Discover Your Roots! (repost)

[I recently picked up a book that I read a while back and began thumbing through it. It's one of those books that you know had an impact on you, but you don't remember how much until you refresh yourself. Anyways, its a book titled Constantine's Sword. If you ever get the time, I highly recommend it. Here's a post that I wrote a while back the first time I read it!]

Okay, so I'm really into this book I've been reading of late--Constantine's Sword. I don't know if it's where I lived in Israel and feed off of Jewish history or just because it's an awesome book and it's rockin' my chacos right off my feet (and yes I still where chacos in the witer--it's good for the soul). Anyways, It's a pretty big and wordy book and I'm just now finishing up the part that deals with New Testament origins of this whole Christian-Jewish conflict. Believe it or not, many of the first century believers were Jewish to the core. People don't realize the history/social context that the gospels were written in. There were numerous internecine battles/conflicts between differing Jewish sects. Christianity at that time was merely a "sect" of Judaism as far as the Roman empire was concerned. So, when the Gospels/Pauline epistles were originally penned, they were written with a polemical purpose in mind. The kerygma that the authors were trying to proclaim was done so in this "Jewish" sectarian controversy in mind. So, when we fail to realize that the "Jews" that killed Jesus were merely written by Jews referring to "Jewish sects" (Essenes, Pharissees, Sadducees, Sacarii, Qumran communities and the like, etc.) there is a "supersessionism" that takes place whereby the "Christians" have replaced the "Jews" and the new has replaced the old, etc. It was never inteneded to be this way. Christianity is merely a fulfillment of Judaism and an extension of the original Jewish faith. Believers today do not know their roots and this is to their shame. How is it that anti-semitism came to the point that six million Jews were annihalated at the hands of Hitler in the Shoah? The whole time this was happening the "Christians" sat back and were silent. But, when it came to 70,000 "Christians" that were in place to be slaughtered by Hitler, they stood up and protested and Hitler refrained. Many believe if the same would have happend in support of the Jews, the Holocaust may have never happend.

So, I challenge you on this point. Study your roots. Find out God's plan for the "church" and his plan for "Israel". Study the history and social context during the writing of the NT. We can only learn from the past and history is always doomed to repeat itself. May we never forget. L'chaim!