The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem's Old City<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nBatarseh, a Marxist and member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) emphasized his desire for a boycott, while Fayyad\u2019s assertion that Jesus Christ was a Palestinian is a grotesque lie, but one that is increasingly embraced even by American evangelicals.<\/p>\n
Fayyad was schooled in Soviet-style propaganda, like his old boss, Yasser Arafat, and the \u201cJesus was a Palestinian\u201d whopper\u2014though thoroughly false\u2014has real currency among those who don\u2019t like Jews.<\/p>\n
It has even found its way into the language of Christians who should know better, or do know better. Back in the \u201890s, bestselling author Philip Yancey referred to Jesus as a \u201cPalestinian rabbi\u201d in the pages of Christianity Today. <\/p>\n
You see, if Palestinians and other enemies of the Jewish state can convince people that Jesus was a Palestinian, they further separate Christians and Jews. <\/p>\n
Newt Gingrich endured a storm of protest recently by asserting that the \u201cPalestinians\u201d are an invented people. The issue for us now at this Christmas season is that this political \u201cJesus\u201d is invented. The Palestinian Jesus does not exist. He would have been an Arab man devoid of any Scriptural reality.<\/p>\n
The historical facts are these: neither Jesus nor the apostles would have known anything about \u201cPalestine.\u201d They lived in Judea in the first century, as Jews. The region was re-named a century later by the Romans, who wanted to carve-away Jewish connection to the land. Evidently, it\u2019s a popular tactic that\u2019s never gone out of favor.<\/p>\n
\u201cJesus was a Palestinian\u201d is really a diabolical lie, because it is hatched from a desire to be disingenuous.<\/p>\n
Jesus Christ, the biblical Jesus, was born in Bethlehem and raised in Nazareth (Luke 4). In Luke 1, we read about his heritage, including that of his Jewish cousin, John, born of the priest Zacharias and his wife, Elisabeth. Zacharias wasn\u2019t a priest in a mosque, by the way. He served in the Jewish temple (also denied by the current Palestinian political leadership).<\/p>\n
Scripture tells us there were 14 generations from Adam to Abraham, 14 generations from Abraham to David, and 14 generations from David to Jesus. In the famous \u201cTable of Nations\u201d in Genesis 10, we are able to read about the lineages of both the Jews and the Arabs.<\/p>\n
In the famous account (Luke 4) of Jesus reading from the scroll of Isaiah in the synagogue (again, not a mosque or a church, but a Jewish synagogue), he affirms that He is the fulfillment of prophecy:<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written,<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,<\/p>\n
\u201cTo preach the acceptable year of the Lord.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.\u201d<\/p>\n
Besides highlighting the astonishing fulfillment of biblical prophecy\u2014unequaled among other sacred books\u2014Jesus was and is clearly Jewish. He was raised by Jewish parents, in the Land of Israel.
\nHis synagogue reading, from Isaiah 61, is also quite fascinating in its entirety, for He was so precise in His reading that he stopped short of reading the rest of what we know as Isaiah 61:2. After reading, \u201cTo preach the acceptable year of the Lord,\u201d He left off the rest of the sentence: \u201c\u2026and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
The Day of Vengeance is still to come.
\nThe rest of the chapter also describes the restoration of Israel in the latter times, another hateful reality for the Palestinians, especially Christians and their counterparts in the West who do not like the presence of Jews in Scripture. <\/p>\n
Ironically, while a growing number of evangelical Christian leaders in America are siding with the Palestinians, they challenge Christian Zionists to embrace the New Testament more than the Old. The problem for them is that the Jewish heritage of Jesus is ubiquitous there, as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Blaze has reported that the mayor of Bethlehem, Victor Batarseh, hopes for a most unusual Christmas gift: \u201cChristmas inspires peace on earth and goodwill toward men (as written in Luke 2:14), so one might wonder why the mayor of Bethlehem used the launch of festivities at the birthplace of Jesus to compare Israel to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":392,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/a>