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You would think this would be pretty easy to get right: according to the Gospels, Yeshua (Jesus) was born a Jew in an ancient Jewish city in the historic land of Israel. But no, all this must be disputed, after all, how can Jesus be the liberator of the oppressed if He Himself was born to an oppressor people in an oppressor city? The narrative must be changed.
That’s why, for many years, we have heard that “Jesus was a Palestinian,” or, more fully, “Jesus was a Palestinian freedom fighter,” suggesting that He led an armed revolt against – guess who? – the Israeli Jews!
In the words of Hamid Dabashi, in an op-ed published on December 25, 2018 on Aljazeera News, “Remember: Christ was a Palestinian refugee.”
Dabashi, the Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, does acknowledge that Jesus was Jewish, but only in the context of being “a Jewish Palestinian refugee child who grew up to become a towering revolutionary figure.”
And in the midst of an article meant to be conciliatory for Muslims and Christians, he opines, “The dark days of Zionism laying a false claim on Judaism and Palestine alike are happily over. The lies of a gang of European settler colonialists trying to rob Jews of their ancestral faith and Palestinians of their historical homeland have finally come to a crushing defeat when Jews and Palestinians, and Jews as Palestinians, have come together to lay a post-Zionist claim on their ancestral faith and homeland alike.”
Can you feel the Christmas spirit? (And yes, when you parse every word of that paragraph, Prof. Dabashi’s claims are beyond shocking.)
This very Christmas, a Catholic priest from New York, Father Edward Beck, said this on CNN: “What I’m so struck by is that the story of Christmas is about a Palestinian Jew. How often do you find those words put together? A Palestinian Jew born into a time when his country was occupied, right? They can’t find a place for [Jesus’s mother, Mary] to even give birth. They’re homeless. They eventually have to flee as refugees into Egypt, no less. I mean, you can’t make up the parallels to our current world situation right now.”
This is not just a matter of historical inaccuracy, since the land in which Yeshua was born was not called Palestine until more than one century after His death and resurrection.
This is a matter of separating Yeshua the Jew from the Jewish people as a whole and from His ancient Jewish homeland. It is also making a political statement, comparing the first-century Roman occupiers of Judea with the people of Israel today, occupiers of the West Bank and Gaza. The Romans were and the Israelis are evil oppressors with no right to the land.
That’s the magic of using words like “Palestinian” and “occupied.”
As for language that is even more extreme, how about these comments from Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Muhammad Shtayyeh on December 28, 2020?
“The birthday of our lord Jesus, peace be upon him – the first Palestinian self-sacrificing fighter from whom we learned Martyrdom-death, and who paid for his mission with his life – takes place at the same time as the anniversary of the outbreak of the Palestinian revolution [i.e., the anniversary of “the Launch” of Fatah, counted from its first terror attack against Israel], for which thousands of Martyrs have paid with their lives so that we will live and remain, and so that our children will dream of a better future.” (For a sampling of other, similar quotes, see here.)
Did you think I was exaggerating?
How threatening it is to say that Yeshua was a Judean Jew, born in Bethlehem, the ancient city of David, called “rabbi” (not “reverend” or “imam”) by His followers.
This does not mean that Jesus would agree with every policy of Israel today or of every tenet of Judaism. He certainly would not. (The same can be said about Him agreeing with every American policy today or of every tenet of Christianity.) And this does not imply that He does not hurt for the downtrodden and the oppressed of all peoples. He certainly does.
But the references to Him as a Palestinian refugee born in occupied territory, not to mention Him being compared to an Islamic jihadist “martyr,” are meant to mislead in the most insidious way.
In comparison, the recent article by Victoria Emily Jones in Christianity Today, while not insidious, is certainly misleading, stating, “Jesus was born in Asia. He was Asian. Yet the preponderance of Christian art that shows him at home in Europe has meant that he is embedded deeply in the popular imagination as Western.”
