quote:

---

Originally posted by the long ranger:
The Theology of the Land is that when enough Jews live in the land roughly (and inaccurately) called The Holy Land, Jesus Christ will come and rule over all the world and all the Jews will accept him as the messiah.

---

Thank - I've never heard it expressed like that, and it's certainly not my understanding of what the prophecies are getting at. What's clear to me is:

1) God promised the land to Abraham and his descendants through Isaac and Jacob

2) This promise is unconditional

3) God has prophesied the return of many to the land before the Parousia.

Therefore:

1) The return of Jews to control of the land is an indicator that the Parousia is significantly closer - we could have been sure that it wouldn't have happened before then

2) Actively opposing the presence of the Jewish people in the land is to oppose the revealed will of God

Which - before anyone complains - doesn't mean that Israel has the right to do whatever it likes in the land, but it does create a presumption in favour of Israel, and certainly makes support for a Palestinian 'right of return' - which would end the Jewish nature of the state - a mistake.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 


Well, how the long ranger expresses it is indeed the view of some, particularly US fundamentalists. I'll grant that it's not the dominant view among most UK evangelicals.

I must admit, though, that whenever this topic comes up my initial reaction is

Why? Because it's a gigantic red-herring.

The state of Israel, for better or worse, exists. I, for one, wouldn't want to see it snuffed out or invaded by some of its nastier neighbours, such as Syria. But I also wish the religious right wouldn't give it such uncritical support and set eschatological timetables by the whole thing.

I'd much rather see people devote their efforts to brokering some kind, any kind, of peace-deal, rapprochement between Israel and the Palestinians.

Clinging on to arcane fantasies based on over-literal interpretations dreamt up by 19th century crack-pots and theological light-weights doesn't do anyone any good.
 

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Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on :
 
Well I can't really enter this conversation given that I don't hold a Theology of the Land.

I don't believe that God promises land to any one tribe, people or country. So the idea that you can use some theological or distant historical promise as a reason to turf people out of their homes is utter nonsense. Indeed, there is a very real danger of hatred and racism wherever this happens - see Bosnia for another very dangerous Theology of the Land.

As a Christian, I don't believe that there is any holy land as I don't believe there are any nations or tribes or peoples before God. If I believe that God is everywhere, he is as much 'in the land' where I store my garbage as in the sad old piles of stones in Old Jerusalem.

We invest religious meaning in places which is entirely unfounded and unnecessary. We then build all kinds of spurious theological structures - without properly taking account that a Theology of the Land is entirely the opposite of the Kingdom of Heaven that Jesus Christ said he was bringing in.
 

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Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on :
 
But the Jews were already given what they were promised, and the whole world with them- Jesus Christ. This "theology of the land" in a Christian context is all hokum.
 

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Posted by Adeodatus (# 4992) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
What's clear to me is:

1) God promised the land to Abraham and his descendants through Isaac and Jacob

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
In a previous thread we had:

quote:

---

Originally posted by the long ranger:
The Theology of the Land is that when enough Jews live in the land roughly (and inaccurately) called The Holy Land, Jesus Christ will come and rule over all the world and all the Jews will accept him as the messiah.

---

Thank - I've never heard it expressed like that, and it's certainly not my understanding of what the prophecies are getting at. What's clear to me is:

1) God promised the land to Abraham and his descendants through Isaac and Jacob

2) This promise is unconditional

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:

1) God promised the land to Abraham and his descendants through Isaac and Jacob

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ricardus:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:

1) God promised the land to Abraham and his descendants through Isaac and Jacob

---

How is 'descendant of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob' defined? AIUI, both Jews and modern Palestinians are equally the genetic descendants of the people who lived in Palestine in, say, the first century AD.

Does 'Theology of the Land' mean that Palestinian Arabs are just as entitled to 'own' Palestine as the Jews?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by the long ranger:
One ridiculous thing about this whole argument is that it ignores the presence of Arab Christians in the land.

And this whole 'my bible says x and the koran says y therefore I am right and you are wrong' is part of the problem.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Zach82:
But the Jews were already given what they were promised, and the whole world with them- Jesus Christ. This "theology of the land" in a Christian context is all hokum.

---

This. The whole problem with such a theology is that it suggests there is some fulfilment of God's promises other than in Jesus. Which should be a big red flag right away.
 

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Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on :
 
Yep. The whole argument rests on a materialistic interpretation of the 'land' and the 'promise'. It is IMO a spiritual reality: the Church is the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and we are both 'now' and 'not yet' living in the land.
 

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Posted by leo (# 1458) on :
 
Christianity has spiritualised away 'the land' but the biblical references to it are only really capable of a materialist interpretation.
 

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Posted by Trickydicky (# 16550) on :
 
Steve H. What he said.

Some of this 'let's fill Israel with Jews' stiff seems to be saying 'let's force God's hand'.

Basic concepts like, well, justice and fairness seem to be missed. the Palestinians and Jews are not perfect. they're just human beings, making a mess of it. like we all do. I am more sympathetic to the Palestinians (having been there) simply because the injustices they face are much greater.
 

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Posted by no_prophet (# 15560) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Steve H:
Modern Israel and the occupied territories were stolen from the previous inhabitants, who now live as refugees or second-class citizens. No amount of specious exegesis or dodgy theology can make that right.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by no_prophet:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Steve H:
Modern Israel and the occupied territories were stolen from the previous inhabitants, who now live as refugees or second-class citizens. No amount of specious exegesis or dodgy theology can make that right.

---

You forget the United Nations role in this. And the separation of the other major part of Palestine from what is Israel today. That is Jordan. Palestine = Israel + Jordan + a few little bits of other modern countries. It becomes complicated when we remember that Jordan had annexed the West Bank before Israel did.

I can't recall the term, but there is a concept of acceptance of boundaries between countries, essentially to accept the facts on the ground and to quit fighting over them. There are many examples in parallel.

This is sort of the case with Greece and Turkey since the expulsions of Greeks from Anatolia in the 1920s, and Turks from what is now Greece.

It is also the case more clearly with the expulsion of Loyalists from New York state in the USA in the 1780s with the expropriation of their lands - I actually know the specific land taken from my family.

We have the annexation of Mexican lands in the 1830s by the USA, and the right of return seems to be exercised informally by Hispanic immigrants. Hawaii is another example. The Philippines managed to avoid planned annexation. We could talk more generally of the dispossession of the First Nations in North America by the French then English, and then by my country of Canada.

Yes, the Jews are special because of the OT, and because of religion. But the actual facts of borders, people being dispossessed, and fairness are pretty common. The discussion probably becomes unresolvable if there is not acceptance that at least some of the Palestinians are going to be permanent losers of land, homes, farms, etc., regardless of their lengthy claims to them. Just like all those in history who've been similarly overcome by another country or power.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mockingale:
]What's uncomplicated now is that the government of Israel, while paying lip-service toward a two-state solution, routinely winks at land theft from Palestinians. Not in an abstract "This was once the Palestinian/Transjordan Mandate and now it's Israel" sense - in the "Ali's family has lived in this village for 10 generations and the settlers bulldozed his village, including his house, to build a Jews-only subdivision" sense.

You can't justify that with "that's what theology says" or "We did it 100 years ago to the Mexicans who did it to the Aztecs who did it to the etc. etc. etc." or "Arabs have done bad stuff too." If the activity of the settlers doesn't bother you, there's something deeply wrong with your moral compass.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by no_prophet:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mockingale:
]What's uncomplicated now is that the government of Israel, while paying lip-service toward a two-state solution, routinely winks at land theft from Palestinians. Not in an abstract "This was once the Palestinian/Transjordan Mandate and now it's Israel" sense - in the "Ali's family has lived in this village for 10 generations and the settlers bulldozed his village, including his house, to build a Jews-only subdivision" sense.

You can't justify that with "that's what theology says" or "We did it 100 years ago to the Mexicans who did it to the Aztecs who did it to the etc. etc. etc." or "Arabs have done bad stuff too." If the activity of the settlers doesn't bother you, there's something deeply wrong with your moral compass.

---

The activity of all parties bothers me, though I have a little more emphasis on the legitimacy of the country of Israel than you may. I have noted that (this may or may not be you) many who talk about the post-1967 war annexations of territory are also soft on the pre-1967 borders, and press the issue that Palestinians (who are are not the same as Arabs) have also been dispossessed within the borders of the UN sanctioned state of Israel.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by leo:
Christianity has spiritualised away 'the land' but the biblical references to it are only really capable of a materialist interpretation.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by chris stiles:

quote:

---

Originally posted by leo:
Christianity has spiritualised away 'the land' but the biblical references to it are only really capable of a materialist interpretation.

---

Only if you ignore chunks of the New Testament.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
In a previous thread we had:

quote:

---

Originally posted by the long ranger:
The Theology of the Land is that when enough Jews live in the land roughly (and inaccurately) called The Holy Land, Jesus Christ will come and rule over all the world and all the Jews will accept him as the messiah.

---

Thank - I've never heard it expressed like that, and it's certainly not my understanding of what the prophecies are getting at. What's clear to me is:

1) God promised the land to Abraham and his descendants through Isaac and Jacob

2) This promise is unconditional

3) God has prophesied the return of many to the land before the Parousia.

Therefore:

1) The return of Jews to control of the land is an indicator that the Parousia is significantly closer - we could have been sure that it wouldn't have happened before then

2) Actively opposing the presence of the Jewish people in the land is to oppose the revealed will of God

Which - before anyone complains - doesn't mean that Israel has the right to do whatever it likes in the land, but it does create a presumption in favour of Israel, and certainly makes support for a Palestinian 'right of return' - which would end the Jewish nature of the state - a mistake.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mockingale:
The first refuge of scoundrels on the pro-settler side in these arguments is to equate any criticism of Israeli policies or the actions of the settlers with anti-semitism and "denial of Israel's right to exist."

