[Bas Relief on the Arch of Titus in Rome: "IUDAEA CAPTA" ("Judaea is Vanquished"): Emperor Titus's commemoration of the plundering of the Temple.]
Rev. Rick Anderson
Conference Speaker & Presenter www.scripturesdramatized.com
Saturday July 21st is Tisha B'Av, the saddest day on the Jewish calendar. On this day in 586 BC Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon destroyed the city of Jerusalem and her temple. Then 656 years later, the Romans destroyed it again; and on the very same day. What should we make of this? Why did this happen? The Jewish community in Israel will have "Never Again" rallies to commemorate Tisha B'Av, as if to say "never again" will we let these disasters happen. But a glance the writings of Jeremiah tell us that they had an equally determined and militant attitude the FIRST time around. And a glance at the prophetic words of Christ in Luke 21 and Matthew 24 tell us pretty much the same thing. Clearly, some other attitude was needed to forestall the national disasters of providence that have afflicted the Jewish people historically. Jeremiah recommended national repentance. So did Christ. If military prowess and personal determination were all it took in those days, the Hebrew prophets wouldn't have belabored this issue of repentance before it was too late.
Modern synagogues offer a special commemorative service on Tisha B'Av, which means "ninth day of the month Av". They read from the Bible's Book of Lamentations, penned by Jeremiah, who gives credit to God for its verbal inspiration. Religious Jews will fast for 25 hours on Tisha B'Av. A coincidence of dates: 586 BC and 70 AD? Yes, but there's even more of a coincidence:
On this same date in 1492, Spain, the greatest and most prosperous nation on earth, ejected all the Jews from the country and banished them, permanently ending a centuries-old flourishing civilization of great wealth and learning and subjecting 300,000 refugees to piracy, shipwreck, starvation and enslavement in their forced haste to leave. This was done under the instigation of Torquemada, author of the Spanish Inquisition and priestly confessor to Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, the same royals who financed Columbus' voyage to America. Ironically, it was the Muslim nations that welcomed them in. The Sultan of Turkey asked the refugees: "Do you call Ferdinand a wise king, who has impoverished his country to enrich mine?" [History of the Jews, Heinrich Graetz, vol 4 p.396, as quoted in The Anguish of the Jews, Edw. H. Flannery, Paulist Press]
So Jews mourn that day, but Jesus also mourned over the destruction of the City and temple on Tisha B'Av. as stated in John 19:41. In fact, He actually wept, but not after it happened. He wept before it happened!
"Now as He drew near, He saw the City and wept over it, saying 'If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you and close you in on every side, and level you and your children within you to the ground. And they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your visitation. ' " (Luke 19:44)
So Christ was a prophet that day of things to come. But even today, the Jewish community continues in its refusal to give Him any more credibility than simply saying He was a local rabbi who created a great deal of controversy but added very little to Judaism. That's been their stated position for 2000 years. "He was a popular local rabbi. Beyond that, he wasn't the messiah and we didn't kill him" is their position in a nutshell.
Yet it is this very view, that got me curious enough to investigate further the biblical claims of this man. Here's exactly what I mean ...
In Judaism, Christ's very absence makes Him all the more conspicuous. If I had been raised Muslim I would've been taught that He was the 2nd greatest prophet who ever lived and that He was returning to judge the world in righteousness. If I had been raised Hindu, I would've been taught that Christ was an "avatar", a reincarnation of Krishna and one of the most enlightened men in history. If I had been raised Buddhist, I would've been taught He was an enlightened, wise teacher and someone to be emulated. Yet In Judaism, it's not who He was that's considered important: it's who He wasn't. And to me, He was too important for that kind of obscurity and obfuscation.
For one thing, the world dates time from His birth; not just the "Christian" world; the world world! Yes, I know it's the year 1438 on the Islamic calendar, and the year 5778 on the Jewish calendar, and the year 106 in North Korea. But the universally-accepted legal calendar used in all commerce and business between nations today still dates time from His birth.
So Jesus predicted (and bewailed!) the destruction of the City and temple which Jews mourn today at Tisha B'Av. But he wasn't the only one. So did Jeremiah. And Daniel did so as well.
Daniel 9:24-27: Few Old Testament prophesies have sparked as much controversy as this one. 600 years before the Christian era (BC), Daniel's given a vision of the coming of the Messiah, and what's to happen to his people, his temple and his nation's capital city Jerusalem. He's given such a precise timeline of events, with the particulars so thoroughly spelled out that it almost sounds fabricated, so much so that liberal Christian theologians have downplayed Daniel's credibility, Christian dispensationalists have broken the timeline into parts separated by thousands of years, and Jewish scholars consistently reject any interpretation that involves Jesus of Nazareth in the mix.
According to the prophet Daniel, during the rise of the fourth of four world empires, the messiah shall come, shall visit Israel, and be "cut off" (i.e. "killed). Here's Rashi's "take" on that: (from Daniel 2:1-45, specifically Daniel 2:44 ...)