What, exactly, does Jones mean? Pointing to Asian nativity scenes dating back 1240, she explains, “Some may object to depicting Jesus as anything other than a brown male born into a Jewish family in Bethlehem of Judea in the first century, believing that doing so undermines his historicity. But Christian artists who tackle the subject of the Incarnation are often aiming not at historical realism but at theological meaning.
“By representing Jesus as Japanese, Indonesian, or Indian, they convey a sense of God’s immanence, his ‘with-us–ness,’ for their own communities—and for everyone else, the universality of Christ’s birth.”
On the one hand, all this is quite understandable, since people from every nation embrace Jesus as “one of us.” That means that we depict Him (or imagine Him) to look like us. That’s why there are White European Jesus images and Black African Jesus images, along with other racial and ethnic Jesus images.
But Jesus was not born in Asia, nor was He Asian (based on what “Asian” would mean in the first-century Roman empire, and based on what “Asian” means today).
More importantly, given the historic attack on the Jewishness of Jesus, beginning with early Church leaders severing the Jewish roots of the faith, continuing with classic Christian art that demonized the ancient Jewish leaders and transformed Jesus into a White European, moving to the Nazi effort to make Jesus into a non-Jewish Aryan, and to the current “Jesus was a Palestinian refugee” rhetoric, now would be a good time to emphasize historic truth.
Jesus, whose Hebrew name was Yeshua, was born in Bethlehem of Judea. His mother’s name was Miriam, and His followers were named Yaakov and Shimon and Yehudah, among others. And He was the Messiah (Christ in Greek) because He was hailed as the long-awaited Savior of the Jewish people (and thereby, the Savior of the whole world).
He was born King of the Jews and died King of the Jews.
And when He comes again, He is returning to Jerusalem.
Does this offend you?
Human beings are a combo of emotions and ability to reason.
The emotions can cause a lot of suffering and propel us into
escapes such as acohol, drugs, sex, diversions, even rages
and crippling anxieties. It is our own minds that must learn
to steer us emotionally through life – to avoid becoming our
own worst enemy. And to exist in a more loving state to
those around us.
And that’s just what Jesus said. To love one another. And he
promised that as the son of God, he would remain human by
suffering and dying for our sins. The sins which always hurt
others and ourselves.
The message of Our Lord Jesus resonates with all human
beings because of how we are designed by our Creator. If
you are suffering and hurting, remember how Jesus suffered
also so you would not turn to sin – and is always with you every
step of the way.
Jesus was a Jew. Born of that group of people who have
suffered so miserably for thousands of years but endured. What
more fitting group could God have chosen for his son to come
from?
Yes, and there was no such ethnicity as Palestinians then as now. Everything the islamopithecines and lefties claim about Jesus, Israel and Paleosimians is not just a pack of lies but the opposite of the truth.
What these people forget is that Emperor Hadrian in 135 AD out of hatred for the Judeans named Judea Fillestea (Palestine) because Bar Kochba fought the Romans with the support of Rabbi Akiba. and the Jews were banished from their country and from Jerusalem. Gaza is Fillestea alone and not the rest of Israel. So Jesus was certainly not a Gazan, He was most certainly a Judean.
Motly true, but the Jews were not “banished” from Jerusalem and Judea. God sent the Romans to utterly destroy Jerusalem and all the surrounding country. There was no longer a place from which to be banished. The land remained utterly desplate for generations.
In fact it was Nero himself ordered his lead general Vespasian to go to Jerusalem and “take care of the Jewish problem there”.
I find it amusing that the temple leaders all mocked Jesus heavily as He predicted that their precious temple would be utterly destroyed, not one stone left upin another, brefore THIS GENERATION would pass away. I wonder how many, watching the Romans systematically dismangle the place inder Vespasian’s son Titus, remembered tthe words of Jesus some 36 years previously. Nor did he stop once the temple was trashed. He turned to and cleaned out the rest of the filth and corruption which had by then morally and spiritualy destroyed Jerusalem.
Of course. There was no Gaza and Jesus was a Jew born in Bethlehem. And as an insult, Hadrian renamed Israel Fillestea/Syria Palestina after the Phillistines, who’d been extinct for 500 years, and Jerusalem after himself.
