Ethnic Jews, religious Jews, and “Messianic Jews”
As I’ve written before somewhere in this voluminous blog, the definition of “Jew” is complex because Jews are both a religion and an ethnic group. They are also a people, which is somewhat harder to define.
Often there’s overlap, but often there’s not. For example, you can be a secular ethnic Jew who doesn’t practice Judaism at all – or even is against it – and much of the world will still consider you Jewish. You can also be a convert to Judaism and not ethnically related at all, but you automatically become Jewish on conversion. Your DNA may not show it, but you’re a Jew by Judaism’s definition, and you are also considered part of the Jewish people.
So an ethnic Jew who’s an atheist remains an ethnic Jew. And an ethnic Jew who converts to Christianity, or embraces what’s called “Messianic Judaism” by its practitioners, remains an ethnic Jew as well. He or she may consider himself or herself to be a religious Jew as well, but many religious Jews (not all) would beg to differ. Judaism excludes belief in the divinity of Jesus. A basic tenet is that the deity is unknowable and unnameable and unpersoned. Once you believe in the divinity of Jesus you’re not practicing Judaism even if you think you are, but you remain an ethnic Jew. Judaism differs from Christianity in many ways, but this is one of the most basic.
But what, you might ask, about Jewish belief in the Messiah? It’s quite different from the Christian belief. The Jewish messiah is a mortal person, a “a fully human non-deity Jewish leader, physically descended via a human genetic father of an unbroken paternal Davidic line through King David and King Solomon.” References to being the “Son of God” are metaphoric rather than literal. Nor is belief in a Messiah of any type universally true even of religious, believing Jews.
The definition of being a Jew is complicated somewhat by the fact that different strains of Judaism believe that being ethnically Jewish – or part of the Jewish people – is inherited in different ways. The more Orthodox believe that Jewishness involves having a Jewish mother and even if the father is not Jewish the offspring are Jewish (part of the Jewish people) as long as the mother is Jewish. Reform Jews believe Jewishness is passed through either parent.
The legal system of Israel reflects some of this, but Jews outside of Israel aren’t bound by it in any way unless they happen to agree with it anyway. All Jewish denominations around the world reject Messianic Judaism as a form of Judaism in the religious sense. However, Messianic Jews can become Israelis under the right of return – but only if they qualify in terms of ancestry.
There were several Israeli court rulings that are relevant to this; they concern the narrow issue of the right to return. Earlier law had allowed ethnic Jews to return unless they converted to another religion (atheists were okay). But a newer ruling allowed Messianic Jews to return if they qualified as ethnic Jews, but only if the inheritance was through the paternal line and not the maternal line. To me, it seems that this somewhat mixes up the definitions of what is a Jew and blurs distinctions between the religious definition, the legal one for the right of return, and the ethnic one. After all, ethnically, someone with only a Jewish father who then converts to Messianic Judaism is no different from someone with only a Jewish mother who then converts to Messianic Judaism. But the law in Israel treats them differently. Anyway, here’s a description of the case:
The state of Israel grants Aliyah (right of return) and citizenship to Jews, and to those with Jewish parents or grandparents who are not considered Jews according to halakha [traditional Jewish law], such as people who have a Jewish father but a non-Jewish mother. The old law had excluded any “person who has been a Jew and has voluntarily changed his religion”, and an Israeli Supreme Court decision in 1989 had ruled that Messianic Judaism constituted another religion. However, on April 16, 2008, the Supreme Court of Israel ruled in a case brought by a number of Messianic Jews with Jewish fathers and grandfathers. Their applications for Aliyah had been rejected on the grounds that they were Messianic Jews. The argument was made by the applicants that they had never been Jews according to halakha, and were not therefore excluded by the conversion clause. This argument was upheld in the ruling.
I hope this post clears up some questions – although I have my doubts.
Just saw a brief video on FOX of Columbia “students” (are they all students?) that had poster up praising the murder of the two Jews in DC. Calling for more of the same. What will happen if they start arming themselves? Or, if there starts to be retribution? I do not understand them at all.
But we, Republicans, are the NAZIS, not them calling for the annihlation of Jews
The question of who was to be regarded as a Jew was the central issue and topic of discussion at the Wansee Conference on 20 January 1942. There was much debate and disagreement, some of it quite heated, and a definitive answer eluded the participants. But Heydrich settled the matter by saying that basically a person was a Jew if he had what amounted to one drop of Jewish blood, and that that person should be dealt with accordingly. He never explicitly stated what this meant but it was understood by one and all that it could mean but one thing: Vernichtung.
