If I thought that there was a modicum of truth to the proposition that you are suggesting, I'd put on a yamaka, grab my dradle, and start going to temple.
Actually, you wouldn't have to. Assuming you weren't born Jewish. Judaism doesn't require anyone to convert. I think the maxim goes something like, "the righteous of all nations have a share in the world to come."
Most of this is explainable in terms of Christianity and Islam - neither of which had endearing overtures to those of Jewish faith. For instance, the general pointing to them as the 'murderers of Jesus' (although blame seems to sway between Jews and Romans depending upon whom the writer is sympathizing).
No one said it's not explainable in terms of immediate causes, or incongruous with the immediate historical framework. It's the overall picture that smacks of something "behind the scenes." No other nation has survived in such hostile circumstances for so long.
The Holocaust claimed many Jewish people, but it also claimed many others - homosexuals, handicapped, those of Slavik descent, mentally ill, blind, deaf. It was a cleansing project to eliminate non-Aryan traits - not just Jews.
Not only did the Holocaust claim more Jewish lives than any other group, the Jews were the central focus of Hitler's doctrine. Read
Main Kampf and you'll get the picture. The others were thrown in for good measure, but the Jews were the starting point. It fed on centuries of German anti-Jewish feeling, feelings that simply didn't exist to anywhere near the same degree regarding the other ethnicities/groups that became victims. Moreover, despite the "official" antipathy toward Slavic peoples, the Nazis recruited them to sniff out and massacre Jews (google "Jedwabne" for an example. I hope I'm spelling it right. My Polish is atrocious). They never used Jews to get to the other groups.
And I mean that the 'restoration' of Israel was caused by the Holocaust and desire for the people to establish their own nation (whether one truly existed or not in the past).
(Referring to the parenthetical remarks) Oh, come now. What serious historian doubts it? Even the ones who claim that David and Solomon were little more than local chieftans are but a vocal minority. And even they admit that the Biblical account in Jeremiah/II Kings/Chronicles regarding the later First Temple period is pretty solid. Then there's the pre-Roman Hasmonean period, which is under no credible dispute.
And that fuels the self-fulfilment. Next, you'll be telling me that the Russians are building tanks of special wood material in order to fulfill Revelations.
[nitpick]You probably mean Ezekiel.[/nitpick] That wouldn't be necessary. A stickler for literal interpretation might think that's the only way such a prophecy could be fulfilled, but a modern army - tanks, trucks, ammo supplies and all - would probably suffice in my book. It just has to be enough stuff to be scavenged as fuel for a while (seven months or years, I don't remember offhand).
I don't dispute that the Holocaust brought down some serious barriers to the reestablishment of a Jewish state, and it's a major psychological element in the Israeli Jewish psyche; visiting dignitaries inevitably go to Yad Vashem. I happen to think Israel would have been established anyway, just the timing would have been different. Jewish immigration had been a steady feature since the 1880s - 15 years before the term "Zionist" was coined - and the vast majority had no religious motivation; in fact the religious establishment - both orthodox and reform - were antizionist in those days. The early Zionists even considered establishing a Jewish homeland in Uganda, which was apparently available. The "self-fulfilling prophecy" of which you speak
was a far cry from being a sure thing. If anything, the Jewish chronicle of woe that is that nation's history indicates cause after cause for despair, not fulfillment.
I'll state this again, since you're relatively new here. Raised Roman Catholic, most of my friends were Jewish (Northeast Philadelphia was a predominantly Jewish area - Cottman Ave. and Roosevelt Blvd.), I participated in a group of Messianic Jews (Jews who believed that Jesus was the messiah), I read all of the propaganda (the bad evolution arguments and the attempts to fit current events to Revelations), I read the bible from Gen. to Rev. (KJV - standard RCC fair there), dated a Jehovah's Witness (getting some inside info in the process), went to Pentacostal meetings (speaking of tongues and all), stayed at a seminary for a week during a period of deciding to become a seminarian (Franciscan) having done all of the preparatory work. Been there, done that. I spent over half my life under these circumstances (more than 20 years).
See, even an evil atheistic materialistic skeptic isn't coming from a point of ignorance and lack of experience.
Nice to meet you. I never assume anyone at JREF lacks background or intelligence; the mentality of these forums discourages ignorance, and the vast majority of those who stick around (with some notable and darkly amusing exceptions) are bright people. Since coming here for the first time in October I've learned quite a bit about the Bible and history (not to mention all things woo, physics, astronomy, politics, food, you name it), and I'm hooked, mostly because of straight-thinking minds like yours. That's why I invited Diogenes to start this thread, hoping that by defending the position in the OP I'd learn how various related arguments stand up. The few posts I've made outside this thread should bear out that I'm no fundie (and also that I spend WAAAAY too much time being a wiseass), but I don't readily dismiss Biblical sources because I'm well acquainted with the original Hebrew, the translation of which is too-often distorted by both fundies and their opponents, out of unavoidable ignorance (who's got time to study Hebrew and make a living at the same time?). I hope you've noticed that I've avoided Scriptural citations in this thread until now, purposely trying to avoid advocating any specific religion.
1. The destruction of Jerusalem was caused by the inhabitants (not all Jewish, by the way) rising up against the occupation.
No one claims otherwise. Nor were all the Jews for the rebellion. But it was unmistakably a "Jewish" rebellion.
2. Crusaders spent more time massacring muslims (and vice versa).
Yes, and there were certainly more of them to massacre. But crusaders went out of their way to destroy the Rhine Valley Jewish communities of Worms, Speyer and Mainz, to name a few, and that had nothing to do with reclaiming the Holy Land from the Muslims. They were barely on the way there.
3. The Inquisitions (there was more than one) were a general attack on all forms of nonbelief in the RC doctrine, but mainly directed towards heretical beliefs.
* The Medieval inquisition was directed at the Catharists of Southern France.
* The Spanish inquisition was directed towards both Jews and Muslims as well as some other groups.
* The Roman inquisition was directly directed towards heretics - such as Protestants and Huguenots.
Technically it was all one Inquisition, IIRC, since the "Office of the Inquisition" was established by the Church way back when and dusted off when necessary. But my point wasn't that the whole world focused on getting rid of the Jews; but that there was never a dull moment, to put it mildly, and their survival is nothing short of amazing. Not only that, but through it all they maintained a level of literacy - not to mention scholarship - unheard of in the surrounding milieu, turning out a corpus of Biblical and Talmudic commentary and Jewish jurisprudence/law that puts Harvard Law School to shame (I speak from prolonged firsthand access to both).
The fact that there were immediate triggers for all these historical developments is not in dispute. A few years ago I heard a lecture on the (not necessarily historical)book of Esther, which is set in the last period covered by the OT: the beginning of the Persian era in Jewish history, which saw both the construction of the Second Temple and the end of OT prophecy. It's the only book in the OT (don't know enough about NT, but I assume it could be included) that doesn't mention God at all (even the single-chapter Obadiah mentions God several times). He's conspicuously absent, even when you might expect Mordechai, Esther or the anonymous narrator to invoke him. That signals a paradigm shift: whereas before there were prophets all over the place, from now on God will remain hidden behind the events of history, only detectable to the discerning eye.
Maybe we'll have to agree to disagree on this. Either way, I've enjoyed this tangent.
But I have to get crackin' on Ossai's comments. He's threatening to classify me with certain posters who shall remain nameless, and we can't have that.