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mockingale:
Pardon my French, but that's horseshit. The first refuge of scoundrels on the pro-settler side in these arguments is to equate any criticism of Israeli policies or the actions of the settlers with anti-semitism and "denial of Israel's right to exist."

Nothing can be further from the truth, and I don't give a dog's balls about your anecdotes about other critics of the settlements and their supposed "softness" on the question of the pre-1967 borders.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Zach82:

quote:

---

Originally posted by chris stiles:

quote:

---

Originally posted by leo:
Christianity has spiritualised away 'the land' but the biblical references to it are only really capable of a materialist interpretation.

---

Only if you ignore chunks of the New Testament.

---

Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all. Colossians 3:11

Just a start.

---

quote:

---

Ender's Shadow: leaving it mainly as Muslims who base their claim to the land on

a) force
b) descent from Ismail

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by the long ranger:
Given I don't believe that God has favourites,

---

quote:

---

6 For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession. 7 The Lord did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. 8 But it was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath he swore to your ancestors that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt. 9 Know therefore that the Lord your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments.

---

quote:

---

is just being nice. And a way of keepin' in touch with the neighbours.*

---

quote:

---

Now if I'd seen him, really there, really alive, it'd be in me like a fever. If I thought there was some god who really did care two hoots about people, who watched them like a father and cared for them like a mother... well, you wouldn't catch me sayin' things like "There are two sides to every question" and "We must respect other people's beliefs". You wouldn't find me just being ge'rally nice in the hope that it would turn out right in the end, not if that flame was burning in me like an unforgiving sword. And I did say burnin' Mister Oats, 'cos that's what it'd be. You say that people don't burn folks anymore, but that's what true faith would mean, y'see? Sacrificin' your own life, one day at a time, to the flame, declarin' the truth of it, workin' for it, breathing the soul of it. THAT'S religion. Anything else... is just being nice. And a way of keepin' in touch with the neighbours.'

---

quote:

---

Ender's Shadow: Unfortunately that's what it says He DOES have:

---

What I do wonder: isn't there a nagging little thought in the back of evangelicals' minds that there's something wrong here?

Some idea that even if you believe that God has promised the land to this people, that you should also stop and ask yourselves: "What about the people who already lived there?"

Some threshold that when Israel trumps the human rights of these people enough, that it will start to make you think: "This should stop"?

Of course, you can try to explain everything away with perfect logic. But you only have to spend a couple of days in the region to see that This Isn't Right.

I can understand that this is a big choice to make. I see that it would mean adjusting your views of 'literacy' of the Bible, and then a lot of things will come crumbling down for you.

But somewhere, no matter how hard some people argue that these are Israel's 'rights', I'm guessing that there must be some seed of doubt in their minds too. That this isn't how God meant it to be.
 

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Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on :
 
Well, ES has already admitted that it bothers him, so you're kind of pushing at something of an open door, albeit perhaps one that needs some WD40 on the hinges
 

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Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Zach82:

quote:

---

Originally posted by chris stiles:

quote:

---

Originally posted by leo:
Christianity has spiritualised away 'the land' but the biblical references to it are only really capable of a materialist interpretation.

---

Only if you ignore chunks of the New Testament.

---

Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all. Colossians 3:11

Just a start.

---

And this is relevant to this debate how precisely? The claim of the Jews to the Land is based on the Old Testament, which is unambiguously based on the idea of a particular people chosen by God and given that particular piece of land.

---

quote:

---

6 For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession. 7 The Lord did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. 8 But it was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath he swore to your ancestors that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt. 9 Know therefore that the Lord your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments.

---

quote:

---

And this is relevant to this debate how precisely? The claim of the Jews to the Land is based on the Old Testament, which is unambiguously based on the idea of a particular people chosen by God and given that particular piece of land.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
And this is relevant to this debate how precisely? The claim of the Jews to the Land is based on the Old Testament, which is unambiguously based on the idea of a particular people chosen by God and given that particular piece of land.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by no_prophet:
No. I won't pardon your french, being indirectly referenced as a scoundrel, nor at this time, your prior comment about my moral compass. Keep yourself civil, sir or madam, or take me to Hell. I think I have been patient enough now, and I ask you please to stop this.

---

quote:

---

The alternative is to have Palestinians inhabit a variety of countries, much as the Kurds do

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by chris stiles:

quote:

---

Originally posted by leo:
Christianity has spiritualised away 'the land' but the biblical references to it are only really capable of a materialist interpretation.

---

Only if you ignore chunks of the New Testament.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ricardus:
Are you saying that:

1.) the people living in modern Palestine are not genetically descended from the people living in first-century Palestine,

or

2.) the people living in first-century Palestine were descendants of Ishmael, not Isaac?

---

quote:

---

They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the hour cometh, that whosoever killeth you shall think that he offereth service unto God.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by ken:
But the "Arab Christians" of Palestine and Syria now are the spiritual and biological descendents of the Jewish Christians of the first few centuries. Just as much descended from Abraham and Isaac and King David as the Jews who did not become Christians.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mockingale:

quote:

---

Originally posted by ken:
But the "Arab Christians" of Palestine and Syria now are the spiritual and biological descendents of the Jewish Christians of the first few centuries. Just as much descended from Abraham and Isaac and King David as the Jews who did not become Christians.

---

I'll be honest, I've never heard that Palestinian Christians (or some of them) are ethnic Jewish descendants of the first Christians. Do you have something I can read about that?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Doc Tor:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mockingale:

quote:

---

Originally posted by ken:
But the "Arab Christians" of Palestine and Syria now are the spiritual and biological descendents of the Jewish Christians of the first few centuries. Just as much descended from Abraham and Isaac and King David as the Jews who did not become Christians.

---

I'll be honest, I've never heard that Palestinian Christians (or some of them) are ethnic Jewish descendants of the first Christians. Do you have something I can read about that?

---

I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it's pretty much a fact that there is no genetic difference worth speaking about between the semitic peoples of the near east. It is, for the want of a better way of looking at it, simply a difference in hats.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Doc Tor:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mockingale:

quote:

---

Originally posted by ken:
But the "Arab Christians" of Palestine and Syria now are the spiritual and biological descendents of the Jewish Christians of the first few centuries. Just as much descended from Abraham and Isaac and King David as the Jews who did not become Christians.

---

I'll be honest, I've never heard that Palestinian Christians (or some of them) are ethnic Jewish descendants of the first Christians. Do you have something I can read about that?

---

I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it's pretty much a fact that there is no genetic difference worth speaking about between the semitic peoples of the near east. It is, for the want of a better way of looking at it, simply a difference in hats.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mockingale:
The English and the Irish are extremely similar in a genetic sense, but you can't ignore the fact that two branches of the same people have developed very distinct cultures to the point that they are ethnically distinct.

---

quote:

---

...but there must be some ethnographic or historical studies suggesting a link between Palestinian Christian families and Christian Jews of the 1st century, as opposed to descent from other peoples like the Arabs or Samaritans. It would be interesting to read.

---

quote:

---

We are more like each other in all sorts of ways than we are like, say, the French. Or possibly even the Americans.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
ken wrote:

quote:

---

We are more like each other in all sorts of ways than we are like, say, the French. Or possibly even the Americans.

---

A Czech colleague once pointed out to me that so far as most slavic commentators are concerned, the English and the French appear to be damn close to identical. Especially in the way they consider themselves so different. I'm just reporting the comment and have no particular views myself.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Zach82:

quote:

---

And this is relevant to this debate how precisely? The claim of the Jews to the Land is based on the Old Testament, which is unambiguously based on the idea of a particular people chosen by God and given that particular piece of land.

---

It is relevant to this thread, where Christians are falling to using a theology of the land. From a purely objective point of view, the Old Testament claim is nothing so far as justice and international law is concerned. I have, furthermore, no interest in starting a debate about whose holy books are truer.

Yet the case in a Christian context is clear. "Christian Zionism" forgets to center all the promises of God on Jesus, as the New Testament does. The foundation of Jewish identity, indeed the foundation of all human identities, is nothing before the judgment of God revealed in Jesus Christ. "Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God." 1 Cor 7:19 "And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham." Matthew 3:9

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Zach82:
Zionism presents major problems for Jewish theology as well. The vindication of the Jewish people is supposed to be an act of God in the Messiah, not of a strong military and wise strategic alliances. "Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the Lord our God."* "Woe to them that go down to Egypt for help; and stay on horses, and trust in chariots, because they are many; and in horsemen, because they are very strong; but they look not unto the Holy One of Israel, neither seek the Lord!"**

*Psalm 20:7
**Isaiah 31:1

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Zach82:

Too many supposedly learned Christians these days, "Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth,"*** rush to deny a Christian interpretation of the Old Testament without giving thought to why Christians came to interpret it the way they did.

***2 Timothy 3:7

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:

A further thought: given Paul's injunction - 'What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church?'*, the willingness of the church to get involved in condemning Israel is probably unwise, though this is a criticism that we all need to be aware of!

---

quote:

---

Indeed - Neturei Karta are a Jewish group who deny the legitimacy of the state of Israel on those grounds. I don't think that works because if the return from Babylon was achieved without the intervention of the Messiah, it seems reasonable that this return will be as well.

---

quote:

---

Yes, there's a long tradition in the church of trying to interpret OT passages as being about the church and 'spiritual' things - ever since Origen - when the natural interpretation is to see them as about visible realities.

---

quote:

---

For me the fact that so many commentators - I've already quoted J C Ryle - predicted Israel's return and it has now happened, makes it seem the best interpretation of the relevant passages. On top of that, the sheer survival of Israel through the 1948 and 1973 wars is remarkable.

---

Take up the debate about biblical interpretation in the proper forum- but the final sentence here is the most egregious. The survival of Israel during the 1948 and 1973 wars is proof of the power of militarism, not faith. biblical promise is an example of the trend started in the theology of the land- a removal of faith in the power of God and of placing that faith in human endeavors.

