Denying History

My dear friend, Alex Grobman, is a world-class scholar. His specialty is Holocaust studies, and his 2009 book, Denying History, deals with the motives of Holocaust deniers. Alex has spent his life defending Israel and the Jewish people from their detractors. We have spent many years working on various projects together. From him, I’ve gained an appreciation for the importance of defending Jewish history.

I was reminded of all that this week, when I was having a conversation with a few people. Out of the blue, one in our party offered that Jerusalem’s Temple Mount is not in fact the location of the two ancient Jewish temples.

Say what?

I’d heard Palestinians and their friends deny Jewish history, and claim that there was no ancient Jewish presence in Jerusalem (this follows such whoppers as Yasser Arafat claiming to be descended from the Canaanites. The deadly dwarf was in fact Egyptian, and his hammy claim about Canaanite/Palestinian heritage is absurd).

It is unconscionable for Christians (who claim to support Israel) to engage in irresponsible speculation and claims about Jewish history. The first question I have is, why would someone do this?

I think I have an answer.

I’ve noticed among some in the Bible prophecy community that in the last 10-20 years, as speaking opportunities and book deals dry up, there is a tendency to seek “new” theories and “new” revelations. Some claim to find hidden things in the Bible, or (as we see concerning the Temple Mount), new claims about archaeology and history.

In short, this is a way to stand out and perhaps write a scintillating book. The problem is, most of that stuff is junk.

I’m always amazed that some move away from the settled revelation of Scripture to their own vanities. There are solid clues in the Bible as to the Temple’s obvious location.

Just one of the problems with the prophecy community now—infighting is perhaps just as big of a problem—is the trend toward sensationalism. How tragic. Bible prophecy is a great evangelism tool; wackiness is not.

One of the most well known proponents of the theory that the Jewish temples were never located on the Temple Mount is Bob Cornuke. One of his arguments goes this way:

“Jesus warned His disciples of the coming destruction of the temple and that not one stone of the temple would be left on top of another. Matthew 24:1–2 says, ‘Then Jesus went out and departed from the temple, and His disciples came up to show Him the buildings of the temple. And Jesus said to them, ‘Do you not see all these things? Assuredly, I say to you, not one stone shall be left here upon another, that shall not be thrown down.’ Christ’s words clearly state that the entire temple, each and every stone, would be dug up, dislodged, and tossed away. It is interesting to note that there are massive stone blocks by the thousands set in the wall supporting the Temple Mount platform. Was Jesus wrong in His prophesying that not one stone would remain standing?”

It seems clear to me that this is a real stretch. In a quote below, David Reagan addresses this quite well. In order to shore-up his view, Cornuke must make the text say that the Temple Mount complex was uprooted and thrown down. Obviously, Jesus was talking about the Temple complex only.

Cornuke speculates that the Temples were actually located south of the Temple Mount, in the City of David; Reagan addresses this as well.

I’ve been to the area many times, including underneath the Temple Mount, in the place known as Solomon’s Stables. From this location, Temple-era artifacts have been unearthed. Temple-era artifacts have not been found in the City of David.

In addition to contributing to the junk research plaguing the Bible prophecy community, theories like Cornuke’s ironically make strange bedfellows with Israel’s real, mortal enemies. A UN vote two years ago is still galling:

“In a 24-6 vote, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization on Thursday gave preliminary approval to a resolution that denies Jewish ties to its most holy religious sites: the Temple Mount and the Western Wall.

“The official spokesman of the Palestinian Presidency Nabil Abu Rudeinah said on Thursday evening that the continued international decisions against the occupation and its policy including that of UNESCO regarding Jerusalem and the al-Aksa Mosque form a clear message from the international community that it does not agree with the policies that protect the occupation and contribute to the creation of chaos and instability.”

Again, the PLO loves such nonsense. Denying Jewish history is a key element in anti-Semitism. As the Boston Globe noted:

“THE UNITED NATIONS’ animus toward Israel took a truly deplorable turn last week with the passage of a resolution implicitly denying the Jewish people’s historic connection to the holiest site in Judaism.

“That site is Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, so named for the two Jewish temples that stood on the site for almost nine centuries — the first built by King Solomon nearly 3,000 years ago, the second destroyed by the Roman legions under Titus in 70 A.D. One needn’t be a Bible scholar or a historian to know that the cultural, religious, and emotional bonds that link the Jews to Jerusalem are unparalleled. For millennia, Jerusalem and the Temple Mount have been central to Jewish self-awareness — and thus to Christianity as well, since the Temple figures prominently in the Gospels’ account of the life of Jesus.

“Alas, that didn’t stop the World Heritage Committee of UNESCO — the UN’s Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization — from adopting an Orwellian resolution on the status of conservation in Jerusalem that pointedly ignored Judaism’s connection to the Temple Mount. By a 10-2 vote, with eight abstentions, the committee approved a document that not only accuses Israel of endangering the revered compound, but also refers to the site throughout solely by its Arabic name, Haram al-Sharif. This was no innocent oversight. An earlier draft of the resolution had even more aggressively airbrushed the Jewish ties from Jerusalem’s Old City. For example, it had identified the Western Wall by its Islamic name, while placing the far more familiar Jewish title in quotation marks.”

Back to the Christian sources trying to distort Jewish history. The aforementioned analysis by David Reagan is a must-read:

“One of Cornuke’s cornerstone arguments that he emphasizes repeatedly is that Jesus prophesied that the entire Temple complex would be destroyed to the point that ‘not one stone will be left upon another’ (Matthew 24:2). He then points out that the retaining walls of the Temple Mount remain standing to this day. Therefore, he concludes that the Temple could not have been located on the Temple Mount. In contrast, he points out that nothing is left of the Temple in the City of David.

