Donald Kagan is engaging in one last argument. For his “farewell lecture” here at Yale on Thursday afternoon, the 80-year-old scholar of ancient Greece—whose four-volume history of the Peloponnesian War inspired comparisons to Edward Gibbon’s Roman history—uncorked a biting critique of American higher education.
Universities, he proposed, are failing students and hurting American democracy. Curricula are “individualized, unfocused and scattered.” On campus, he said, “I find a kind of cultural void, an ignorance of the past, a sense of rootlessness and aimlessness.” Rare are “faculty with atypical views,” he charged. “Still rarer is an informed understanding of the traditions and institutions of our Western civilization and of our country and an appreciation of their special qualities and values.” He counseled schools to adopt “a common core of studies” in the history, literature and philosophy “of our culture.” By “our” he means Western.
This might once have been called incitement. In 1990, as dean of Yale College, Mr. Kagan argued for the centrality of the study of Western civilization in an “infamous” (his phrase) address to incoming freshmen. A storm followed. He was called a racist—or as the campus daily more politely editorialized, a peddler of “European cultural arrogance.”
Not so now. Mr. Kagan received a long standing ovation from students and alumni in the packed auditorium. Heading into retirement, he has been feted as a beloved and popular teacher and Yale icon. The PC wars of the 1990s feel dated. Maybe, as one undergrad told me after the lecture, “the pendulum has started to swing back” toward traditional values in education.
Mr. Kagan offers another explanation. “You can’t have a fight,” he says one recent day at his office, “because you don’t have two sides. The other side won.”
He means across academia, but that is also true in his case. Mr. Kagan resigned the deanship in April 1992, lobbing a parting bomb at the faculty that bucked his administration. His plans to create a special Western Civilization course at Yale—funded with a $20 million gift from philanthropist and Yale alum Lee Bass, who was inspired by the 1990 lecture—blew up three years later amid a political backlash. “I still cry when I think about it,” says Mr. Kagan.
As he looks at his Yale colleagues today, he says, “you can’t find members of the faculty who have different opinions.” I point at him. “Not anymore!” he says and laughs. The allure of “freedom” and “irresponsibility” were too strong to resist, he says.
His sharp tongue and easy sense of humor hearken to the Brooklyn of his youth. Born in 1932 in a Lithuanian shtetl, Mr. Kagan was raised in Brownsville, which was then a working-class Jewish neighborhood. He rooted for the Yankees on Brooklyn Dodgers turf—”everything you need to know about him,” as his son Robert, the neoconservative writer, once said. He was a high school fullback. Mr. Kagan is personally warm, always tough and occasionally smart alecky. Imagine Robert DeNiro as an eminent conservative scholar of ancient Athens. He has no patience for “nonsense” or “wrong ideas.” He’s a guy who’ll tell you what’s what and that’s that. Generations of faculty and students came away bruised from Kagan encounters.
The tussles over course offerings and campus speech of course speak to something larger. Democracy, wrote Mr. Kagan in “Pericles of Athens” (1991), is “one of the rarest, most delicate and fragile flowers in the jungle of human experience.” It relies on “free, autonomous and self-reliant” citizens and “extraordinary leadership” to flourish, even survive.
These kinds of citizens aren’t born—they need to be educated. “The essence of liberty, which is at the root of a liberal education, is that meaningful freedom means that you have choices to make,” Mr. Kagan says. “At the university, there must be intellectual variety. If you don’t have [that], it’s not only that you are deprived of knowing some of the things you might know. It’s that you are deprived of testing the things that you do know or do think you know or believe in, so that your knowledge is superficial.”
As dean, Mr. Kagan championed hard sciences, rigorous hiring standards for faculty, and the protection of free speech. Those who see liberal education in crisis return to those ideas. “Crisis suggests it might recover,” Mr. Kagan shoots back. “Maybe it’s had its day. Democracy may have had its day. Concerns about the decline of liberty in our whole polity is what threatens all of the aspects of it, including democracy.”
Taking a grim view of the Periclean era in Athens, Plato and Aristotle believed that democracy inevitably led to tyranny. The Founding Fathers took on their criticism and strove to balance liberty with equality under the law. Mr. Kagan, who grew up a Truman Democrat, says that when he was young the U.S. needed to redress an imbalance by emphasizing equality. The elite universities after the war opened to minorities and women, not to mention Brooklyn College grads like himself—then “it was all about merit,” he says.
The 1960s brought a shift and marked his own political awakening. Teaching at Cornell, Mr. Kagan watched armed black students occupy a university building in 1969. The administration caved to their demands without asking them to give up their rifles and bandoliers. He joined Allan Bloom and other colleagues in protest. In the fall of that year, he moved to Yale. Bloom ended up at the University of Chicago and in 1987 published “The Closing of the American Mind,” his best-selling attack on the shortcomings of higher education.
