Jews In The Holocaust

[Dant01]

.
International Holocaust Memorial Day 2022 falls on Thursday, January 27.

Were I a Jew, I would not want the Holocaust remembered because it raises too
many painful questions about the so-called chosen people's popularity with God.

One has to ask, in point of fact there has been more than one rabbi ponder: How is
it that so many of Moses' people were caught up in the Holocaust? Where was God
during all that? Why didn't He step in and do something to protect His chosen
people?
_

 

[puddleglum]

The Bible answers your questions. The Jews rejected Jesus as their king and are now being judged for that act. Yet God is still protecting them from being completely destroyed and a time is coming when they will receive their Messiah.

 

[Dant01]

.
To find an answer to the OP's question one need look no further than Ex 34:6-7,
Lev 26:3-38, Deut 27:15-26, and Deut 28:1-69. In other words: the Jews, as a
people, brought it on themselves in accordance with the covenant that their
ancestors agreed upon with God per Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and
Deuteronomy.

A covenant is essentially a contract. Well; if God were to fail to fulfill His end of the
agreement; then He would be in breach of contract; which is not only unethical, but
also uncivil. Long story short: the covenant requires Him to lower the boom on His
people for failure to honor their end of the agreement; and you can see the extent
of the damage for yourself in the scripture references in the above paragraph.

There are numerous blessings that God is contractually obligated to fulfill too; so
the covenant isn't all one-sided; viz: compliance with the covenant accrues
blessings; while breaching the covenant accrues curses.

Anybody who has read the Old Testament can attest that God came down on His
own people quite often for breaching the covenant; and just as often quite cruelly.
The curses that Lev 26:3-38, Deut 27:15-26, and Deut 28:1-69 list are very
disturbing; and when examining them, one cannot help but realize they're reading
a synopsis of the Jews' history.
_

 

[En Hakkore]

.
International Holocaust Memorial Day 2022 falls on Thursday, January 27.

Were I a Jew, I would not want the Holocaust remembered because it raises too
many painful questions about the so-called chosen people's popularity with God.

One has to ask, in point of fact there has been more than one rabbi ponder: How is
it that so many of Moses' people were caught up in the Holocaust? Where was God
during all that? Why didn't He step in and do something to protect His chosen
people?
_

The Bible answers your questions. The Jews rejected Jesus as their king and are now being judged for that act. Yet God is still protecting them from being completely destroyed and a time is coming when they will receive their Messiah.

It is unfortunate that 2022 is rolling in like last year did with more displays of anti-Judaism around CARM. I posted the below last January here in response to accusations that the Jews killed Jesus, but it is equally applicable to the insidious comments above that twentieth-century Jews got what they deserved in the Holocaust for a choice their ancient ancestors reputedly made. The summary paragraph and works cited will follow in a second post due to character limitation along with a proper call to sorrow and remembrance...

Kind regards,
Jonathan

**********

Before I left for my Christmas sabbatical there were a number of comments to the effect that Jews killed Jesus appearing in a certain thread and I’ve returned to find these unfortunate assertions continuing there. Support for these accusations has been drawn from the New Testament, as if its four gospels provide incontrovertible proof of this ‘fact’. Not only do such readings of sacred Christian texts rely on naïve historical method, but they paradoxically transmit while denying the anti-Jewish sentiments within these books that have generated legacies of violence against Jews down through the centuries. The purpose of this thread is to raise awareness of these interrelated problems and to discuss them.

I. The Execution of Jesus the Jew and Historical Method
“The one thing we know for sure about the historical Jesus is that he died, and that he died in the most gruesome, cruel and shameful of ways – on a Roman cross” (Bond 152). The specifics of that ignoble death cannot be stitched together through an uncritical reading and summary of the four canonical gospels. These books (among others) are historical sources that must be subjected to the same critical scrutiny as any other source from antiquity (Powell 4-5). The conclusion of historians who apply this method is that Jesus was a Jew (Bond 80) executed by the Romans “as a political agitator with some kind of messianic pretensions” (ibid 162). As for the accounts in the New Testament, they are not unbiased or dispassionate narratives, but stories “shaped by later Christian apologetic concerns” (Fredriksen 255).