By then the “Holocaust by Bullets” was well underway.
I leave it to Jews to determine who’s really, properly Jewish. This analysis makes it clear that even Jews don’t agree about it.
The sad truth is that Jew-haters don’t care about these distinctions. As IrishOtter49 says, a single drop of blood will raise up the world’s oldest hatred.
I am reminded of the old statement that when you bring two Jews together you will get three opinions.
mongo:
At least 3 opinions.
IrishOtter49:
Yes, the Nazis had their own definitions.
https://x.com/Osint613/status/1926352416976318738
Video at link.
Dr. Michael Rydelnik hosts a Bible question and answer radio show on the evangelical Moody Radio network on Saturday mornings, which I listen to when I can.
He makes no bones about his Jewishness; in fact his broadcasts are heavily weighted with info about Jewish traditions and antisemitism. I find it interesting that he never seems to use the words “Christian*” or “Christianity,” yet I think he is undeniably a Christian, who strongly believes he is also a Jew.
* I think he calls himself a follower of Messiah Yeshua (Jesus).
https://www.moodyradio.org/programs/open-line/about/
Dax:
He’s definitely an ethnic Jew. But he would not have a right of return to Israel, since BOTH parents were Jewish. Therefore he’d be considered a convert to Christianity from Judaism.
I leave it to Jews to determine who’s really, properly Jewish. This analysis makes it clear that even Jews don’t agree about it.
Israel is a secular state, so the laws about “who is Jewish” in terms of the Law of Return are political, not religious, and probably tied mainly to whom the Nazis regarded as Jewish enough to try to murder.
The only disagreements among Jews are, first, that Reform Jews decided a few decades ago to include those with a Jewish father (if they want to be Jewish), and, second, over what constitutes a valid conversion (needless to say, the Orthodox are much more strict).
@Jimmy:Israel is a secular state
Asterisk: “secular” doesn’t mean what it means in the US. Your religion matters when it comes to legal marriage in Israel. (Reference is from 2017, not sure if there have been changes.)
Jews have a lot of religious hoops to jump through to marry other Jews in Israel. The ten recognized Christian faiths have their own set of hoops. If you are a Protestant in Israel wishing to marry another Protestant you have to have special permission from the Ministry for Religious Affairs. At least as of 2017.
Israel seems to recognize just about all marriages performed outside Israel. Not having been married in Israel myself I don’t know how difficult compliance is.
Are there any people who are descended in an unbroken male line from King Solomon? Or King David, for that matter? We can safely assume that there are living descendants of the Davidic kings today, since they had children, but strict patrilineal descent is a different matter.
Also, if there are such people, why hasn’t the State of Israel recognized one of them as its head of state?
Neo:
Judaism excludes belief in the divinity of Jesus. A basic tenet is that the deity is unknowable and unnameable and unpersoned…. References to being the “Son of God” are metaphoric rather than literal.
——————-
The Jewish Bible repeatedly emphasizes that G-d takes no physical form – in fact, the physical universe cannot contain G-d. This moots any discussion of Jesus as G-d incarnate.
The phrase “son of G-d” is not commun in Judaism or the Jewish bible. The messiah is referred to as the “son of Jesse” who was David’s father. G-d and angels address humans as “son of Adam” or “son of Man”. The phrase “children of G-d” refers to a person’s righteousness or worthiness of G-d’s love, with no implication that the person is a prophet or godhead.
Jimmy:
Israel is a secular state, so the laws about “who is Jewish” in terms of the Law of Return are political, not religious, and probably tied mainly to whom the Nazis regarded as Jewish enough to try to murder.
——————–
Correct. The feeling when Israel was founded in the 1940s was that anyone the Nazis hounded as a Jew was Jewish enough to be a citizen. This included people with one Jewish grandparent – not at all in accord with Jewish religious law and tradition.
More recently the ultra-secular Leftist supreme court has used this issue in their struggle with the traditional Jewish majority. For example, they granted citizenship to many Soviet emigres with little to no connection to Judaism…. this backfired as most of these immigrants have become solid right-wing voters.