By the time of Hadrian the only evidence of Philistines ever existing was in the Hebrew Bible, but not in Gaza.
Yes, they were 500 years gone. Hadrian had a vicious streak.
Despite Roman cleansing of Judea, there were still Jews remaining.
Yes, the Mizrahim have been there since 138 AD when Hardrian caused the 3rd Diaspora and are seldom discussed because Jew haters want to pretend Jews invaded the small portion of the former Palestine Mandate – fictional Arab Palestine – controlled by the British, which was partitioned for Jews by the UN in November, 1947.
Jesus was a jew. who even today is considered an apostate. Hence the constant anti-Christian bigotry and constant anti-Christian wars. Suffered so miserably? Who? Jesus was condemned by a rabbinical tribunal and put to death for his heresy. Ever since, Christians have suffered such as in the Muslim onslaughts, the 1917 Russian coup, the Holodomor, and most recently in Ukraine. A minor minority jew was elected as president of Ukraine and sent the Slavic Christians into a war against other Slavic Christians. Thirty pieces of silver? Try tons of silver for Ukraine’s national hero Zelinsky. Maybe Christ was the original antisemite. as currently defined to mean only jews and not semitic peoples as a whole.
This happens whenever your nurse leaves the room.
“Semitic” is a language group, not an ethnic one.
Next, these Jew hating whack-jobs will claim Jesus was a strange visitor from another planet, who came to Earth with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men!
that;s been tried. It didn’t fly………
Good one.
Superman creators, Jerry Seigel and Joe Shuster, were Jewish and named Superman Kal-El from the House of El as a nod to the many Angels whose names end in “el.” Just some nerd trivia.
Whoever down voted me hates truth, justice, the American way and Jesus.
That would be quite a leap over a tall building.
And oh yeah, Jews of Jesus’s time were often recognized by their light colored skin, just like the Philistines were. Not everybody in the Near East was or is swarthy, or “brown,” like the “woke” retards call every race and ethnicity which isn’t white, black or Asian. Just look at those whiteys in the House of Saud. I’m of German and British(!) descent, and my skin is darker than theirs. And the majority of my British blood is Norse!
Leftists and their moslem allies of convenience are ridiculous despite being severe threats to humanity.
All the claims here, contradicting your last five sentences, offend me.
Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Muhammad Shtayyeh on December 28, 2020:
“The birthday of our lord Jesus, peace be upon him – the first Palestinian self-sacrificing fighter from whom we learned Martyrdom-death, and who paid for his mission with his life…”
Muhammad Shtayyeh, evidently a Muslim, must know that in Islam, Jesus (Issa) was neither crucified nor otherwise killed, Instead, he rose directly into heaven; According to Muslim belief, his followers cleverly found a stand-in and passed the unfortunate unnamed individual off as Issa himself, with the authorities being none the wiser. So Shtayyeh lies through his teeth in a cynical attempt to co-opt Christian theology for propaganda purposes. I’m sure many ignorant individuals swallowed this taqiyya as Gospel (pun intended).
They are the willing slaves of Satan, they have to lie, that is the nature of the beast.
Deception, Lying and Taqiyya.
Taqiyya – Saying something that isn’t true as it relates to Muslim identity (i.e whether one is a Muslim or what that means). This is a Shiite term: the Sunni counterpart is Muda’rat.
Kitman – Lying by omission. An example would be when Muslim apologists quote only a fragment of verse 5:32 (that if anyone kills “it shall be as if he had killed all mankind”) while neglecting to mention that the rest of the verse (and the next) mandate murder in undefined cases of “corruption” and “mischief.”
Tawriya – Intentionally creating a false impression by saying something that is technically true, when knowing that the listener will interpret it in a different way. This practice has a broader application than taqiyya.
Muruna – ‘Blending in’ by setting aside some practices of Islam or Sharia in order to advance others.