In the decades since, faculties have gained “extraordinary authority” over universities, Mr. Kagan says. The changes in the universities were mirrored in the society at large. “The tendency in this century and in the previous century at least has been toward equality of result and every other kind of equality that could be claimed without much regard for liberty,” he says. “Right now the menace is certainly to liberty.”
Over lunch at the private Mory’s club last week, we marvel over the first-ever NCAA championship for Yale’s hockey team, the oldest program in the country. “Unbelievable!” says Mr. Kagan with the gleam of a sports obsessive. In 1987, he stepped in for a year to direct Yale’s athletic department—probably the only classics professor ever to hold the post anywhere. His first initiative was to call to disband the NCAA or take Yale out of it. “I wish I had,” he says. “It’s so disgusting, it’s so hypocritical, it’s so wicked. The NCAA is just a trade organization meant to increase profits.”
Whether athletics, democracy or war are the topics of discussion, Mr. Kagan can offer examples from the ancients. His lifelong passion is Thucydides and the Peloponnesian War—the epic clash between those former allies, militaristic Sparta and democratic Athens, that closed out the fifth century B.C.
As Thucydides wrote, people go to war out of “honor, fear and interest.” War, he also said, “is a violent teacher.” Another enduring lesson from him, says Mr. Kagan, is “that you can expect people, whatever they may be, to seek to maximize their power”—then a slight pause—”unless they’re Europeans and have checked their brains at the door, so mortified are they, understandably, by what happened to them in the 20th century. They can’t be taken seriously.”
These days the burden of seriousness among free states falls on America, a fickle and unusual power. The Romans had no qualms about quashing their enemies, big or small. While the U.S. won two global conflicts and imposed and protected the current global order, the recent record shows failed or inconclusive engagements in the Middle East and Afghanistan.
Some would argue that free societies are too soft to fight brutal wars too long. Mr. Kagan offers culture and political leadership as an explanation. “We’re a certain kind of culture which makes it hard for us to behave rationally when the rational thing is to be tough,” he says. “We can do it when we’re scared to death and there seem to be no alternatives. When it’s time to nail down something, we very often sneak away.”
The protection and distance offered by two oceans gives America the idea—or delusion—of being able to stay out of the world’s problems. Mr. Kagan also wonders about possible “geocultural” shifts at play. A hundred years ago, most people worked the land for themselves. Today they work for a paycheck, usually in an office. “Fundamentally we are dependent on people who pay our salaries,” says Mr. Kagan. “In the liberal era, in our lifetime, we have come more to expect it is the job of the government to provide for the needs that we can’t provide. Everything is negotiable. Everything is subject to talk.” Maybe that has weakened the American will.
Also don’t forget, says Mr. Kagan, “unsubtle Christianity” and its strong strain of pacifism. “Who else has a religion filled with the notion ‘turn the other cheek’?” he asks. “Who ever heard of such a thing?! If you’re gonna turn the other cheek, go home. Give up the ball.”
In 2000, Mr. Kagan and his younger son, Frederick, a military historian and analyst, published “While America Sleeps.” The book argued for the reversal of the Clinton Cold War peace dividend to meet unforeseen but inevitable threats to come. The timing was uncanny. A year later, 9/11 forced the Pentagon to rearm.
With the end of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the U.S. is slashing defense again. “We do it every time,” Mr. Kagan says. “Failing to understand the most elementary childish fact, which is: If you don’t want trouble with somebody else, be sure he has something to be afraid of.”
Brownsville, not Thucydides, taught him that. “Any kid who grows up in a relatively tough neighborhood gets quick early lessons in what the realities are,” he says. His 1995 book, “On the Origins of War,” made a moral and strategic case to exert as much effort and money to safeguard peace as to win a war.
Thucydides identified man’s potential for folly and greatness. Mr. Kagan these days tends toward the darker view. He sees threats coming from Iran and in Asia, yet no leadership serious about taking them up. The public is too ignorant or irresponsible to care. “When you allow yourself to think of it, you don’t know whether you are going to laugh or cry,” he says.
The Kagan thesis is bleak but not fatalistic. The fight to shape free citizens in schools, through the media and in the public square goes on. “There is no hope for anything if you don’t have a population that buys into” a strong and free society, he says. “That can only be taught. It doesn’t come in nature.”
Mr. Kaminski is a member of the Journal’s editorial board.
CuriousAmerican Said:
Just before Moses died, he prepared the Israelites for their conquest of the Land of Israel, warning them that they faced an implacable enemies:
Moses commanded the people: “You shall make no covenant with them, nor give them a dwelling place” (Deuteronomy 7: 4).
Since Jews (orthodox) view christianity as idolatrous it makes no difference whether they are Canaanites, Muslims or christians, the same principle is still valid. Both Islam and Christianity negate the validity of Judaism and both maintain they are our replacements why should we accept your presence in our homes and allow your places of worship to other gods?
Would you accept knowingly anti-Americans to enter America knowing that not only do they reject American principles and values they want to replace your values with their own? I think not but with you I could be mistaken.
