Wednesday, August 19, 2020

Noahidist Jew tirades against Evangelicals, calls them "pagans" and "frauds", says only Noahides are committed to God

Christianity is considered idolatry under Noahide Law (here & here) because of the trinity (here). In this article written by Noahidist Jew Donny Fuchs he literally spews "venom" for Christians, mocking them for not testing Mark 16:18, telling them they should handle poisonous snakes and drink engine fluids if they have so much faith in their healing powers. He calls Evangelical Christians "pagans", "idolaters", "frauds", "charlatans" and worse; his hatred for them is evident throughout the entire piece. He says only Noahides have a true commitment to God and that the Noahide Laws are "required". These are the type of people who want control over whether Christians live or die. Show this to your Christain Zionist friends. 

https://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/columns/fuchs-focus/mark-1618-take-the-challenge/2020/08/12/

Mark 16:18 Take the Challenge!

By Donny Fuchs - 22 Av 5780 – August 12, 2020

Dear Evangelicals: 

I have a message for you all, worldwide, who harbor a burning compulsion to share the gospels with us Jews. A challenge for the arrogant disciples who have unmitigated gall to lecture us about how we need to be “restored”, “completed”, or “redeemed”: How strong is your personal faith? Do you truly believe?  

Who brought the knowledge of the One true God to the world? It was the Jewish people. Our forefather Abraham bequeathed that gift upon us, and we in turn carried the knowledge of the One True God, while the entire world was entrenched in paganism.  

To be sure, we Jews erred time and again, and stumbled in the face of idolatry and temptation. The Torah certainly does not mask our national sins. Nevertheless, we preserved the Law through the ages through our prophets and righteous leaders who kept the message alive. Even when the pagan fires burned strongest, we still persevered. The Jewish people remained the lone advocates of genuine monotheism.  

Who took that gift, the knowledge of the Oneness of God (a unity unlike any other notion of oneness that exists) and made it three? Who corrupted the gift?  

YOU did. 

 And even as you attempted to flee the paganism of your age, you could not help but co-opt so much of it to incorporate into your new faith. In that regard, you fall short of the intrinsically flawed faith but superior (comparative to YOUR faith) version of monotheism as expressed by Islam, who nevertheless have many problems of their own. 

And do not blame the Catholic Church or “papist paganism” as your forebears would call it, as you are so often wont to do. Contemporary evangelicals are not reclaiming a truer version of their faith. An evangelical Protestant who denies his theological Catholic roots is a fool. Without the Catholic Church there is no original church. Your faith was born of pagan parents. And yet you have the gall to lecture us.  

You cannot even adhere to your own beliefs. Have you tended your own garden, ye evangelicals of little faith? Heal thyself. Read your “holy” works. You have fallen short of your own standards.  

Here’s one example: as  devout evangelicals  trying to share “the word” with the world, have you tested the perplexing claims of Mark 16:18?  

Do you handle vipers in accordance with YOUR gospels?  

Do you gargle and ingest antifreeze, with no ill effects? 

Do you possess magical healing hands? 

“They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.”( King James Bible Mark, 16:18) 

The tiny sect of snake handlers in rural America at least make a pretense at religious integrity by handling rattlesnakes. I suggest you do better. Their efforts are always suspect. The snakes seem so lethargic. Drugged perhaps. Yet there are opportunities to test your faith with serpents more sincerely without the trappings of deception. The world is full of vipers.  

I challenge you to test your faith as put forth in Mark 16:18. Pick up venomous snakes! Not snakes that have been drained of venom, or who have been defanged. I’m referring to wild snakes in nature. I encourage you to search the wild places of the U.S., where opportunities to find rattlers, copperheads, cottonmouths, and coral snakes are plentiful.  Caution is for sinners. Handle them with disregard for personal safety in the manner of one who truly believes in the veracity of the gospels. Hold them near your face. 

I have a personal invitation to missionaries worldwide. Join me in Israel, and I will assist you in this theological test. As someone with a passion for the fauna of Israel, I have good knowledge of where to find venomous snakes. 

Test #1: I will accompany you to different locations in Israel and help you locate indigenous vipers. I’ll flip up rocks, and you will test your faith. Have no fear if they bite you. The gospels maintain that you will be okay. 