II. Mark and the Opposition of Priestly Authorities
Mark, the first of the New Testament gospels to be composed, was written by an outsider to Judaism and for non-Jews (Tomson 104-5). Before any involvement of Romans is narrated, the author claims a number of groups plotted to kill Jesus: Pharisees and Herodians (3:6), chief priests and scribes (11:18; 14:1) – it is the latter pairing, together with elders (14:43, 53; 15:1), who are the ones to seize Jesus and turn him over to Pilate in the narrative. The chief priests are said to have stirred up the crowd to demand the release of a seditious murderer named Barabbas (15:7, 11) and it is this same crowd that clamors for Jesus’ crucifixion (15:12-14). Chief priests, joined again by scribes, mock Jesus as he hangs on the cross (15:31) and these priestly authorities were the most likely opponents of the historical Jesus (Sloyan 34). Mark implicates both priestly and Roman authorities in Jesus’ death (ibid 53), the latter specified as the executioners (15:16-24). The manipulated crowd is less culpable, but potential anti-Jewish readings of the gospel (Levine 83) were realized in subsequent compositions.

III. Matthew, Pharisees and Condemnation of the People
Matthew used Mark as one of his sources (Tomson 106) and his editorial changes are informative. While Mark’s “parable” of the wicked tenants refers allegorically to the trio of chief priests, scribes and elders (11:27; 12:1-12), Matthew revises this to the chief priests and Pharisees (21:33-46). This same pair appears together after the burial in Matthew’s unique addition about soldiers sent to guard the tomb (27:62). Not only are the Pharisees now subtly implicated in Jesus’ death, but the crowds – influenced by both chief priests and elders (27:20) – become “all the people” who, in response to Pilate’s claim and gesture to absolve himself, transfer any guilt for the shedding of innocent blood on themselves and their children (27:24-25); this implies they do not think he is innocent of wrongdoing and have nothing to fear, which is a point often overlooked (Sloyan 64). Insofar as the author presents Jesus as innocent, however, the curse is implicitly enacted when the Romans crucify him (27:26-35) and then “fulfilled” in the destruction of Jerusalem some forty years later (Levine 92). This “blood guilt” verse has nonetheless been interpreted by many Christians as perpetually binding and “has caused more Jewish suffering than any other in the Christian Testament” (ibid 91).

IV. John and “Jews” as Murderers of Jesus
The fourth gospel in canonical order represents a further development of the trajectory detected between II and III above. Despite its distinctive features, its author seems aware of earlier gospel narratives (Tomson 108) and Matthew’s unlikely coalition between chief priests and Pharisees is reinforced in John (7:32, 45; 11:47, 57; 18:3); these two groups, alone or together, now blur (Reinhartz 220) into the amorphous “Jews” (7:32>35; 8:13>22; 9:13>18; 9:40>10:19; 19:6>7). In place of a nameless crowd, John narrates the “Jews” as the ones who demand Barabbas’ release and Jesus’ crucifixion (18:38-40; 19:12-15). Earlier, the Johannine Jesus referred to the devil as the father of these “Jews” and that they wish to carry out his murderous desires (8:31-44). Indeed, the “Jews” themselves are the implicit agents of crucifying Jesus (19:16-18) and the involvement of soldiers (presumably Roman) in the deed is an afterthought of the narrator (19:23). The author, through the voice of Jesus, indicts the “Jews” of a greater sin than Pilate committed (19:11). In terms of the New Testament gospels, John alone reflects an irrevocable break between Jews and Christians (Tomson 110) and its anti-Jewish rhetoric (Reinhartz 225) is arguably the most overt.

V. Luke and Early Christian Anti-Judaism
I take the position that Luke knows not only Mark (Tomson 111) but Matthew and John, as well (Franklin; Shellard; cf. 1:1); he attempts, with little success, to defuse the anti-Judaism in his sources. Luke’s position on Judaism is, generally speaking, a positive one. He begins with stories of Jewish piety (chs 1-2) and his treatment of Pharisees is less antagonistic than that of his predecessors (Tomson 112); the only role they play in a plot to kill Jesus is to warn him of it (13:31). The consistent culprits across the pertinent references (19:47; 20:19; 22:2, 52, 66; 23:1, 4, 10, 13; 24:20) are the chief priests, though they are joined by rulers and the people at the critical point in the proceedings when Jesus’ crucifixion is demanded (23:13, 21, 23). They are collectively the implied agents of the crucifixion (23:24-26, 33) with soldiers (presumably Roman) introduced only among those mocking Jesus (23:35-36). Luke, however, includes Jesus’ petition for the forgiveness of his (Jewish) executioners because they have acted out of ignorance (23:34; cf. Acts 3:17). Later Christians were not so congenial and, wishing the Jews as a whole to remain under condemnation, excised this plea of forgiveness from the cross in the process of copying the text of Luke (Ehrman 111-13).