No! No! No! Everyone keeps spelling his name wrong,
It’s Philistine Authority Prime Minister Mo Shitonyah
It is the present pope’s place to set the record straight about this. But like his predecessor, Pius XII, when it’s the Jews whose ox is being gored, he can’t find his tongue. Count on the papacy to absent itself when the world is in moral crisis.
Not wanting to pick a fight, but isn’t the Middle East, including Israel, a part of Asia? The Bosporus Strait is usually said to be the boundary between Europe and Asia.
As for the rest of the argument, Jesus is obviously a Jew, by descent and by religion. The fools who say “He would not survive in Gaza if He returned today” are trying to evade the truth that Hamas would try to murder Him. They also ignore that when Jesus returns it won’t be as a pacifist and won’t be on the side of Islamists.
Jesus already came back once, in judgement over what had become of Israel. The “jews” of the late sixties had become so utterly corrupt they were begging to be destroyed. And so they were. the Roman army were excellent servants, and did a fine job of laying waste to Jerusalem, the Temple, and surrounds, such that the entire area remained desolate and barren for a few centurues. Of coursel the Romans, having grown very weary of putting up with the jews, were quite pleasd to thump them hard, fast, and continually, until they were all eiterh dead or fled. Then, nothing left to do, the Romans packed up and left.
Jesus carefully predicted this by His own words when he ws sill in the flesh and amongst them, and used John His apostle to predict the rest fter He rose from the dead . This He dud mainly as a warning and comfort to His followers so they would know what was coming, the signs for each of the “events”, nd how to respond in order to get to safety when the world was literally falling apart round about them.
There’s not “fight” over Jesus not being Jewish. His ministry was a threat to Roman order and control of the region, which Rome and the Greeks called “Judea” until Emperor Hadrian renamed it “Syria Palestina” late in the 1st Century.
The entire story of Jesus’ return to Jerusalem and ultimate execution by the Roman Empire is based on Roman fear of a Jewish uprising – led by “King of the Jews.”
any claim about “fear of a jewish uprising led by Jesus” is nonsense.He continually claimed “my kingdom is NOT of this world”, and taught submission to rightful authority. Of course He also regularly bashed corrupt “authority” repeatedly calling them to repent, and restore that which they’d stolen or cheated.
Few ever stop to consider that the six trials Jesus had that night were ALL illegal…. Roman and Jewish law prohibited any trial that could impose death MUST be held during normal daytime, and not on holiday or holy day. Also, in order to be able to issue a death sentence, both systems required the testimony of at least TWO witnesses who were to testify to what they personally had seen and/or heard. NO hearsay or supposition. Not one such witness was ever heard. Jewish law also mandated that any witness testifying must have “clean hands”, in other words, was not himself guilty of any crime or sin.
It was clearly not Jesus who was fomenting uprising. Consider the Zealots, a corrupt power group which had been working for some time to overthrow the established leadership of the Jewish system. Proof of this lies in the FACT that it was this group, once they had Jesus out of their way (they thought….) began instituting all manner of revolt, uprising ,overthrow. It was their horrid and obscene conduct all round Jerusalem prompted Vespasian to call in his son Titus, a very accomplished general, to come in and put the Zealots under control. In fact, if you have the stomach for it, find the descriptions of their daily activities throughout Jerusalem during the time of Nero and up until Jerusalem was destroyed… THERE is the tribulation Jesus and John predicted. It came at the correct time in the sequence of events, fits perfectly the descriptions, and lasted exactly the predicted amount of time. almost to the day. And din’t forget it were the Zealots led the false charge to get Jesus tried, convicted, sentenced, and executed totally outside the laws of both the ROman and Jewish systems. Sorta stinks just like FBI planning and running the J6 show, infiltrating and inciting, and enabling, planting patsies and stooges, then turning round and investigating, charging, convicting, and now blaming someone who was a mile and a half away and urged those hearing him to be peaceful and orderly……. and now claiming that person must be charged and convicted for HIS actions….