United States / 01-05-2013
Law student arrested for antisemitic, racist, threatening comments
Hope she gets a Jewish Judge. 🙂
CuriousAmerican Said:
Are you that obtuse, plain ignorant or just stupid? Why would I be offended? I don’t believe Jews should live where they are not welcomed or wanted. I don’t like pushy Jews either.
Between the years 250 CE and 1948 CE – a period of 1,700 years – Jews have experienced more than eighty expulsions from various countries in Europe – an average of nearly one expulsion every twenty-one years. Jews were expelled from England, France, Austria, Germany, Lithuania, Spain, Portugal, Bohemia, Moravia and seventy-one other countries.
In Jewish European history tens of thousands of synagogs and yeshivot were burned by christians, (and in many instances the Jews were burned inside of them),all of our cemeteries were desecrated and continue to be all over Europe and America today. You christians can’t even let our dead rest in peace.
Antisemitic Incidents – 2012
Antisemitic Incidents – 2011.wmv
You are a sweetheart, aren’t you?
If you want the Arabs to leave … PAY THEM TO MOVE TO SOUTH AMERICA!
I bet you would be offended if the Gentiles said all Jews must leave. All synagogues must go!
You are an anti-Gentile bigot.
WRONG! The removal of hats in church is NOT a tradition.
1 Cor 11:14 Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head.
It is a practice stated in Scripture, NOT a tradition
CuriousAmerican Said:
First point is: chicken-egg debate or cause and effect?
You omit the argument the christian clergy used to persuade him. It was not what was claimed the Jews did to christians it was based on Jew hating NT verses and prejudices. Christians had no honor any more than the word of a Muslim to a non believer then or now.
CuriousAmerican Said:
Sure you are!!!!!
CuriousAmerican Said:
Hasidic Jews dress like Polish nobleman of the hundreds of years ago. They justify it as a physical act to set them apart not only from Gentiles but other Jews as well. The Kippot is not a Torah obligation nor is it Rabbinic. It is a custom that caught on and religious Jews who want to display an outward symbol displayed to show other that they are proudly Jewish. It might have something to do with christian customs of removing headgear in the presence of nobility and in church they Jews choose to do the exact opposite.
That said many religious Jews do not wear kippot in public and some non observant Jews were them to publicly identify to gentiles that they are Jewish… like in your faces. I know Jews who in Israel don’t wear a kippa but wear it when they travel abroad.
Jews picked up customs not only from the Babylonians but also from Persians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans and just about every culture that was dominant where they lived even America.
That’s the reason Judaism is isolationist and that’s the reason we must live alone so that anti Jewish influences will not effect/corrupt Judaism in negative ways. That’s why the Arabs must leave, why all foreign houses of worship must be destroyed and why no christians should be allowed on our holy soil. You can love us from a distance. 🙂
In this case, the accusation was right.
The Jews did perpetrate the massacre at Mamilla Pool
I am not saying persecuting Jews was right, but the accusation was right.
CuriousAmerican Said:
ESAU
CuriousAmerican Said:
Your source?
My sources tell me there were about five thousand Idumeans who joined the Sicarii but nothing more. ZEALOTS AND SICARII
CuriousAmerican Said:
I said in the Jewish tradition:
Did the students know why they were acclaiming? Only A few might know.
Babylonian practices crept into the whole world.
Even Judaism picked up some errors.
For ex: the kippot is not in Torah. Where did it come from?
Isaiah told you to rely on Scripture, not tradition. So where did the Kippot come from?
I know you will say Talmud. But Isaiah told you to avoid non-scriptural sources.
Isaiah 8:20 To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.
So where is the kippot in Torah. If it is not in Torah, there is no light in the regulation.
Babylonian practices crept into Judaism too.
The Jews converted Idumeans into Judaism. I suspect there is more of Edom in Jewry than in Southern Europe.
The Sicarii/Zealots were heavily Idumean.
Edom might be more embedded in Rabbinical Judaism than you realize.
As for the Romans, they were not Chaldeans. They were Indo-Europeans.
The Chaldeans were Semites. Abraham came from Ur of the Chaldees.
Rome was NEVER called Chaldea.
Luke 3:1 reads
Luke 3:1 In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar—when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and Traconitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene—
I do not see Chaldea there.
Nimrod according to the Bible came from Ham. Son of Cush. Traditionally, a person of color in modern parlance. Black. African. Negro.
In fact, in Israel Cushim can be used to refer to blacks.
Europeans ARE NOT blacks.
The Romans came from Latini tribes.
The Romans were part of the Indo-European peoples who came out of the Caucuses.
The Chaldeans were Semitic. The Romans Indo-European. Abraham came from Ur of the Chaldeas.
Where you get off with this. Especially applying it to North Europeans. Germans, Dutch, and Sccandavians in the main are NOT from Edomic stock.
Edomites were swarthy.
The Phoenicians did conquer half of Sicily, Southern Spain and France and some went up the British Isles. But they were soon overrun with vast amounts of Indo-Europeans who swallowed them up.