The hope of Israel is the same hope as that given to the rest of the nations- Jesus Christ alone.
 

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Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on :
 
Missed the edit window...

"The survival of Israel during the 1948 and 1973 wars is proof of the power of militarism, not faith. It is an example of the same trend started in the theology of the land- a removal of faith in the power of God and of placing that faith in human endeavors."
 

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Posted by TurquoiseTastic (# 8978) on :
 
Go Zach! Go Zach!
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
I'm with Zach and Ken.

Ender's Shadow is guilty of faulty exegesis and a highly selective approach that overlooks exegetical strands and emphases within his own evangelical tradition. He cherry picks those commentators and authors whose views most closely represent his own.

I will stop short of accusing him of having a wonky moral compass because of the injunction not to judge ... my own moral compass needs unwonkying too, no doubt.
 

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Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by leo:

quote:

---

Originally posted by chris stiles:

quote:

---

Originally posted by leo:
Christianity has spiritualised away 'the land' but the biblical references to it are only really capable of a materialist interpretation.

---

Only if you ignore chunks of the New Testament.

---

Jews mainly DO ignre the New testament. It has nothing to do with them, in their view. So they interpret THEIR scriptures differently from those Christians who have co-opted it into their religion and see fit to change its meaning.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by chris stiles:
God has only one people, who are all grafted in as Abraham's heirs and who inherit not just what he was promised but more.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:

quote:

---

Originally posted by chris stiles:
God has only one people, who are all grafted in as Abraham's heirs and who inherit not just what he was promised but more.

---

So you would argue that Jews AND Christians have a right to the land of Israel rather than Muslims? If that's not what you mean, your phrase is meaningless IMHO.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by TurquoiseTastic:

The physical land of Israel is a foreshadowing, a type, of the kingdom of God - God's people in God's land under God's king.

Now the type has been fulfilled.

God's people is the Church
God's land is the kingdom of God
God's king is Jesus Christ

There is no need (in theological terms) for anyone, Jew or Gentile, to keep on with an attachment to the physical land of Israel, any more than there is a need to keep performing animal sacrifices to take away sins.

The physical land of Israel is just the physical land of Israel and no-one has a particular "right" to it any more than, for example, New Zealand or Nunavut. Of course general moral principles apply, just as they do in New Zealand or Nunavut. And of course an Israeli or Palestinian might well be emotionally attached to the land as their homeland, just as a Maori or Pakeha might be attached to New Zealand.

---

quote:

---

Olive Tree Theology refers to a theological view introduced by David H. Stern, a Messianic Jewish theologian, which maintains that the Messianic Congregation (or Church) and Israel are part of same spiritual entity which is represented as an olive tree, having one common root stock with original growth and grafted-in branches from "wild stock" (gentiles) and "broken branches" (Jewish people who come to faith in Jesus). See Romans 11:16-24. It is different from both dispensationalism and supersessionism, which both make a distinction between Israel and the Church.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by TurquoiseTastic:
The physical land of Israel is a foreshadowing, a type, of the kingdom of God - God's people in God's land under God's king.

Now the type has been fulfilled.

---

quote:

---

God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:

quote:

---

Originally posted by chris stiles:
God has only one people, who are all grafted in as Abraham's heirs and who inherit not just what he was promised but more.

---

So you would argue that Jews AND Christians have a right to the land of Israel rather than Muslims? If that's not what you mean, your phrase is meaningless IMHO.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:

quote:

---

Originally posted by TurquoiseTastic:
The physical land of Israel is a foreshadowing, a type, of the kingdom of God - God's people in God's land under God's king.

Now the type has been fulfilled.

---

Nice try except for the verse:

quote:

---

God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable.

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Rom 11:9
So because God has given the land to the people of the Mosaic covenant, it's not on for us to claim now that He's withdrawn that gift.

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quote:

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Originally posted by TurquoiseTastic:
And I am not saying that he has "withdrawn the gift". He has extended the gift to (ultimately) cover the whole universe, with Christ at its head. But there is only one olive tree, one Israel, comprised of those (whether formerly Jews or Gentiles) who are in Christ.

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quote:

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Except that the New Testament speaks of us as citizens of heaven and exiles in this world (e.g 1 Peter 2 v 11). Therefore we can't have rulership over it in the way that OT Israel had the Land.

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Originally posted by IconiumBound:
ISTM we have had this debate a few times before. The issues over the rights to the land (and what lies beneath it) have been put forth ad infinitum with historical, theological and political argument.

I have not yet, however, seen any reference to the human issues around the Arab reaction to the establishment of Israel in 1948 when the Palestinian inhabitants were told that They must flee to Gaza before they were slaughtered. And why Gaza, not Jordan, a Palestinian state?

Short of a locked room face-to-face with both sides being held there until a settlement is reached I see no solution.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Zach82:
The New Testament describes Jesus as the King of Israel. You know, him being he Messiah and all. This connects to the recurring theme of the Old Testament- the Jews are NOT the rulers of Israel, and it is NOT really their possession. The land belongs to God, and God is the true ruler of the people of God.

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Originally posted by the long ranger:
... Palestinian refugees fled in all directions. There are refugee camps in Jordan.

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Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
I agree with you that membership of the communities of both covenants is defined by faith, not hereditary, which means that people who convert to Judaism become beneficiaries of the promise, and those who don't seek to claim the status - such as Arab Christians in my understanding, who don't make any attempt to live by the law of Moses - don't have such a claim. And no, I'm in no way suggesting it is salvific to eternal life for its beneficiaries. It is however part of the way in which God continues to stand by his promises.

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quote:

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Meanwhile throughout the OT the land is given explicitly to Abraham and his descendant forever. Which is why if we are to believe what God promises for us, we have to accept what He has promised to others.

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Originally posted by the long ranger:
Seems to me there is a failure of logic even if you believe the sacrifice was to pay for the sins of the people: namely there has not been the sacrifice for a long time because there hasn't been a functioning temple.

Therefore those who reject Jesus and who are under the law are not fulfilling their 'side of the bargain' in continuing to sacrifice for the sins of the people. Therefore nobody and nothing is paying for sins and therefore the people are still sinful before God - and as God cannot co-exist with sin, he therefore must consider them sinful and separate himself from them.

If you are saying that the sacrifice is not necessary any more... then I'm not sure I'm following how you reason that the Jews are subject to the conditions of the Old Covenant and are still His People.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Zach82:

quote:

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Meanwhile throughout the OT the land is given explicitly to Abraham and his descendant forever. Which is why if we are to believe what God promises for us, we have to accept what He has promised to others.

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You are failing to make the connection that the promise of Jesus and the promise made to Abraham are the same promise. Viewing the promises of the Old Testament in isolation from the New Testament may be convenient for your theology, but it isn't a Christian one without it.

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6 Then they gathered around him and asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”

7 He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ricardus:

quote:

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Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
I agree with you that membership of the communities of both covenants is defined by faith, not hereditary, which means that people who convert to Judaism become beneficiaries of the promise, and those who don't seek to claim the status - such as Arab Christians in my understanding, who don't make any attempt to live by the law of Moses - don't have such a claim. And no, I'm in no way suggesting it is salvific to eternal life for its beneficiaries. It is however part of the way in which God continues to stand by his promises.

---

But in your OP, you stated that "God promised the land to Abraham and his descendants through Isaac and Jacob," and "This promise is unconditional." Now you're saying it's actually conditional on making some attempt to keep the Mosaic law.

The implications of Theology of the Land seem to me pretty clear. If it's an unconditional promise to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, then many Palestinian Arabs (as well as descendants of Spanish conversos and similar groups) are heirs to the promise just as much as the Jews. If you have to make some form of commitment to the Mosaic law to qualify, then it's not an unconditional promise.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
Which is why if we are to believe what God promises for us, we have to accept what He has promised to others.

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Originally posted by LeRoc:
Just some questions: does this 'literal' reading of Bible texts necessarily imply that Israelites will live in this land alone? As far as I can tell, they never have.

And does the idea of an 'inheritage' exclude sharing it with others? Especially if you combine it with Jesus' ideas that to rule is to serve.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:

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Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
Which is why if we are to believe what God promises for us, we have to accept what He has promised to others.

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Doesn't this essentially boil down to "Palestinians should be kicked out of their homes so that I can go on believing I'll be Saved"?

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Originally posted by the long ranger:
@Ender's Shadow - ok, but according to you, sacrifice is necessary for forgiveness. And according to the Mosaic law, animal sacrifice is necessary for the forgiveness of the people of Israel.

Hence surely if they're not sacrificing they are not forgiven.. and hence not considered to be part of the covenant - which stretches back to the promise of Abraham.

I can't see how you can have it both ways when you've already apparently stated that sacrificial atonement is necessary for the forgiveness of sins.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:

quote:

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Originally posted by TurquoiseTastic:
The physical land of Israel is a foreshadowing, a type, of the kingdom of God - God's people in God's land under God's king.

Now the type has been fulfilled.

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Nice try except for the verse:

quote:

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God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable.

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Rom 11:9
So because God has given the land to the people of the Mosaic covenant, it's not on for us to claim now that He's withdrawn that gift.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
the problem is twofold: relating to land ownership and relating to political rights. As far as the first is concerned, the logic of the Old Testament points to the fact that the land, having been given to the people of Israel, cannot be alienated from them. The concept of Jubilee means that land can only be sold for a limited period. Therefore the land which the Arabs 'own' was forcibly and unlawfully taken from the Jews at some point, and should return to their ownership. At least that is what the logic of the Old Testament points to. Now whether modern Israel wants to follow that logic, or accept the presence of Arabs on its agricultural land is a matter for it. But as Christians who take the OT seriously, we can't object in principle to their regaining the land. I would suggest they might well be wise to resist the idea, or if they do it, do it 'gently', looking to offer generous compensation.

