controversial idea...argue!

Christians believe that Jesus suffered and died for their sins. But was it only Jesus who suffered or was it the Jewish people from whom Jesus of Nazareth was born? According to the Five Books of Moses and the Prophets (the Torah and the Tanakh), the Jews suffered continuous oppression. Just as Jesus is considered by Christians to be the messiah, the Jews are (supposedly) the Chosen People. The messiah was supposed to end their hardship, as a people. When the Promised Land was not given to them, as was supposed to happen, it is no wonder they did not accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour or whatever. The Messiah is a Jewish thing. Since then, things have only become worse for the Jewish People. Whether or not Jesus was the real messiah or a false one is almost irrelevant. Gentiles used it to oppress the Jews, but like in the Torah and Tanakh, it only made the culture and religion develop. At this point, to convert would be a betrayal and abandonment of the People, to join the largest political power ever. And if Jesus DID die for your sins, then the Jewish people suffered for ours.

Okay...now argue...I want a good debate going here.

 

You raise a coupla interesting points. A for effort!

You should, however, consider that the jews did eventually regain their homeland through the assistance of goyim nations. If it weren't for the efforts of the Anglican British before and shortly after WWI, palestine would still probably be ruled by the turks.

Also, the phrase 'chosen people' gets tossed around a lot when considering Jews. To them, it is not a sign of devine blessing, but an added burden which often results in them being nearly wiped off the face of the earth (the hardships of their nation/race is seen in the old testament as being the divine retribution of an angry god). Chosen means that they were chosen to have to obey all 613 commandments in the torah, as well as whatever crazy shit the rabbis had decided on in the talmund (the seperation of dairy and meat is one of the cornerstones of the kosher laws, but not stated explicity in the bible).

You do remind me of a similar thought: that whatever jesus went through, his mother probably had it much worse. The maternal instinct is rather strong in our species, and it has a tendancy to empathize and amplify (anyone who had a mother who freaked out an injury that really wasn't too painful can attest to this).

 

I don't know too much about Judaisim, but it does seem that people throughout history have suffered in the name of religion.

 

Yeah, Eugene, you do make a good point...but I would not consider the current state of Israel to be much of a homeland. Sure it's in the same physical spot, but they only have it because it was handed to them by the British, since they had control of it... (given to them partly for the West's own interests).
Personally, I don't believe in any of the "Chosen People" stuff in the Christian sense...the 613 commandments weren't simply laws to follow...the Oral Torah (the tradition of studying the Torah and Talmud, and all the academia and whatnot) is what it's really about. It was something to learn and a way to find meaning themselves, and their worship of God came from the study of Torah.
But Israel is a secular issue, that in no way is genuinely related to the Homeland kind of thing.
The Homeland is supposed to have peace, (which I believe means for all nations) and Of course from MY study of Torah and tradition, which is limited, but I'm 17 and have plenty of time to figure it out...however I don't believe that the Homeland has to be Israel, or one specific place. So in my opinion, the Jews never got their Homeland back, and I don't see how this particular acquisition of Israel could ever bring that. Dairy and meat is the traditional interpretation of a law in the Torah...I don't follow it, but the reason was for an act of devotion or something like that...
That said, I can't say that the Jews were the only ones who suffered for their religion, and I would never think that we deserve more sympathy or merit than any other group...
but perhaps anti-Semitism was the best thing that could happen to the Jews, as it strengthened the traditions and defined them as a people.
I don't know for sure what I think about whether the messiah is for Jews only, or for Christians, but I do know that if he was for us Jews, we couldn't worship the symbols or the cross or anything like you guys do.
But what I DO know is the corruption of everything from the Church to Israel.

Just putting some ideas out there...I haven't really formed an opinion...

 

What is there to argue about?

 

People have strongly disagreed with me when I stated the ideas in the original post...I thought some dialogue around that would be a good thing...especially seeing as I don't know for sure what my position is, it's just an idea...
but whatever...it's not a big deal and not worth discussing... the "controversial idea" thing was more to make people read it...

 

Go to the Random Thoughts forum if you are just looking for mindless people to converse with.

Religion is not worth discussing , and it certainly isn't worth arguing about.

 

if you feel so strongly that religion isn't worth discussing then why the fuck are you in this forum...don't be a thread nazi...nobody needs you policing where things go.

Regardless, religion IS worth discussing and I DEFINITELY don't want mindless people conversing about an actual serious topic. I wanted some different views...arguing is debating an issue...it's not fighting over something petty.

I'd probably be banned if I was as blunt about this to you as I'd like to be.

 

Don't feed the trolls!
Anyone who comes into a religion forum and posts 'it's not worth talking about' in the middle of a thread is just trying to get a reaction and derail the thread.

neways, back on topic:

Israel, the homeland of the jews, is one of the most fought over pieces of property on the planet. They've been invaded and re-invaded by the egyptians, the jews, the greeks, the assyrians, the babylonians, the persians, the romans, the arabs , the turks, the british (in a diplomatic, not boots on the ground sorta way), and finally the jews again. While their messianic kingdom is supposed to be peaceful, they're homeland has never been.

Also, i agree that chosen should mean that they have been 'given' the torah. And the spiritual/oral tradition of the study probably is the most important aspect of the torah, but the plethora of commandments and implied commandments mean that it can be a real pain in the ass to follow (i've only kept one sabbath holy, it's pretty hard to do it it according to the rules).

and the example i listed about the kosher laws comes from a commandment not to boil a baby goat in it's mom's milk. this commandment has been re-interpreted and expanded to include not mixing meat and dairy, even keeping two sets of dishes to ensure that not a fleck of dairy touches any meat. Even chicken cannot be mixed with dairy, even though chickens do not give milk...

One final thing: Have you ever considered how much the persecution, especially during the early formative years of the christian church, was meant as a way of creating a seperate identity for the goyim* converts?

 

I wouldn't stress too much on anglican british -it was really only as a fallout of the very un-christian colonial period that the brits were there.
And in fact, the brits made a mess of it all. Israel declared itself a state independently of the UN or britain (whose mandate to run palestine had expired). It was largely US recognition of Israel that led to international recognition.

An interesting question is for whose sins are the Palestinian's suffering?