The Romans (Indo-Europeans) conquered Carthage and Southern Spain (Phoenician).
The Phoenicians may have brought in some practices into the Southern Europe, but in the main, South Europeans are not Edomic. North Europeans are not Edomic.
As for Edomic practices corrupting Christianity – I have no doubt. I also have no doubt that Edom corrupted Judaism; and may have contributed to its present denial of Jesus Christ – May His Name Live Forever.
The Sicarii (Zealots) were heavily Idumean.
The failed Jewish uprising which started the process of casting Jews into the diaspora was done by Idumeans.
It may be that Edom is in Rabbinic Judaism far deeper than it is embedded in Christianity.
CuriousAmerican Said:
Who knows? After our experience with Herod it kind of turned off Jews from seeking converts. 🙂
CuriousAmerican Said:
Matter of fact I have checked DNA. My paternal side goes back to the palace guard of King David. Yours can be I’m sure traced back to to some European primitives living in Hovels, caves and trees.
Reminds me of a retort by Disraeli to an antisemite Irishman in Parliament :
“Yes, I am a Jew, and when the ancestors of the Right Honorable gentleman were brutal savages in an unknown island, mine were priests in the temple of Solomon” 😀
CuriousAmerican Said:
Edom
Esau Babylon Connection
The Spirit of G-d identifies Edom with Babylon. (See Ps. 137:7 and 8.) “Remember, O Lord, the
children of Edom, in the day of Jerusalem, who said Raze it, raze it,” (i.e. make bare or destroy the Temple, as Edom did under the Romans,) “even to the foundation thereof.” “O daughter of Babylon,” &c. Here we see, without any possibility of mistake,that Edom is Babylon
, and all sacred and profane history confirms it. Chaldea, or Babylon, was established by Assyria. Isaiah 23:13, says, “Behold the land of the Chaldeans, this people was not till the Assyrian founded it for them. The capital of Chaldea was Babylon. The Assyrian empire embraced the country on both sides of the Tigris. Babel, or Babylon, was founded by Nimrod, (see Gen. x. 10,) about A. M. 3416. The Assyrians descended from Taurus, and Caucasus conquered and destroyed Jerusalem, together with Syria; and these, with Phoenicia, became the Roman Empire,and was called Chaldea; as it was in the time of Jesus under Tiberius Caesar. (See Luke3:1.) From the East the Chaldeans, or Romans, peopled all the west; first Italy, Rome,France, Germany, England and America. Rome was founded by Romulus, 750 BC.After Jesus 325, Christianity became the established religion, under Constantine;*hence Babylon, Rome, Edom, and Christianity are synonymous.
The 4th Beast in Jewish tradition is Rome/Christendom, maybe even America today.
CuriousAmerican Said:
Are you talking about those replacement Jews who hijacked the bible and culture of the Jews to build their foundations; the ones who didnt learn hebrew, Torah and Judaism for 2000 years in the diaspora while praying to the one G_D instead of the multiple?
CuriousAmerican Said:
More wet dreams?
I know the tradition. I disagree with it.
Some Edomites did make their way to Southern Europe, where Catholicism has some traditions that might be traceable to Edom. But the core of Catholicism is still Christian.
But Protestant Northern Europe has no such traditions, and no genetic connection to Edom.
However, a better case could be made that a Large part of Jewry is descended from Idumeans of the 2nd century Before Christ, may his name live forever.
Edom may be in your own ranks.
There is a saying in the Christian text:
Rev 3:9 who claim to be Jews though they are not, but are liars–I will make them come and fall down at your feet and acknowledge that I have loved you.
Have you checked your DNA, Yamit?
You may be the Idumean.
@ CuriousAmerican:
Israelite Afghans ?
The reason I bring this subject up is that there is a prophesy that when the population of Jews and Israelites in the world equalize in numbers the final redemption will begin to take place. Jews and Afghan Israelite Pathan tribes have about reached parity today.
Israelite origin of the pashtuns and pathans
CuriousAmerican Said:
The holy Zohar (written some 2000 years ago by rabbi Shim’on Bar-Yoahi ZYA”A), prophesied the next passage (brought in the commentary on Exodus, VaEra parasha, page 32):
And the Ishmaelites shall rule the holy land, at the time when it is empty, for a long time, as their circumcision is empty, and not whole (Moslems only remove the prepuce (ORLA). Jews have another stage for the Brith called PRIAA), and they shall prevent the Israelites from returning to their homeland (Since the beginning of Jewish immigration to Israel, Arabs used violence against the Jews, wars and terror attacks. This still prevents the majority of Jews which is in the Diaspora to make Aliyah to Israel) until that privilege of the Ishmaelites will expire.
And the Ishamelites shall ignite big wars in the world, until they will make the Edomites (which are Christians by Jewish tradition) gather to a war against them.