Test #2: After a day of being snake-bit, we can continue with the second “venom test” from the very same verse. While I down a cold beer, you can chug down a bucket of bleach, turpentine, or RAID. Again, Mark 16 assures the safety of the true disciple.   

Test #3: Should you get deathly ill out of weakness of personal faith, your fellow brother can heal you by the laying of his hands, as promised in the very same verse. 

Theological Question for Evangelicals 

If Mark 16:18 claims that believers can heal the sick with their hands, with millions of evangelicals worldwide, why do people continue to die of illness ? From COVID-19, to cancer and AIDS, you have dropped the ball! Are evangelicals so cruel, to deny humanity their healing prowess?  

Perhaps your personal faith is not so strong. Diseased people generally do not lecture others on how to maintain general health. Shouldn’t spiritual disease follow the same standard? Perhaps you should work on their own spiritual welfare, before lecturing those of us who follow monotheism.  

Point 1: If your personal snake-handling, poison drinking, magic–hands healing skills are weak (or you fear that they might be), your faith is either flawed, or your faith is wrong. The only way to know is to test it. And I suspect that most evangelicals do not like their odds when it comes to testing Mark 16:18. 

Point 2: From a Torah perspective your  primitive beliefs may be better than those of a jungle dwelling animist (Even Maimonides would concede that) but is still a flawed system of idolatry. Use your reason and draw proper conclusions. At the very least, if you refuse to test the gospels and lack faith to adhere to the standards of your holy books, admit that you lack the authority to lecture anyone (save for an animist) about their souls.  

Point 3: Better yet, abandon paganism and proselytizing, and find the True God of Noah and Abraham. From a Torah perspective, only the Noahide is living the life of one committed to The Almighty. Become genuine students of authentic Rabbis equipped to instruct you in the mandated“7 Laws of Noah” all Gentiles are required to follow.  

Note: I refer to authentic rabbis and not charlatans and gurus: Do not become students of online, interfaith-obsessed, “yeshiva for the nations” type rabbis. You know the ones set up by religious Jews who profit from teaching you to become more effective missionaries. 

Note:  A good rule of thumb: If the co-founder of the Yeshiva is an evangelical, you can be certain it is NOT a yeshiva, even by the most liberal standards of the term. Regardless of the name. 

Personally, I have no interest in seeing you drop dead of snakebite or from ingesting poison. I am making a point. You are unwilling to handle vipers or wash down a gallon of engine coolant. Your healing powers are weak. You have little faith in your own faith.  

If you do not believe, why propagate it? More importantly, why keep it yourself? God does not make mistakes or change His mind. The covenant with the Jewish people is eternal. The notion of an incarnate God is idolatry. We Jews were never replaced, and we have no need to be restored. The problem is you.  

Start from the beginning and learn about a man called Noah. A form of repentance, if you will, to find the knowledge of the One True G-d. Therein lies your salvation.  

Or remain firm in your beliefs and continue with your brazen provocations against the Jewish people, which by extension is really a war against The Almighty. In that case, face the inevitable flood, in whatever form that may be, for those who refuse to accept Hashem’s sovereignty. The choice is yours.  

Evangelicals eschew reason and fortify their primitive beliefs with unmatched arrogance. It’s not an easy thing to overcome. I have little confidence in the ability of the average evangelical to change, though it has been known to happen.  

On these occasions we are happily blessed with unique individuals with unmatched abilities to further the knowledge of Hashem. From righteous converts who are now one of us, to genuine Noachides, there are examples. Please G-d we should see many more.  

Evangelicals of the world, Mark 16:18 is your personal test, one which  evangelicals rarely take themselves. Your failure to undergo this trial smacks of fear and uncertainly. It screams of your doubt and insecurity that you will survive vipers and poison.  

To the pious frauds of the world, who wish to lecture to us Jews, I  say prove your worth: 

Bring forth the snakes. Drink poison if you will. Handle vipers if you must. Heal the sick with your magic hands. Or shut your mouths and perfect your own faith. You have nothing to teach us. 

Or even better yet, repent. 

Signed,  

Donny Fuchs 


Wednesday, August 12, 2020

The Noahide invasion of UK Schools is centralized, systemic and has an agenda

UK Children are not going to be learning about the Noahide Laws in a neutral fashion. Now I have three school districts, two inside London (here & here) and now the Cheshire East schools, all which have added the Noahide Laws to their syllabus, but all of them carry the same exact phrases to describe the Noahide Laws: "Seven laws given to Noah after the flood, which are incumbent on all humankind. These laws form the foundation for a just society.". There must be one group that is doing this in all of the UK's schools... or this was adopted at a much higher level. I will publish all subsequent findings of this phrase here. Link to PDFs below.