King of the Jews was the political crime charged against Jesus. Crosses that display “INRI” on them replicate the crucifixion. Those are the Roman letters for Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jews.
Robert Bruce – Over a billion people in the world do not consider Jesus
as an apostate. They consider him to be the saviour of mankind. As for
most of the rest, they too do not consider him an apostate and are
therefore not anti-Christian because of it. Most anti-Christian bigotry
comes from Islam and from communist-type secularists. And even they
do not consider Jesus an apostate from Islam or atheism.
Why was Jesus considered an apostate by the Pharisees two-thousand
years ago? Because he said their pompous public piety was not what
God wanted. He said God sees and loves each and every one of us,
including those known as the lowest of people. Which means God
does not care if you’re an “elite” but cares whether or not you sin. And
when you fall down ad transgress His son Jesus – and his ultimate
sacrifice for our propensity to sin – is there to help you up.
The world is a mean and wicked place. Surviving in it can be brutal.
America now is being brought down by evil everywhere. The only way
out of this is for the Christian message to triumph: to understand our
human design to choose between sinning or serving God by not sinning
aka to love one another.
The False Roman Catholic church is trying to deceive believers. Jesus was fully Jewish. The Nazarine.
Herod was King of Israel; it was his country. He ruled it under the Romans, but most of the time he could ignore that fact. Israel was his.
But now the Messiah had been born. GOD’S KING OF THE JEWS HAD ARRIVED. Ultimately, Israel belonged to him ( as did the whole world.)
Jesus had the greatest claim to be the ruler of Israel. Not the Romans and not Herod, and not the Palestinians.
I woukd like to note that the Gosoels were written several decades after Jesus’ death and after Christianity had split from Judaism and were trying to stay on the good side of the Romans. This may explain why the Jewish authorities are always portrayed invidiously and blamed for Jesus’ death, while Pontius Pilate, remembered elsewhere as a particularly brutal administrator, is whitewashed. Jews, not Christians, have suffered as a result ever since. I write this as a convert to Judaism who still finds the Christmas carols beautiful. There is a lot that’s beautiful in Christianity (much of it, of course, appropriated from Judaism), but unless this shadow side is acknowledged Christians and Jews will never be able to make common cause against the scourge of Islam which has it in for both of us.
The problem with the dead is that they can’t speak up for themselves. The Jesus narrative has been bastardized ever since Paul claimed he was Saul, who had the authority of tracking down and persecuting the early followers of Jesus. There’s no proof Saul was hired by the Sanhedrin or anyone other authority to travel north to Damascus. Pauline Christianity created a new religion of faith over good works and rejecting the Mosaic Law. Paul also never met Jesus but supposedly had a ‘revelation’, which he sold his narrative to non-Jews. Then came the synoptic Gospels that further put words into the mouth of a dead man and worse was the Gospel of John, which separated Jesus from the Jews. John’s narrative was ‘the Jews’ did this, ‘the Jews’ did that, ‘the Jews’ betrayed Jesus and ‘the Jews’ were responsible for his death.
Then came Martin Luther who thought the Jews of Germany would champion his revolt against Vatican rule. When the Jews rejected Luther, he became Europe’s worse Jew hater and his treatise ‘On the Jews and Their Lies’ became the template for giving Christian Europeans propaganda talking points on blood libels to justify expelling Jews and attacking them. Luther’s 7 points, essentially duplicates the Roman Empire under Hadrian for erasing Jews, their heritage and their religion.
Finally, Muslims are no different than Paul, John, and Martin Luther. Muhammad thought he was not only a prophet in the continued line of Jewish prophets but that he was the last prophet. The Jews of Arabia basically called to his face that he was a charlatan, which then like Martin Luther – Muhammad went on a tirade and a campaign of Jihad against all Jews! And unfortunately the dead can’t speak up for themselves, so Muslims keep repeating Muhammad’s lies that all the Jewish prophets of old were Muslims and now Muslims claim Jesus was a Palestinian!
The history of the hatred of the Jews comes at the expense of other men making up their own religions and putting their words in the mouths of the dead.