Wednesday, September 09, 2015

Anachronistic Sublimination

I found this here:

...Jesus walked about the Roman occupied territory of Palestine and said, “Lepers’ lives matter. Blind peoples’ lives matter. The lives of the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the sick, and the imprisoned matter.” The Roman occupiers and their collaborators said, “All lives matter. Enjoy your crucifixion.”

 Roman occupied territory of Palestine?!!


That was written by Dr. Peter Gathje, a professor of Ethics at Memphis Theological Seminary, where one of his courses is Christian Political Thought, and Founder of Manna House; a place of hospitality for homeless and poor persons in the city of Memphis.  His teaching and research interests include "Christian discipleship in relation to poverty, racism, and homelessness, nonviolent social change, and state violence, particularly the death penalty and war."

What he has done above is knowingly or otherwise, who engaged in anachronistic sublimination.

"Palestine" did not exist during the Roman times.

He could have know that by reading the ...
                                                                                                                       ... New Testament.

As this Christian, Thomas S. McCall, Th.D.,  writes:

In the New Testament, the term Palestine is never used. The term Israel is primarily used to refer to the people of Israel, rather than the Land. However, in at least two passages, Israel is used to refer to the Land:

Saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and go into the land of Israel: for they are dead who sought the young child’s life. And he arose, and took the young child and his mother, and came into the land of Israel. (Matt. 2:20-21)

But when they persecute you in this city, flee ye into another: for verily I say to you, Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of man shall have come. (Matt. 10:23)

The first passage is when Joseph, Mary and Jesus returned from Egypt to Israel, and the second has reference to the proclamation of the Gospel throughout the Land of Israel. Jesus, Matthew and the angel speaking to Joseph use the term Israel with reference to the Land, even though the term was not then recognized by the Roman authorities.

It is clear, then, that the Bible never uses the term Palestine to refer to the Holy Land as a whole, and that Bible maps that refer to Palestine in the Old or New Testament are, at best, inaccurate, and, at worst, are a conscious denial of the biblical name of Israel.

He also points out there clearly:

The use of the term Palestine was biblically inaccurate and wrong throughout the Church age. However, it is more than just wrong, it is devastating in our time, when the term Palestine is the cornerstone of the propaganda war against Israel and the Jewish people. Do we want to use terms invented by those who hate Christ, the Bible and Israel? Do we want to utilize terms used by the enemies of Israel who desire to accomplish nothing less than the destruction of the Jewish people? I think not.
Christians should use the terminology of the Bible wherever possible. Why not go back to the terms used in the New Testament? The Gospel writers used the term Israel to refer to the Land. Why should we use any other term when referring to the Land, especially now that the Jews are back in the Land and have re-established the nation of Israel among the family of nations?

But the term is embedded, like here:

 Jesus was a Palestinian Jew. He would have grown up with stories of conquest and oppression. 

In this quick geography lesson of " Palestine in the Time of Jesus", at least they use Judea and Samaria.

The country was Israel, the 'land of the Jews' as the Egyptians knew in 1200 BCE, as the Babylons knew and as the Greeks and later Romans knew.

Christians today should know that, too.

^

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Gathje knows what he's doing. The only time he says says "Israel" (and he never says "Jews") is to equate the term with those who are opposed to the widows and orphans.