VI. Conclusion
In sections II through V above I have examined the four New Testament gospels for their portrayals of Jesus’ execution, looking for what their respective authors asserted about Jewish involvement. All were unanimous that there was some, but they disagreed in terms of the extent and the implications. That the temple aristocracy played some role emerges as a reliable datum to supplement the historical claim in section I that Jesus was executed by the Romans (Sloyan 107). Analysis revealed a development (Tomson 102) of increased Jewish involvement from primarily the chief priests (Mark) to the Pharisees (Matthew and John) to all the people present in Jerusalem for Passover (John and Luke). While Matthew saw the people’s fault as symbolic and divine judgment executed on them and their children at the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE, their guilt is open-ended in John; Luke counters with clemency, but the trajectory of Matthew and John continued unabated and its legacy has been a tragic and bloody one. The New Testament gospels do not present a uniform perspective on the subject (Tomson 103) and thus to read these texts as presenting a harmonious and straightforward “history” is methodologically flawed.

 

[En Hakkore]

The summary paragraph and works cited will follow in a second post due to character limitation along with a proper call to sorrow and remembrance...

While I do not think a majority of Christians today either read the New Testament gospels as anti-Jewish documents or consciously espouse anti-Jewish sentiments, it is clear from the other thread that a general denial of these aspects of the texts enables their subtle transmission and expressions across generations with the ever-present potential of erupting into violence. The problem of anti-Judaism thus persists (Levine 98) and only by acknowledging and confronting the problem will it be possible to solve it and avoid continuing violence.

Works Cited:
Bond, Helen K. The Historical Jesus: A Guide for the Perplexed. T&T Clark, 2012.
Ehrman, Bart D. “The Text of the Gospels at the End of the Second Century” in Codex Bezae: Studies from the Lunel Colloquium, June 1994, ed. D.C. Parker and C.-B. Amphoux. New Testament Tools and Studies 22. E.J. Brill, 1996.
Franklin, Eric. Luke: Interpreter of Paul, Critic of Matthew. Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement Series 92. Sheffield Academic Press, 1994.
Fredriksen, Paula. Jesus of Nazareth: King of the Jews. Vintage Books, 1999.
Levine, Amy-Jill. “Matthew, Mark, and Luke: Good News or Bad?” in Jesus, Judaism, and Christian Anti-Judaism: Reading the New Testament after the Holocaust, ed. Paula Fredriksen and Adele Reinhartz. WJK Press, 2002.
Powell, Mark Allan. Jesus as a Figure in History: How Modern Historians View the Man from Galilee. Second Edition. WJK Press, 2013.
Reinhartz, Adele. “’Jews’ and Jews in the Fourth Gospel” in Anti-Judaism and the Fourth Gospel, ed. R. Bieringer et al. WJK Press, 2001.
Shellard, Barbara. New Light on Luke: Its Purpose, Sources and Literary Context. Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement Series 215. Sheffield Academic Press, 2002.
Sloyan, Gerard S. Jesus on Trial: A Study of the Gospels. Second Edition. Fortress Press, 2006.
Tomson, Peter J. Presumed Guilty: How the Jews Were Blamed for the Death of Jesus. Fortress Press, 2005.

 

[Dant01]

.
The status of God's chosen people has its advantages; but also its disadvantages;
viz: the status of God's chosen people is not something to be proud of; but rather,
something to be afraid of because the covenant's God is not the kind of judge
influenced by favoritism. No; if anything, Moses' people run the risk of being judged
even more severely than Gentiles because of their privileged position and the
insider's knowledge they were given of His likes and dislikes.

• Amos 3:1-2 . . Hear this word that Yhvh has spoken against you, O children of
Israel, against the whole family which I brought up from the land of Egypt, saying:
You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will punish you
for all your iniquities. (cf. Luke 12:42-48)

This is an ancient principle illustrated not only in the Jews' history, but also taught
by Christianity.

• Luke 12:47-48 . .That servant who knows his master's will and does not get
ready or does not do what his master wants will be beaten with many blows. But
the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten
with few blows. From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded;
and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be required.
_

 

[Dant01]

.
FAQ: Do you mean to say there are actually Christians out there believing it was
the Jews' own fault that they were rounded up like cattle, stripped of their dignity,
their property, their wealth, and their possessions, enslaved, starved, deprived of
basic human necessities, tortured, subjected to Frankenstein medical experiments,
worked to death, and gassed, shot, and incinerated by the millions?

A: If the covenant that Moses' people agreed upon with God is binding; then yes;
the Jews, as a corporate people, are definitely at fault for what happened to them.