One interesting sub-motif of the current situation is how it throws many “ethnic” Jews back on their assumptions…. having defined themselves as liberals/progressives/cosmpolitans, many have swallowed the pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel victimhood politics of their milieu. This weekend’s Israeli papers carried several reports from journalists who accompanied a mission of Israeli officials and thought leaders to meet with their American Jewish counterparts… one sobering point was how thoroughly the anti-Israel rhetoric has captured many unaffiliated Jews, including young Jews in their 20s and 30s.
The sudden return of That Olde Tyme Anti-Semitism – directed at them – has shattered their worldview and forced a rethink. It is not clear how the current violence will play out.Unfortunately many of these people are still in the throes of TDS.
I have generally been content to rely on the wisdom of Paul, born Saul from Tarsus when it comes to understanding the relationship between people who refer to themselves as “Jews” or “Christians.” In particular, his analysis and explication set forth in the Biblical Book of Romans (really, his letter to the congregation of Jesus followers–and here I use the Latinized/Anglicized version of the Jewish name) and most specifically in what we have come to know as the 11th chapter of that Book. Adding to this his letter to the Ephesian congregation, this time in Chapter 2, verses 11 through 15, he seems to have resolved such conflict as there may be, at least to my satisfaction. If people wish to continue to emphasize the differences between, rather than the synthesis of the two, I suppose the wall of separation will remain as will a greater or lesser amount of hostility, but I prefer not to do so. In a way, the issue is similar to the one we see here in the country called “The United States of America,” where persons of various and sundry ethnicities are supposed to meld into a new identity and find unity, rather than remain separated and conflicted. But we see how well that has worked out against the forces of separation that labor against this ideal. But still, I agree with King David, who exclaimed, “Behold, how good and pleasant it is
when brothers dwell in unity!” Psalm 133, 1.
Neo: In my college days one of my best friends was Jewish although he was not a practicing Jew. However he would not go against his parents wishes. He was in love with a young Gentile woman and there were problems. Although she offered to convert to Judaism, that was not enough according to Art. According to him, any child would not be accepted as a Jew because “they” could never be sure the father was Jewish. A Jewish woman on the other hand could have a child to a Gentile husband and “they” knew it would be Jewish because the child came from the womb of a Jewish woman. What branch of Judaism does this fall under and did I understand Art correctly? The use of “they” is not meant to be disrespectful, it’s just the term Art always used when he explained it to me.
With the advent of DNA testing, would a certain fraction of genes from Jewish ancestry qualify for classification?
chazzand, I have a cousin, raised in no particular religion, who felt called, moved to Israel, and underwent an Orthodox conversion. He is regarded as Jewish; he married a Jewish woman, and his children and grandchildren are fully Jewish.
Chazzand: All branches of Judaism agree that if the mother is Jewish, the child is Jewish, regardless of who the father is. And all agree that an Orthodox conversion makes one fully Jewish.
@Keubanks:With the advent of DNA testing, would a certain fraction of genes from Jewish ancestry qualify for classification?
Mitochondrial and Y-chromosome DNA can indicate ancestry; the kind that people get where they tell you you’re “23% Scandinavian” or whatever doesn’t, it’s just comparing your profile to population averages. (Pretty much all genes are found among all groups of people, just not with the same frequency.)
Whether to accept the results of DNA testing as indicating ancestry for halakhic purposes is a decision; it can be part of a case you make to the Israeli government:
If one accepts DNA testing, then a significant number of Palestinian Arabs, (depending on the nitty gritty of the definitive “Who-Is-A-Jew”) might well have to be given Israeli citizenship.
I have often thought that THIS might be in fact THE way for Israel’s Partners In Peace(TM) to—ultimately—successfully undermine the Zionist enterprise.
However, given the Chillun’ o’ Israel’s (or some of ‘em—too many of ‘em?) seemingly innate embrace of perversity (cf. Isaiah, e.g.) the above path might not really be necessary…
“How Soros Bought The ‘Voice’ Of The Jewish Community;
“And turned it into an advocacy group for Hamas supporters.”—
https://blazingcatfur.ca/2025/05/25/how-soros-bought-the-voice-of-the-jewish-community/
( https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-liberal-betrayal-of-the-jews/
https://www.frontpagemag.com/how-soros-bought-the-voice-of-the-jewish-community/ )
I have not yet read this post or the comments, but I just came across this Substack essay that may be directly or indirectly relevant:
https://www.lorenzofromoz.net/p/rational-anger-at-jews
Rational anger at Jews
Just because a group has been persecuted, doesn’t mean they haven’t behaved badly.