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The political issue of the presence of a substantial Arab minority in the land is more complex. The main problem here is that we are fixated on the concept of democracy, and regard it as unacceptable to exclude people from 'representation'. Given that a 'one state' solution where all the residents of the territories west of the Jordan would be treated equally would result in the de facto destruction of Israel as a Jewish state, it is not legitimate for Christians to call for this solution.

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The experience of Gaza offers little hope that a two state solution will work - though if Israel wishes to adopt such a settlement, it should be their choice. Again, we must hesitate to pressurise them into such a choice; they will be taking an enormous risk because the public commitment of many groups within Islam to Israel's destruction gives them very good reason to be sceptical that such a peace agreement would work.

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However there are also serious practical issues associated with any full sovereignty for an Arab state on the West Bank; if it has control of who is allowed to live there, and allows many of the residents of the camps outside Israel to return, the issue of water supply will become a BIG issue. Specifically the shared aquifers under the land are liable to be drained to the point of becoming filled from the sea, with major consequences for everybody.

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quote:

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So I can see where you are coming from Marvin - and I hope that Israel doesn't go all the way down that route. But ultimately it would be their choice; they have the right to do it, but it would probably be unwise.

What is really needed is a recognition by the Arabs and everyone that the refugees aren't going back. Instead they should be encouraged to go to countries that are looking for immigrants: the USA, Canada and Australia are still open for settlement, or else integrated into the states where they currently reside. However this would disarm the Arabs of one of their biggest weapons in the situation; the reality that they've failed to go down that road is a clear indicator that at heart they are committed to the destruction of Israel as a state, which gives Israel a strong reason to remain sceptical of peace offers. It's nice to grandstand in condemning Israel and demanding they risk their existence when you aren't risking anything.

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quote:

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I don't see why you are so fixated on the issue of forgiveness of sins. As I've already said, the terms of the promise of the land are not conditional on that sort of issue: yes God did judge them for their failure to keep the covenant, but that doesn't mean the land stops being theirs.

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And of course from a Christian perspective, the forgiveness is achieved by Jesus' death, and not by the sacrifices, so the point is moot; in practice that deals with the issue of sin, even if the Jews don't realise it.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by the long ranger:
Seems to me there is a failure of logic even if you believe the sacrifice was to pay for the sins of the people: namely there has not been the sacrifice for a long time because there hasn't been a functioning temple.

Therefore those who reject Jesus and who are under the law are not fulfilling their 'side of the bargain' in continuing to sacrifice for the sins of the people. Therefore nobody and nothing is paying for sins and therefore the people are still sinful before God - and as God cannot co-exist with sin, he therefore must consider them sinful and separate himself from them.

If you are saying that the sacrifice is not necessary any more... then I'm not sure I'm following how you reason that the Jews are subject to the conditions of the Old Covenant and are still His People.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Steve H:

quote:

---

Originally posted by the long ranger:
Seems to me there is a failure of logic even if you believe the sacrifice was to pay for the sins of the people: namely there has not been the sacrifice for a long time because there hasn't been a functioning temple.

Therefore those who reject Jesus and who are under the law are not fulfilling their 'side of the bargain' in continuing to sacrifice for the sins of the people. Therefore nobody and nothing is paying for sins and therefore the people are still sinful before God - and as God cannot co-exist with sin, he therefore must consider them sinful and separate himself from them.

If you are saying that the sacrifice is not necessary any more... then I'm not sure I'm following how you reason that the Jews are subject to the conditions of the Old Covenant and are still His People.

---

It has been suggested, and it makes sense to me, that, whereas the conventional view of history is that Judaism continued from ancient times to the present day, with Christianity alongside it as a sister-religion for the last 2000 years, what really happened was that ancient, temple-based Judaism ended at the time of the destruction of the temple 2000 years ago, and was replaced by two new successor-religions: Christianity and synagogue-based Judaism.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ricardus:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
I agree with you that membership of the communities of both covenants is defined by faith, not hereditary, which means that people who convert to Judaism become beneficiaries of the promise, and those who don't seek to claim the status - such as Arab Christians in my understanding, who don't make any attempt to live by the law of Moses - don't have such a claim. And no, I'm in no way suggesting it is salvific to eternal life for its beneficiaries. It is however part of the way in which God continues to stand by his promises.

---

But in your OP, you stated that "God promised the land to Abraham and his descendants through Isaac and Jacob," and "This promise is unconditional." Now you're saying it's actually conditional on making some attempt to keep the Mosaic law.

The implications of Theology of the Land seem to me pretty clear. If it's an unconditional promise to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, then many Palestinian Arabs (as well as descendants of Spanish conversos and similar groups) are heirs to the promise just as much as the Jews. If you have to make some form of commitment to the Mosaic law to qualify, then it's not an unconditional promise.

---

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Mudfrog:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ricardus:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
I agree with you that membership of the communities of both covenants is defined by faith, not hereditary, which means that people who convert to Judaism become beneficiaries of the promise, and those who don't seek to claim the status - such as Arab Christians in my understanding, who don't make any attempt to live by the law of Moses - don't have such a claim. And no, I'm in no way suggesting it is salvific to eternal life for its beneficiaries. It is however part of the way in which God continues to stand by his promises.

---

But in your OP, you stated that "God promised the land to Abraham and his descendants through Isaac and Jacob," and "This promise is unconditional." Now you're saying it's actually conditional on making some attempt to keep the Mosaic law.

The implications of Theology of the Land seem to me pretty clear. If it's an unconditional promise to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, then many Palestinian Arabs (as well as descendants of Spanish conversos and similar groups) are heirs to the promise just as much as the Jews. If you have to make some form of commitment to the Mosaic law to qualify, then it's not an unconditional promise.

---

---

Actually, the Arabs (Muslims) believe that Ishmael is the son of promise, and not Isaac. You may not be aware that the Qu'ran falsely changes the story of Abraham and Isaac, and the substitutionary sacrifice, to Abraham and Ishmael. They believe that God's promises come through Ishmael and that Isaac the father of Israel, is not under God's promise.

The promise is made to Israel in the name of YHWH, not to Ishmael. The Promised Land is promised, covenanted, to the children of Israel, not to the Arabs.

If one is going to use the Bible for anything, one also has to include these promises that specifically exclude the Arabs, the sons of Ishmael, who was NOT the heir of Abraham.

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quote:

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Mudfrog: Great nation or not, the sons of Ishmael were never promised the land of Canaan and never had a unique covenant with the Lord God.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Well indeed, the promise to Ishmael was in my mind as I typed; but we are considering the covenant made to Israel and the promise of the land of Canaan that was given to them after the exodus.

Great nation or not, the sons of Ishmael were never promised the land of Canaan and never had a unique covenant with the Lord God.

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quote:

---

That sounds impressive, but doesn't actually mean anything to me. Can you unpack why the New Testament's occurrence makes the slightest difference to the debate, given that the Jesus seems to agree that the 'kingdom will be restored to Israel' in:

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quote:

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Originally posted by Zach82:

quote:

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That sounds impressive, but doesn't actually mean anything to me. Can you unpack why the New Testament's occurrence makes the slightest difference to the debate, given that the Jesus seems to agree that the 'kingdom will be restored to Israel' in:

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I can unpack it easily: what you understand by "Kingdom" is not what Jesus understood by "Kingdom." What is this Kingdom like? Jesus told us many times. "The Kingdom of God is a man who forgave his prodigal son." "The Kingdom of God is a pearl of great price." "The Kingdom of God is a mustard seed."

That's why Jesus had a hard time selling his status as Messiah. People want land and soldiers and guns and bombs, with a nice gentile alliance to protect the claims of the Jews, but God has given us a homeless preacher from Nazareth, crying out in the wilderness against our lack of faith. "But Lord, this isn't the Kingdom we wanted! We wanted land and wealth and military power!" But it is the Kingdom we are given, and "the judgments of the LORD are true and righteous altogether."

A strictly materialist interpretation of the promise to Abraham is wrong, but where it absolutely leaves biblical belief is when it stops trusting in God alone in restore those promises. The Bible calls all to trust in the power of God through the Messiah. Zionists put their faith in the powers of this world. "All they that take the sword shall perish with the sword" while only they that live by the name of God shall live.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Mudfrog:
I believe the Palestinians were once offered a 2 nation state solution, a place of their own; but they refused it?

Do the Palestinians want Israel to have a nation state?

The Church has not replaced Israel. That doctrine is the foundation of 2000 years of antisemitism.

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quote:

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The Church has not replaced Israel. That doctrine is the foundation of 2000 years of antisemitism.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Actually, the Arabs (Muslims) believe that Ishmael is the son of promise, and not Isaac. You may not be aware that the Qu'ran falsely changes the story of Abraham and Isaac, and the substitutionary sacrifice, to Abraham and Ishmael. They believe that God's promises come through Ishmael and that Isaac the father of Israel, is not under God's promise.

The promise is made to Israel in the name of YHWH, not to Ishmael. The Promised Land is promised, covenanted, to the children of Israel, not to the Arabs.

If one is going to use the Bible for anything, one also has to include these promises that specifically exclude the Arabs, the sons of Ishmael, who was NOT the heir of Abraham.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Zach82:

quote:

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The Church has not replaced Israel. That doctrine is the foundation of 2000 years of antisemitism.

---

The doctrine of supercessionism, which puts the Church in Israel's place in God's plan and tosses out the Jews, is surely false, so far as the Bible is concerned. Yet this does not in any way grant Israel special legitimacy, for the Cross supercedes every nationality, Jewish and gentile alike. God's judgment is that all have sinned and fallen short, Jew and gentile alike, and that nevertheless, God will offer his salvation to all, Jew and gentile alike.

Zionists might demand some special consideration of Jewish identity, but Christianity sees all of humanity getting a new identity in light of the Cross of Christ, where both circumcision and uncircumcision count for nothing.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
So I can see where you are coming from Marvin

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Mudfrog:
I believe the Palestinians were once offered a 2 nation state solution, a place of their own; but they refused it?

Do the Palestinians want Israel to have a nation state?

