26,840
edits
Christian Apologetics: Difference between revisions
→Miriam Bodian
| Line 217: | Line 217: | ||
IOW humbling oneself before Almighty God in acknowledging oneself as the greatest of sinners, and repenting of one’s own sinfulness instead of making a lucrative professional career of going around always pointing the finger at others. | IOW humbling oneself before Almighty God in acknowledging oneself as the greatest of sinners, and repenting of one’s own sinfulness instead of making a lucrative professional career of going around always pointing the finger at others. | ||
[https://archive.org/details/jewishrevolution0000jone ''The Jewish Revolutionary Spirit''] : ''And Its Impact on World History'' | Archive.org, [https://ia601709.us.archive.org/0/items/the-jewish-revolutionary-spirit-and-its-impact-on-world-history-e.-michael-jones/The%20Jewish%20Revolutionary%20Spirit%20and%20its%20Impact%20on%20World%20History%20-%20E.%20Michael%20Jones.pdf Download] | [https://archive.org/details/jewishrevolution0000jone ''The Jewish Revolutionary Spirit''] : ''And Its Impact on World History'' | Archive.org, [https://ia601709.us.archive.org/0/items/the-jewish-revolutionary-spirit-and-its-impact-on-world-history-e.-michael-jones/The%20Jewish%20Revolutionary%20Spirit%20and%20its%20Impact%20on%20World%20History%20-%20E.%20Michael%20Jones.pdf Download pp.34-35]<br> | ||
— To hold onto their “identity,” the “Jews” had to reject Christ. The “Jews” (as opposed to the entire ethnic group, some of which accepted Christ as the Messiah) created a new identity for themselves, one that is essentially negative [in relation to Christians].<br> | |||
St. John brings readers to this understanding gradually as the Jews define themselves in encounters with Christ in his gospel. Jew, in the context of the Gospel of St. John, cannot mean all Jews in an ethnic or racial sense, since Jesus himself was a Jew, as were his disciples....<br> | |||
The coming of Christ changed Jewish identity forever, something the Jews at His time comprehended only with difficulty. From then, the terms "Israelite" and "Jew" were no longer synonyms, because,...“the ‘true Israelites’” from the Christian perspective “are precisely those who, like Nathaniel, recognize in Jesus the Messiah.” The conflict that defines “Jew” in the fourth gospel is essentially religious....<br> | |||
Judaism celebrates the “Jews’” identity, their origins, their history and their past, and anyone who questions one of these elements, as Jesus does, is a threat to that identity. The festivals celebrate and confirm Jewish identity; the encounters between Jesus and the “Jews” occur during the festivals because for John Jewish identity revolves around the person of Jesus.<br> | |||
Christianity is intimately connected with Christ. Judaism is just as intimately connected with Jerusalem. The “Judaism in question takes on an official character. It has its seat in Jerusalem and it is hostile to Jesus.” It is “'''le principal accusatueur'''” of Jesus. Its headquarters is in Jerusalem where all confrontations between Christ and “the Jews” occur; it is the center of the “systematic hostility of ‘Judaism’” against Jesus....<br> | |||
The meaning of “Jew” in this context is clear: a Jew is openly hostile to Christ and willing to persecute those Jews who accept Him as the Messiah. John's mention of “fear of the Jews” indicates that Jews were then afraid of “Jews.” The well- being of the Jews who accepted Christ was threatened by the Jews who rejected him....<br> | |||
The parents of the man born blind exhibit “fear of the Jews” because the “Jews” threaten to expel followers of Jesus, also Jews, from the synagogue. The identity of both groups was essentially religious, not ethnic; both identities were a function of Christ. The Jews who acknowledged Christ were expelled from the synagogue. The Jews who rejected Him, the people John calls “the Jews,” defined themselves by that rejection.” | |||
Christian identification is with the Divine image and likeness as visibly manifested in the Jewish Mashiach (Messiah, Christos, Christ).<br> | |||
''See'' — [[Identity]] | |||
Now, about this charge, anti-Semitism. The word has several meanings. One is an embedded hatred of Jewish people . . . As such, it is a grave sin, a disease of the heart, a variant of racism. Which brings us to a second definition . . . And that is a word to describe the branding iron wielded by a tiny clique, to burn horribly heretics from their political orthodoxy. It is used to frighten, intimidate, censor and silence; to cut off debate; to so smear a man’s reputation that no one will listen to him again; to scar men so indelibly that no one will ever look at them again without saying, ‘Say, isn’t he an anti- Semite?’ | Now, about this charge, anti-Semitism. The word has several meanings. One is an embedded hatred of Jewish people . . . As such, it is a grave sin, a disease of the heart, a variant of racism. Which brings us to a second definition . . . And that is a word to describe the branding iron wielded by a tiny clique, to burn horribly heretics from their political orthodoxy. It is used to frighten, intimidate, censor and silence; to cut off debate; to so smear a man’s reputation that no one will listen to him again; to scar men so indelibly that no one will ever look at them again without saying, ‘Say, isn’t he an anti- Semite?’ | ||