And shall make wars: one on the sea, one in land and (one) near Jerusalem. And those shall rule over those. And the holy land will not be handed over to the Edomites (Christians).
At that time, one people will be awaken from the end of the world to the big sinful city, and there he will ignite a war that will last three months. And peoples will gather there, and will fall in his hands.
Until all the Edomites (Christians) will gather on him (from all the ends of the world). Then HaShem (G-d) will be awakened on them.
This is the meaning of the writing (Isiah 34,6): “For HaShem has a sacrifice in Bossrah” etc. and at the end of it, it says (Job 38,13): “to take hold of the ends of the earth”
And shall destroy the Ishamelites from us, and will break all the armies of Above, and there shall not remain any army Above for a people of the world, except for the army of Israel exclusively.
This is the meaning of the writing (Psalms 121,5): “HaShem (G-d) is your shadow on your right hand”, because the holy name is in the (spiritual) right side, and the Torah is also in the (spiritual) right side. Therefore all depends on the right side.
And we have learnt orally: He who come to pray, will put his right hand over his left hand, as it was established in Jewish Halacha.
At the Latter Days (Psalms 60): “Deliver your right and answer me”, and at that time it is written (Zefaniah 3): “For then I shall turn to peoples in a clear language, all to call the name of HaShem (G-d), to worship him together”. And it is written (Zechariah 14): “And HaShem (G-d) shall be the King of all the land, on that day HaShem (G-d) will be one, and his name will be one”.
Bernard Ross Said:
Above all gotta keep feeding the dual Kleptocracies.
speaking of democracy looky here:
http://www.thetower.org/dozens-of-palestinian-authority-officials-under-investigation-for-endemic-corruption/
We’ve heard of “useful idiots” but what about “useless idiots”?
http://www.thetower.org/hamas-celebrates-erdogan-gaza-trip-as-end-of-u-s-hegemony/
gotta keep feeding the arab and muslim street.
A sure guarantee of stalling the “peace process” is the introduction of erdogan into the mix. This will confound those arabs even more. the confusion will multiply. Erdogan will look good to his constituents, Hamas will get sweeties and trivia. Perhaps, there will be a hamas-fatah “unification” coup for erdogan to crow about. So far, things look good, the enemies are all embroiled in pathetic, useless games and struggles. Gotta keep the show moving. They’ve gotta give their dumb constituents something while they’re going nowhere and not fighting israel, or their constituents might gobble them up.
CuriousAmerican Said:
Jews dont worship God-men, I thought you knew that.
Lag B’Omer
Lag BaOmer, also known as Lag LaOmer amongst Sephardi Jews, is a Jewish holiday celebrated on the thirty-third day of the Counting of the Omer, which occurs on the 18th day of Iyar. One reason given for the holiday is as the day of passing of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. Modern Jewish tradition links the holiday to the Bar Kokhba Revolt against the Roman Empire (132-135 CE). In Israel, it is celebrated as a symbol for the fighting Jewish spirit.
Lag LaOmer, is a Jewish holiday celebrated on the thirty-third day of the Counting of the Omer, which occurs on the 18th day of the Hebrew month of Iyar. According to the Talmud and Midrash, this day marks the hillula (celebration, interpreted by some as anniversary of death) of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, a Mishnaic sage and leading disciple of Rabbi Akiva in the 2nd century, and the day on which he revealed the deepest secrets of kabbalah in the form of the Zohar, a landmark text of Jewish mysticism. In modern Israeli culture, the holiday has been reinterpreted as a commemoration of the Bar Kokhba revolt against the Roman Empire.
CuriousAmerican
Compare resurrection narrative with pagan beliefs at the time: Justin Martyr, an early Christian apologist, records some of these “parallels” in an attempt to convince the Roman emperor that the Christian’s teachings were not that dissimilar from other Roman religions which were favored by the empire. Justin appealed to various examples, including Aesculapius who was struck by lightning and ascended to heaven, Baccus and Hercules and a few other sons who rose to heaven on the horse Pegasus after having died violent deaths, Ariadne who was “set among the stars,” and finally the cremation of the emperor Augustus in which someone claimed that he saw Augustus’s spirit ascend towards heaven.
When Osiris is said to bring his believers eternal life in Egyptian Heaven, contemplating the unutterable, indescribable glory of God, we understand that as a myth.
When the sacred rites of Demeter at Eleusis are described as bringing believers happiness in their eternal life, we understand that as a myth.
In fact, when ancient writers tell us that in general ancient people believed in eternal life, with the good going to the Elysian Fields and the not so good going to Hades, we understand that as a myth.
When Vespatian’s spittle healed a blind man, we understand that as a myth.
When Apollonius of Tyana raised a girl from death, we understand that as a myth.
When the Pythia , the priestess at the Oracle at Delphi, in Greece, prophesied, and over and over again for a thousand years, the prophecies came true, we understand that as a myth.
When Dionysus turned water into wine, we understand that as a myth. When Dionysus believers are filled with atay, the Spirit of God, we understand that as a myth.