The covenant obligates God to protect them from misfortune when they're
compliant with it; but the same time the covenant also obligates Him to lower the
boom on them when they're non compliant. There's really no mystery to this: it's all
spelled out in black and white at Ex 34:6-7, Lev 26:14-38, Deut 27:15-26, and
Deut 28:15-69. (cf. Deut 29:14-28)

If there is only one good thing to come out of the Holocaust is that it proves to the
world that God is reliable, viz: He can be trusted to honor His commitments.
_

 

[En Hakkore]

.
FAQ: Do you mean to say there are actually Christians out there believing it was
the Jews' own fault that they were rounded up like cattle, stripped of their dignity,
their property, their wealth, and their possessions, enslaved, starved, deprived of
basic human necessities, tortured, subjected to Frankenstein medical experiments,
worked to death, and gassed, shot, and incinerated by the millions?

A: If the covenant that Moses' people agreed upon with God is binding; then yes;
the Jews, as a corporate people, are definitely at fault for what happened to them.

The covenant obligates God to protect them from misfortune when they're
compliant with it; but the same time the covenant also obligates Him to lower the
boom on them when they're non compliant. There's really no mystery to this: it's all
spelled out in black and white at Ex 34:6-7, Lev 26:14-38, Deut 27:15-26, and
Deut 28:15-69. (cf. Deut 29:14-28)

If there is only one good thing to come out of the Holocaust is that it proves to the
world that God is reliable, viz: He can be trusted to honor His commitments.
_

I see your penchant for naïve soliloquies continues... wholly incapable of engaging with my critique and more sophisticated approaches to the biblical text. When you classify the enslavement, torture and murder of children as a "good thing" there is clearly something wrong with your hermeneutic... among other things.

Kind regards,
Jonathan

 

[Dant01]

.
FAQ: How can it possibly be that God would cause an event whose collateral
damage led to the deaths of all those other people too besides the Jews?

A: We're not saying God engineered the Holocaust. All we're saying is: He stood by
and did nothing to prevent a number of His own people being taken in it. In other
words: the essential thing that Moses' people brought upon themselves was the
loss of God's providence. I think God took advantage of Hitler's agenda as an
opportunity; viz: a convenient means of throwing His people to the wolves like He
did in the Old Testament with Nebuchadnezzar.

NOTE: It's not all that unusual for Christians to lose out on God's providence too;
and thus end up in hot water themselves.

• 1John 1:6 . . If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the
darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.
_

 

[puddleglum]

There is one point that is often overlooked in considering disasters such as the Holocaust or lesser disasters such as the attack on 9/11. Every individual has to die and face God's judgment. It won't make any difference to him how he died, whether in a gas chamber, crushed in a collapsing building, or of natural causes at an old age. What will matter is whether he has prepared for his judgment by repenting of his sins and placing his faith in Jesus Christ.

If the Holocaust had not happened all of its victims would eventually have died anyway. The prospect of dying motivated some inmates in the death camps to think seriously about their eternal destinies and come to faith in Jesus Christ. For an account of someone who shared the gospel with death camp inmates I recommend that you read The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom.

 

[Dant01]

.
FAQ: Supposing there is no one to blame for the loss of Jewish life in the Holocaust
but the Jews themselves? If so; then how many of them would've had to breach the
covenant to put them all in so much danger?

A: It's surprising how few Jews it takes to ruin it for all the rest. For example the
incident at Ai in the 7th chapter of Joshua. The insubordination of one insignificant
Jewish man-- just one --caused God to stop assisting Joshua's army in battle. As a
result, 36 men were needlessly killed in action; and ultimately capital punishment
was inflicted upon not only the insubordinate man himself, but also his sons and his
daughters. God's accusation? "Israel has sinned" (Josh 7:11)

See that? God didn't accuse the perpetrator; no; He accused Israel. In other words:
in that particular incident; the sin of just one Jew under Joshua's command became
the sin of all the Jews under his command; viz: the whole kit and caboodle-- lock,
stock, and barrel; and Israel could proceed no further with its conquest of Canaan
until the guilty man was executed.

And then there's the case where Saul alone caused a three-year famine, and
another case where David's conduct cost the lives of 70,000.

Another possibility is that the generation caught by the Holocaust, was caught not
only due to their own breaches of the covenant, but also due to breaches
committed by generations preceding them.

• Ex 34:6-7 . . Then Yhvh passed by in front of Moses and proclaimed: Yhvh, Yhvh
God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in loving-kindness
and truth; who keeps loving-kindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity,
transgression and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished: visiting
the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and
fourth generations.