CHESHIRE EAST SCHOOLS

https://www.cheshireeast.gov.uk/PDF/SACRE_Handbook_Part_4_Glossary.pdf

SANDWELL SCHOOLS

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jgmkD4knq2ZL-nxh38fMNrlpB3AyzySJ/view?usp=sharing

OLDHAM SCHOOLS

https://drive.google.com/file/d/15OmsRxjv4cIU3VtEmh1je5D32Z1YoFVJ/view?usp=sharing

NORTHAMPTONSHIRE

https://www.northamptonshire.gov.uk/councilservices/children-families-education/schools-and-education/information-for-school-staff/curriculum-and-resources/Documents/A)%20RE%20GLOSSARY%206%20FAITHS%20+%20H.pdf


Now Brent UK schools will learn the Noahide Laws are "incumbent on all humankind" and are the "foundation for a just society"

 I just published that schools in the London boroughs of Hammersmith & Fulham will be learning the Noahide Laws are "incumbent" on all and are the "foundation of a just society" (here), now I have found Brent school will be learning the same thing. This follows Birmingham's adoption of Noahide education which raises sympathy for the movement by stating its teaching on the part of Jews will cause "anti-Semitism" (here). This is early grooming and brainwashing. Link to PDF of the school curriculum below. 

SOURCE: "Brent Agreed Syllabus for Religious Education". Retrieved 08/12/2020 from: https://www.brent.gov.uk/media/946060/agreed_syllabus_for_religious_education.pdf

London children will learn the Noahide Laws are "incumbent on all humankind" and the "foundation for a just society"

First it was Birmingham Schools (here) and St. Margaret's Primary School in Leeds (here) which will be and are learning about the Noahide Laws, now the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham schools will be learning that the Noahide Laws are "Seven laws given to Noah after the flood, which are incumbent on all humankind. These laws form the foundation for a just society." They are going after the kids! Link to PDF Below.

SOURCE: London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham – Agreed Syllabus for Religious Education. 2014. Retrieved 08/12/2020 from: https://www.lbhf.gov.uk/sites/default/files/section_attachments/sacre_re_syllabus_final.pdf 

Did the Southern Baptist Convention just endorse "Noahide Laws"?


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In this article on the Ethics and Religion Liberty Commission website of the Southern Baptist Convention we see the Commission says that the command in Genesis 9 not to murder is "applicable and binding on all mankind", but they call it a "Noahide Law". How did they mean this statement? "Noahide Law" is a Talmudic word, not a Biblical word, so why did they use this phraseology? Also the "binding on all mankind" is the type of language used by Noahidists. Have they separated Biblical commands from Talmudic commands or do they mean the "Noahide Laws" proper? 

DIRECT QUOTE

Genesis 9:5-6 provides the Biblical basis for capital punishment in the case of murder. Since this covenant is “everlasting” (9:16) and “for all future generations” (9:12), it’s as applicable today as it was in the age of Noah. Unless Christians adopt a form of supersessionism in regards to this covenant, we must recognize that this Noahide Law is still applicable and binding on all mankind.

FULL TEXT

https://erlc.com/resource-library/articles/capital-punishment-an-overview-of-christian-perspectives/

Capital Punishment: An Overview of Christian Perspectives

 ERLC

May 29, 2014

Capital punishment, or the death penalty, refers to the execution by the state of those guilty of certain crimes.

Theologically, most mainline Protestant churches, such as Presbyterian Church in the USA, many Episcopal, and Lutheran churches, oppose the death penalty. Even some historically evangelical churches such as the United Church of Christ and many Methodist and Baptist churches opposed capital punishment. The Roman Catholic Church supports capital punishment in principal but holds that current application is unnecessary since we have matured as a culture. On the other hand, most Protestant conservatives, including the majority of members of the Southern Baptist Convention, and other growing evangelical movements such as Reformed Christians and Conservative Baptists, support capital punishment on biblical grounds.

What is the Southern Baptist Convention’s official position on the death penalty?