" 'And in the days of these kings'; in the days of these kings, when the kingdom of Rome is still in existence, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom, The Kingdom of the Holy One, blessed be He, which will never be destroyed, is the Kingdom of the Messiah."[Talmud tractate "Avoda Zara 2b", as quoted in Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus, Vol. 3, Michael L. Brown, Baker.]
Rashi, who lived in the 11th Century AD, believed the Messiah had to have been Herod Agrippa (of all people!), since Rashi's faith precluded any belief in Jesus.
Daniel and Jeremiah weren't the only ones who spoke of those times. Isaiah did as well: he portrayed, 700 years before it happened a two-fold messianic "coming"; first, the Messiah's coming as a suffering servant, then as a conquering king.
But just as Judaism has had an historic "disconnect" with Scriptures' two portrayals of the Messiah (the suffering servant of Isaiah 53 and the conquering king of Psalm 110), so also has it had a "disconnect" with the Messianic Age at its beginning, vs. the Messianic Age at its completion. Jews have seized upon the choicest portrayal of the Messiah and His Kingdom to suit a preconceived theology: of the Messiah as glorious ruler in an age of sinless perfection and universal peace. But the argument's circular: it pre-supposes its conclusion: their argument really isn't: "Jesus failed to set up the Messianic Kingdom (or Messianic Age)," but it's this: "Jesus failed to set up that Kingdom according to our understanding of it." So what's Judaism's understanding? Unhappily, it's like the Christian dispensationalists' understanding of it, only without the "Jesus" part. In other words, the Kingdom in its glorious final form only, and the Kingdom as in "not here yet."
The Hebrew prophets spoke extensively of the glories of the Kingdom: There will be "peace to her like a river" (Isaiah 66:12); "the wolf also shall dwell with the lamb" (Isaiah 11:6), "they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore." (Isaiah 2:4). But the prophets also spoke of that Kingdom as coming progressively; growing, even in the midst of conflict, and contending with evil before its final glorious conquest. Consider Daniel 2:35 & 2:44, for example. Indeed, the whole of chapter 2, and it's "mirror-image" chapter, chapter 7 (particularly 7:13-18) speaks of that Kingdom in this way. The Messiah comes in His Kingdom during the reign of the fourth world empire from Daniel's time. Daniel's time was Babylon, the one afterwards was Media-Persia's time, the third was Greece (Dan. 8:20,21). The fourth could only be Rome.
Tisha B'Av is indeed a time of mourning. Jesus himself wept for what was prophesied to happen to His people and His city. And before him, so did Jeremiah (Jer. 9:1). But the lesson from Jewish history calls for more than re-doubled resolve and determination that it "never happen again". I calls for a reconsideration of the words of the Hebrew prophets.
Rev. Rick Anderson
Conference Speaker & Presenter www.scripturesdramatized.com
Saturday July 21st is Tisha B'Av, the saddest day on the Jewish calendar. On this day in 586 BC Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon destroyed the city of Jerusalem and her temple. Then 656 years later, the Romans destroyed it again; and on the very same day. What should we make of this? Why did this happen? The Jewish community in Israel will have "Never Again" rallies to commemorate Tisha B'Av, as if to say "never again" will we let these disasters happen. But a glance the writings of Jeremiah tell us that they had an equally determined and militant attitude the FIRST time around. And a glance at the prophetic words of Christ in Luke 21 and Matthew 24 tell us pretty much the same thing. Clearly, some other attitude was needed to forestall the national disasters of providence that have afflicted the Jewish people historically. Jeremiah recommended national repentance. So did Christ. If military prowess and personal determination were all it took in those days, the Hebrew prophets wouldn't have belabored this issue of repentance before it was too late.
Modern synagogues offer a special commemorative service on Tisha B'Av, which means "ninth day of the month Av". They read from the Bible's Book of Lamentations, penned by Jeremiah, who gives credit to God for its verbal inspiration. Religious Jews will fast for 25 hours on Tisha B'Av. A coincidence of dates: 586 BC and 70 AD? Yes, but there's even more of a coincidence:
On this same date in 1492, Spain, the greatest and most prosperous nation on earth, ejected all the Jews from the country and banished them, permanently ending a centuries-old flourishing civilization of great wealth and learning and subjecting 300,000 refugees to piracy, shipwreck, starvation and enslavement in their forced haste to leave. This was done under the instigation of Torquemada, author of the Spanish Inquisition and priestly confessor to Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, the same royals who financed Columbus' voyage to America. Ironically, it was the Muslim nations that welcomed them in. The Sultan of Turkey asked the refugees: "Do you call Ferdinand a wise king, who has impoverished his country to enrich mine?" [History of the Jews, Heinrich Graetz, vol 4 p.396, as quoted in The Anguish of the Jews, Edw. H. Flannery, Paulist Press]
So Jews mourn that day, but Jesus also mourned over the destruction of the City and temple on Tisha B'Av. as stated in John 19:41. In fact, He actually wept, but not after it happened. He wept before it happened!
