Restore the Kingdom to Israel.

In Acts 2, one of the disciples asks Jesus, "Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?

When I read this, I hear them asking of if he will free Israel from Rome. Some of my friends think it means they expect Jesus to "... settle the score, ...reek revenge, ... judge who needs judging, ... or ... call down fire on the on the Jews who rejected you?"

I´m wondering if my friends' view of this has ever been used to justify violence against Jews.

:)
 
Maybe I can modify the question. What is the standard interpretation of "Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?" Does it refer to the Roman or Jewish leadership, maybe neither or maybe both?

:)
 
Maybe I can modify the question. What is the standard interpretation of "Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?" Does it refer to the Roman or Jewish leadership, maybe neither or maybe both?

:)
The word "restore" is in there, so this would mean to bring back Jewish leadership. Since the disciples were taught by Jesus that the kingdom of God is nigh, and that He was the "Son of David", meaning He was going to continue the line of kings, hence kingdom.
The disciples, understandably, didn't comprehend what His kingdom meant nor entailed. They expected the return of Jesus to be in years or less, not centuries or millenia.
 
In Acts 2, one of the disciples asks Jesus, "Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?

When I read this, I hear them asking of if he will free Israel from Rome. Some of my friends think it means they expect Jesus to "... settle the score, ...reek revenge, ... judge who needs judging, ... or ... call down fire on the on the Jews who rejected you?"

I´m wondering if my friends' view of this has ever been used to justify violence against Jews.

:)

Actually it is in Acts 1:6 me thinks.

When we read the next verse #7, there is His answer.

At that time, NO, the Kingdom would not be established.

The Kingdom will not be set up until Jesus comes again to this eart physically and no one, not even He know that time.
 
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Maybe I can modify the question. What is the standard interpretation of "Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?" Does it refer to the Roman or Jewish leadership, maybe neither or maybe both?

:)
My understanding is, the disciples were asking if Jesus was going to remove Rome from power and establish a king like David (that is, Himself)
 
Well, Mr Major is correct. It is in Acts 1, not Acts 2, and as near as I can tell, Christians agree about how the kingdom is spiritual not geographical. Somewhere, I don't remember where, I read about the use of parts of the Bible to justify violent behavior, like the use of the Quran to do the same thing.

When I heard people say, "Bring down fire on the Jews who rejected you," that seemed like it might be an example for possible misuse of scripture. But even the people who said that insisted that it had not been used in that manner.

:)
 
Well, Mr Major is correct. It is in Acts 1, not Acts 2, and as near as I can tell, Christians agree about how the kingdom is spiritual not geographical. Somewhere, I don't remember where, I read about the use of parts of the Bible to justify violent behavior, like the use of the Quran to do the same thing.

When I heard people say, "Bring down fire on the Jews who rejected you," that seemed like it might be an example for possible misuse of scripture. But even the people who said that insisted that it had not been used in that manner.

:)

Correct. In those places where violence is seen in the Scriptures, it is not done as an example of what to do to others.

The Bible among many things is also a history book. It records the events of real history and some of those events were the judgment of God on sin.

When the flood came, it was the judgment of God on a sin sick and God rejecting world.
Same with Sodom and Gomorrah.
The same with Babylon and Asyeria and several times God's own people the Jews.

But the Bible is not a book where we are told to lie, and kill and do violence to others which is what the Quran actually tells all Muslims to do.
 
I have wondered about how antisemitism might be related to Bible verses such as "... restore the kingdom of Israel," which have been interpreted to mean, "... settle the score, ...wreak revenge, ... judge who needs judging, ... or ... call down fire on the on those who rejected you?"

To find if the Bible affects anitsemitism, I should find antisemites who connect their hatred of Jews to the Bible.

My first antisemite is Henry Adams, a descendant of two presidents, a novelist, a historian, an autobiographer, and a sort of talking head from the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries.

Adams wrote: "I detest [the Jews], and everything connected with them, and I live only and solely with the hope of seeing their demise, with all their accursed Judaism. I want to see all the lenders at interest taken out and executed."

(holy cowabunga dude!)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Adams

So Jews really annoyed Adams, but I’m guessing that his hatred had no Bible sources. I think that his animosity must have been related to his fear of technology. He feared what today we would call globalization.

One view of Adams says that he believed that “... in order to make sense of the rapidly changing spatial and temporal contours of human activity … society could only be properly understood if the seemingly irrepressible acceleration of basic technological and social processes was given a central place in social and historical analysis.”

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/globalization/

Or simply stated, Adams worried a lot about the shrinking nature of the world, and I’m guessing that he feared Jews because they could adapt, and he feared that he could not. As far as I know, he did not justify his antisemitism with Bible quotes.