In a resolution in 2000, the SBC affirmed support for the fair and equitable use of capital punishment by civil magistrates as a legitimate form of punishment for those guilty of murder or treasonous acts that result in death.[1]

The SBC also resolved:

That capital punishment should only be administered when the pursuit of truth and justice result in clear and overwhelming evidence of guilt;

That because of the deep reverence for human life, profound respect for the rights of individuals, and respect for the law, the SBC calls for vigilance, justice, and equity in the criminal justice system;

That capital punishment be applied as justly and as fairly as possible without undue delay, without reference to the race, class, or status of the guilty; that civil magistrates use humane means in administering capital punishment;

That members of the SBC commit to love, to pray for, and to minister the gospel to victims and perpetrators of crimes, realizing that only in Christ is there forgiveness of sin, reconciliation, emotional and spiritual healing, and the gift of eternal life.

What Does the Bible Say About the Death Penalty?

The Bible clearly states that immediately after the Noahic Flood God mandated the use of the death penalty. In Gen. 9:6 God instructs Noah and his sons, “Whoever sheds man’s blood, his blood will be shed by man, for God made man in His image.” (HCSB)

God’s reason for issuing this mandate is that humans are created in the image of God (Gen. 9:6). Mankind’s creation in the image of God is what makes all human life sacred and can bring a penalty as severe as death for its violation.

The right to exercise capital punishment is reserved for the state, not the individual. There is no place for personal revenge in the administration of this punishment (Rom. 12:19). It is the state’s responsibility, as God’s civil servant on earth, to protect its citizens and to punish those who harm them (Rom. 13:4,6). Capital punishment provides the state the means to apply the appropriate punishment to the crime (Deut. 19:21).

God instituted capital punishment as a legitimate punitive option for every state. Its institution predates Israel’s birth as a nation and Moses’ divinely inspired directions for the nation’s governance, eliminating the possibility that capital punishment was mandated solely for Israel. God issued guidance on capital punishment to earth’s only surviving people (Gen. 7:20-24); these people and God’s instructions to them provided the foundation for all subsequent governments.

In the New Testament, Paul affirms that the governing authorities “do not bear the sword (machaira) for nothing” (Rom. 13:4). It is likely that Paul is expressing the general principle that the state has the right to punish its citizens for breaking its laws. More specifically, however, since the machaira (sword) is typically an instrument of death in the New Testament, and certainly in Romans (cf. Rom. 8:35-36), it is evident that the state’s authority to administer justice includes capital punishment.

The state possesses this power of death to punish evil (Rom. 13:4; 1 Pet. 2:13-14); however, only those acts identified by God as evil justify the use of capital punishment (Isa. 5:20). A state that uses capital punishment for something other than punishing evil as defined by God abuses its power and violates God’s standard for its use. 

Application and Guidelines for Capital Punishment

In order to assure the fair administration of justice God established some important guidelines for Israel, which any state would be wise to adopt, especially in a matter as serious as capital punishment.

The accused person must have committed a crime for which death is the appropriate punishment. (Deut. 19:21).

Clear evidence of guilt must be provided by two or three witnesses. One witness was not sufficient to result in capital punishment (Num. 35:30; Deut. 17:6). God is aware that unscrupulous people may attempt to use the death penalty for evil purposes. Therefore, he requires multiple witnesses to the supposed crime.

Those charged with crimes must be treated in a uniform and impartial manner, regardless of status (Deut. 1:17) or class (Lev. 19:15). Any society that favors some people and discriminates against others because of class or status, or deprives some of adequate defense, intentionally or through neglect, diminishes its integrity and creates serious doubts about its commitment to justice (Lev. 24:22).

Though capital punishment remains a legitimate option for the state, this option must be exercised under the strictest of conditions. The state that chooses to exercise the power of life and death over its citizenry must be certain it has done all it can to assure that it is punishing the right person, that the punishment fits the crime, and that everyone, regardless of class or status, has had an adequate, vigorous defense. Anything less may bring the condemnation of God on that society.

Common Christian Objections to Capital Punishment

Despite the clear Biblical mandate and authorization in both the Old and New Testaments, some Christians oppose the implementation of the death penalty in modern societies.

The following are some of the most common objections and the responses frequently offered in rebuttal. (Note: The arguments made on both sides of the capital punishment are often complex and nuanced. The summaries below are intended as an overview, not as a full presentation of the representative arguments.)

