Both of these blogs are being written on January 27. If you followed the secular news, you may be aware what it marks (in 2020); the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. In a few weeks, God willing, is February 18. February 18 is the date of the death of Martin Luther. We wrote in part one just a couple of things about him, and what he said.
The “Re-Formers” continued their Romanism predecessors’ allegorical interpretation of Scripture. Did the Early Gentile Fathers have the actual biblical authority to debate/decide “allegorical or literal”, when it came to Scripture? If so, where? Who – exactly – actually gave them that authority? Why?
Two areas debated “which” method would be applied to Biblical interpretation. By this time the Jewish brothers who were for sure the actual spiritual descendants of the first followers of Yeshua – and perhaps physically in some cases also (i.e., possible descendants of his brothers) – had been pushed aside by Gentile leadership.
James Dunn in his highly regarded two-volume commentary of Romans in the Word Series, points out the following as to what we like to call the “historical-cultural” situation, that underlies the Ruach Hakodesh inspiration of the RCS Letters. Dunn in short says that after all the Jews return to Rome after the Emperor boots them out, the following problem developed. The Jewish brothers, incidentally, were seen by the Roman authorities – as Jews. Not “Xristianos” “Christians” nor “Ioudiaos Xristianos” “Jewish Christians”, but as Jews.
Upon the Jewish brothers’ return to Rome, Dunn points out tensions developed between the now more numerous Gentile brothers and their Jewish ones. Dunn says in short that the Gentiles had six years to operate things their own way without the Jewish brothers they had been dependent on, but now, felt “superior” to.
Romans 9-11, especially chapter 11, is used by Replacement Theology as its main “support” of the Assembly being “the New Israel”.
What they miss is why Paul switches from Jew to Israel. Israel – then and now – is the most reverential way a Jew refers to the Jewish People – by their ideal name – Israel.
This is why Paul switches to Israel in Rom. 9–11, and then back to “Jew” in Romans 12, 14, 15.
In Part 1 we spoke of the concrete reality of Mount Zion, the Mount of Olives, the Valley of Hinnom, etc.
Jerusalem for Yeshua was not a “far-off place”, a “place I’d like to visit if I ever get the chance”, a “theological construct”, or a place he did not think of much, if at all. It was as concrete, as real to Yeshua, as wherever you are now.
Yeshua wept – he wept over Jerusalem Luke 19:41.
Luke’s KG eklausev (“eklausen”) is defined in lexicons not as “silent tears”; but out loud mourning.
Yeshua Hamashiach did not “cry” for Yerushalyim (“Jerusalem”). His eyes did not get “watery”. He did not just “shed tears”.
Yeshua wept out loud for Yerushalyim, as he saw it and came down towards for it – for the very last time in his Jewish humanity.
Luke’s KG in Luke 19:41 is very specifically the City. Not “it”, not something called “qualitative”, that is, a “quality about”, or something vague or in general.
The Jewish brothers would reach to Athens and Rome and much of the 1st century pagan world that lay outside Israel, spread out around the Mediterranean as well as east of Asia Minor, the world east of modern Turkey.
Did Paul weep for Athens? (Acts 17:16-34) Did Peter weep for Rome? We can only imagine how he would have blanched if he knew he was made into the 1st “pope” of Romanism…
Did Yochanon weep for Ephesus? If so, Scripture does not record it for us.
Paul would have been willing to be anathema for the sake of the Jewish People Rom. 9:1-5, v. 3. Paul draws directly from the Torah in his speaking of being something dedicated for destruction to the LORD. This came with the idea of being separated from life; the deeper meaning underlying what Paul expresses in KG by anathema (and known as such in English) “accursed”.
Paul the P’rush (“P’rush” “Separate One” “Pharisee”) cf. Acts 23:6 et al. (Acts 21-28) was very familiar with this particularly from Leviticus 27:28-29 and probably Joshua 7 as well.
Suffice it to say in short that Paul could wish that he be anathema “accursed” separated from life with the Mashiach “…upep (“uper”) twv (“ton” “tone”) adelphwv (“adelphone”) mou twn suggevwv (“suggenon”) mou kata sarkw” on behalf of the brothers of me, absolutely (my possession) the fellow countrymen of me according to (the) flesh”.