That statement is included in the covenant, so God is morally obligated to honor it
lest He be found in breach of contract. But it just goes to show that sins have a way
of snow-balling from one generation to the next till the snowball is so big that it
triggers an act of God; which is disturbing because it tells me that it's not
impossible that the Jews of today are endangering the Jews of tomorrow by their
current breaches of the covenant-- breaches that according to Ex 34:6-7, God will
by no means sweep under the rug.

Wouldn't it be awful if the next Holocaust took place right inside the Jews' own
homeland? I sincerely believe that Saddam Hussein's SCUDS were a wake-up call.
Next time; incoming missiles just may contain nuclear warheads instead of high
explosives; and many among Jacob's people will be poisoned to death with
radiation instead of pesticide.

(According to stats I found online, the State of Israel has experienced 1,380,053
cases of Covid 19 resulting in 8,243 deaths; and a very large percentage of those
cases are fully vaccinated. Why hasn't their God's covenanted providence been
protecting His people?)

I believe it's okay to pity the Jews per Lam 1:12; but I do not believe it is
appropriate to let them get away with playing the victim all the time; the
meanwhile diverting attention away from their own chronic failure to honor the
covenant in a manner consistent with God's requirements.
_

 

[En Hakkore]

There is one point that is often overlooked in considering disasters such as the Holocaust or lesser disasters such as the attack on 9/11. Every individual has to die and face God's judgment. It won't make any difference to him how he died, whether in a gas chamber, crushed in a collapsing building, or of natural causes at an old age. What will matter is whether he has prepared for his judgment by repenting of his sins and placing his faith in Jesus Christ.

If the Holocaust had not happened all of its victims would eventually have died anyway. The prospect of dying motivated some inmates in the death camps to think seriously about their eternal destinies and come to faith in Jesus Christ. For an account of someone who shared the gospel with death camp inmates I recommend that you read The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom.

Corrie ten Boom would be rolling over in her grave having her name and efforts associated with this anti-Jewish drivel. Your comments could lead uninformed readers to envision ten Boom running some sort of prison outreach since you neglect to mention she herself was an inmate... this, of course, would lead naturally to ask why she was at Ravensbrück in the first place, the answer to which is incompatible with your larger narrative. Clearly she and her family did not see in Nazi policies toward the Jews the mysterious hand of God at work bringing judgment upon his people. They did not sit back idly like the deity the OP envisions did, but actively resisted the evil of Nazism and its dehumanizing treatment of the Jews by hiding and transporting them to safety. I quote at length below from a pertinent article that sets the record straight about the ten Booms, showing how your attempt to hijack Corrie's story for your own position and that of the monologuing poster you keep cheerleading for is misguided and shameful...

Kind regards,
Jonathan


Ariel's arguments about the implicit anti-Judaic message of fundamentalist Christian Holocaust memoirs have even less validity when applied to Corrie ten Boom's story.

Hiding Jews provided her family with an opportunity to manifest Christian love for those in need; whereas forgiving the Germans after the war exemplified Christian mercy. Corrie consciously endured her ordeal at Ravensbrück as a providential trial—challenging, but ultimately strengthening her devotion to God. Though she never disparages Judaism or the Jewish people, she ardently believes that the Jewish covenant with God was universalized through the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Ariel notes that Corrie's brother Willem headed the Dutch Reformed Church's mission to the Jews. What he neglects to mention is Corrie's telling remark about her brother's missionary activities: "If he'd converted a single Jew in twenty years I hadn't heard about it." Indeed, Willem ten Boom attended college in Weimar Germany where he completed a thesis that denounced the racial antisemitism which he witnessed emerging there in the 1920s. Towards the end of the 1930s, Willem devoted much effort to finding housing for German Jewish refugees.

Similarly, Corrie's father, Casper, served as another positive influence in shaping her attitudes towards Jews.

He [sic] father once assured a Jewish woman who sought refuge in his home, "In this household, God's people are always welcome." While saying grace before dinner during the German occupation, Casper sometimes added a special prayer invoking God's protection for the Jewish people. Casper encouraged the Jews who resided under his roof to continue to honor their religious heritage. The ten Booms learned Hebrew from one of the Jews living with them. Fondly remembering celebrating Hanukkah with the Jews who were sheltered in her house, Corrie wrote, "We were all very Jewish those evenings."

To the ten Boom family, the Jews remained both the Chosen People and Christ's ancestors and had not been forsaken by God. The ten Booms engaged in daily Bible study sessions and valued the Old Testament as much as the New.

