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given to you, just as I promised to Moses. 4 dFrom the wilderness and this Lebanon as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites to the Great Sea toward the going down of the sun shall be your territory. 5 eNo man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Just  fas I was with Moses, so  gI will be with you.  hI will not leave you or forsake you. 6 iBe strong and courageous, for you shall cause this people to inherit the land that I swore to their fathers to give them. 7Only be strong and  jvery courageous, being careful to do according to all the law  kthat Moses my servant commanded you.  lDo not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success [1] wherever you go. 8This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but  myou shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. 9Have I not commanded you?  nBe strong and courageous.  oDo not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.

JOSHUA 1 After the death of Moses the  aservant of the LORD, the LORD said to Joshua the son of Nun, Moses’  bassistant, 2“Moses my servant is dead. Now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people, into the land that I am giving to them, to the people of Israel. 3 cEvery place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given to you, just as I promised to Moses. 4 dFrom the wilderness and this Lebanon as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites to the Great Sea toward the going down of the sun shall be your territory. 5 eNo man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Just  fas I was with Moses, so  gI will be with you.  hI will not leave you or forsake you. 6 iBe strong and courageous, for you shall cause this people to inherit the land that I swore to their fathers to give them. 7Only be strong and  jvery courageous, being careful to do according to all the law  kthat Moses my servant commanded you.  lDo not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success [1] wherever you go. 8This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but  myou shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. 9Have I not commanded you?  nBe strong and courageous.  oDo not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.

David's Song of Thanks     8  f Oh give thanks to the LORD;  g call upon his name;          h make known his deeds among the peoples!     9 Sing to him, sing praises to him;         tell of all his wondrous works!     10 Glory in his holy name;         let the hearts of those who seek the LORD rejoice!     11  i Seek the LORD and his strength;         seek his presence continually!     12  j Remember the wondrous works that he has done,          k his miracles and the judgments he uttered,     13 O offspring of Israel his servant,         children of Jacob, his chosen ones!     14 He is the LORD our God;          l his judgments are in all the earth.     15 Remember his covenant forever,         the word that he commanded, for a thousand generations,     16 the covenant  m that he made with Abraham,         his sworn promise to Isaac,     17 which  n he confirmed to Jacob as a statute,         to Israel as an everlasting covenant,     18 saying,  o “To you I will give the land of Canaan,         as your portion for an inheritance.”     19 When you were  p few in number,         of little account, and  q sojourners in it,     20 wandering from nation to nation,         from one kingdom to another people,     21 he allowed no one to oppress them;         he  r rebuked kings on their account,     22 saying, “Touch not my anointed ones,         do my  s prophets no harm!”     23  t Sing to the LORD, all the earth!         Tell of his salvation from day to day.     24 Declare his glory among the nations,         his marvelous works among all the peoples!     25 For  u great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised,         and he is to be feared  v above all gods.     26 For all the gods of the peoples are worthless idols,          w but the LORD made the heavens.     27 Splendor and majesty are before him;         strength and joy are in his place.     28 Ascribe to the LORD, O families of the peoples,          x ascribe to the LORD glory and strength!     29 Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name;         bring an offering and come before him!      y Worship the LORD in the splendor of holiness; [2]         30 tremble before him, all the earth;         yes, the world is established; it shall never be moved.     31  z Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice,         and let them say among the nations,  a “The LORD reigns!”     32  b Let the sea roar, and all that fills it;         let the field exult, and everything in it!     33 Then shall the trees of the forest sing for joy         before the LORD, for he comes to judge the earth.     34 Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good;         for his steadfast love endures forever! 35 c Say also:     “Save us, O God of our salvation,         and gather and deliver us from among the nations,     that we may give thanks to your holy name         and glory in your praise.     36  d Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel,         from everlasting to everlasting!”  e Then all the people said, “Amen!” and praised the LORD.