     Objection: The incident with the woman caught in adultery is evidence that Jesus opposed capital punishment (John 8:1-11).

     Rebuttal: Jesus’ reaction in this incident was not directed at the prescribed punishment, but rather at those who sought to trap Him into participating in an act that was illegitimate for several reasons (John 8:6). First, the scribes and Pharisees did not constitute an official governing body. Their efforts represented an illegitimate attempt to exercise the power of the state. Second, there is no indication that there was any formal presentation of charges against the woman or official declaration of her guilt. Third, there is no evidence that the witnesses to the crime were present. At least two witnesses were necessary to prove capital cases and, in many instances, they had to throw the first stones (Deut. 17:6-7).

     Objection: The Old Testament required capital punishment in Israel for a variety of crimes and sins. Since we no longer apply the death penalty in those situations, we have no right to apply them in others.

     Rebuttal: Because God held his covenant people to a high spiritual standard, he specified capital punishment for the above acts. Since no other nation has this same relationship with God, he has not specified that these acts are subject to the same penalty in other societies. However, because God mandated capital punishment prior to Israel’s establishment, at the very least, it is a legitimate response to murder in other societies.

Genesis 9:5-6 provides the Biblical basis for capital punishment in the case of murder. Since this covenant is “everlasting” (9:16) and “for all future generations” (9:12), it’s as applicable today as it was in the age of Noah. Unless Christians adopt a form of supersessionism in regards to this covenant, we must recognize that this Noahide Law is still applicable and binding on all mankind.

     Objection: Even if it is warranted, the death penalty is cruel and unusual punishment.

     Rebuttal: This objection conflates an American legal objection with a universal theological reason. The death penalty has been applied in American law for 350 years, when the Supreme Court case Furman v. Georgia came along. In this 1972 capital punishment case, the majority in the United States Supreme Court declared the statues to be unconstitutionally “cruel and unusual.”[2]

Historically, the Supreme Court’s decision in Furman was in itself unusual. Previously the Court utilized the words cruel and unusual but not in direct relation to the death penalty. For example, the Court supported capital punishment in these cases: in Wilkerson v. Utah, 1878, death by firing squad; and in In re Kemmler, 1890, death by electrocution. Both cases had been endorsed by the Court in the nineteenth century. More than 50 years later, the Court further endorsed the “strap[ping] [of] a prisoner into the electric chair a second time after a faulty system failed in the first attempt” (Louisiana ex rel Francis v. Reswebe, 1947).

On the hope that the Court would allow the death penalty in other cases, state legislatures wrote laws to adapt to the Supreme Court’s new view of limited or “guided discretion” laws for juries. In other words, states tried to write laws that did not call for mandatory death penalties, but called for “rational” or “objective standards” for juries when imposing the death penalty. The state effort to bring back the death penalty was successful. In 1976, the Supreme Court “held that capital punishment per se was not unconstitutional” (Gregg v. Georgia). In the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, states that brought cases which reflected limited or guided discretion laws (for juries to apply the death penalty) were upheld by the Supreme Court.

From a Christian perspective, the death penalty cannot be considered “unusual” since it has been applied throughout history since the days of Noah. However, the consideration that it can be “cruel” is a valid consideration and should limit the way capital punishment is applied. When imposing the death penalty, the state should respect the inherent dignity of the person to be executed and avoid unnecessary infliction of pain.

     Objection: Capital punishment is an expression of vengeance which contradicts the justice of God on the cross.”[3]

     Rebuttal: This argument rests on the assumption that outlawing private revenge frees governments from the responsibility to implement God-mandated capital punishment. However, during the implementation of the death penalty, any individual involved in the pursuit of justice, whether judge, jury, family member or friend of the victim, must first set aside personal revenge and hatred by acknowledging that the convicted is made in the image of God (Gen 1:26-27) and must be afforded value, dignity and significance. The convicted must also be judged as primarily responsible for the death of another valued human being. As St. Augustine said, “Penalties must be applied. I don’t deny it, I don’t forbid it; only let it be done in a spirit of love, a spirit of caring, a spirit of reforming.”

