What "immediate" province? The Roman province of Palestine was made up of three regions, from north to south those were Galilee, Samaria and Judea, and all of them consisted primarily of ethnic Jews. But Jesus referred to them as "lost" because, despite the fact that some of them were now residing in the Promised Land, they were nevertheless still in exile.
- First of all, not even all of the Judeans had returned from Babylon; many remained and would later produce the Babylonian Talmud.
- The lost tribes of the former northern kingdom were still irrevocably lost and it would take nothing less than a full-blown "mighty act of YHWH" to see the people of Israel restored to her former wholeness again.
- None of the promises that the pre-exilic and exilic prophets had proclaimed were realized.
- The Jews did not rule over their own Land; since returning they had been nonetheless subject ruled by the Medes, the Ptolemies, the Seleucids and then the Romans.
- Even though they were in the process of rebuilding the Temple there was no indication whatever that YHWH's presence had returned to dwell within it and thus in their midst, making them a People, a Nation, again.
- The Gentile nations did not beat a path to Jerusalem to learn of YHWH and his Torah from the Jewish people.
- Lastly, all the other acts of redemption that YHWH had performed on Israel's behalf were celebrated with a festival to commemorate it, but there is no festival marking their return from Babylon because, in the end, they did not see it as a true return from exile.
Why were still in exile? Because they still lacked faith in YHWH. They were in need of a 'new exodus' that had been promised by their prophets (see esp. Isaiah). This is why Jesus referred to them as "lost."
So... Are they lost or aren't they? First you were arguing that they weren't really lost, that they were really Europeans. And now you're claiming that they were lost "for a very good, divine purpose." Which is it?
Ooookayyy. I'm not going anywhere near this one, except to say that anyone who is morally bankrupt has no one to blame but themselves. Let's not scapegoat the Jews anymore than they already have been.
I know my history, my friend, it's you who needs to read up on it. The peoples that occupied Europe in the 5th- and 4th-centuries BC either predated this time period (like the Celts, the Greeks, the Etruscans, or the Italians) or made their presence known after this time (like the Germanic tribes, the Slavs, and the Magyars).
They don't even add up to the dozen you're claiming. To this day they don't. Before the Common Era Europe was dominated by the Celts (from the Celtiberians in what is now Spain in the west, to the Gauls in what is now France, to the Britanni in what is now Britain in the north, to the Belgae in what is now Belgium, to the Helvetii in what is now Switzerland, to the Cisalpine Gauls in what is now northern Italy in the south, to the Boii in what is now the Czech Republic in the northeast, to the Galatians in what is now Turkey in the southeast, all of these were Celts). With the decline of the Roman Empire Europe grew dominated by the Germanic tribesmen (the Visigoths in Spain, the Franks in France, the Angles, Saxons and Jutes in Britain, the Danes and Scandinavians in the north, the Ostrogoths virtually everywhere else).
So where are all these Hebrews you're speaking of?
Hmmm. The followers of Jesus were first called 'Christians' in Antioch. But the Church as an entity was born on the Day of Pentecost; that was when Jesus' disciples first received the Spirit and thus became the Church.
Galileans didn't "become" Jews, they already were ethnically Jewish!
They were Galileans because that's where they were from. But they were ethnically Jewish because that's what their mommies and daddies were.
Excuse me, but what on Earth are you talking about?!? I never said anything like this!
Yes, the Christian Church flourished in Europe for about 1,000 years. But ever since the Enlightenment it has been dying a slow death--and has been dying a rather quick death over the last few decades. And the Church still exists in those other places I mentioned. For example, the Coptic Church in Egypt has lasted since the Church began and the Thomastic Churches of southern India are still going strong. Besides that, while church attendance is falling precipitously all over in Europe, churches are growing like wildfire all throughout the southern hemisphere, in sub-Saharan Africa, South and Central America and Southeast Asia. It is in these places where the future of the Christian Church resides, sadly not in Europe.
James was referring to both Jewish and Gentile Christians of the eastern half of the Roman Empire, not to Europeans.
No, Arsonist, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and say that you're misconstruing what Jesus told his disciples here. Luke tells us that "he instructed them not to leave Jerusalem but to 'wait for what the Father promised, which you heard about from me'" (Acts 1.4), that being the indwelling and empowering of the Spirit on the Day of Pentecost. You're instead insinuating that he told them to wait in Jerusalem until Pentecost and then to scatter all over the place. That's not what he said. It's a matter of historical record that the hub of the Church's leadership remained in Jerusalem until its fall in the first Jewish War (AD 66-70).