Paul’s KG form (articular genitive) communicates that specifically and absolutely he sees himself as “part of the whole of” “the brothers of me” – i.e., the Jewish People.
Paul’s style here is very Hebraic also!
What is truly most remarkable is the following. That Paul could wish himself – if he could – to be separated from life in the Mashiach on behalf of the Jewish People! As much as Paul knocked himself out for the Nations in serving his Mashiach Yeshua, Paul does not say about the Nations, what he says about his brothers, the Jewish people!
Further, for all the intellectualization of Paul’s writings by Western tradition, where does Paul feel this way about the Jewish people; in his “mind”, or in his kardia “heart”? It is Paul’s heart that aches for his brothers.
Paul – very deliberately – switches from Jew to Israel in Romans 9–11, because the most reverential way for a Jew to refer to his people is as Israel. This is why he switches in Romans 9-11 from using the word Jew to speaking of Israel.
Post-biblical Western tradition is completely unaware of this and so “allegorizes” Israel to mean “the Church”.
Martin Luther, mentioned earlier, began as a monk in an order of Augustine. Augustine in short was – and is – hugely influential in Western tradition. Augustine was so enamored of Plato that he said, “I baptize Plato”.
Augustine continued on with the anti-Semitism of the Early Gentile Fathers. He said, “the Jews” “exist in their confusion in order to carry our books” and that “the Jews carry the mark of Cain as a warning”.
The worst though, was the result of Augustine’s City of God, which cemented Replacement Theology firmly in place.
Completely – completely – contrary to the consistently specific KG text of Rev. 21 about Heaven, Augustine said it was an “allegory”. That is, despite specific repeated references in Yochanon’s rendering of “the renewed, new in quality Jerusalem” (Rev. 21:2, 10.
Yochanon’s KG form is not only specific, he uses it to show that the focus of what he says is limited to what he speaks of – here, Jerusalem.
Jerusalem did not fit Augustine’s anti-Semitic theology or theological agenda. After all, who was in Jerusalem? “The Jews”! So, despite Yochanon’s KG text prohibiting any interpretation other than what he rendered, Augustine said the following.
That Jerusalem was an “allegory”; it actually meant the Institutional Gentile Assembly on Earth!
Luther went through a period of tremendous emotional and spiritual angst. He read something by two Jews that gave him the relief he struggled to find to set his spirit at rest.
In 1523, Luther wrote against Romanism that JC was a Jew, and that in order to be a good Christian, “one would need to be a Jew”.
20 years later, tired and ill, he wrote to some Jews basically that they should consider his writings and “perhaps you’ll come over to my way of thinking”, i.e., they would “convert”. They replied, “Maybe you should read the Talmud and you’ll come over to our way of thinking”.
This response set Luther off, who by his own admission was not the nicest of men. Luther got “the Jews” booted out of several German districts.
Luther’s response to “…maybe you’ll come over to our way of thinking”, was the following.
In 1543, he writes On The Jews And Their Lies. He lays out in the end a 7-step program for dealing with “…this damnable race the Jews”. What you are about to read you did not read in Sunday School. A few centuries later though, someone else did…
Lest we forget, Luther also wrote “those who read the Bible in Hebrew drink from the source, those in Greek from the spring, those in Latin, further downstream”. (Luther did a lot of theological work in Latin).
He also said, “know O Christian, that after the Enemy, you have no greater enemy than the Jew…”.
Luther concluded concerning The Jews And Their Lies with a systematic, 7-step program for dealing with “the Jews”. Luther said in short that the Jews could not be “converted” (exactly – cf. Rom. 11:11!). “We must powerfully and reverentially practice a merciful severity”.
First, their synagogues or churches should be set on fire. And this out to be done for the honor of God and of Christianity in order that God may see that we are Christians.
Luther lays out six more steps in order and ends with the following…
“To sum up, dear princes and nobles who have Jews in your domain, if this advice of mine does not suit you, then find a better one so that you and we may be free of this insufferable devilish burden – the Jews”.
410 years or so later, after almost 2 millennia of seeing the Hebrew Bible as “Old Testament” and the Torah as “a legal code of legal laws”, the German Western Tradition Systems starts printing Bibles with parts of the “OT” cut out.
Someone else decides to answer Luther’s “find a better way”. He has On The Jews And Their Lies passed out by the carload in the home country of the “Re-Forming”, in the continent where Western Tradition – is it not – its religion?