When Romulus is described as the Son of God, born of a virgin, we understand that as a myth.
When Alexander the Great is described as the Son of God, born of a mortal woman, we understand that as a myth.
When Augustus is described as the Son of God, born of a mortal , we understand that as a myth.
When Dionysus is described as the Son of God, born of a mortal woman,we understand that as a myth.
When Scipio Africanus (Scipio Africanus, for Christ’s sake) is described as the Son of God, born of a mortal woman, we understand that as a myth.
@ CuriousAmerican:
” Which Hebrew Scriptures are these authors talking about?”
You did not ans the question correctly Try again. 😀
Christ’s three days in the grave is akin to Jonah’s three days in the whale.
Hos 5:15 points to Israel’s rejection of the Moishach, who is the God/Man Jesus.
That being said. Ted has forbidden us to chat theology too much.
CuriousAmerican Said:
The last verse in Chapter 5 sets the scene and explains the situation very clearly: “I (God) will go, I will return to My place until they will acknowledge their guilt and seek My face; in their distress they will seek Me (Hosea 5:15). Hosea explains in verse 5 that G-d sent a clear-cut message to Israel through My prophets; you heard and refused to repent, so My offer resulted in your death sentence. How could I vindicate you after such defiance? Then Hosea explains: “Come let us return to God”!
Does this refer to J?
Answer: No. Chapter 6 substantiates this position. Hosea 6:1-2 “They will say, Come let us return to God for He (God) has mangled us and He (God) will heal us; He (God) has smitten and He (God) will bandage us. He (God) will heal us after two days; on the third day He (God) will raise us up and we will live before Him. ‘We’ refers to the nation of Israel.
Hosea 6:2 ? The Christian Bible has the authoress of Luke (24:46-47) telling that J rose on the Third Day: “Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.” This could have only been designed to satisfy a prophecy in Hosea 6:2. The New Testament has Paul writing in I Corinthians, “and J was buried and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures.” Further 1 Corinthians 15:4.says “After two days will he revive us: in the third day he will raise us up and we shall live in his sight.” Which Hebrew Scriptures are these authors talking about?
CuriousAmerican Said:
Christian theologians have pointed to this proverb as a prooftext for their claim. However, an examination of what the text actually says will dispel any attempt at such a forced interpretation.
Who has ascended up into heaven, and descended? Who has gathered the wind in his fists? Who has bound the waters in his garment? Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is his name, and what is his son’s name? (Proverbs 30:4)
The Answer to the Question “What is his name?” is given in the Scriptures, where we are informed that only G-d, the creator of heaven and earth, is in complete control of the forces of nature. Following this Question a second Question is asked: “What is his son’s name?” As the first Question is readily Answered through a reading of the Scriptures, the source of all true knowledge, so, too, the second Question is to be Answered by studying the same source. We thus obtain the Answer by studying such verses as Exodus 4:22: “Israel is My son, my firstborn”; Deuteronomy 14:1: “You are the children of the Lord your G-d”; and Hosea 2:1: “It will be said to them: ‘You are the children of the living G-d.'” Consequently, it is Israel that is the name of His son, His firstborn. True, we find elsewhere in the Bible that David and Solomon stand in a filial relationship with God (Psalms 89:27-28, 1 Chronicles 22:10, 28:6). Indeed, this will also be true of the future Messiah. But the right to this title is due, in the final analysis, to the fact that they are the representatives or personifications of Israel as a whole. Hence, it is Israel that is the sole bearer of the august title of the “son” or “firstborn” of G-d.
comment to CA in moderation
CuriousAmerican Said:
Owning and trading slaves was a lucrative business. The Laws against Jews shut them out of that business. It was stated only to show discrimination against Jews by the Christians but was only one example of hundreds. Out of all the restrictions place upon Jews you jumped only at that one. 😛 Slavery practiced among Jews from biblical times was never condoned but never banned. Jews placed very specific restrictions upon slavery. Under Jewish laws they were treated with deference and respect. Jewish slaves were actually indentured bondsmen and released after 7 years with accrued property and any material wealth accumulated, like wives and children Slavery up till the 19th century was accepted practice all over the world especially in christendom.
My commnet to CA was botted!!!
The immediate results of the conquest of Jerusalem by a Persian-Jewish force filled the Jews with joy and pride. Many Christians became Jews through fear. The Jews were free from the Christian yoke for about fourteen years. They hoped that King Khosrau would permit them to establish a Jewish commonwealth. Some suggest that such an autonomous Jewish province was indeed established. If so, it barely got off the ground before the tide turned.
Three years after Nehemiah was appointed, the Persians removed the Jewish governor of Jerusalem for reasons that were never clearly stated. Perhaps they feared his messianic pretensions – or they made a strategic decision that the support of the larger Christian population was more valuable than that of the smaller number of Jews. After executing the Jewish governor and ending the Jewish rule of the city, the Persians forbade Jews from settling within a three-mile radius of Jerusalem.
