My husband once made the point to me that history is the study of man's interpretation of the occurences of the past. Can you imagine what the history books would say if Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wrote them?
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/12/14/iran.israel/
Have y0u ever wondered what this world would be like if the holocaust was just a fictional story? The affects are still so poignant in our culture today, that just the suggestion of pretending the holocaust was fake is offensive to most. If the holocaust was a dream (more like a nightmare), Stephen Spielberg would have directed a lot more movies on aliens I think (scary thought). Spielberg is a pretty talented guy, but there are very few people that have the imagination, or would at least want to claim that they have the imagination, to create a story about the racial cleansing of six million innocent lives. More seriously though, the great majority of 6 million jews would have lived much more normal lives. In that way, I wish the holocaust was a myth.
But what about that one point the Iranian President brought up- the one that actually held some water:
"If somebody in their country questions God, nobody says anything, but if somebody denies the myth of the massacre of Jews, the Zionist loudspeakers and the governments in the pay of Zionism will start to scream."
I don't know what it is like in "their country" but in America, specific to my experiences, what the Iranian President says is true of all my Jewish friends past and present. If I did, for instance, decide to declare that the holocaust was merely a fabricated story in a free country with free speech rights, I would be seen as insensitive, ignorant, and any other negative word one could think up. Juxtaposedly (I made that word up), if I declared to my Jewish friends that I believe God is just a myth, responses would vary from, "well, I think He exists, but I understand your stance" to "I think He (he/she/it) is just a myth too."
In my opinion, the truth that binds most Jews together as a culture does not lie in the belief of Abraham's God. The truth that mainly holds this unit together in America lies in the pain and suffering felt by Jews one to two generations ago. The question I have then is this: have the Jews lost sight of their forefather's beliefs once again (see Old Testament for other times)?
Of course, this is a bizarre question for a Christian to ask since I believe the unconverted Jews have lost this fore-fatherly vision since Christ came, died at Calvary, and rose again. So then, is this allegiance to the Holocaust over God the Father a sign for all to see that today's Jewish religion is not based on faith? Has the pain of the holocaust become an idol to the Jews?
To my friends of any/lack of any faith, but especially to those who are Jewish:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/12/14/iran.israel/
Have y0u ever wondered what this world would be like if the holocaust was just a fictional story? The affects are still so poignant in our culture today, that just the suggestion of pretending the holocaust was fake is offensive to most. If the holocaust was a dream (more like a nightmare), Stephen Spielberg would have directed a lot more movies on aliens I think (scary thought). Spielberg is a pretty talented guy, but there are very few people that have the imagination, or would at least want to claim that they have the imagination, to create a story about the racial cleansing of six million innocent lives. More seriously though, the great majority of 6 million jews would have lived much more normal lives. In that way, I wish the holocaust was a myth.
But what about that one point the Iranian President brought up- the one that actually held some water:
"If somebody in their country questions God, nobody says anything, but if somebody denies the myth of the massacre of Jews, the Zionist loudspeakers and the governments in the pay of Zionism will start to scream."
I don't know what it is like in "their country" but in America, specific to my experiences, what the Iranian President says is true of all my Jewish friends past and present. If I did, for instance, decide to declare that the holocaust was merely a fabricated story in a free country with free speech rights, I would be seen as insensitive, ignorant, and any other negative word one could think up. Juxtaposedly (I made that word up), if I declared to my Jewish friends that I believe God is just a myth, responses would vary from, "well, I think He exists, but I understand your stance" to "I think He (he/she/it) is just a myth too."
In my opinion, the truth that binds most Jews together as a culture does not lie in the belief of Abraham's God. The truth that mainly holds this unit together in America lies in the pain and suffering felt by Jews one to two generations ago. The question I have then is this: have the Jews lost sight of their forefather's beliefs once again (see Old Testament for other times)?
Of course, this is a bizarre question for a Christian to ask since I believe the unconverted Jews have lost this fore-fatherly vision since Christ came, died at Calvary, and rose again. So then, is this allegiance to the Holocaust over God the Father a sign for all to see that today's Jewish religion is not based on faith? Has the pain of the holocaust become an idol to the Jews?
To my friends of any/lack of any faith, but especially to those who are Jewish:
Deuteronomy 4:23-39
23 "So watch yourselves, that you do not forget the covenant of the LORD your God which He made with you, and make for yourselves a graven image in the form of anything {against} which the LORD your God has commanded you. 24 "For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God. 25 "When you become the father of children and children's children and have remained long in the land, and act corruptly, and make an idol in the form of anything, and do that which is evil in the sight of the LORD your God {so as} to provoke Him to anger, 26 I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that you will surely perish quickly from the land where you are going over the Jordan to possess it. You shall not live long on it, but will be utterly destroyed. 27 "The LORD will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where the LORD drives you. 28 "There you will serve gods, the work of man's hands, wood and stone, which neither see nor hear nor eat nor smell. 29 "But from there you will seek the LORD your God, and you will find {Him} if you search for Him with all your heart and all your soul. 30 "When you are in distress and all these things have come upon you, in the latter days you will return to the LORD your God and listen to His voice.
31 "For the LORD your God is a compassionate God; He will not fail you nor destroy you nor forget the covenant with your fathers which He swore to them. 32 "Indeed, ask now concerning the former days which were before you, since the day that God created man on the earth, and {inquire} from one end of the heavens to the other. Has {anything} been done like this great thing, or has {anything} been heard like it? 33 "Has {any} people heard the voice of God speaking from the midst of the fire, as you have heard {it,} and survived? 34 "Or has a god tried to go to take for himself a nation from within {another} nation by trials, by signs and wonders and by war and by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm and by great terrors, as the LORD your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? 35 "To you it was shown that you might know that the LORD, He is God; there is no other besides Him. 36 "Out of the heavens He let you hear His voice to discipline you; and on earth He let you see His great fire, and you heard His words from the midst of the fire. 37 "Because He loved your fathers, therefore He chose their descendants after them. And He personally brought you from Egypt by His great power, 38 driving out from before you nations greater and mightier than you, to bring you in {and} to give you their land for an inheritance, as it is today.
39 "Know therefore today, and take it to your heart, that the LORD, He is God in heaven above and on the earth below; there is no other."
1 comment:
It's sad to see how the Jews responded to Christ then and now, but we know that God will not forsake them via Romans 9. God, the Father of Jesus Christ, Abraham's God, have mercy on them and on us.
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