:):):):cool::D
 
In the gospels we find people already trying to make Jesus king.
John6v14After the people saw the sign Jesus performed, they began to say, “Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world.” 15Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself.
That was what they were looking for in the coming Messiah, and that explains what happened in Acts1. Had the Jewish leaders repented, then perhaps Jesus would have restored the kingdom. Unfortunately they will have to wait for the kingdom till the second coming of Jesus.
 
In the gospels we find people already trying to make Jesus king.
John6v14After the people saw the sign Jesus performed, they began to say, “Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world.” 15Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself.
That was what they were looking for in the coming Messiah, and that explains what happened in Acts1. Had the Jewish leaders repented, then perhaps Jesus would have restored the kingdom. Unfortunately they will have to wait for the kingdom till the second coming of Jesus.

So, do you know if anyone ever used John 6:14-15 to justify violence against Jews?
 
So, do you know if anyone ever used John 6:14-15 to justify violence against Jews?
I think you are barking up the wrong tree over this scripture. I have never heard it used and anti semites don't need such verses. In fact most christian anti semites are biblically illiterate.
Do a Google search on bible antisemitism and you will find your verses don't even appear. There are far more reasons that anti semites can find in their search for evil.
Wikipedia article extract.-
Antisemitism and the New Testament

According to Rabbi Michael J. Cook, Professor of Intertestamental and Early Christian Literature at the Hebrew Union College, there are ten themes in the New Testament that are the greatest sources of anxiety for Jews concerning Christian antisemitism.

  1. The Jews are culpable for crucifying Jesus - as such they are guilty of deicide
  2. The tribulations of the Jewish people throughout history constitute God's punishment of them for killing Jesus
  3. Jesus originally came to preach only to the Jews, but when they rejected him, he abandoned them for gentiles instead
  4. The Children of Israel were God's original chosen people by virtue of an ancient covenant, but by rejecting Jesus they forfeited their chosenness - and now, by virtue of a New Covenant (or "testament"), Christians have replaced the Jews as God's chosen people, the Church having become the "People of God."
  5. The Jewish Bible (the so-called "Old Testament") repeatedly portrays the opaqueness and stubbornness of the Jewish people and their disloyalty to God.
  6. The Jewish Bible contains many predictions of the coming of Jesus as the Messiah (or "Christ"), yet the Jews are blind to the meaning of their own Bible.
  7. By the time of Jesus' ministry, Judaism had ceased to be a living faith.
  8. Judaism's essence is a restrictive and burdensome legalism.
  9. Christianity emphasizes excessive love, while Judaism maintains a balance of justice, God of wrath and love of peace.[5]
  10. Judaism's oppressiveness reflects the disposition of Jesus' opponents called "Pharisees" (predecessors of the "rabbis"), who in their teachings and behavior were hypocrites (see Woes of the Pharisees)

Some of the above are correct to scripture, others are nonsense. However even the correct scriptural stuff is no justification for a believer to hold antisemitism.
 
John Chrystostom,

If I’m looking for antisemites, I should begin with John Chrysostom because his sermons have been a contributing cause in every pogrom for the last sixteen hundred years.

https://books.google.com/books?id=J...The Fathers of the Church, Volume 68)&f=false

John Chrysostom, who eventually became the Archbishop of Constantinople, lived during the end of the fourth century when Alexandria, Antioch, Constantinople, and Rome competed to lead the Christian Church. He preached homilies in which he criticized Jews, accused them of immoral behavior, and as a priest in Antioch, he accused the Jews of Antioch of crucifying Jesus. He used quotes from the Gospels and the Old Testament to criticize Jews, but as near as I can tell he did not use the Book of Acts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Chrysostom

In his homilies he asked, “Do you fast with the Jews? Then take off your shoes with the Jews, and walk barefoot in the marketplace, and share with them in their indecency and laughter.” This quote suggests that Chrysostom’s main concern might have been Christians who associated with Jews. He saw Judaism as a competing religion, but I don’t know why bare feet should be a problem.

Often he accused Jews of being demons. “… the Jews themselves are demons?” So, I wonder if accusing people of being demons is the source of the term, demonization.

In some references he sounded like modern day people when he said, “Indeed the synagogue is ... not merely a lodging place for robbers and cheats but also for demons. ...This is true not only of the synagogues but also of the souls of the Jews, …But the Jews practice a deceit which is more dangerous ... “

He spoke equally harshly about pagans, “So the godlessness of the Jews and the pagans is on a par ... In their synagogue stands an invisible altar of deceit on which they sacrifice not sheep and calves but the souls of men.”


