Was the holocaust due in part to the Jewish people rejecting Jesus?

Absolutely not! The Holocaust was about evil manifest in the world, it had nothing to do with the Jewish people's rejection of Jesus, absolutely nothing.

We can only hope that no one votes "yes" in this poll.

i think it was because hitler was jealous of how jews were able to be successful and non-jews weren't. and the jews owned everything and lived well while non-jews starved in the streets.

@NothingIsImpossible , with the exception of Dr. Luke, Jews wrote your New Testament...!

(You need to rethink your position/this question.)

NothingIsImpossible said:

I'm sure this topic may stir up some but I am simply looking for opinions.

I've seen people before say because Jews had rejected Jesus, it is why bad things seem to happen to them. Thus some people say the holocaust would happen no matter what. What do you think?

I personally don't think it would be fair to say that since God would not punish them for such a thing. They are lost, but still his children. Then again I may be wrong. I do remember hearing that anti-semitism existed before Hitler ever existed. Many Catholic Europeans before Hitler had held Jews responsible for Jesus death. Again, this is what I read. Not saying this part is true or not.

I am still sad to see so many christians of any denomination/view that refuse to support Jews or Israel. Though thats another subject.

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As ugly sounding as it is to say so, I'm going to have to go with saying: It's not out of the question that this could be the case, but I would not say that the Holocaust happened because some small handful of the Jewish ancestors from the 1st century collaborate with the Roman powers to crucify Jesus Our Lord.

No, if anything, it's the outcome of the ongoing power of the Law (i.e. The Curses) in the Old Testament. I hate to say this, but it's not out of the question.

The upshot is this: We Christians can be subject to the same ravages of the Destroyer if we don't repent of our sins in our lives, too. It's not as if Jesus' Mercy and Grace just takes the awful potential for our early and drastic removal from this life out of the way. No, we have to TAKE HEED, too. It's not just our non-Christian Jewish friends, or other Gentile friends for that matter, who can find out that our Lord can be STRONG if push comes to shove.

NothingIsImpossible said:

I'm sure this topic may stir up some but I am simply looking for opinions.

I've seen people before say because Jews had rejected Jesus, it is why bad things seem to happen to them. Thus some people say the holocaust would happen no matter what. What do you think?

I personally don't think it would be fair to say that since God would not punish them for such a thing. They are lost, but still his children. Then again I may be wrong. I do remember hearing that anti-semitism existed before Hitler ever existed. Many Catholic Europeans before Hitler had held Jews responsible for Jesus death. Again, this is what I read. Not saying this part is true or not.

I am still sad to see so many christians of any denomination/view that refuse to support Jews or Israel. Though thats another subject.

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According to the Bible, God hated Jews way before Jesus came along.

I thought the Holocaust wasn't only about Jews but other people.

As far as the Jewish victims go, it was a result of fury against the money changers, so in a round about way, yes.

Emmylouwho said:

According to the Bible, God hated Jews way before Jesus came along.

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I am not sure that this is accurate in the bigger picture...

A prime reason for hatred against the Jews is that they are chosen to be a central part in God's unfolding plan. This makes the adversary hate them and so he stirs up prejudice and violence against them.

The Holocaust was a classic example of the psychological phenomenon of scapegoating. The Jews were the Nazis' obvious targets for scapegoating. They had been despised throughout Europe for many years for their financial success and power, and Hitler blamed them for Germany's loss in World War I. The reason that the German nation so enthusiastically turned on the Jews had little to nothing to do with the Jews having rejected Jesus. It was a manufactured hatred because this is how scapegoating works: "The victim must never be recognized as an innocent scapegoat … rather, the victim must be thought of as a monstrous creature that transgressed some prohibition and deserved to be punished. In such a manner, the community deceives itself into believing that the victim is the culprit of the communal crisis, and that the elimination of the victim will eventually restore peace." https://www.iep.utm.edu/girard/ (Rene Girard was one of the fathers of scapegoating theory).

The scapegoating nature of the Holocaust has been noted in many books and articles. If Hitler had sought power in some other depressed nation where the Jews were not such obvious targets, some other group would have become the scapegoats to rally the people around Hitler. When the Bolsheviks rose to power in Russia, for example, the intelligentsia (intellectuals and artists) were the scapegoats to rally the proletariat.

Any notion that God would use the Holocaust to "punish" the Jews would reflect a pretty bizarre notion of God. That's the problem with taking the OT too literally - notions like that don't seem as bizarre as they really are.

AvisG said:

and Hitler blamed them for Germany's loss in World War I.