The Church has not replaced Israel. That doctrine is the foundation of 2000 years of antisemitism.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:

quote:

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Originally posted by Mudfrog:
I believe the Palestinians were once offered a 2 nation state solution, a place of their own; but they refused it?

Do the Palestinians want Israel to have a nation state?

The Church has not replaced Israel. That doctrine is the foundation of 2000 years of antisemitism.

---

No, the doctrine that is the foundation of 2000 years of antisemitism is the idea that the Jews killed Christ.

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quote:

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Originally posted by leo:

quote:

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Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:

quote:

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Originally posted by Mudfrog:
I believe the Palestinians were once offered a 2 nation state solution, a place of their own; but they refused it?

Do the Palestinians want Israel to have a nation state?

The Church has not replaced Israel. That doctrine is the foundation of 2000 years of antisemitism.

---

No, the doctrine that is the foundation of 2000 years of antisemitism is the idea that the Jews killed Christ.

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Both supercessionism and the Christ-killer idea feed into antisemitisism. It is both/and, not either/or.

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quote:

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Sir Winston Churchill stated in 1939 about what role Russia might play in World War II:
"I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma, but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest."

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quote:

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Originally posted by Niteowl2:

quote:

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Originally posted by leo:

quote:

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Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:

quote:

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Originally posted by Mudfrog:
I believe the Palestinians were once offered a 2 nation state solution, a place of their own; but they refused it?

Do the Palestinians want Israel to have a nation state?

The Church has not replaced Israel. That doctrine is the foundation of 2000 years of antisemitism.

---

No, the doctrine that is the foundation of 2000 years of antisemitism is the idea that the Jews killed Christ.

---

Both supercessionism and the Christ-killer idea feed into antisemitisism. It is both/and, not either/or.

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Replaced Israel? No. Joined/grafted with Israel with end being the completed Bride of Christ, not a nation state? Yes. And it's based in the Bible, not on antisemitism. Prooftexted by several. The answer to everything is NOT antisemitism. There is a world still full of it out there it needs to be wiped out. Accusing people of it for just about everything makes that job harder.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Matt Black:
Christ and His Church are the fulfillment, not the replacement of Israel.

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This.

 

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Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by leo:
Both supercessionism and the Christ-killer idea feed into antisemitisism. It is both/and, not either/or.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Niteowl2:

quote:

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Originally posted by Zach82:

quote:

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The Church has not replaced Israel. That doctrine is the foundation of 2000 years of antisemitism.

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The doctrine of supercessionism, which puts the Church in Israel's place in God's plan and tosses out the Jews, is surely false, so far as the Bible is concerned. Yet this does not in any way grant Israel special legitimacy, for the Cross supercedes every nationality, Jewish and gentile alike. God's judgment is that all have sinned and fallen short, Jew and gentile alike, and that nevertheless, God will offer his salvation to all, Jew and gentile alike.

Zionists might demand some special consideration of Jewish identity, but Christianity sees all of humanity getting a new identity in light of the Cross of Christ, where both circumcision and uncircumcision count for nothing.

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You put it a little better than I did. God's wish and focus is Jew and Gentile together in salvation.

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quote:

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"It was ... declared improper to follow the custom of the Jews in the celebration of this holy festival, because, their hands having been stained with crime, the minds of these wretched men are necessarily blinded.... Let us, then, have nothing in common with the Jews, who are our adversaries. ... avoiding all contact with that evil way. ... who, after having compassed the death of the Lord, being out of their minds, are guided not by sound reason, but by an unrestrained passion, wherever their innate madness carries them. ... a people so utterly depraved. ... Therefore, this irregularity must be corrected, in order that we may no more have any thing in common with those parricides and the murderers of our Lord. ... no single point in common with the perjury of the Jews. Council of Nicea

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quote:

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Romans 11:25-31

25 I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. 26 And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written:

“The deliverer will come from Zion;
he will turn godlessness away from Jacob.
27 And this is my covenant with them
when I take away their sins."
28 As far as the gospel is concerned, they are enemies on your account; but as far as election is concerned, they are loved on account of the patriarchs, 29 for God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable. 30 Just as you who were at one time disobedient to God have now received mercy as a result of their disobedience, 31 so they too have now become disobedient in order that they too may now receive mercy as a result of God’s mercy to you.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Zach82:
It is important, Mudfrog, to interpret that passage in its own context, and not in the carefully constructed context of dispensational theology.

Paul is writing in a context when the Gentile Church necessary for your theology was still a long time off. The Church was still dominated by Jews, and was considered even by Christians to be a Jewish sect. However, the Church was starting to be marginalized in Jewish circles because of its revolutionary new policy towards Gentiles.

That's the situation Paul is trying to explain in that passage. He is explaining that God's new inclusion of the Gentiles in the Covenant does not mean He is finished when the Jews. This is predicated on the assumption that the reconciliation between Jews and Gentiles is happening right now, not in the future. An "age of gentiles" would have still been completely inconceivable to Paul.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Zach82:
Paul is writing in a context when the Gentile Church necessary for your theology was still a long time off. The Church was still dominated by Jews, and was considered even by Christians to be a Jewish sect. However, the Church was starting to be marginalized in Jewish circles because of its revolutionary new policy towards Gentiles.

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quote:

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But Romans was written to a majority gentile audience.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Mudfrog:
The last 65 years of Israel's existence is part of the run up to the fulfilment of that promise.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Zach82:

quote:

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But Romans was written to a majority gentile audience.

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I would recommend a careful reading of Romans, beginning to end, apart from any dispensationalist commentaries. Rome was a mixed community in Paul's day, and the Epistle to the Romans contains direct addresses to both Jews and Gentiles.

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quote:

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"(The) expulsion of Jews (from Rome) would have included Jewish Christians, as Luke himself implies when he mentions that it was because of this edict of Claudius that Priscilla and Aquila had come to Corinth. The expulsion (which is probably to be dated in AD 49) would have had a significant effect on the make-up of the Christian community in Rome: Gentiles, who up to this point comprised a minority of believers, were now left as the only Christians in the city. Therefore, although Jews had been allowed to move back to Rome by the time Paul wrote to the Romans - Priscilla and Aquila, for instance, had returned - Gentiles were in the majority in the church, and had come to dominate both its leadership and theological tone."

Romans, in New Bible Commentary, IVP, 1994, p1115

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quote:

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Originally posted by orfeo:

quote:

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Originally posted by Mudfrog:
The last 65 years of Israel's existence is part of the run up to the fulfilment of that promise.

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Why, exactly?

To be honest, I can never quite see why God's promises to the Jews are all that linked to the existence of a political earthly Israeli state. There wasn't a country of that name for a couple of millennia. And frankly, the current one acts like a complete basket case at times.

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The logic is that there are predictions made in the bible that haven't been fulfilled; if the Parousia is to occur, those predictions need to have been fulfilled if God is to be shown to be trustworthy. Therefore the reestablishment of a Jewish state, in fulfilling that prediction, makes the parousia possible in a way that it wasn't before. This is a logical extension of Paul's teaching in 2 Thess that the anti-Christ must appear before the second coming.

Of course for those who reject the possibility of a visible return of Christ in glory this is an irrelevant argument.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
It's also irrelevant to those who do believe in a literal Parousia but who don't sign up for an overly literal pre-millenialist or dispensational package.

That includes me. It also includes most Christians in the classic Reformed traditions, the Orthodox and the RCs. The only people who hold the kind of views that you espouse are a particularly narrow band of Protestant fundamentalists - although I have come across a rather odd Orthodox priest online who holds similar views under the influence of Protestant evangelicals/fundamentalists. One reason why our Orthodox friends are rather wary of ecumenism is that it can lead to people espousing some of these more left-field views.



I don't see why we have to take on the baggage of dispensationalism nor the interpretive grid of pre-millenialism through which to view the scriptures as an antidote to anti-semitism.

I recently heard a liberal female rabbi on Radio 3 talking about her experience of studying theology at Cambridge in the early 1970s and her subsequent experiences in Israel.

She'd been given a very hard time in the '70s by Christians of all stripes - both conservative and liberal. I felt for her, believe you me.

Her experience in Israel itself was positive, on balance, and her view of the potential of Israel was very upbeat, but certainly not uncritical.

On the Christian attitude to the Jews thing, she was also remarkably positive. She held the RC Church up as an example of how attitudes could change. Without eliding its dire track record in terms of anti-semitism, she felt that recent pronouncements from the Vatican were evidence of a sea-change in Catholic thinking.

Sure, it'll take a while to filter into the pews, these things always do, but she was quite optimistic about the way things were going and the way that the RC Church now regarded the Jews.

It's interesting, don't you think, that the Vatican has experienced something of a change of heart - in a 'progressive', perhaps even radical direction - WITHOUT imbibing the whole superstructure of millenarian speculation or buying into what I maintain is an interpretive grid imposed upon the scriptures - which is effectively what the whole Schofield Reference Bible influenced/promulgated interpretations are.

On a contentious note, perhaps, and one that certainly isn't going to help me make friends and influence people, I don't see why I should take your view of prophecy that seriously, Ender's Shadow, when your blog contains jejune and putative prophecies of a very unconvincing nature.

Sure, I believe in the fulfilment of prophecy, I'm even open to aspects of what you're talking about in terms of an 'anti-Christ' and so on - although there are different ways to understand that.

You are perfectly entitled to your eschatological views, of course, as is Mudfrog and anyone else. Mudfrog, at least, will acknowledge that they are theories and not insist on them having the status of holy writ - although he does cross the line a few times IMHO.

Still, there's no-one single, 'authoritative' interpretation of eschatological issues so you are 'free' as it were, to believe what you like.

Just as long as you don't expect the rest of us to swallow it.
 

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Posted by Niteowl2 (# 15841) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:

Of course for those who reject the possibility of a visible return of Christ in glory this is an irrelevant argument.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mudfrog:
The last 65 years of Israel's existence is part of the run up to the fulfilment of that promise.