Lorenzo Warby May 24, 2025
I expect to read Neo this evening.
PS: Lorenzo also provides an interesting citation to the earliest mention of the Hebrews vs. Apiru: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/?Apiru
” The people who became the Jews arose around 3,000 years ago, with the first possible mention of them being during the period of New Kingdom Egypt (c.1570-c.1069BC). Which of the ethnic groups of the Levant of that time are still with us? None but the Jews still are.”
Barry Meislin, in Egypt, the Copts, who were the original Egyptians, are treated by the Muslim majority as a disfavored ethnic group, but, in view of history, and especially the Muslim anti-Christian pogroms from the twelfth century onwards, I think Muslim Egyptians have a whole lot of Coptic blood.
bezos get your house in order,
https://twitchy.com/amy-curtis/2025/05/25/wapo-finally-deletes-despicable-where-do-jews-belong-post-n2413291
didnt Abraham start about a 1,000 years earlier in Mesopotamia,
are copts more likely to be villagers or more urban dwellers,
yeah I find warby’s whataboutism disturbing,
I lived near a Coptic church in the Cairo suburb of Heliopolis, and there were lots of others in the Cairo area, and also in Alexandria. The Copts in the villages of Upper Egypt have a somewhat worse time than in the north.
Keubanks; Barry Meislin:
I don’t think DNA would be relevant. For starters, it’s only distinctive for Ashkenazi Jews. Mizrahi Jews fron Arab or other Middle Eastern countries have DNA that is close to that of the host countries. That doesn’t answer the question of who is a Jew. And it wouldn’t cover converts or those with a Jewish grandparent from whom they randomly had inherited less than 25% of their DNA.
@Kate: I think Muslim Egyptians have a whole lot of Coptic blood.
Muslim Arabic-speaking Egyptians are not genetically distinct from Copts. They are essentially the same population: some changed their religion, language, and culture, and some didn’t.
@neo:I don’t think DNA would be relevant.
Mitochondrial and Y-chromosome DNA can prove descent through female and male lines, respectively, but can’t trace out a whole family tree. Either can be used to prove you are related to a specific Jew, if you are, but unless you had someone in mind who agreed to share their DNA there might not be anything to test.
it’s only distinctive for Ashkenazi Jews. Mizrahi Jews fron Arab or other Middle Eastern countries have DNA that is close to that of the host countries.
This is the “23 and me” style testing I was talking about that does not prove descent.
Yes, Yahweh created the Universe, but to claim that he could not in some way manifest himself physically in that universe if He chose to is to say that Yahweh is NOT all powerful! It doesn’t matter what modern Judaism teaches ( or Christianity, for that matter) if it contradicts what the scripture says.
In the book of Exodus, Yahweh tells Moses that no one can see his face and live yet Yahweh allows Moses to see his back after Yahweh puts Moses in a cleft of the rock , Yahweh covers the cleft with his Hand until HE passes by and then lets Moses see his back. This is in Exodus 33: 17-23. Earlier in Genesis 3:8, Adam and Eve ” hear” ” Yahweh” walking in the garden and hide themselves after their original sin . In Genesis 18:1 ” Yahweh” appears to Abraham. ( Many Christians suspect this and possibly other places in the OT is a ” preincarnate” appearance of Christ. Hence a limited Human form that does not destroy Abraham with His Divine glory) In Daniel 7:9-14 , ” The Ancient of Days ” is described with White clothes and hair like wool….along with the Son of Man. ( Messiah) If you have never read this intriguing passage I encourage you to do so.) In Ezekiel 1:22-28 there is another brief description of God. In Zechariah 14: 4 it is prophesied that Yahweh will stand with his feet on the Mount of Olives and it will be split and the Jews will use the new valley as an escape route. ( This is in the latter days ) In Genesis 5:22, Enoch – great grandfather of Noah- is described as someone who ” walked with God”. He had a relationship with God. Not an unknowable God.The Psalmist is clearly someone who has a personal relationship with Yahweh. Hardly an unknowable God!
mongo: “I am reminded of the old statement that when you bring two Jews together you will get three opinions.”
neo: “At least 3 opinions.”
LOL!