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Actually he blamed the money lenders for the financial manipulation that occurred after WW I and the stipulation that they would bail Hitler's government out if he agreed to go to war with Russia and Britain. War was as profitable then to those who sit above it, as it is now.

There is a big teaching about the curse God told the Jewish people they would be under for not listening to Christ, for not obeying the voice of the Lord. Those curses have been coming on the jews all through history, there was significant problems for them before the Nazi's came along.

That curse also did not end with the Resurrection of Christ.
Read 1 Thessalonians 2:16

Deuteronomy 28
Curses on Disobedience
15 “But it shall come to pass, if you do not obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all His commandments and His statutes which I command you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you:

16 “Cursed shall you be in the city, and cursed shall you be in the country.

17 “Cursed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl.

18 “Cursed shall be the [e]fruit of your body and the produce of your land, the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flocks.

19 “Cursed shall you be when you come in, and cursed shall you be when you go out.

20 “The Lord will send on you cursing, confusion, and rebuke in all that you set your hand to do, until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly, because of the wickedness of your doings in which you have forsaken Me. 21 The Lord will make the [f]plague cling to you until He has consumed you from the land which you are going to possess. 22 The Lord will strike you with consumption, with fever, with inflammation, with severe burning fever, with the sword, with scorching, and with mildew; they shall pursue you until you perish. 23 And your heavens which are over your head shall be bronze, and the earth which is under you shall be iron. 24 The Lord will change the rain of your land to powder and dust; from the heaven it shall come down on you until you are destroyed.

25 “The Lord will cause you to be defeated before your enemies; you shall go out one way against them and flee seven ways before them; and you shall become troublesome to all the kingdoms of the earth. 26 Your carcasses shall be food for all the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and no one shall frighten them away. 27 The Lord will strike you with the boils of Egypt, with tumors, with the scab, and with the itch, from which you cannot be healed. 28 The Lord will strike you with madness and blindness and confusion of heart. 29 And you shall grope at noonday, as a blind man gropes in darkness; you shall not prosper in your ways; you shall be only oppressed and plundered continually, and no one shall save you.

30 “You shall betroth a wife, but another man shall lie with her; you shall build a house, but you shall not dwell in it; you shall plant a vineyard, but shall not gather its grapes. 31 Your ox shall be slaughtered before your eyes, but you shall not eat of it; your donkey shall be violently taken away from before you, and shall not be restored to you; your sheep shall be given to your enemies, and you shall have no one to rescue them. 32 Your sons and your daughters shall be given to another people, and your eyes shall look and fail with longing for them all day long; and there shall be no strength in your hand. 33 A nation whom you have not known shall eat the fruit of your land and the produce of your labor, and you shall be only oppressed and crushed continually. 34 So you shall be driven mad because of the sight which your eyes see. 35 The Lord will strike you in the knees and on the legs with severe boils which cannot be healed, and from the sole of your foot to the top of your head.

36 “The Lord will bring you and the king whom you set over you to a nation which neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you shall serve other gods—wood and stone. 37 And you shall become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword among all nations where the Lord will drive you.

38 “You shall carry much seed out to the field but gather little in, for the locust shall consume it. 39 You shall plant vineyards and tend them, but you shall neither drink of the wine nor gather the grapes; for the worms shall eat them. 40 You shall have olive trees throughout all your territory, but you shall not anoint yourself with the oil; for your olives shall drop off. 41 You shall beget sons and daughters, but they shall not be yours; for they shall go into captivity. 42 Locusts shall consume all your trees and the produce of your land.

43 “The alien who is among you shall rise higher and higher above you, and you shall come down lower and lower. 44 He shall lend to you, but you shall not lend to him; he shall be the head, and you shall be the tail.

45 “Moreover all these curses shall come upon you and pursue and overtake you, until you are destroyed, because you did not obey the voice of the Lord your God, to keep His commandments and His statutes which He commanded you. 46 And they shall be upon you for a sign and a wonder, and on your descendants forever.

47 “Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joy and gladness of heart, for the abundance of everything, 48 therefore you shall serve your enemies, whom the Lord will send against you, in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in need of everything; and He will put a yoke of iron on your neck until He has destroyed you. 49 The Lord will bring a nation against you from afar, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flies, a nation whose language you will not understand, 50 a nation of fierce countenance, which does not respect the elderly nor show favor to the young. 51 And they shall eat the increase of your livestock and the produce of your land, until you are destroyed; they shall not leave you grain or new wine or oil, or the increase of your cattle or the offspring of your flocks, until they have destroyed you.