---

Why, exactly?

To be honest, I can never quite see why God's promises to the Jews are all that linked to the existence of a political earthly Israeli state. There wasn't a country of that name for a couple of millennia. And frankly, the current one acts like a complete basket case at times.

---

The logic is that there are predictions made in the bible that haven't been fulfilled; if the Parousia is to occur, those predictions need to have been fulfilled if God is to be shown to be trustworthy. Therefore the reestablishment of a Jewish state, in fulfilling that prediction, makes the parousia possible in a way that it wasn't before. This is a logical extension of Paul's teaching in 2 Thess that the anti-Christ must appear before the second coming.

Of course for those who reject the possibility of a visible return of Christ in glory this is an irrelevant argument.

---

quote:

---

Zach82: interpreting them as literally as possible

---

Not even that. To me, it looks more like making all kinds of wild substitutions of the text "35 weeks is really 7 years", "the 10 horns stand for the European Union", "the Beast stands for ..." etc. and then saying they've interpreted the text literally.

It's unbiblical bullshit. And when given political power, it's dangerous bullshit.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
This:

'There is a reason no serious Scripture scholar is a dispensationalist. It's like the creationism of eschatology.'



And what Zach82 subsequently said.

I'm afraid I find it very, very hard indeed to take anyone seriously as a Bible expositor or church leader or minister in any way, shape or form if they hold to a dipsy dispy position.

I'm sorry, Mudfrog, that cuts you out my friend ... though it grieves me to say so ...

I'm sure I'm not worthy to carry your tambourine but I wouldn't want to be part of anything where anyone in leadership was a dispy.

Harsh?

Of course, it doesn't undermine everything else that they say, but I'm afraid it would cast a doubt in my mind over their theological credibility overall.

Sorry old boy ...
 

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Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :
 
It doesn't help when you keep referring to tambourines and my rank in such a sarcastic way, as you have done in the past. If you're going to resort to disparaging The Salvation Army and implying that there is something worthy of commenting on these things in a discussion that has nothing to do with the Army, then I'd rather not make further comment.
 

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Posted by ken (# 2460) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
The logic is that there are predictions made in the bible that haven't been fulfilled; if the Parousia is to occur, those predictions need to have been fulfilled if God is to be shown to be trustworthy. Therefore the reestablishment of a Jewish state, in fulfilling that prediction, makes the parousia possible in a way that it wasn't before.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mudfrog:

The teaching that Christ will come back and establish an earthly Kingdom, restoring the Kingdom to Israel, is not an invention of the Schofield reference Bible nor is it merely an over-literal interpretation

---

quote:

---

The Bible clearly speaks...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Zach82:

quote:

---

The Bible clearly speaks...

---

The thing is that it doesn't. Once we stop stringing unrelated prophecies together and filling in inconvenient blanks with dispy bible commentaries, none of that stuff is clear at all.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mudfrog:
I don't understand how you can speak of a literal return of Christ but then dismiss anything the Bible speaks of in a literal way, as in the nation of Israel.

What do you expect Jesus is going to do when he returns? Sit in church?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mudfrog:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Zach82:

quote:

---

The Bible clearly speaks...

---

The thing is that it doesn't. Once we stop stringing unrelated prophecies together and filling in inconvenient blanks with dispy bible commentaries, none of that stuff is clear at all.

---

You'll be telling us next that none of the unrelated prophecies in the OT - Isaiah, Psalms, Micah, etc - have anything to do with the birth of Christ, and that we are taking them all too literally.

---

1. The Jews become the sole rulers of Israel.
2. The Jews stop being Jews, and convert to Christianity (or 144.000 of them, I never get that part right).
3. Jesus comes back.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mudfrog:
It also seems to me that some here are very good at deciding what should be taken literally or not. I just wonder upon what grounds you have become so certain.

---

Really? I would say it's the pre-trib dispensationalists and other 'prophecy scholars' who pick and choose in a more or less arbitrary manner which bits are literal, and then show amazing certainty about their results, despite the fact that they can't even agree with each other.

Like Zach, I used to believe that stuff. What you get is non-literal interpretation of Scripture as soon as it doesn't fit whatever extra-Biblical schema you're using.

Obviously 'Israel' means a literal state of Israel, but 'Babylon the Great' doesn't refer to Babylon at all, but to Rome or New York or Mecca or wherever the current bogeyman lurks.

The lengths of time in Daniel refer to actual lengths of time (albeit multiplied by a factor of something unspecified), but the Jehovah's Witnesses are considered laughably absurd for believing that 144,000 will be saved means that 144,000 will be saved.

When the Israelites are exile in Babylon and Assyria, and a prophet tells them that Yahweh will bring them back from the nations in which He has scattered them, that obviously doesn't mean Babylon and Assyria, but the completely separate dispersal after the destruction of the Temple by the Romans.

Occasionally you hear that prophecy is like looking at three mountains, each one bigger than the last: you can see forests and snow on each of them, but you can't tell what belongs to which mountain. (Google 'mountain peaks of prophecy' for what I mean.) Great analogy! But there's no evidence in Scripture to suggest this is how prophecy should be interpreted.

I might have slightly more sympathy if 'prophecy scholars' could actually come to consistent conclusions using these methods. But in fact they squabble furiously among themselves about whether there will be a Rapture, and the length and nature and divisions and existence of the Great Tribulation.

The 'prophecy scholars' don't know what they believe, they don't know why they believe it, and yet they still feel certain enough about it to lobby American foreign policy. This is what seems to me dangerous.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
@Mudfrog, apologies for teasing you. I meant no offence.

For the record, I have a lot of time for the Salvation Army and have defended them time and again against some of the more sacramentally prescriptive posters on these Boards. I happen to know RC priests and other more sacramentally inclined people in real life (not here on Ship) who share my respect and admiration for the Army - as I'm sure you do too.

If I tease you it'd only be the same as the way I sometimes tease Quakers for their silence or Anglo-Catholics for their tat. I pretty much tease everybody, it's one of my many faults. You're probably only most fully aware of this when it's aimed in your direction.



On the prophecy thing - I do believe in prophecy and I do believe that Christ fulfilled the prophecies that we find in the OT - Isaiah, Micah etc. But I don't see this happening in a woodenly 'linear' way in some instances. So, what seems to have happened is that the disciples applied some of the prophecies and types to Christ because they observed what he was doing and made connections. In some instances Christ himself was explicit about these, in others they seem to have put two-and-two together - often in ways that we might find a little 'forced' if we're honest.

Now, I do believe that they were led and guided by God the Holy Spirit in all of this - but at the same time it doesn't stop being a human activity. It's a synergy thing.

Just as Christ is fully God and fully man at one and the same time, I believe that the scriptures are both the word of God AND a human production at one and the same time - and, moreover, that the Church too is both a human and divine organism as it were - full of redeemed sinners and nincompoops but also the people of God ...

So, in the same way, an Old Testament prophecy can have a contemporary fulfilment or application in its own time and frame of reference - which the Isaiah and other prophecies certainly had - and be capable of wider interpretation or 'fulfilment' if you like in terms of Christology etc.

Am I making sense?

What I don't see if the OT prophecies and their NT glosses and interpretations as offering a blow-by-blow systematic blue-print about what to expect before the return of Christ.

We can believe in a literal Parousia without having to take an over-realised or overly futuristic view of the Book of Revelation or certain tantalising passages in the Gospels, for instance.

All that said, there appears to be a level of physical detail there that gives me pause - such as the references to an actual 'man of sin' rather than, say, to a general 'sin principle' or something disembodied of that kind.

But I find some of the dispensationalist attempts to fit all of this stuff into a neat and systematic schema both unconvincing and often downright risible. If you'd heard some of the things that were preached at the Gospel Hall I sometimes attended in my late teens/early 20s you'd chuckle too. Scriptures torn out of context and applied to the number of aerials on the latest Israeli tank, an increase in the vulture population in the Negev Desert backed up by proof positive from The Reader's Digest ...

Ok, I'm not accusing you of such howlers, but the interpretive tradition you seem to represent leads to that sort of stuff and produces it in spades.

If I've offended you, I apologise. But I maintain my ground on the rest of it.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Sorry to double-post, but I've been thinking about this:

'It also seems to me that some here are very good at deciding what should be taken literally or not. I just wonder upon what grounds you have become so certain.'

I can only speak for myself, Mudfrog, but I tend to take the 'that believed everywhere and by all' approach to a certain extent - something I've picked up from the more Catholic traditions on these Boards.

Consequently, whilst all Trinitarian Christians believe in the deity of Christ and the deity of the Spirit, for instance - or are supposed to - it's obvious that not everyone agrees on secondary issues such as eschatology.

Some people, like your good self, take a more literal approach to certain passages (and interpret them, I maintain, through a particular theological grid) whilst others don't.

Consequently, my inclination is not to go with the idiosyncratic and the partial (ie. your approach in this particular instance), but with the closest I can find to a consensus.

In this case there is more of a consensus among the historic churches and the traditional denominations. There ain't a great deal of difference, it seems to me, between the line taken by the classic Reformed churches, the RCs and the Orthodox on this one. So I reckon I'm on safer ground by siding with them on this particular point than I would be following the more idiosyncratic interpretations favoured by Irvine, Darby and those who adopt millenarian positions today.

Sorry about that.

Of course, I am selective in how I apply this principle. So I wouldn't write off all innovations and developments.

But to all intents and purposes, on the Big Issues, I am inclined to side with the broad sweep of Christian tradition rather than adopt personal or idiosyncratic interpretations.

To coin a phrase you've used before and adapt it to my purposes, it isn't so much that I want a 'Patriarch to tell me what to believe' as much as I trust the collective judgement of generations of Christians (of all stripes) more than I trust individual 'revelation' or personal interpretations such as that represented by the whole dispensationalist package.