     Objection: In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus places calls for an end to the lex talionis, the law of retaliation (Ex. 21:23-24; Deut. 19:21; Lev. 24:20-21): “You have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But I tell you, don’t resist an evildoer. On the contrary, if anyone slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also.” (Matt. 5:38-39)

     Rebuttal: Jesus did indeed put a radical limitation on what was once considered an individual right to justice. The passage is both inspiring and intimidating; the very thought of living such a life is humbling. But we should carefully note what Jesus did not say in this passage. What he left out of the verse he quoted is as important as what he included. Exodus 21:23-24 states: “If there is an injury, then you must give life for life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot . . . ”

Notice that Jesus starts quoting at “eye for an eye” instead of “life for life.” Murder was not, nor had it ever been, a matter of individual vengeance—that is, an issue that can be adjudicated under tort law. When a person commits murder they are committing an offense against God himself and not against a mere individual, his family, or even society. Jesus’ command only applies to individual vengeance; it does not abrogate God’s command in the Noahic covenant.

     Objection: When governments implement the death penalty, then the life of the convicted person is devalued and all possibility of change in that person's life ends. The resurrection of Jesus Christ and that the possibility of reconciliation with Christ comes through repentance. This gift of reconciliation is offered to all individuals without exception and gives all life new dignity and sacredness. [4]

     Rebuttal: We tend to think of rehabilitation as a means of restoring a criminal to society. And modern defenders of capital punishment focus almost exclusively on the deterrent or retributive values of the death penalty. But when the death penalty was first imposed in America, it was expected to encourage offenders' repentance. “Rehabilitation was one of the primary reasons that capital punishment was imposed in early America,” notes law professor Megan Ryan, “and there are several stories of brutal murderers being rehabilitated on death row.”[5]

We need to be reintroduced to this view of rehabilitation that has been all but forgotten yet corresponds with the Christian view of dignity. Imposing the death penalty can help the murderer restore the broken relationship with their Creator, not just with humankind. While we have an interest in a criminal's return to society, we should be even more concerned with the state of their soul.

[1] Southern Baptist Convention, “On Capital Punishment,” http://www.sbc.net/resolutions/299

[2] Maiman, R.J., & Steamer, R.J. (1992). American Constitutional Law: Introduction and Case Studies. St. Louis, MO: McGraw-Hill, Inc., p. 35.

[3] The is the position of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). See: http://www.presbyterianmission.org/ministries/101/capital-punishment/

[4] This is the position of the United Methodist Church. See: http://archives.umc.org/interior.asp?ptid=1&mid=6385

[5] Meghan J. Ryan, “Death and Rehabilitation,” SMU Dedman School of Law Legal Studies Research Paper No. 112. Accessed from http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2128175

Former Chair of Religious Studies at Charlotte University is a Noahide


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According to his Wikipedia page "James D. Tabor (born 1946 in Texas) is a Biblical scholar and Professor of Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte,[1] where he has taught since 1989 and served as Chair from 2004–14. He previously held positions at Ambassador College (1968–70 while a student at Pepperdine University), the University of Notre Dame (1979–85), and the College of William and Mary (1985–89). Tabor is the founder and director of the Original Bible Project, a non-profit organisation aimed to produce a re-ordered new translation of the Bible in English." Perhaps unbeknownst to many of his students and colleagues, he is a Noahide who is working heavily with the Jewish community for that mission. This is an activist Noahide professor, not good for the young minds of our nation. 

https://www.eaec.org/sermons/2007/RLJ-1106.pdf

MAY TRAVELS AND FUTURE PLANS
by Dr. James D. Tabor

Rather than my regular article I wanted to fill you in on various travels and activities I have been engaged in of late. I thought most of them would be of interest to CAP readers. 1991 has been a year flooded with activities related to our common interests. too much to keep up with.

During May, literally the day after my final grades were turned in for the Spring semester, I embarked on three weeks of travel, crisscrossing the country.

