I was taken aback by the response to my review of "The Passion." Yes, I was blunt in the review, but my concerns of anti-Semitism were met with an icy indifference, alternately dismissed as "much ado about nothing" to the good-ole' "The Jews have an agenda." Yet no one seems very interested in learning why Jews are concerned about this film and its potential impact. Surprisingly this is one subject that DUers and Freepers have in common. Both groups don't care about Jewish concerns and both groups have no interest in trying to understand us.
If there is going to be no discussion on the subject, perhaps Christians can take a moment and read something written by Martin Luther in 1542. It's called "On Jews and Their Lies." This is the hatred we have had to live with ever since the writers of the Gospels decided to blame us for the death of Jesus.
But first, a few bible verses:
1 Thessalonians Chapter 2, verses 14-16
"For you, brothers, became imitators of God's churches in Judea, which are in Christ Jesus: You suffered from your own countrymen the same things those churches suffered from the Jews, who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and also drove us out. They displease God and are hostile to all men in their effort to keep us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved. In this way they always heap up their sins to the limit. The wrath of God has come upon them at last."
http://www.awitness.org/books/luther/luther_jews/1.htmlHere's an excerpt:
"I had made up my mind to write no more either about the Jews or against them. But since I learned that those miserable and accursed people do not cease to lure to themselves even us, that is, the Christians, I have published this little book, so that I might be found among those who opposed such poisonous activities of the Jews and who warned the Christians to be on their guard against them. I would not have believed that a Christian could be duped by the Jews into taking their exile and wretchedness upon himself. However, the devil is the god of the world, and wherever God's word is absent he has an easy task, not only with the weak but also with the strong. May God help us. Amen.
Grace and peace in the Lord. Dear sir and good friend, I have received a treatise in which a Jew engages in dialog with a Christian. He dares to pervert the scriptural passages which we cite in testimony to our faith,concerning our Lord Christ and Mary his mother, and to interpret them quite differently. With this argument he thinks he can destroy the basis of our faith.
This is my reply to you and to him. It is not my purpose to quarrel with the Jews, nor to learn from them how they interpret or understand Scripture; I know all of that very well already. Much less do I propose to convert the Jews, for that is impossible. Those two excellent men, Lyra and Burgensis, together with others, truthfully described the Jews' vile interpretation for us two hundred and one hundred years ago respectively. Indeed they refuted it thoroughly. However, this was no help at all to the Jews, and they have grown steadily worse.
They have failed to learn any lesson from the terrible distress that has been theirs for over fourteen hundred years in exile. Nor can they obtain any end or definite terminus of this, as they suppose, by means of the vehement cries and laments to God. If these blows do not help, it is resonable to assume that our talking and explaining will help even less.
Therefore a Christian should be content and not argue with the Jews. But if you have to or want to talk with them, do not say any more than this: 'Listen, Jew, are you aware that Jerusalem and your sovereignty, together with your temple and priesthood, have been destroyed for over 1,460 years?' For this year, which we Christians write as the year 1542 since the birth of Christ, is exactly 1,468 years, going on fifteen hundred years, since Vespasian and Titus destroyed Jerusalem and expelled the Jews from the city. Let the Jews bite on this nut and dispute this question as long as they wish."