Jesus himself remains an enigma. There have been interesting attempts to uncover the figure of the ‘historical’ Jesus, a project that has become something of a scholarly industry. But the fact remains that the only Jesus we really know is the Jesus described in the New Testament, which was not interested in scientifically objective history. There are no other contemporary accounts of his mission and death. We cannot even be certain why he was crucified. The gospel accounts indicate that he was thought to be the king of the Jews. He was said to have predicted the imminent arrival of the kingdom of heaven, but also made it clear that it was not of this world. In the literature of the Late Second Temple period, there had been hints that a few people were expecting a righteous king of the House of David to establish an eternal kingdom, and this idea seems to have become more popular during the tense years leading up to the war. Josephus, Tacitus and Suetonius all note the importance of revolutionary religiosity, both before and after the rebellion.2 There was now keen expectation in some circles of a meshiah (in Greek, christos), an ‘anointed’ king of the House of David, who would redeem Israel. We do not know whether Jesus claimed to be this messiah – the gospels are ambiguous on this point.3 Other people rather than Jesus himself may have made this claim on his behalf.4 But after his death some of his followers had seen him in visions that convinced them that he had been raised from the tomb – an event that heralded the general resurrection of all the righteous when God would inaugurate his rule on earth.5 Jesus and his disciples came from Galilee in northern Palestine. After his death they moved to Jerusalem, probably to be on hand when the kingdom arrived, since all the prophecies declared that the temple would be the pivot of the new world order.6 The leaders of their movement were known as ‘the Twelve’: in the kingdom, they would rule the twelve tribes of the reconstituted Israel.7 The members of the Jesus movement worshipped together every day in the temple,8 but they also met for communal meals, in which they affirmed their faith in the kingdom’s imminent arrival.9 They continued to live as devout, orthodox Jews. Like the Essenes, they had no private property, shared their goods equally, and dedicated their lives to the last days.10 It seems that Jesus had recommended voluntary poverty and special care for the poor; that loyalty to the group was to be valued more than family ties; and that evil should be met with non-violence and love.11 Christians should pay their taxes, respect the Roman authorities, and must not even contemplate armed struggle.12 Jesus’s followers continued to revere the Torah,13 keep the Sabbath,14 and the observance of the dietary laws was a matter of extreme importance to them.15 Like the great Pharisee Hillel, Jesus’s older contemporary, they taught a version of the Golden Rule, which they believed to be the bedrock of the Jewish faith: ‘So always treat others as you would like them to treat you; that is the message of the Law and the Prophets.

I COULD HAVE reminded the Arab Knesset member of other historical facts once known to many schoolchildren but which have since been forgotten—or distorted by anti-Israel propaganda. The history of the Jewish people spans almost four millennia. The first thousand years or so are covered in the Bible, and are attested to by archaeology and the historical records of other, contemporaneous peoples. As the centuries progress, the mists of time and the myths gradually evaporate and the unfolding events come into sharp historical focus. Reading the Bible from second grade on, I could easily imagine Abraham and Sarah on their long trek from Ur of the Chaldeans to the land of Canaan almost four thousand years ago. Abraham envisions one God, unseen but present everywhere. He buys a burial cave in Hebron and bequeaths the new land to his progeny. The descendants of Abraham’s grandson Jacob are enslaved in Egypt for centuries, until Moses takes them out of bondage. He leads them for forty years in the wilderness to the Promised Land, giving the Children of Israel the Ten Commandments and a moral code that would change the world. The indomitable Joshua conquers the land, wily David establishes his kingdom in Jerusalem, and wise Solomon builds his Temple there, only to have his sons split the realm into two. The northern kingdom, Israel, is destroyed, its ten tribes lost to history. The southern kingdom, Judea, is conquered and Solomon’s Temple is destroyed by the Babylonians, by whose rivers the exiled Judeans weep as they remember Zion. They rejoice when in 537 BCE they are reinstated in their homeland by Cyrus of Persia, who lets them rebuild their destroyed Temple. The Persian rulers are replaced by Alexander the Great, one of whose heirs seeks to eradicate the Jewish religion. This sparks a rebellion led by the brave Maccabees, and the independent Jewish state they establish lasts for eighty years. It is overtaken by the rising power Rome which initially rules through proxies, the most notable of whom is Herod the Great. Herod refurbishes the Jerusalem Temple as one of the great wonders of the ancient world. In its bustling courtyard a Jewish rabbi from the Galilee, Jesus of Nazareth, overturns the tables of the money changers, setting off a chain of events culminating in his eventual crucifixion and the beginning of the Judeo-Christian tradition. When the Jews rebel against Roman rule, Rome destroys Jerusalem and Herod’s Temple in 70 CE. Masada, the last rebel stronghold, falls three years later. Despite the devastation, sixty-two years later the Jews rebel again under the fearless Bar Kokhba, only to be crushed even more brutally. The Roman emperor Hadrian bars the Jews from Jerusalem and renames the country Palestina, after the Grecian Philistines, who have long disappeared.