Given her background, it is not surprising that when Corrie realized how precarious the existence of the Jews had become under the German occupation, she made this vow: "Lord Jesus, I offer myself for Your people. In any way. Any place. Any time."

In the only two instances where Corrie referred to Jews who converted to Christianity, she refrained from denigrating Judaism and Jews and depicted Jesus as supplementing rather than supplanting the Jewish covenant with God. One case concerned Harry de Vries, who, in Corrie's words, "had become a Christian, some forty years earlier, without ceasing in the least to be a loyal Jew." He is quoted as telling the ten Booms that he was "a completed Jew! A follower of the one perfect Jew." The other involved Mary, a Jewish girl whom the Germans arrested along with the ten Boom family. In prison she embraced Christianity and recalled that Casper once had assured her that she would remain a Jew even if she accepted Jesus. "On His divine side he was the Son of God," he had told her, "but on his human side He was a Jew."

Corrie's motivations for saving Jews typify those of many other devout Dutch Calvinist rescuers. In interviews which the Altruistic Personality Project's research team has conducted, it is evident that significant numbers of active congregants of Reformed churches in Holland aided Jews out of a philosemitism rooted in their religious beliefs. They variously attributed their behavior to a reverence for the Old Testament, God's Chosen People, and/or Christ's progenitors. They often added that being a good Christian meant helping those in need. Many of these rescuers were affiliated with conservative Calvinist political parties which defended Dutch civic values like religious toleration even though the leaders of those parties initially tried to negotiate a political accommodation with the German occupation regime. Thus, helping Jews provided such rescuers with an opportunity for righteous conduct arising from their patriotic and religious beliefs.

Lawrence Baron. "Evangelical Converts, Corrie Ten Boom, and the Holocaust: A Response to Yaakov Ariel." Holocaust and Genocide Studies 7.1 (1993) 144-46.

 

[cjab]

How is it that so many of Moses' people were caught up in the Holocaust? Where was God
during all that? Why didn't He step in and do something to protect His chosen
people?

You need to ask yourself the question, who are Moses' and God's real people?

Just because Moses led them out of the promised land didn't mean that they were seen by God as his people.

Heb 3:7 So, as the Holy Spirit says: “Today, if you hear his voice,
Heb 3:8 do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion, during the time of testing in the wilderness,
Heb 3:9 where your ancestors tested and tried me, though for forty years they saw what I did.
Heb 3:10 That is why I was angry with that generation; I said, ‘Their hearts are always going astray, and they have not known my ways.’
Heb 3:11 So I declared on oath in my anger, ‘They shall never enter my rest.’ ”

So if that is what God declared to these compatriots of Moses, then they were not his people.

Consider also the speech of Stephen the martyr.

Act 7:42 "But God turned away from them and gave them over to the worship of the sun, moon and stars. This agrees with what is written in the book of the prophets: “ ‘Did you bring me sacrifices and offerings forty years in the wilderness, people of Israel?
Act 7:43 "You have taken up the tabernacle of Molek and the star of your god Rephan, the idols you made to worship. Therefore I will send you into exile’ beyond Babylon.
...
Act 7:51 “You stiff-necked people! Your hearts and ears are still uncircumcised. You are just like your ancestors: You always resist the Holy Spirit!
Act 7:52 "Was there ever a prophet your ancestors did not persecute? They even killed those who predicted the coming of the Righteous One. And now you have betrayed and murdered him—
Act 7:53 "you who have received the law that was given through angels but have not obeyed it.”

Following the emergence of marxism and communism, the Jewish proclivity for politics over religion manifested itself. Jews becamse leading lights in radically anti-religious communism. By the mid-1920s, the Jews constituted six percent of the Soviet ruling elite and ten percent of the leadership of all Soviet economic agencies; a number of Jews held important posts in the high echelons of the Communist Party and the Red Army command. Institutions of secondary and higher learning were open to young Jews, who were no longer forced to travel abroad to evade the existing numerus clausus or take a high-school equivalent exam as externs. In GermanyHitler believed that the Jews were involved with Communists in a joint conspiracy to take over the world.

In the early 20th century US the Jews invented Hollywood, which became a bastion of moral corruption and the occult.

Given that a stand against communism was made, that the Jews suffered isn't surprising given that they had made themselves enemies by becoming aligned with a radically anti-Christian, anti-establishment and anti-European political philosophy. The Jews and others weren't prepared for the insane, murderous brutality of Hitler and his henchmen. I fully concur with the point already made than not every Jew has to be bad: a large number will suffer for the sins of a minority (cf. the first word war where millions died for the sins of the ruling classes). And it wasn't only the Jews who suffered.