"Now as He drew near, He saw the City and wept over it, saying 'If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you and close you in on every side, and level you and your children within you to the ground. And they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your visitation. ' " (Luke 19:44)
So Christ was a prophet that day of things to come. But even today, the Jewish community continues in its refusal to give Him any more credibility than simply saying He was a local rabbi who created a great deal of controversy but added very little to Judaism. That's been their stated position for 2000 years. "He was a popular local rabbi. Beyond that, he wasn't the messiah and we didn't kill him" is their position in a nutshell.
Yet it is this very view, that got me curious enough to investigate further the biblical claims of this man. Here's exactly what I mean ...
In Judaism, Christ's very absence makes Him all the more conspicuous. If I had been raised Muslim I would've been taught that He was the 2nd greatest prophet who ever lived and that He was returning to judge the world in righteousness. If I had been raised Hindu, I would've been taught that Christ was an "avatar", a reincarnation of Krishna and one of the most enlightened men in history. If I had been raised Buddhist, I would've been taught He was an enlightened, wise teacher and someone to be emulated. Yet In Judaism, it's not who He was that's considered important: it's who He wasn't. And to me, He was too important for that kind of obscurity and obfuscation.
For one thing, the world dates time from His birth; not just the "Christian" world; the world world! Yes, I know it's the year 1438 on the Islamic calendar, and the year 5778 on the Jewish calendar, and the year 106 in North Korea. But the universally-accepted legal calendar used in all commerce and business between nations today still dates time from His birth.
So Jesus predicted (and bewailed!) the destruction of the City and temple which Jews mourn today at Tisha B'Av. But he wasn't the only one. So did Jeremiah. And Daniel did so as well.
Daniel 9:24-27: Few Old Testament prophesies have sparked as much controversy as this one. 600 years before the Christian era (BC), Daniel's given a vision of the coming of the Messiah, and what's to happen to his people, his temple and his nation's capital city Jerusalem. He's given such a precise timeline of events, with the particulars so thoroughly spelled out that it almost sounds fabricated, so much so that liberal Christian theologians have downplayed Daniel's credibility, Christian dispensationalists have broken the timeline into parts separated by thousands of years, and Jewish scholars consistently reject any interpretation that involves Jesus of Nazareth in the mix.
According to the prophet Daniel, during the rise of the fourth of four world empires, the messiah shall come, shall visit Israel, and be "cut off" (i.e. "killed). Here's Rashi's "take" on that: (from Daniel 2:1-45, specifically Daniel 2:44 ...)
" 'And in the days of these kings'; in the days of these kings, when the kingdom of Rome is still in existence, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom, The Kingdom of the Holy One, blessed be He, which will never be destroyed, is the Kingdom of the Messiah."[Talmud tractate "Avoda Zara 2b", as quoted in Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus, Vol. 3, Michael L. Brown, Baker.]
Rashi, who lived in the 11th Century AD, believed the Messiah had to have been Herod Agrippa (of all people!), since Rashi's faith precluded any belief in Jesus.
Daniel and Jeremiah weren't the only ones who spoke of those times. Isaiah did as well: he portrayed, 700 years before it happened a two-fold messianic "coming"; first, the Messiah's coming as a suffering servant, then as a conquering king.
But just as Judaism has had an historic "disconnect" with Scriptures' two portrayals of the Messiah (the suffering servant of Isaiah 53 and the conquering king of Psalm 110), so also has it had a "disconnect" with the Messianic Age at its beginning, vs. the Messianic Age at its completion. Jews have seized upon the choicest portrayal of the Messiah and His Kingdom to suit a preconceived theology: of the Messiah as glorious ruler in an age of sinless perfection and universal peace. But the argument's circular: it pre-supposes its conclusion: their argument really isn't: "Jesus failed to set up the Messianic Kingdom (or Messianic Age)," but it's this: "Jesus failed to set up that Kingdom according to our understanding of it." So what's Judaism's understanding? Unhappily, it's like the Christian dispensationalists' understanding of it, only without the "Jesus" part. In other words, the Kingdom in its glorious final form only, and the Kingdom as in "not here yet."
The Hebrew prophets spoke extensively of the glories of the Kingdom: There will be "peace to her like a river" (Isaiah 66:12); "the wolf also shall dwell with the lamb" (Isaiah 11:6), "they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore." (Isaiah 2:4). But the prophets also spoke of that Kingdom as coming progressively; growing, even in the midst of conflict, and contending with evil before its final glorious conquest. Consider Daniel 2:35 & 2:44, for example. Indeed, the whole of chapter 2, and it's "mirror-image" chapter, chapter 7 (particularly 7:13-18) speaks of that Kingdom in this way. The Messiah comes in His Kingdom during the reign of the fourth world empire from Daniel's time. Daniel's time was Babylon, the one afterwards was Media-Persia's time, the third was Greece (Dan. 8:20,21). The fourth could only be Rome.
Tisha B'Av is indeed a time of mourning. Jesus himself wept for what was prophesied to happen to His people and His city. And before him, so did Jeremiah (Jer. 9:1). But the lesson from Jewish history calls for more than re-doubled resolve and determination that it "never happen again". I calls for a reconsideration of the words of the Hebrew prophets.
