DanSSwing
Puritan Board Freshman
One of the most difficult biases to rattle loose from Arminians or Universalists is the idea that "Jesus died for the sins of the world" means He must have died for every single person in the world. Understanding that most of the Olivet Discourse and Revelation referred to AD 70 and adopting a Preterist hermeneutic helped me immensely in understanding the cataclysmic gravity of the destruction of the temple and the punishment on the Jews for rejecting their Messiah. When one understands the 1st century Jew's understanding of ONLY ethnic Jews as the chosen people, it becomes more and more obvious that when a Jew heard Jesus talk about saving the world, he would not be thinking about every single person; he would be shocked that Jesus is talking about including non-Jews at all. When I re-read the Gospels from these perspectives, I found it EVERYWHERE.
As I seek to develop this understanding further, including Jewish religious beliefs in the present day, does anyone have good sources or advice particularly on avoiding anti-Semitism? I'm surprised we haven't yet found a way to distinguish between Jewish ancestry and Jewish religion. Should we start calling the latter "Talmudism" maybe? I think we need a way of communicating the extremism of the Jewish religion that rejected and continues to reject the Messiah while simultaneously not assuming that this is what all or even most ethnic Jews believe. Note that in the Middle Ages, Jews often continued to be persecuted even AFTER converting to Christianity, and this is certainly not an example we want to follow.
As I seek to develop this understanding further, including Jewish religious beliefs in the present day, does anyone have good sources or advice particularly on avoiding anti-Semitism? I'm surprised we haven't yet found a way to distinguish between Jewish ancestry and Jewish religion. Should we start calling the latter "Talmudism" maybe? I think we need a way of communicating the extremism of the Jewish religion that rejected and continues to reject the Messiah while simultaneously not assuming that this is what all or even most ethnic Jews believe. Note that in the Middle Ages, Jews often continued to be persecuted even AFTER converting to Christianity, and this is certainly not an example we want to follow.