The whole thing lends itself to whacky interpretations and time-wasting debates over details about seven years of this and times-and-times-and-half-a-time of that.

That doesn't mean that the more traditional mob don't have their own problems. Of course they do. But loose-cannon eschatological speculation isn't among them and its one less thing I'd rather worry about thank you very much.

Yes, I believe in the literal return of Christ. I'm just not as literal on the detail as you are.

I prefer to be broader-brush that way.
 

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Posted by South Coast Kevin (# 16130) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by LeRoc:
...This to me is the real Theology of the Land. In fact, I find it profoundly prophetic. And this is taking the Bible seriously.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ricardus:
I would say it's the pre-trib dispensationalists and other 'prophecy scholars' who pick and choose in a more or less arbitrary manner which bits are literal... What you get is non-literal interpretation of Scripture as soon as it doesn't fit whatever extra-Biblical schema you're using.

---

Thanks, both of you. I'll certainly be drawing from these arguments of yours next time I get into conversation with a pre-trib dispensationalist (which does happen every now and then, though not with people in my particular church).
 

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Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:


I can only speak for myself, Mudfrog, but I tend to take the 'that believed everywhere and by all' approach to a certain extent - something I've picked up from the more Catholic traditions on these Boards.

---

Yes, they did that to Martin Luther as well, I believe.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
So?

What are you saying, Mudfrog? That the dispensationalists are on the same level as one of the great Reformers? That a dispensationalist interpretation is potentially on the same level, in Protestant terms, as justification by grace through faith? You're having me on if you believe that ...

While we're at it, even Lutherans will acknowledge that the guy went too far by trying to tear out bits of the Bible that didn't appear to fit his particular schema. No doubt, though, you'll accuse us non-dispies of doing the same when we don't apply Daniel, the Book of Revelation and so on to the kind of over-literal and over-realised interpretations current in some circles.

If this all sounds very 'Catholic' to you then you obviously hadn't noticed (or chose to ignore) my comment that I apply this principle selectively. I am still a Protestant, after all, and not RC or Orthodox.

But I maintain that the broad principle still stands.

Even with a more Protestant hermeneutic I think one can pick dirty great big holes in the dispensationalist position.

You seem to be working with a model of prophecy that goes from the past, through the NT, to the present and then on into the future.

I'm suggesting that it tends to work the other way around. That after the great 'Christ event', the life, death and glorious resurrection and ascension of Christ, the disciples/early Church understood the promises to Israel in a new light. They interpreted them through the new lens, as it were, of Christ the Messiah and, as the Apostle Paul articulates in the epistle to the Romans, came to appreciate that the Gentiles were grafted in too.

The Vatican certainly seems to have shifted its ground on its attitude to Jewry in recent years an that's very welcome in my view. But they haven't done so by imbibing dispensationalist emphases but by working things through in the context of their own tradition and allowing that tradition to inform and direct their thinking.

Ok, I recognise that this leaves some loose ends untied but I can live with it. I don't have to have everything battened down and neatly packaged.



I'm not saying that there aren't times when someone shouldn't make a stand and challenge the accepted status quo - 'Athanasius contra mundum' -

Nor am I saying that enthusiastic or pietistic groups such as the Salvation Army, the Brethren, the Quakers, the Pentecostals or whoever else don't have a role to play in challenging or reminding the 'mainstream' of some core facets of the Gospel or neglected emphases etc.

I just don't buy the pre-millenialist, dispensationalist thing. If you want to hold that as a personal opinion then that's fine, that's your right and your eccentricity .. ... just don't go round promulgating it as if it's the last word on the matter or the TruthTM of Holy Writ.

Am I making any sense?
 

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Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mudfrog:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:


I can only speak for myself, Mudfrog, but I tend to take the 'that believed everywhere and by all' approach to a certain extent - something I've picked up from the more Catholic traditions on these Boards.

---

Yes, they did that to Martin Luther as well, I believe.

---

quote:

---

I just don't buy the pre-millenialist, dispensationalist thing. If you want to hold that as a personal opinion then that's fine, that's your right and your eccentricity .. ... just don't go round promulgating it as if it's the last word on the matter or the TruthTM of Holy Writ.

---

I understand your drift Gamaliel.

I have come from the Open Brethren and we were weaned on J.N. Derby etc etc etc. Happy or not so happy memories as boy and man trying to understand Ezekiel chapters 38 and 39 (Gog Magog etc etc).

I feel more comfortable these days with the Messianic theology of the ''olive tree'' which to be fair incorporates some elements of classic pre millennium dispensationalism - but note, not all!!!!!

I do feel that the ''pan'' approach to Israel and the land might be a good way to go . That is it will all pan out OK in the end

One aspect of dispensational theology I don't like is that it can lead to this very formulaic approach and I think many Jewish believers in Christ (and others too) feel that they are almost pre programmed to act in particular ways and say specific things; life just a'int like that. This is for me the main weakness with J.N. Derby etc. but I would say that we must be careful not to throw out the proverbial baby with the bath water here - the Jewish people do have a part to play in God's end time economy. But maybe not in such a deterministic and planned way as some may think.

Saul
 

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Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
So?

What are you saying, Mudfrog? That the dispensationalists are on the same level as one of the great Reformers? That a dispensationalist interpretation is potentially on the same level, in Protestant terms, as justification by grace through faith? You're having me on if you believe that ...

---

Are people deliberately missing point?

The point was that Martin Luther - and anyone else for that matter - who had a theological thought that didn't have the imprimateur on it would have had a hard time getting past the 'but we've always thought like this, so you're wrong' philosophy.

I was in no way suggesting that anyone came close to the heights of the Reformation fathers. I was simply suggesting that just because an idea is a new or minority view when it first is espoused, doesn't mean it is wrong.

Just think of all the different theologies that have developed since the nineteenth century; are they all wrong too because they are not everywhere believed?

[ 23. May 2012, 19:29: Message edited by: Mudfrog ]
 

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Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :
 
And while we going about me interpreting Scripture in the light of the Schofield Reference Bible - something I don't possess or have even read; and while there is the charge that the Bible is being read by me through a grid of dispensationalist nonsense, can I suggest that my own theological views are being interpreted by you in the light of your experience with some very dodgy sounding brethren and charismatic beliefs - none of which I subscribe to.

I have read most of the stuff in the posts above and thought, 'well I don't believe that either, particularly!'

It seems to me that you are assuming that because I simply believe in the restored nation of Israel being an element of fulfilled prophecy in the run up to the second coming, I automatically subscribe to the stuff you saw and heard in Brethren meetings. It doesn't follow at all.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
I think you'll find that I've couched my comments in terms like, 'I'm not accusing you of doing this, but ...' and so on.

I am well aware that you don't share some of the whackier interpretations found among full-on dispensationalist outfits like the Brethren. Although, I understand from Kaplan Corday that the Brethren assemblies where he is at least appear to have moved on from dispensationalism now and pretty much hold what might be termed more 'mainstream' views on eschatology ...



As for the 'heights' that the Reformers reached - well, that all depends on your perspective of course. They were a pretty mixed bunch, just like anyone else.

And of course I understood your point that just because something has developed more recently than the last Ecumenical Council (however many we consider there to have been) it is automatically wrong.

I didn't assert any such thing and if you'd read my post properly you would have recognised that.

What I said was that as a general principle I tend to operate by the rule of thumb that when it comes to the Big Issues it is wisest to go with the broad consensus and thrust of the Church Universal - or Christendom in general as it were. And I gave some examples to show what I meant.

Consequently, I'd take a stand on the major creeds but wouldn't go to the stake over peripheral issues such as eschatological theories.

I don't hold these to be of prime importance and you'll notice that I respect your right to hold the views you do, even if I think they're a tad on the eccentric side. Which I do.

As for the particular charismatic group that I was involved with and their eschatology - well, in lots of ways it was a lot less whacky than yours.

We were certainly over-egged and over-realised to some extent - and in different ways - but broadly we were within the envelope, as it were, of what I'd consider to be the broad consensus of Christian opinion on these matters. Rather similar to the views that Zach82 and others have expressed here.

The only groups that I am aware of that hold anything near a pre-millenial dispensationalist position are highly conservative to the point of fundamentalism - if not out-and-out actual fundamentalists.

Show me one serious theologian who holds a pre-millenial dispensationalist position.


 

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Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mudfrog:
The point was that Martin Luther - and anyone else for that matter - who had a theological thought that didn't have the imprimateur on it would have had a hard time getting past the 'but we've always thought like this, so you're wrong' philosophy.

---

quote:

---

Just think of all the different theologies that have developed since the nineteenth century; are they all wrong too because they are not everywhere believed?

---

The ones that are right are generally extensions of existing theologies, the rest are mostly garbage.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Well, Chris ... dispensationalists would claim to be going 'back to the source' too, of course. On previous discussions about these issues Jamat has quoted Patristic sources to 'prove' that the Fathers had a millenialist approach.

To an extent, I would agree that millenarian views did go back to antiquity. I've seen some Orthodox acknowledge as much on Orthodox discussion boards (not here, elsewhere). I think it was Justin Martyr (I'm not very up on the early Saints and so on) or someone similar who held very millenarian style beliefs and claimed apostolic imprimatur as he claimed he'd received it from John the Apostle.

I think it is clear that millenial and imminent-return beliefs were current in the early centuries. The Montanist controversy was as much about an over-realised eschatology and whacko eschatological views as it was over pneumatology and putative prophecies.

Equally, the initial reluctance of some of the Eastern Churches to accept the canonicity of Revelation points to a concern that people would get all kinds of eccentric views by taking it literally and using it to map out future projections.

This ties in with the 'that believed everywhere and by all' approach too, of course. The sense of conciliarity and consensus.

I don't doubt that views that could be taken as precursors of later dispensationalist thought circulated much earlier. But they don't ever appear to have been a majority view and the broad sweep and thrust of Christian teaching - as you'll know better than me as a clever bloke - didn't incline in this direction at all.