Or even more bizarre, “No necessity forced the Jews when they slew their own children with their own hands to pay honor to the avenging demons, ... Their ungodliness or their cruelty or their inhumanity? That they sacrificed their children or that they sacrificed them to demons? Because of their licentiousness, did they not show a lust beyond that of irrational animals?” This quote sounds like something I read in the Quran or maybe some other Islamic source.


Chrysostom spoke equally harshly about people he called Judaizing Christians, meaning Christians who attended Jewish events, which I think meant traditional Jewish holidays and also secular events like the theater, which Jews attended.


In a homily he said, “... demons dwell in the very souls of the Jews and in places in which they gather?... How do you Judaizers have the boldness, after dancing with demons, to come back to the assembly of the apostles? After you have gone off and shared with those who shed the blood of Christ, how is it that you do not shudder to come back and share in his sacred banquet,... “ So clearly Judaizing Christians annoyed him, and again he clearly he blamed Jews for something in which they could not have participated.


When he served as a priest in Antioch, he used Bible quotes to blame Jews for the crucifixion.


In at least two homilies he quoted Matthew 27:25. In one he said, “Consider, then, with whom” the Judaizing Christians “are sharing their fasts. It is with those who shouted (Matthew 27:25): ‘Crucify him, Crucify him,’ with those who said: ‘His blood be upon us and upon our children’ ".


“For the martyrs have a special hatred for the Jews since the Jews crucified him for whom they have a special love. The Jews said: ‘His blood be on us and on our children’ the martyrs poured out their own blood for him whom the Jews had slain.”


So clearly Chrysostom blamed the Jews of Antioch for the crucifixion even though none of them were alive 400 earlier when the crucifixion happened, but he did not invoke the Kingdom of Heaven to rain down fire on the Jews. As near as I can tell, he did not advocate violence against Jews.

http://www.preteristarchive.com/ChurchHistory/0386_chrysostom_adversus-judeaus.html

I have no idea who translated the above copy of Chrysostom’s homilies, but various websites appear to use the same copy.

Here is a google book, Discourses Against Judaizing Christians

https://www.google.com/search?tbm=b...stians+(The+Fathers+of+the+Church,+Volume+68)

As near as I can tell, Chrysostom never advocated violence against Jews, so he appears to me to have considered Jews to be adversaries in much the same way that he might have considered pagans or rival Christian factions to be adversaries rather than enemies.

:):):)
 
I think you are barking up the wrong tree over this scripture. I have never heard it used and anti semites don't need such verses. In fact most christian anti semites are biblically illiterate.
Do a Google search on bible antisemitism and you will find your verses don't even appear. There are far more reasons that anti semites can find in their search for evil.
Wikipedia article extract.-
Antisemitism and the New Testament

According to Rabbi Michael J. Cook, Professor of Intertestamental and Early Christian Literature at the Hebrew Union College, there are ten themes in the New Testament that are the greatest sources of anxiety for Jews concerning Christian antisemitism.

  1. The Jews are culpable for crucifying Jesus - as such they are guilty of deicide
  2. The tribulations of the Jewish people throughout history constitute God's punishment of them for killing Jesus
  3. Jesus originally came to preach only to the Jews, but when they rejected him, he abandoned them for gentiles instead
  4. The Children of Israel were God's original chosen people by virtue of an ancient covenant, but by rejecting Jesus they forfeited their chosenness - and now, by virtue of a New Covenant (or "testament"), Christians have replaced the Jews as God's chosen people, the Church having become the "People of God."
  5. The Jewish Bible (the so-called "Old Testament") repeatedly portrays the opaqueness and stubbornness of the Jewish people and their disloyalty to God.
  6. The Jewish Bible contains many predictions of the coming of Jesus as the Messiah (or "Christ"), yet the Jews are blind to the meaning of their own Bible.
  7. By the time of Jesus' ministry, Judaism had ceased to be a living faith.
  8. Judaism's essence is a restrictive and burdensome legalism.
  9. Christianity emphasizes excessive love, while Judaism maintains a balance of justice, God of wrath and love of peace.[5]
  10. Judaism's oppressiveness reflects the disposition of Jesus' opponents called "Pharisees" (predecessors of the "rabbis"), who in their teachings and behavior were hypocrites (see Woes of the Pharisees)

Some of the above are correct to scripture, others are nonsense. However even the correct scriptural stuff is no justification for a believer to hold antisemitism.

Thanks, but I had already seen this Wikipedia page. I'm looking for examples of people who justified their antisemitism with Bible verses, or now that I know about John Chrysostom, maybe people who quoted him.
 
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