Over and Over and Over in the scriptures – including the books of Moses – God is named!!! Many modern English translations have used the error of all caps “LORD ” where the Divine name was given in the original – ” Yahweh”. Psalm 23, in its original, uses the Divine Name that was told to Moses in Exodus 6: 1-8
Well…either via DNA or an en-masse FERVENT and HONEST desire on the part of “the cousins” to convert to Judaism (though it’s entirely possible that the renowned Rabbi Mel Brooks thought that one up; moreover it doesn’t, for a variety of reasons, appear to be terribly likely…).
– – – – – – –
Kate, no doubt; but “disfavored ethnic group” is, um, a rather interesting way of putting it…given what’s happened to the Coptic community over the past generation and the resulting current size and dispersion of the Coptic “diaspora”.
As mentioned, WRT physiognomy it is useful to compare the various portraits (or “icons” of the non-religious variety) of Egyptian Copts—men and women—from around the first century of the Common Era (of which the NY Metropolitan Museum, for one, has a decent collection) to contemporary Egyptians (e.g., Boutros Boutros Ghali is one more well-known visage, but there are many other “people in the street”).
In addition, it always seemed rather amazing to me how pharaonic Hosni Mubarak looked.
(This is not the case across the board, certainly, as Al-Sisi looks, to me at least, more like a struggling stand-up comic.)
OMMV…
a general in the special forces and the head of military intelligence, not exactly shecky greene, or Arab equivalent, trained at Ft Leavenworth, now his performance in the last few years does leave something to be desired, not willing to anger the Bedouin tribes in the Sinai,
to move against the Islamic Revolutionary Movement,
trainees at said places, have sometimes proven unreliable see General Zia of Pakistan or the last Phillipine coup plotters in the 80s and 90s,
he was the first generation that was exclusively trained under US not pror Soviet aegis,
I think Sowell’s “The Minority Middleman” is too mechanical to describe the place of the Jews among despised minorities.
See, imo, instead, “Why The Jews” by Prager and Teslushkin. For some of the same reasons, but not to the degree, not be a million miles, both Quakers and Methodists, as they were getting started in England, generated similar feelings among others.
Sowell once said he told a Jewish friend how to be without enemies; “fail”.
Probably because my father’s division (104th ID) helped “clean up” starting immediately after VE Day, and he, being too beat up to go to the Pacific, remained in Europe until March of 46 winding up other loose ends, I was raised to not see any difference between us Catholics, other Christians, and Jews.
The whole thing was kind of boring until, maybe, my senior year in high school. Sure, we knew about the Holocaust. But Jews around town? How’d the Tgers do last night?
Wasn’t until I got to college that I found lots of people take this stuff seriously.
This being Memorial Day–every day is Memorial Day–I will say that the 104th Division (Timberwolf Division) is officially a Liberating Unit. Mittelbau-Dora near Nordhausen.
Jon baker:
Jews don’t say God couldn’t do it. They say he’s doesn’t do it and definitely didn’t do it.
Yahweh is not a name of God. It is an acronym of four consonants that are unpronounceable. Yahweh fills it in with vowels, but is not the name itself. Another variant is Jehovah. Neither is the name of God.
The name stands for the concept of I am that I am.
“I am what I am”. (Note: in some versions, “I yam what I yam”.)
Among other things, the name of a small church in Calgary, Alberta, and perhaps elsewhere.
(Note, however, that a more “accurate” rendition would be, “I will be what I will be”, but the time element is flexible, or rather all-inclusive…since God is outside of time, that is, God cannot be limited by time, or anything else—or perhaps, to put it another way, since time, the fourth dimension, is an intrinsic part of God).
Actually, the root of the word—Semitic languages (e.g., Hebrew, Arabic, Aramaic, Amharic, etc., being based wholly, or for the most part, on roots—is BEING in all its permutations (present, future, past)… though YHWH, or Jehovah—the unpronounceable, ineffable name appears to be more of a future tense, even if it’s—once again—unbounded by time…or anything else…
Also to Jon Baker: Jewish commentators are of course aware of all the anthropomorphisms, and by and large say they are just metaphorical, phrased in ways so that readers can understand. No commentator takes them literally. For example, one interpretation of the “You can not see my face and live…” is “You cannot know my plan,” and letting him “see his back” means “Only after the fact, you [Moses] may understand it.”
I once met a Christian woman studying to convert to Judaism. She said that the Trinity didn’t make sense to her.