It's often been said that many dispensationalists would be shocked if they realised that many of their pet theories were based on the writings of a 16th century Jesuit with a bee in his bonnet about these things.

But then, I've come across some dispies who seem cool with that. Such is their selectivity.



@Mudfrog, while I'm at it, I didn't say that you were interpreting the scriptures through an interpretative grid derived from the Schofield Reference Bible. The interpretative grid that you're using goes back further, of course, it was simply popularised and promulgated further by the Schofield Reference Bible. But it's still an interpretative grid all the same ...

In fairness, though, I certainly wouldn't accuse you of falling foul of what I see as some of the more nefarious effects (or side-effects) of dispensationalism. Its effect in Brethren terms, as far as I could make out as a young man, was to effectively to rule out any practical application of the Beatitudes and to project any of the moral or practical teachings of Christ onto other people beside ourselves.

So, the Sermon on the Mount was intended for the pre-Christian period and not for us, whole swathes of the Gospel only had a future application and only a tiny proportion of the NT appeared to be of present day import.

Now, that's certainly not the case with the Salvation Army, far from it. If anyone takes the Sermon on the Mount and the moral and ethical teachings of Christ seriously, it's the Sally Army - and yes, I'm aware that there isn't any 'official' or standard Army 'line' on eschatology.

You may be right that I have something of a gripe about the whole thing, which is why I've been giving you such a hard time. I'd accept that. I'd also accept that some of the more 'out there' aspects of dispensationalism don't apply to you.

But I still have an issue with it as an interpretative model. It doesn't mean that I've got anything 'against' you though, and I do apologise for some of the teasing and intemperate tone I've adopted during this discussion.
 

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Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Well, Chris ... dispensationalists would claim to be going 'back to the source' too, of course. On previous discussions about these issues Jamat has quoted Patristic sources to 'prove' that the Fathers had a millenialist approach.

---

quote:

---

Mudfrog: The point was that Martin Luther - and anyone else for that matter - who had a theological thought that didn't have the imprimateur on it would have had a hard time getting past the 'but we've always thought like this, so you're wrong' philosophy.

---

"Just because you're a lone caller in the desert, that doesn't mean you're right."

(I'm sure that's a quote from someone, but I can't remember from whom )
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
I'm wondering which recent theological developments ie. post-19th century, that Mudfrog has in mind that might be worthy of all acceptation.

Let's see ... Sea of Faith liberalism? I wouldn't have thought so.

John Hicks and his 'Myth of God Incarnate'? Hardly.

Pentecostalism? Perhaps some aspects ... but it's essentially an extension of earlier Holiness spirituality with roots in 18th century pietism.

I'm wondering what developments he's actually referring to ...

For the record, I think all of us have welcomed the insights of modern contextual studies and Biblical criticism. The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls have shed much light on the context of first century Judaism and the milieu in which Christianity arose.

But all the positive developments that I can think of are more a case of light shone on old treasures rather than innovations per se.

The emphasis on women's ministry and on equality has to be a good thing too - but again, one could argue that this was already latent within the 'tradition' ... that's probably a more debatable point but there are earlier echoes here too.

Meanwhile, and I know I posted late and it's still early, I'm waiting for Mudfrog to name me one serious theologian who holds to a dispensationalist position ...
 

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Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I'm wondering which recent theological developments ie. post-19th century, that Mudfrog has in mind that might be worthy of all acceptation.

Let's see ... Sea of Faith liberalism? I wouldn't have thought so.

John Hicks and his 'Myth of God Incarnate'? Hardly.

Pentecostalism? Perhaps some aspects ... but it's essentially an extension of earlier Holiness spirituality with roots in 18th century pietism.

I'm wondering what developments he's actually referring to ...

For the record, I think all of us have welcomed the insights of modern contextual studies and Biblical criticism. The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls have shed much light on the context of first century Judaism and the milieu in which Christianity arose.

But all the positive developments that I can think of are more a case of light shone on old treasures rather than innovations per se.

The emphasis on women's ministry and on equality has to be a good thing too - but again, one could argue that this was already latent within the 'tradition' ... that's probably a more debatable point but there are earlier echoes here too.

Meanwhile, and I know I posted late and it's still early, I'm waiting for Mudfrog to name me one serious theologian who holds to a dispensationalist position ...

---

Isn't it interesting and quite revealing how you slip in phrases that show your prejudice? You ask me to answer your question but your question tells me what sort of answer is going to be acceptable to you before I tap a single key!

You ask me what the recent, post 19th century theologies might be - a fair question thus far, but then you add the rider 'that might be worthy of all acceptation.'

Does that mean these theologies have to be acceptable to everyone? Why can't they be recent theologies that are worthy of consideration, whether you accept them or not??

Anyway, I was thinking of liberation theology, black theology, feminist theology, womanist theology, ecological (creation) theology and the like.

And as for the last question, repeated as it has been: "I'm waiting for Mudfrog to name me one serious theologian who holds to a dispensationalist position." You hold the card there Mtr G because you are going to decide who is, and who is not, a 'serious' theologian! It sounds a bit elitist to me - what is the criteria for a 'serious theologian'? I think I already know the answer - catholic, liberal, and non-evangelical. My goodness! I've seen even Barth and Moltmann criticised on the Ship so who am I going to be able to put forward who will be acceptable to the rather sniffy, dust-inhaling, incestuous dwellers of theological academia?

I have to tell you however that I didn't study dispensationalism for my theology degree and so I am afraid I cannot name any academics in that field - though doubtless there will be some fine minds who espouse it.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 


I do like to play with words and phrases so the 'worthy of all acceptation' thing was part of that. I was stringing you along to some extent.

In seriousness, I'm applying the 'that believed everywhere and by all' thing as a general principle. It doesn't mean I think that everyone should sign up to identical beliefs on every issue we can think of. That doesn't even happen among the Orthodox who are big on the conciliarity thing.

And, as it happens, I'd also be open to the insights of the groups/movements you mention - feminist theology, black theology, liberation theology ...

I'd suggest, though, that there is a difference between saying something like: 'Women have been marginalised in the church and in society, here is something we can do to rectify that ...' and 'This is the definitive take on eschatology and the obvious way that things will pan out before the return of Christ because it's so blindingly obvious from the Bible ...'

I'm not suggesting that you're saying as much. But you do write as though you believe dispensationalism to be more than a 'theory' at times - even though you clearly accept that this is what it is - at best.

As for academic theology, well, I'm with the Orthodox in the view that theology should be done in the churches, among the people of faith. 'The one who prays, he is the theologian,' is one of their more folksy dictums (dicta?) and one which I would completely endorse.

I'd certainly be open to the views of evangelical theologians. Heck, give me an evangelical theologian any day of the week rather than an uber-liberal one who picks it all to pieces.

But even within the broadly evangelical constituency, I would suggest that dispensationalism isn't a view that has a lot of 'academic' weight behind it. There may well be some fine minds among those who hold it, but I'm sure the same is true among those who believe that the earth is flat or that the moon is made of green cheese ...

No, I am teasing there, of course. I'm trying to think of a discipline I'm aware of where there are some theories that are considered but seen as ultimately eccentric. There will be examples in most disciplines, whether among the humanities or the sciences.

Dispensationalism is one of those. Forgive me, but it's a bit 'Janet & John'. As Zach82 has pithily observed, it's the 'Creationism of eschatology.'

You're going to tell me that you're a literal Six-Day Creationist next ...

You might be right, though, that there were/are people with fine minds in the dispensationalist camp. I know F F Bruce was Brethren and very conservative - yet respected and admired as a Biblical scholar beyond his own constituency. He might have been a dispensationalist, as far as I know. And even if he was it wouldn't have obviated anything else he might have held that was more widely accepted.

I have been exaggerating a bit to make a point - that's my posting style. But I still think that dispensationalism is a pretty marginal position, for all its popularity. I wouldn't insult you by suggesting that if you thought it through properly you'd reject it ...



But I am suggesting that it is something that thrives in the rather humid margins rather than the mainstream.
 

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Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on :
 
@Gamaliel - I do have a lot of sympathy with @Mudfrog's position re your criticism of his theology. You appear to be trying to appeal to history and general orthodox beliefs (without really explaining what that means - for example how do you address the issue that the Orthodox rejected the book of Revelation altogether for a long time (I am no expert, I just read about this the other day)) whilst at the same time suggesting he (mudfrog) should take account of recent thinking.

So you want him to do both accept the old and accept the new. And you state this in such a way as to imply it is obvious which one should accept and which one should reject. And then you claim you are not doing this whilst continuing to do it.

I think @mudfrog's theology is utter bunk. But please stop appealing to history and authority when he clearly doesn't accept the paradigms you are working from. It is just silly.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Well, a fair call perhaps, the long ranger.

I don't have a big issue, as it happens, with the Orthodox not accepting Revelation into the canon until comparatively late. The reason they didn't do so earlier was precisely to avoid people getting the sort of funny ideas that Mudfrog is coming up with.

As for us operating from different paradigms and frameworks, well, yes we are to some extent, but I'd still maintain that with a shared evangelical heritage Mudfrog and myself have plenty of common ground. I've certainly got more in common with him than I would have with a Spong-ite liberal.

To be honest, I've struggled to express myself adequately on this thread and consequently I can understand Mudfrog's annoyance - and your calling me on aspects of what I've written. Fair enough in both cases.

I will confess to a certain amount of irritation with evangelicals who hold to a dispie position. As Mudfrog has correctly diagnosed, this comes down to exposure to loopy-doopy views in the past.

I still maintain that dispensationalism is untenable and depends on reading the scriptures through a particular interpretive lens. But I'd also maintain that we ALL read the scriptures through one form of lens or other. None of us have 20/20 vision and besides, as someone who has moved further up the candle in a lot of ways, I'm not sure that there's such a dichotomy between scripture and tradition as many evangelicals make out. On one level scripture IS tradition ...

But it's a complex issue, of course.
 

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