An art school reject who turns to politics decides to revive his country’s glorious past. To do so though, what must be done? The “bloodsucking parasite drawing the life from its host” must be exterminated!”
That “bloodsucking parasite” is “the Jew”. In 1523, Luther writes that Jesus Christ was a Jew. Not a problem 410 years later. Hitler “re-casts” “JC” as an Aryan.
Hitler bases the Final Solution on Luther’s call to “find a better one” when it comes to being free from “…this devilish burden – the Jews”. Hitler also draws on earlier historic Christian anti-Semitism.
The yellow star of David came from the 4th Lateran Council in the 1200’s which passed a resolution about Trans-Substantiation (that the elements of Communion actually embodied the blood and body of Mashiach). They also passed a resolution that good Christian women needed to be able to identify Jews so they could avoid them. The Council came up with the idea of the yellow Star of David.
The Warsaw Ghetto which was set up in order to keep “the Jews” “separate” from the rest of the Polish population was based on the very first ghetto in Venice in 1516. Although this is the first use of the word ‘ghetto’, Jews actually began being separated out from the rest of the population beginning in the late 1400’s.
Hitler follows Luther’s 7 steps exactly. Synagogues are smashed and Torah scrolls are thrown on the ground and trampled. After all, the people have been taught in their assemblies, it’s “Old Testament” and “the Law; legal codes replaced by the grace of “JC” ”.
Before the death camps, four mobile killing squads labeled A-B-C-D go around shooting Jews. The D squad is led by one of Germany’s leading Protestant theologians.
However, it is deemed too “inefficient” and a “bullet per Jew too expensive”. So, with German efficiency the death camps are expanded…
In one of the death camps, a Nazi officer forces a Jewish tailor to make him a suit jacket from “the Law”. The tailor, forced to cut up a Torah scroll, fashions the suit jacket from a section of the Torah on curses. (Probably, from Dt. 27). I’ve seen the jacket, but emotionally was unable to try to read it, to see exactly wherein the Torah it was cut out from.
By the grace of God the Allies win, death camps are liberated, and some of their “artifacts” eventually make their way to a little, nondescript stone building on one of Mount Zion’s narrow footpaths.
The Chamber of the Holocaust is about halfway up the path which is toward Mount Zion’s outer edge. There you will find a piece of the Torah made into the world’s strangest men’s suit jacket.
The Chamber of the Holocaust is directly across the pathway from King David’s Tomb. Above King David’s tomb is the Upper Room where his Son Yeshua (Lk. 1:32 etc. etc.) expounded from the Torah from Exodus to eleven fellow Jews of Galilee about their collective redemption many centuries earlier from Constraint (The Hebrew meaning of Egypt).
After Christian tour groups visit “The Garden Tomb” near the bottom of Mount Zion, they are taken – of course – to the souvenir shop run by very nice Armenian Christian women. The group is then exited out of the back of the souvenir shop and rushed up the shortest and least steep path up Mount Zion.
Halfway up – unless they are brought to the Upper Room – they will pass right between King David’s tomb and the Chamber of the Holocaust, narrow enough where they can, with just a couple of steps, reach out and touch either one.
I have no words to describe what I felt, the first – but not the last time – I had to watch a Christian tour group rush between these two small, nondescript stone buildings.
One, the Tomb of King David, the other, housing the world’s strangest men’s suit jacket, whose very words are in the Bibles those tourists carry with them…
Oh, those two Jews whose writing gave Luther relief and rest and calmed his spirit?
Paul and Chavakkuk (“Habakkuk”), a Jewish Prophet whose name is from a verb “embrace, draw close”. (Rom. 1:17, drawn directly by Paul from Hab. 2:4).
Once Luther got his relief from Rom. 1:17, very tragically, he forgot about Rom. 1:16. Luther thought so highly of Romans he said it should be read daily.
Tragically beyond words also, he too missed what Paul really said in Rom. 9-11 – and especially Rom. 11:11, 17-24, and Rom. 15:25-28…
Now, I hope you have a little better understanding as to why I wrote at the end of our website page About You And Us, that the site is also dedicated to the Six Million.
Perhaps had Gentile leadership over the centuries decided to “embrace, draw close” to “the Jews” – and their Jewish brothers – that very strange suit jacket never would have been made…