The way I see it is through the lens of Jewish apostasy from the law of a certain sizeable Jewish minority, and that the majority then suffered for it after they had declined to renounce their apostate compatriots. "Expel the wicked man from among you." Deut 17:7, 1 Cor 5:13 has to be enforced by any religious society in order to fend off the day of wrath (cf. Revelation).

 

[Dant01]

.
FAQ: If true that the Jews, as a people, brought the Holocaust upon themselves in
accordance with the language of the covenant that their ancestors agreed upon
with God; then why don't they own up to it instead of always going about playing
the victim and acting so indignant?

A: Well; sad to say: the Jewish people, on the whole, are famous for their obtuse
attitudes; not only in the Bible; but in real life too. It's so common and so chronic
that we're forced to conclude that their attitudes are actually quite systemic.
Finding a Jew who will admit they are wrong-- wrong about anything --is like
searching for the Loch Ness monster and the lost city of Atlantis.

The average John Que and Jane Doe Jew is so defensive, so reactive, so stiff
necked, so adamant, so self-righteous, so arrogant, and so infected with a chosen
people superiority complex; that they simply cannot tolerate criticism; not even
criticism coming straight from the mouth of the very God with whom they boast an
elite association; for example:

• Zech 7:11-12 . . But they refused to listen; and they turned a rebellious shoulder;
and they made their ears heavy, not to hear. And they made their heart [as hard]
as a shamir, [in order] not to listen to the Torah and to the words that the Lord of
Hosts sent, through His spirit by the earlier prophets. And there was great anger
from the Lord of Hosts.

• Dan 9:5-6 . .We have sinned and have dealt iniquitously; we have dealt wickedly
and have rebelled, turning away from Your commandments and from Your
ordinances.

• Dan 9:10-11 . .And we have not hearkened to the voice of the Lord our God, to
follow His teachings, which He placed before us by the hand of His servants, the
prophets. And all Israel have transgressed Your teaching, turning away, not
heeding Your voice, and the curse and the oath, which are written in the Law of
Moses, the servant of God, have befallen us, for we have sinned against Him.

Jews have been playing the victim card for decades, and getting away with it too;
so it really riles them whenever somebody dares to suggest that the misfortunes
that have overtaken them down through the years, as well as the problems that
plague them right now, are due to exactly what Daniel and Zechariah said. For
example:

The covenant that Moses' people agreed upon with God requires Him to preserve
peace in the land of Israel when His people are compliant. Well; the land has been
in a state of war since the day of its inception in 1948 and nobody is safe over
there; and were Israel not allied with the USA and Britain, I fear the Arab world
would crush it practically overnight.

The covenant also obligates God to restore Israel's borders when they are
compliant. Well; the State of Israel doesn't even have control over the Temple
Mount let alone its covenanted borders.

The covenant also obligates God to provide the State of Israel with abundant rain
when the people are compliant. Well; if not for ground water and desalination,
Israel wouldn't have much of an agriculture. Alas, the historical Jordan River has
been reduced to a toxic trickle of its former self because so much water is pumped
out of it for irrigation
_

 

[Rachel Redux]

.
International Holocaust Memorial Day 2022 falls on Thursday, January 27.

Were I a Jew, I would not want the Holocaust remembered because it raises too
many painful questions about the so-called chosen people's popularity with God.

One has to ask, in point of fact there has been more than one rabbi ponder: How is
it that so many of Moses' people were caught up in the Holocaust? Where was God
during all that? Why didn't He step in and do something to protect His chosen
people?
_

Surely you must know the answer to this. The Bible spells it out clearly. Jews worshipped other gods and broke their covenant. They were punished terribly. Then they rejected their Messiah. But they will still be redeemed. Don't get too excited about their temporary fall.

 

[Dant01]

.

if not for ground water and desalination, Israel wouldn't have much of an
agriculture.

Desalination is a desperate measure. Israel won't need it when God's covenanted
providence takes the reins in that land.

• Isa 35:6-7 . .Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert.
The burning sand will become a pool, the thirsty ground bubbling springs. In the
haunts where jackals once lay, grass and reeds and papyrus will grow.

Much of Israel today remains a barren desert. When God's providence kicks in, the
whole land will become arable.

• Isa 35:21-2 . .The desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will
rejoice and blossom. Like the crocus, it will burst into bloom; it will rejoice greatly
and shout for joy. The glory of Lebanon will be given to it, the splendor of Carmel
and Sharon; they will see the glory of The Lord, the excellency of our God.