52 “They shall besiege you at all your gates until your high and fortified walls, in which you trust, come down throughout all your land; and they shall besiege you at all your gates throughout all your land which the Lord your God has given you. 53 You shall eat the fruit of your own body, the flesh of your sons and your daughters whom the Lord your God has given you, in the siege and desperate straits in which your enemy shall distress you. 54 The sensitive and very refined man among you will be hostile toward his brother, toward the wife of his bosom, and toward the rest of his children whom he leaves behind, 55 so that he will not give any of them the flesh of his children whom he will eat, because he has nothing left in the siege and desperate straits in which your enemy shall distress you at all your gates. 56 The tender and delicate woman among you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground because of her delicateness and sensitivity,
will refuse to the husband of her bosom, and to her son and her daughter, 57 her [t]placenta which comes out from between her feet and her children whom she bears; for she will eat them secretly for lack of everything in the siege and desperate straits in which your enemy shall distress you at all your gates.

58 “If you do not carefully observe all the words of this law that are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and awesome name, THE LORD YOUR GOD, 59 then the Lord will bring upon you and your descendants extraordinary plagues—great and prolonged plagues—and serious and prolonged sicknesses. 60 Moreover He will bring back on you all the diseases of Egypt, of which you were afraid, and they shall cling to you. 61 Also every sickness and every plague, which is not written in this Book of the Law, will the Lord bring upon you until you are destroyed. 62 You shall be left few in number, whereas you were as the stars of heaven in multitude, because you would not obey the voice of the Lord your God. 63 And it shall be, that just as the Lord rejoiced over you to do you good and multiply you, so the Lord will rejoice over you to destroy you and bring you to nothing; and you shall be plucked from off the land which you go to possess.

64 “Then the Lord will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you shall serve other gods, which neither you nor your fathers have known—wood and stone. 65 And among those nations you shall find no rest, nor shall the sole of your foot have a resting place; but there the Lord will give you a [v]trembling heart, failing eyes, and anguish of soul. 66 Your life shall hang in doubt before you; you shall fear day and night, and have no assurance of life. 67 In the morning you shall say, ‘Oh, that it were evening!’ And at evening you shall say, ‘Oh, that it were morning!’ because of the fear which terrifies your heart, and because of the sight which your eyes see.

68 “And the Lord will take you back to Egypt in ships, by the way of which I said to you, ‘You shall never see it again.’ And there you shall be offered for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.”

Nationalism can lead to sick and vile crimes of many kinds.

Carl Emerson said:

and so He stirs

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Is the 'h' meant to be capitalized?

I suggest people read Deuteronomy 28. Earlier, Moses very clearly spelled out the future of his people. He said they would go after other gods. History, the Bible, and archaeology confirm that is true. He said what would happen to them thereafter if they did that, in Deuteronomy 28. When I first read that chapter myself I was not a believer, but it made me seriously wonder if the Bible was true after all since I personally saw those predictions had come true in so many ways.

A lot of Jews have been into Kaballah. Notice the last 2 syllables. It is a religion steeped in magic, and not al all consistent with the Old Testament.

The Bible tells us to be grafted into what? israel. America, which was a Christian nation for so long, has also been falling away more and more to other gods. Something to pray about.

timothyu said:

Actually he blamed the money lenders for the financial manipulation that occurred after WW I and the stipulation that they would bail Hitler's government out if he agreed to go to war with Russia and Britain. War was as profitable then to those who sit above it, as it is now.

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AvisG said:

That's the problem with taking the OT too literally

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The problem is not with taking OT Scripture "too literally," but with mistaking the evil recorded therein as the ideal.

LoricaLady said:

I suggest people read Deuteronomy 28. Earlier, Moses very clearly spelled out the future of his people. He said they would go after other gods. History, the Bible, and archaeology confirm that is true. He said what would happen to them thereafter if they did that, in Deuteronomy 28. When I first read that chapter myself I was not a believer, but it made me seriously wonder if the Bible was true after all since I personally saw those predictions had come true in so many ways.

A lot of Jews have been into Kaballah. Notice the last 2 syllables. It is a religion steeped in magic, and not al all consistent with the Old Testament.

The Bible tells us to be grafted into what? israel. America, which was a Christian nation for so long, has also been falling away more and more to other gods. Something to pray about.

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Oh, I see Deuteronomy 28 has been pasted in full above. Two people anyway who see things similarly.

And P.S. The curses of Deuteronomy 28 are not about rejecting the Messiah, but about following after other gods in general. Moses did talk of a Prophet to come that the people should listen to, though.
That is why some Pharisees asked John the Immerser, "Are you the Prophet?"