Well, as the Catholics say, it’s a Mystery.
“…’fail’.”
Actually, I’m not sure that always works. Sometimes, perhaps.
Not always.
So maybe Sowell meant “disappear”?
…but that might not work, either.
Ben-Gurion desperately wished/dreamed that Zionism, i.e., a Jewish state, could—WOULD—ultimately enable the Jews to be—and be perceived as—a nation like any other: Jewish bus drivers, farmers, construction workers, police, gangsters, whores (though he should perhaps have first consulted I. B. Singer on these last two).
But Jewish genocidaires?
Curiously (or perhaps not so curiously), many around the world seem to have a NEED that this be the case…and where there’s a need, they feel they must fill it.
Absolutely must fill it—or more correctly, believe they have a profound moral obligation to fill it.
By any means necessary.
In any event, hats off to your father and his comrades in arms. All of them. Cleaning up, as it were, those camps was much, much more than they signed up—or bargained—for. More than a few had difficulty recovering…that is, if they ever did.
Huxley,
Regarding the Trinity.
Not all Christian groups have exactly the same understanding of it, either. I always tell people that God exist on a level we cannot completely comprehend with our limited minds.
I think part of the ” made in His image” is the nature of Humans – existing as Body / Soul / Spirit – though not even all Christians would see humans as existing in three parts…
One pastor said
Plants have bodies but not souls ( consciousness) or spirits ( the aspect that relates to God , the ” eternal part” )
Animals have bodies and souls ( conscience)
Humans have body/ soul / spirit.
Thus we exist as a form of a trinity. Existing in both the physical and spirit world.
Neo,
I am aware that ancient Hebrew did not use written vowels and that there is some question about the exact pronunciation of the Divine name because somehow ” do not use in vain” got turned around to ” don’t say it !”
You look at Exodus 15:1-21 . A song which Israel sang as a nation after crossing the Red Sea , YHWH or a shortened version is included 12 times by my count in this song , including the part Miriam sang. So they knew how to pronounce it. They were singing it!
Psalms 8, which is ” For the Choir director”, has YHWH 2 times. They were singing it.
Psalm 9 – which is also for the choir director – has YHWH 8 times plus in the title. Even has verse 10 talking about those who know the name !
The name appears over 6,800 times in the Old Testament.
As for the English speaking Christian world, for too long our common English translations have rendered the Old Testament as all caps ” LORD ” which is neither an attempt to translate the meaning ” I Am” nor an attempt to render a proper pronunciation in English.
I do like that The Lockman Foundation has published an English Translation called the ” Legacy Standard Bible” that attempts to fix this error in English in the Old Testament.
Legacy Standard Bible
( Of course it’s also free to read with other translations on the Bible Gateway site, which comes up in Google searches when you type in a verse address)
https://lsbible.org/
Related (from the Wow File)?
A remarkable exegesis on, and cultural exploration of the Devil and the unblinking clear-sightedness of the “noir” genre (film and books) in NOT trying to ignore or paper over its grim reality.
“The Devil You Don’t Know;
“In a culture more comfortable with psychologizing evil, noir forces us to confront it.”—
https://www.city-journal.org/article/christianity-evil-noir-writers
H/T Powerline blog.
I love this song. It’s simply called ” Egypt”, sung by Cory Asbury. It incorporates imagery from the story of Moses and the Exodus. Of course, being You Tube, I don’t know what advertising will pop up before anyone listens to the actual song
https://youtu.be/uEeCl1KyXiI?si=PFciJEiUvhog3gJk
Jon baker:
It is not God’s actual name in Judaism and has no pronunciation. It is irrelevant how many times it appears.
miguel cervantes on May 25, 2025 at 1:13 pm:
” didn’t Abraham start about a 1,000 years earlier in Mesopotamia, …”
Some years ago I was reading “God is Not Great” by Christopher Hitchens, and I came across him mentioning that Moses did something [don’t recall what specifically] in 1205 BC. The only reason I remember this is because of the specificity of that date, as it was the first and only time I came across a firm Moses dating of any kind. If Hitchens had said something along the lines of “around 1200 BC” I might not have remembered it.
I just tried to re-find that mention in my copy of his book and did not, so perhaps it was mentioned in some other essay or publication of his that I had read.
Anyway, does anyone else know of such a specific dating for any of Moses’ scriptural events?