Lebanon's glory of old was timber; especially cedars (1Kng 4:33). Sharon was
known for its flowers (Song 2:1) and Carmel for its orchards (Isa 33:9). How God
will get timber, flowers, and orchards to flourish in the Negev should be interesting.
_

 

[Dant01]

.
A number of observant Jews sincerely believe that the deaths of six million of their
fellows via German atrocities during the second world war satisfied certain
teachings and predictions in the 53rd chapter of Isaiah's prophecy. A rabbinic
interpretation of that chapter proposes, in so many words, that the fate of God's
people at the hands of Hitler's minions accomplished the salvation of the world.

The interpretation is a bit involved so I won't go into it here; but suffice to say that
the interpretation provides, for some, the only rational explanation as to why God
stood by and did nothing to prevent so many of His own people from being rounded
up like cattle, stripped of their dignity, their property, their wealth, and their
possessions, enslaved, starved, malnourished, deprived of basic human necessities,
tortured, subjected to Frankenstein medical experiments, worked to death, and
gassed, shot, and incinerated by the millions by Nazi mad men.

The error of that interpretation is so obvious that it's almost below me to point it
out; to wit: Judaism regards human sacrifice as a breach of the covenant that
Moses' people agreed upon with God; and also sincerely believes that human
sacrifice is an abomination.

There are astute Bible scholars of the opinion that the Jewish genocide of the last
century was only a taste of one to come in the future when a super powerful
political figure, known to just about everybody as the anti-Christ, will target God's
people with another mass extinction. They say his won't be confined to Europe like
the last one, but will encompass the entire globe so that Jews won't be safe
anywhere on the planet.

Those scholars also believe that the present State of Israel isn't permanent; but
that it will be conquered and the Jews lose control of their homeland all over again.
I don't know for myself whether those scholars are right, but if they are, then it
would appear that the future of God's people at this point in time is looking mighty
grim, to say the least.
_

 

[cjab]

.
There are astute Bible scholars of the opinion that the Jewish genocide of the last
century was only a taste of one to come in the future when a super powerful
political figure, known to just about everybody as the anti-Christ, will target God's
people with another mass extinction. They say his won't be confined to Europe like
the last one, but will encompass the entire globe so that Jews won't be safe
anywhere on the planet.

Those scholars also believe that the present State of Israel isn't permanent; but
that it will be conquered and the Jews lose control of their homeland all over again.
I don't know for myself whether those scholars are right, but if they are, then it
would appear that the future of God's people at this point in time is looking mighty
grim, to say the least.
_

Who are these scholars please?

 

[Dant01]

.

Who are these scholars please?

Have you tried Yahoo or Google advanced searches?
_

 

[Dant01]

.
It isn't unusual for Bible-teaching Christians to be accused of hate speech and/or
anti Semitism while Jehovah's very own criticisms, and the prophets' writings too,
contain far more. For example: the book of Isaiah opens with this:

• Isa 1:1-3 . . The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah
and Jerusalem, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, [and] Hezekiah, kings of
Judah. Hear O heavens! and give ear O earth! for Yhvh has spoken. Children I have
raised and exalted, yet they have rebelled against Me. An ox knows his owner and a
donkey his master's crib; but Israel does not know, My people do not think about it.

Oxen and burros are well known for their below-average IQ; but in His indictment,
Jehovah complained that those two species of barnyard beasts of burden have
more brains than His own people when it comes to appreciating His providence; and
Jehovah's statement: "they have rebelled against me" mirrors the age-old
colloquialism of biting the hand that feeds you.

There are so many anti-Semitic comments and remarks throughout the book of
Isaiah that sometimes it's actually difficult to believe it wasn't penned by a
Palestinian instead of a patriot; and that's only Isaiah, some of the other prophets
are just as harsh.

NOTE: More than fifty percent of the Jews living in the State of Israel right now
today are hiloni (secular). In my estimation, that's easily enough insubordinate
Jews all in one place for God to justify bringing down the whole country; and then if
you combine those with the number of insubordinate Jews all 'round the globe,
including the USA; it's not difficult to appreciate just how insecure Israel's future
really is.

A co-worker once informed me that his Jewish wife was seriously considering
migrating to Israel to help with its reconstruction. I advised him to talk her out of it
because without Messiah on the throne, that place is not safe. Plus, the Jews' God
has an era scheduled for them called the time of Jacob's trouble when that land and
its people will experience woes far more severe than any before. In fact without
Messiah's intervention, and were not that time kept brief, not one single Jew in
Israel would survive; it's going to be that bad.
_