The Persian control of the city, however, did not last long. Byzantine emperor Heraclius (575-641) waged a bitter war against the Persians in order to regain his lost provinces of Syria, Egypt and Palestine. He successfully destroyed the Persian army in 628 and in the following year marched into Jerusalem at the head of his army. Though he had promised an amnesty to Jerusalem’s Jews, the Christian clergy of Jerusalem convinced him that his promise was invalid; subsequently the Byzantines accused the Jews of Jerusalem of having cooperated with the Persian conquerors and massacred them.
CuriousAmerican Said:
The immediate results of the conquest of Jerusalem by a Persian-Jewish force filled the Jews with joy and pride. Many Christians became Jews through fear. The Jews were free from the Christian yoke for about fourteen years. They hoped that King Khosrau would permit them to establish a Jewish commonwealth. Some suggest that such an autonomous Jewish province was indeed established. If so, it barely got off the ground before the tide turned.
Three years after Nehemiah was appointed, the Persians removed the Jewish governor of Jerusalem for reasons that were never clearly stated. Perhaps they feared his messianic pretensions – or they made a strategic decision that the support of the larger Christian population was more valuable than that of the smaller number of Jews. After executing the Jewish governor and ending the Jewish rule of the city, the Persians forbade Jews from settling within a three-mile radius of Jerusalem.
The Persian control of the city, however, did not last long. Byzantine emperor Heraclius (575-641) waged a bitter war against the Persians in order to regain his lost provinces of Syria, Egypt and Palestine. He successfully destroyed the Persian army in 628 and in the following year marched into Jerusalem at the head of his army. Though he had promised an amnesty to Jerusalem’s Jews, the Christian clergy of Jerusalem convinced him that his promise was invalid; subsequently the Byzantines accused the Jews of Jerusalem of having cooperated with the Persian conquerors and massacred them.
You are talking to a Jew who knows his history and yours better than you do, that’s who!!!
You complain about lack of civil rights, but are upset that you could not own slaves?!
Do you care to explain that one?
I am sure you will dig something up.
Where in the Zohar does it say that?
According to my Bible (which includes the Christian) scripture, the nations will be compassed around Jerusalem.
The Arabs will overrun the Western Half of Jerusalem.
Zech 14:2 I will gather all the nations to Jerusalem to fight against it; the city will be captured, the houses ransacked, and the women raped. Half of the city will go into exile, but the rest of the people will not be taken from the city.
At that moment, it will look like all is lost.
Suddenly, the Jews will, at their wits ends, will finally call on Jesus to save them. He will.
They will have to come to the edge of extinction before they admit their guilt of rejecting their Moshiach, Yeshua, MAY HIS NAME LIVE FOREVER!
Hos 5:15 Then I will return to my lair until they have borne their guilt and seek my face– in their misery they will earnestly seek me.”
Finally, they will understand the real meaning of
Prov 30: 4 Who has gone up to heaven and come down? Whose hands have gathered up the wind? Who has wrapped up the waters in a cloak? Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is his name, and what is the name of his son? Surely you know!
I guess we interpret things differently.
But where in the Zohar does it say Christians and Muslims will destroy each other.
Betrayed the Jews?!!
They were beaten by the Roman [Byzantines].
How is that betrayal?
Was Persia obliged to fight to the last man so that Jerusalem could remain under …
Why do I try? Look who I am talking to. The sense of entitlement is breathtaking.
Attitudes like yours do not endear Jews to the Goyim.
I know you don’t care, but you do whine about the blowback, when those attitudes become public knowledge.
It must be that long history of progroms against the Jews that America has. </sarcasm>
CuriousAmerican Said:
A real loser with no sense of humor. I suppose Muslims believed their god was stronger than the christian god. According to the Zohar at the end of history Muslims and christians will fight it out to the death and destroy each other.
CuriousAmerican Said:
439 CE, the Code of Theodosius II was established in the Byzantine Empire. It was the third of four compilations of law — beginning with Constantine, who made Christianity the official religion of Rome in 312 — that progressively stripped Jews of citizenship rights and repressed Judaism as a religion. Constantine had forbidden Jews from proselytizing; Constantius (337-361) had outlawed intermarriage and forbade Jews from owning or dealing in slaves; Theodosius II forbade the building of new synagogues, prohibited Jews from holding lucrative public positions and imposed on them offices whose holders “are obligated to employ their wealth and to make public gifts as part of their burdensome and diverse official and military duties”.
CODE OF JUSTINIAN and … The principle of “Servitude of the Jews” (Servitus Judaeorum)
Justinian (527-565) disqualified Jews as witnesses against Christians in courts of law. In the course of three centuries Jews thus had become second-class citizens, a status that became entrenched in Europe for more than a thousand years under the power of the Church.
laws passed by Justinian I, Leo III, and Leo VI), which was often quite harsh and denied many basic rights to Jews, and what was actually enforced in practice. The Jews dominated a number of important trades, either Empire-wide or on a more local basis – international import/export and cross-border finance most notably, but also trades such as glass-making, dyeing, tanning and butchering, silk manufacture, copper- and silver-smithing, long-distance shipping, and others – and it was impractical, if not downright unwise, to alienate them too thoroughly.
