I’ve had very good friends among the Jewish people, and so the thing I wonder about in this writing is not to find fault; it’s because I’ve wondered about it for so long.

Down through Jewish history, these fine people have had ups and downs…banishments from their lands and other trials and tribulations…you’ll recall the movie “Fiddler on the Roof;” it was the story of just one of their many exiles. And of course, the terrible Holocaust of World War Two, by which at least six million Jewish people died. They’ve suffered many of these times, and the Old Testament of the Holy Bible pulls no punches in telling of them, and in blaming the reasons as their failure to obey Jehovah, their God…the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and the many other Jewish leaders down through history, to the time of Jesus’ birth.

Explaining as briefly as possible, as I understand it, the Jewish people accept and live by what we Christians call the “Old Testament” of the Bible, but do not accept the New Testament, because they do not accept Jesus as the Christ, whose coming all looked forward to. They still look forward to Christ’s first coming, while we who call ourselves “Christians” have accepted Christ, and are looking forward to His Second Coming. Of this, in Galations 5:2-3, the Apostle Paul reminds that those who don’t accept Jesus as the Christ, must continue to obey the Law, given to the Jewish people through Moses…obey it all, or perish.

And so I wonder whether the Jewish people are still persecuted…as in the Holocaust…because they no long live completely up to The Law. As in making blood sacrifices, for example. Throughout the Old Testament, animal sacrifices were made by the thousands, with special days throughout the year for these actions. And could this be the reason the crime of rape is held of such magnitude, because a woman who has suffered this way, no longer can be the virgin who will give birth to the Christ the Jewish people still look for? I’ve never heard nor read any discussion on this.

As a Christian, of course I accept Jesus as the Christ, and Mary as the virgin who gave earthly birth to the Son of God, and to His earthly death and resurrection. And I encourage everyone to study the Bible to find the Truth, then to obey. Anything less won’t do.

37BT Bill Thornton January 25, 2008