Okay, Arsonist, all you need are the Scriptures and no outside help from "the lost mentality of man"? Then please, tell me what this says:
בראשׁית ברא אלהים את השׁמים ואת הארץ׃
והארץ היתה תהו ובהו וחשׁך על־פני תהום ורוח אלהים מרחפת על־פני המים׃
ויאמר אלהים יהי אור ויהי־אור׃
וירא אלהים את־האור כי־טוב ויבדל אלהים בין האור ובין החשׁך׃
ויקרא אלהים לאור יום ולחשׁך קרא לילה ויהי־ערב ויהי־בקר יום אחד׃
Okay. I think I'm beginning to get the picture here: You're an anti-Semite.
I'm also detecting a rather distinct strain of anti-intellectualism here. But then again, I'm sorry to say this but it's true, racists always wallow in ignorance. Otherwise they wouldn't be racists.
Thank you, dc, for your thorough and exhuberant reply. I am most pleased with your willingness and ability to participate intelligently and bilaterally in pragmatic discourse with regard to Christian history. I find it most exhilarating how you manage so well to both argue and to substantiate both sides of a debate at the same time.
Concerning your first comment above, Jesus could not have been referring to those of the neighboring (is that a better term) provinces as "lost," since He also said both He and His discilples were sent to the lost tribes, yet specifically instructed His disciples not to go there, contrasting such places with the place where the tribes were quite clearly in Matthew 10:5-6.
I would also have to ask why you assert that "all" these people were ethnic Jews, however, in so doing, you also imply such Jews were specifically what Jesus sent His disciples away from.
I also appreciate that you next, in your first bulleted point, claim the Jews from Jerusalem who stayed in Babylon later compiled the Babylonian Talmud, which certainly contains some of the most insidious and inappropriate contentographic works of primative savagery ever imagined by man. The mindset of the men who truly authored some of the works therein, could never have possibly been the true and direct sons of the children of Jacob, since Jacob was a mild man. Their character as that of Edom and Esau, the hunter, is much more beleivable.
In your second bullet you most eloquently answer one of your own questions. The mighty act of God that manifest in the lives of the true Israelites was in the unprecedented revolution of Western Europe in a people who followed a man they never even met to the historical world supremacy that culminated in Great Britain. This fact, alone, is the "divine purpose" I spoke of above. Seeing there was no one man at the center of the subsequent thousand years plus of the rise of Western Europe, it could only be equated, and particularly in the light of all of world history, that this was indeed, a mighty act of God. The same rise of such "outsider" inheritance is again the destiny of Christian victory in the future, for the same reasons.
Your third point is opinion seemingly unrelated to this discourse, as well as your fourth point.
Your fifth and sixth points, again, support my argument. Indeed, God was no longer with the post-exilic Jews, and the tribes abroad had no cause to return to the subjection of the former authority of Moses (mis)wielded there. Only the abusive elite wanted that.
Your last point is certainly the best point you make yet. The returning Jews did not seem to consider themselves returning from captivity. This is because they were of the elite that were taken in the first assault - the princes and rulers - who became confederate with Edom and Babylon in later imposing the tyranny over their own when the fullness of the captivity came in three years later. These are also spoken of by Jesus in John 8:37 and on.
The lost sheep were lost because they did not know who they were, not because God had forsaken them like you argue of the Jews. Exodus 17 depicts how God swore to Moses He would "blot out" the remembrance of Amalek (from Esau), the perpetual foe of God's people. Such erasure of memory entails that of the people and their position in this arrangement for subsequent world-scale power manipulation.
Next in your reply you list about some dozen or so ancient derivatives of European people, and then you turn right around and ask where the Hebrews are. You just described them, as different people, not as just one tribe.
You then claim Galileans were all ethnically Jewish, but that clearly defies the most simple observation of the day of Pentecost, that they were "ethnically recognizable" as being not of Judea. I doubt they had their residency tatooed on their foreheads. It must have been observable, and obvious that they were not ethnically Jewish.
Next, you seem to try to point out that Christian authority, which had - true - diminshed isomewhat n the middle of the second millenium, had then, since (and in the future?) come to reside in Africa. I think that is hilarious. America has been the leading Christian influence in the world for the last four hundred years. I cannot imagine anyone thinking otherwise.
Lastly, I am only amuzed you could think I am antisemitic, seeing I myself am a semite, and I care for my own people. I also value the nature of God that calls man to put aside ethnic differences and to embrace the nature of the truly spiritual man. This means putting aside racial distinction. To continue to believe and to push on others that the ethnicity of Jewry has any value in the economy of God, is in itself, by and large, racism in it's purest form.
Again, thank you for your interest, your deliberation and your love of the pursuit of truth.
BA