“This argument is nothing but hot air. Jesus did not prophesy the destruction of the Temple complex, and the reason there is nothing left of the Temple in the City of David is because it was never there.

“You can find Jesus’ prophecy in three places: Matthew 24:1-2, Mark 13:1-2 and Luke 21:5-6. In all three places it is very clear that His prophecy relates only to the buildings on the Temple Mount and not to the retaining walls around the Mount.

“I think it is important to note that the leaders of the Temple Mount Institute in Jerusalem are the world’s leading experts on the Jewish Temples. They have spent their lives studying the ancient manuscripts related to the Temple, and their conclusion is that ‘…there is no doubt that the Dome of the Rock is the location of the First and Second Temples…’19

“One of Christendom’s foremost experts on the Temples, Randall Price, agrees with this conclusion. He further observes, ‘…while evidence of the First Temple’s construction is scarce… evidence for the Herodian Second Temple is replete, both in the original documentary sources and the archeological remains.’20 And he then points out that the Bible explicitly states that the Second Temple was built on the foundation of the First (Ezra 2:68 and 9:9).”

I’d be interested in hearing Cornuke’s replies.

I so tire of this sort of thing. I always love going to Mount Vernon when I’m in Washington. But what if someone proposed that George Washington’s famous home was not in fact at Mount Vernon but was located in Silver Spring, Maryland?

Where is the end to such amateurish “research”?

When I’m in Jerusalem, I love ascending the Temple Mount and looking across the Kidron Valley, to the Mt. of Olives, where Jesus will one day return. From the place where I stand and look, I am in the place where Jesus threw over the money changers’ tables. Where Abraham was prepared to sacrifice Isaac.

And where the Roman 10^th Legion pulled down the Temple.

Exactly as Jesus predicted in Matthew 24.

Jim1fletcher@yahoo.com

 

 

The Rap Against Israel

Israel’s will to live continues on a collision course with those seeking her destruction.

The Defense Ministry this week set in motion a plan to study the feasibility of the development of 70 outposts, which are essentially budding Israeli communities. This activity has been allowed by various Likud governments since 1977. Ariel Sharon played a major role in the development of Judea and Samaria as a home for Jews.

This will receive a severe rebuke from European and Arab governments. Some of us in the West have allowed evil to flourish for the past 25 years (in the context of the Arab-Israeli conflict) because we’ve been too soft on those seeking Israel’s destruction.

My friend Brian Schrauger is currently in Europe and has written poignantly of the rise of anti-Semitism, to pre-World War 2 levels.

I include in the list of those seeking Israel’s destruction the various Western media, political, and religious figures who appear to be more reasonable than, say, Hamas. Some are clueless dupes, some are more nefarious.

Add to the list the rapper Vic Mensa, who has just returned from a visit to “Palestine,” where he condemned alleged Israeli abuses of Palestinians. He drew the now infamous parallel of the treatment of blacks in America during the Civil Rights era. Of course, Mensa, clearly not a student of history, compared it to Chicago:

“It’s as if the South Side of Chicago’s most forgotten and disenfranchised neighborhoods were separated from the luxury of Downtown’s Gold Coast by a simple concrete wall.”

He refers to the security fence built by Israel to stop the murder of Jews. The fence has been very effective.

The Dream Defenders, a radical group, sponsored Mensa’s trip. Among the board members of DD are radical leftists Angela Davis and Linda Sarsour.

A Jerusalem Post report highlighted Mensa’s op-ed in TIME:

“The rapper, whose new music video for his song ‘We Could Be Free’ features footage of the West Bank, admits to not having a full understanding of the conflict. ‘The blood on both sides runs deep. I do not pretend to be familiar with every nuance of the longstanding turmoil that engulfs Israel and Palestine; it is no doubt as aged and tangled as the family trees ripped apart by its brutality. I can only speak to the experiences I had there,’ he writes.

“He professes his horror at Palestinian boys facing a mandatory minimum sentence of four years in prison for throwing stones, for example, without mentioning the deaths of Israeli adults and children in some of those attacks.

“’As with the black community in the US, the use of incarceration, racial profiling and targeting the youth as methods of control are heavily prevalent in the occupied West Bank. The main difference I see between our oppression in America and that of Palestinians is how overt and shameless the face of discrimination is in the occupied West Bank,’ Mensa also wrote.”

No kidding Mensa isn’t familiar with the conflict, but rather is regurgitating propaganda he’s heard from Left wing groups and individuals.
And the comparison of Israel’s security fence with Chicago’s South Side—a cauldron of violence and crime for more than 100 years—is equally lame. No one in Chicago is dedicated to the extermination of an entire people, as the Palestinians have wed themselves to in an attempt to rid the Middle East of Jews.

Mensa—his name is ironic—is but another American left wing activist. He is no different from so many in the Evangelical leadership community.

(In fact, a number of them this week pandered to minorities by writing op-eds and blogs championing Martin Luther King; they are also very close to groups like Black Lives Matters that demonize Israel and use the false corollaries Mensa has regurgitated. Wonder how they’d handle knowing that MLK spoke glowingly of Israel?)

As we often note here, we live in a remarkable moment in history, one in which it feels that the train is about to pull into the station. On the one hand, we have an Israeli government that understands it is morally legitimate to allow Jews to live in their ancestral homeland. And on the other hand, we must listen to the moral piety of Western dupes, who enable monstrous ideologies to flourish and threaten Israel.

jim1fletcher@yahoo.com