Beginning with Theodosius II (if not earlier), there were laws that in effect relegated Jews to second-class citizens, forbidding them to proselytize, serve in government positions or the military, or use public baths. The Codex Jusinianus interfered with their hitherto guaranteed social and religious autonomy as a religio licta. Subsequent Byzantine law codes, including Leo III’s Ecloga, perpetuated existing restrictions and/or instituted new ones. Paralleling Muslim practice at the time, Jews were, for example, forbidden to ride horses.
There were also cases of attempts at forced conversion, such as under Heraclius I. Like many minority communities (non-orthodox Christian sects included), particularly in the Levant and Syria, the Jews had felt oppressed and discriminated against by Constantinople, and saw both the Persian and, later, Muslim invasions of Byzantine territory as an opportunity to support a more tolerant alternative regime, under which they might better prosper than they had under Byzantine authority. When Heraclius eventually triumphed, the backlash was severe. Tthat said, In general, Jews fared better under Byzantine rule than they did in the West.
There was certainly a significant Jewish population in Constantinople, and there were many others that dated from the Hellenistic period – Berroia in Macedonia, Patras, Thessalonike, Crete, Ioannina, Ohrid, Kastoria, Adrianople, Serres, Mistra, Nicaea, Attaleia, Ephesus, and Philadelphia, among others.
Heraclius and his advisors actually viewed the Muslims as some special sect of Jews. 😀 (ironic!!!!!)
The Persian betrayed the Jews and payed the price. Your favorite christian was for we Jews the worst of the worst among other things he practiced forced conversion of Jews under his domain. Apparently our G-d’s timeline is different than yours.
Last time I looked there are no significant numbers of christians in our country and everywhere in the region, where they do exist they are being taken care of like becoming an endangered species
Iran, not Israel, faces an existential threat, says top US analyst
Anthony Cordesman claims all of Islamic Republic’s population centers now within range of Israeli missiles with thermonuclear warheads.
Not Just Iran but every major Arab and European capital including Moscow. Not so sure about NY La and Washington but if it were up to me…!!!
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The analogy you seek is Roman Emperor Heraclius.
Most people would say Byzantine, but the Byzanties considered themselves Roman, which they were. They were the Eastern half of the Roman Empire which did not fall to the Germanic tribes.
Heraclius waged a completely brilliant war against the Persians. He utterly destroyed them. He chased them out of the Mideast to the other side of the Euphrates in 628AD. His victory was total, and had it stopped there, Heraclius would have been considered one of the greatest military commanders of all time. He made Persia a vassal. A 400 year war between Rome and Persian was finally won, with Persia totally broken.
However the war so utterly weakened both the Persians and the Romans (Byzantines) that within 8 years of Heraclius’ total victory, the Muslims would overrun both the Roman province of Syria and soon start the destruction of all of Zoroastrian Persia. Within 15 years, Persia would become a Muslim state.
Byzantium Rome [Constantinople] would hold out and regroup to hold on to Anatolia.
Yamit might chalk this up to a Jewish revolt against Byzantium Rome. From 614-629.
The Jews at one point in 614AD were massacring Christians in Jerusalem so brutally that it shocked their Persian allies.
The burned down all Christian religious sites.
The Zoroasteran Persians got along well with the Jews and gave them complete autonomy.
The Jewish victory was short-lived. Rome came back.
Heraclius came in and routed and defeated the Persian [Zoroasteran ]-Jewish alliance. And crushed them.
Rome took Jerusalem back but initially granted amnesty not revenge on the Jews, which considering the massacre of Christians at the Pool of Mamillia, was generous.
But by 634AD, when the Muslims were approaching, the Byzantines were afraid of a another Jewish revolt – Hadn’t the Jews allied with the Rome’s enemies before?
Yamit may consider Rome’s defeat at Yarmouk in 636AD, a judgment from God for dispossessing the Jews, but if that be so, why did Byzantium Rome [Constantinople] hold on for another 817 years until 1453AD with the collapse of Constantinople – WHILE THE JEWS’ ALLIES the Zoroastrian Persians fall to Islam in just a mere two decades?
Why were the friends of the Jews destroyed by Islam first?
The point is the West is now in the position of Byzantium.
The West is worn down. It is not a failure of nerve, or even of generalship. It is exhaustion.
This is why in 636 AD, Heraclius was forced to say, as he fled to Constantinople from today’s Lebanon:
Farewell, a long farewell to Syria,my fair province. Thou art an infidel’s now. Peace be with you, O Syria – what a beautiful land you will be for the enemy.
Inconclusive, but perhaps not failed. it depends upon the goals one seeks. Inconclusive may be the goal.