Barry Meislin, Boutros Boutros Ghali had of course a classic Egyptian face, and he was a Copt. I had a Muslim friend in Cairo who claimed he could tell a Copt by the face, but I couldn’t. But then, I can’t spot a “Jewish” face either reliably. People vary so much within ethnic groups.
Absolutely, Kate, but there are types…that crop up from time to time…
(Cue the “Funny, you don’t look Jewish” joke….)
– – – – – – – –
R2L, I suspect Hitchens would have written that before his “Road to Damascus” moment.
Moreover, while a brilliant writer (especially of book reviews), I’m not sure that I’d rely on his historical accuracy—he had, after all (contrarian, par excellence as he was)—definite points he believed he had to make(!).
After 9/11 he grew up (a bit)…
On the other hand, I also suspect he was a never-regret-never-apologize, take-me-or-leave-me type of guy…
No Neo,
On a rare occasion you are wrong. While there is debate on the exact pronunciation and modern Jews may not say it, the YHWH was and is the proper name for God. They literally substitute ” Hashem” meaning ” The Name ” in its place. In Exodus 3 God tells Moses that this is his name. The Psalmist repeatedly uses YHWH. Rabbinical teaching has usurped the Mosaic teaching on this. And unfortunately Christians followed suit.
Constitution verses ” case law”.
Over time ” case law ” deviates the original meaning of the Constitution to the point that ” case law” becomes contradictory to the original document. Hence we end up with things such as “asset seizure” without a trial.
When the Protestant Reformers argued ” sola scriptura” they were in some way arguing ” Go back and look at the original and lay aside the accumulated church teachings in the interim. ”
Seems modern Judaism might need to do the same. Thousands of years of Rabbinical teaching is a lot of accumulated “case law.”
Well, Barry Meislin, types exist; stereotypes, often exaggerated, have some basis in fact. But only think about actor Charlton Heston, of Scottish and English descent, who had a face and nose so conducive to portraying Moses.
The English thought of themselves as the New Hebrews. (These things happen.)
The Scots always enjoyed showing up the English…. (Passive aggression?)
And then there’s always Sammy Davis Jr….
I think Christopher was off by a century, one wonders if he would have learned something as his younger brother, Peter, his father was an Admiral if memory serves, he had some useful observations,but he still had respect for the wandering coma (Luque Escalona’s coinage,) a similar line is said about my people, where there are two Cubans, three opinions, as Nicolai Leonov’s own memoir pointed out how artificial the whole Castro cult was, (he was the Castros minder,) in a similar way to Sakharovsky, who we are informed by the late Pacepa is the minder for Arafat, for Habbash and assorted ring wraiths,
Jesus came to fulfill the covenant, the 10 simple rules had gotten too numerous to be upheld,and those he thought were only done by legalism,
of course he made it often harder to observe a given rule, not merely do not murder, but not admit the thought that leads to murder, do not commit adultery, but don’t entertain the thought,
this country was founded by those of Biblical principle even when there were disputes over doctrine, from the Pilgrims to the Quakers, as well as the Catholics, me thinks the Devil had a part in sowing these furrows that have cleaved our faith, for a 1000, or 500 years, the former has more clearly happened in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus,
although the madness of the 4th crusade is something to behold, look at the centuries of strife that befell the Catholic Ireland and Protestant England,
to say nothing of the fractuousness of the other kingdomes of Western Europe,
You look upon the stretch of land from Damascus to Gibraltar, those were all once Christian lands, in a similar way that Western Europe was Christian what haooened there
“a fully human non-deity Jewish leader, physically descended via a human genetic father of an unbroken paternal Davidic line through King David and King Solomon.”
This sounds good but genealogically it’s an entirely arbitrary rejection. I was recently reading Steve Sailer’s Race FAQ at Unz Review, and one of the things he goes into is how family trees factor into our racial distinctions. It was sort of a tangent but he discussed how many ancestor ‘slots’ there are as you project your family tree back in time. It’s probably a lot more than you imagine. By the time you go back about a millennia (40 generations) you have more than a trillion slots to fill, far more than any reasonable estimate of the number people who ever lived up to that time. Your family tree actually collapses into a diamond. Probably every man alive today (certainly every genetically Jewish man), if the records existed, could trace some line of ancestors to David and Solomon. This is why the medievals started to insist on primogeniture on a go-forward basis.
Oops.
“New Hebrews” (above) should be “New Israel”…
(And then there’s Haile Selassie…and the Rasta crowd…. A never-ending story…)
if you want the moslem perspective on things, their statement of belief the shahada is ‘there is no god but god, and mohammed is his prophet, that suggests only the holy spirit, and denies the incarnation, so a heresy to all parties involved,
so the Koran attributes all events to Allah, including the Storm of Stones, the Lot event with Gomorrah,
the Flood, the whole works,
“…Just because a group has been persecuted, doesn’t mean they haven’t behaved badly…”
At some point in history, just about EVERY group has behaved badly.
@Christopher B:Probably every man alive today (certainly every genetically Jewish man), if the records existed, could trace some line of ancestors to David and Solomon.
Using Y chromosomes, which only tell you about descent through males, you have about 8% of males descended from Genghis Khan in Asia. In Ireland, about 20% of men descend from the Ui Neill (high kings whose clans were centered in Ulster and Meath).
Given enough time, every one of us will either become an ancestor of everyone alive, or an ancestor of nobody. Some famous and noble lineages seemed awfully prone to die out–though of course violence played its role there.
Spoiler alert: it didn’t apparently please God all that long; the de Vere claimant died without male heirs.
@Christopher B:I was recently reading Steve Sailer’s Race FAQ at Unz Review, and one of the things he goes into is how family trees factor into our racial distinctions.
There’s a few people represented millions of times in family trees, and millions of people hardly represented, and which mix you have is what he’s getting at.
Except maybe in North Sentinel island there’s no population that has a monopoly of certain genes. It’s the genes that tend to be found together that make human populations different.
For example, the genes that make East Asians look East Asian are found everywhere–shovel shaped incisors or epicanthic folds for example–but people who aren’t East Asian have only a small fraction of them among a few people, and people who are East Asian have most of them among most people.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/shin-bet-officials-said-threatening-to-quit-if-messianic-zini-confirmed-as-agency-chief/
This term “messianic” gets slung around by the Israeli leftists quite a bit these days, used in ways which the users must think beneficial to their cause(s).
Jon baker, thanks for your very interesting comments on “the name of God” and Scripture!
he seems quite sensible, those who are arguing for another shalit gambit, are shortsided at best,
I’m reminded of the Controversy with General Boykin one of the original Delta team, from Desert One to other operatiosn in Colombia and Somalia if memory served who was a fervent Christian we can’t have that,
in a different era, they would be pulled Orde Wingates command, because of his Christian beliefs,
Re: Christopher Hitchens
I still have an affection for the guy, but to put it in poker terms, I think he bought a lot of pots in debate because he was so fast and formidable.
Many of his 2000s essays were impressive for his ability to pull together quotes and allusions and weave them into some kind of argument, but after a while I concluded there was more than a few shots of Johnnie Walker Black talking.
Nonetheless, “Why Orwell Matters” (2002) by Christopher Hitchens still matters.
Here’s to you, Hitch.
(1949-2011) RIP
Jon Baker
There was another part of “cleaning up”. The camps about to be overrun sent the inmates in groups of several hundred with a couple of dozen guards on “death marches” to a camp which was considered to be in a position to take care of business. Grae
Practically on May 9, Infantry units were going up and down forest paths and back roads, looking for the poor left overs–those who couldn’t keep up were shot. Point was to put them in a mattress cover and note on a map for the Graves Registration guys to come along and pick them up. Graves Registration is said to be a great way to make ordinary guys into drunks.
But, as my father said, we used up every mattress cover in the Third Army. And still more of the poor cast offs.
The guards hadn’t seen a German plane in a month. When they got to where they were going, they would likely get something to eat, but they aren’t going to get paid and, presumably, their home unit was, by this time, overrun, so there’s no finance office there any longer. The war was over. Lost. Best thing for them to do would be to go to a civilian house and switch to civilian clothes and head home.
Nope.
Re: God vs Yahweh God
There is an interesting Biblical rabbit hole that I never touched the bottom of. The God, who creates everything from light to humans, in Genesis 1 doesn’t seem to be the same as Yahweh God (per my Catholic Bible) in Genesis 2 who creates man, plants, animals, woman, including the tree of forbidden fruit.
Some scholars point to this as evidence that Genesis is based on more than one source.
After reading all these interesting comments, I am as confused as when I started reading them.
As God is unknowable, I guess that is the point.