The first leg of my travels took me to Connecticut, Boston, and New York City. On May 6th I gave a lecture to a group of students and faculty in the Department of Religious Studies at Connecticut College on the topic, "B'nai Noach Past and Present: the Return of the Godfearers." This is probably one of the first times our movement was dealt with in such an academic setting at a top quality place like Connecticut College. In Boston I visited friends, went to book stores, and walked around Harvard for a shot of academic inspiration. I was in New York for just one day. I first went to the United Nations to visit my friend David Horowitz, correspondent, and friend and supporter of B'nai Noach. Many of you read his column weekly in the Jewish Press. David is 88 years old and truly a saint before HaShem. He has been at the UN since its founding, always speaking out for Israel. That evening, in the Horowitz home, I met with a fascinating group of Jewish leaders from the Torah community--all interested in talking about B'nai Noach. Among those present were Dr. Louis Feldman of Yeshiva University; Rabbi Saul Zucker of the Frisch School in Teaneck. NJ.; Dr. Saul Berman, also of Yeshiva University; Rabbi Berl Haskelevich and Mordechai Staiman, of Lubavitch; Aryeh Gallin, the head of the Root and Branch Association which publishes the Noachide Guide; and Rabbi Mordechai Fisch, of Sheved Achim. It was truly a wonderful meeting, with lots of good conversation and sharing until late hours. Dr. Berman is the author of the article on the Noachide Laws in the Encyclopedia Judaica. Dr.Feldman is perhaps the world's authority on the ancient "God-fearers," who were associated with synagogues in the Roman period. Rabbi Haskelevich broadcasts on radio to the Soviet Union, reaching literally thousands of Gentiles with the Noahide message. I could say much more about each of these men--and our gracious host, David Horowitz, but space does not permit. It was truly a wonderful meeting. I was also able to speak with Aaron Lichtenstein and Isaac Mozeson on the phone while in New York.

Next, I flew to Portland and then to Los Angeles. I met with Dr. Ernest Martin of the Academy of Scriptural Knowledge. We have in mind a project that I know will absolutely thrill most of you to hear about. We call it "The Original Bible." It will be a completely new and scrupulously accurate version of the Holy Scriptures, with full historical and textual notes. Even the books of the Bible will be placed in their proper order. Dr. Martin and others interested in the project have asked me to become Chief Editor. I have agreed, with great enthusiasm. This will be a Bible like no others, a dream come true for millions who are really thirsting for the plain words of Scriptures, "what he Bible really says," free from 3500 years of translation and interpretive errors. Obviously, this project is going to take several years. But plans are immediately beginning. See the next issue of Biblical Archneology Review for a full page ad announcing the project. I am very excited about this, for me it is a life-long dream. I will keep you informed on the plans, some of which might involve our own people and their participation. In Los Angeles I met with others interested in this project.

Finally, I went to Texas. I gave two lectures at Reunion Institute, near the campus of Rice University. Reunion is a wonderful organization that sponsors lectures and projects related to Biblical studies. I spoke first on Jewish attitudes toward the rebuilding of the Temple; then on the recent developments regarding the Dead Sea Scrolls. Among others things passed out copies of MMT, the unpublished Scroll, so important to understanding the identity of the Qumran community. We had fine and enthusiastic groups both talks. Some of Our Bnai Noach people Rabbi Howard Trusch leaches the group in Houston led Howard Shelton. I also met with Vendyl Jones, Howard, Shelton, Dr.Carlton Hazelwood, and DellGriffin. We formed a little delegation and visited with Rabbi Joseph Radinsky at the United Orthodox Synagogue in Houston. We asked him about the Bnai Noach group beginning meetings this fall at the Synagogue, as well as his willingness to teach the group, assisted by student, Rabbi Trusch. He agreed both requests! On June 14th I spoke at the evening Shabbat service of Temple Israel, Charlotte, North Carolina, on B'nai Noah. There was a large crowd with great interest.

I leave for a month in Israel on July4th. Jack Saunders and David Davis will fly with me and stay for two weeks. We will have meetings with the Torah community in New York the day or two before we leave the country. These are being set up by Aryeh Gallin and Rabbi Zucker. They promise to be most fruitful. Our movement is causing a great deal of stir in the New York area. I am in touch with literally dozens of rabbis and Torah scholars who view our work most positively and want to know more and do more.

In Israel we will mostly meet with interested parties. We are scheduled to give a public lecture, in Jerusalem, on the B'nai Noach movement on July 7th. Surely this is a first. I have a number of meetings with academics arranged as well. On Tisha B'Av we plan to go up to the Temple Mount and read the special reading for that day--Isaiah 55:6-56:8. Look it up! We feel this scripture is being fulfilled in our day. Pray for our safety.


More on Freemason-Noahide rituals and history

Here is an addition to my post on the Noahide affiliation with Freemasonry (here). From this 1907 London Freemason record, we see that in a ceremony a new Freemason was asked to be a "true Noachide" and that it is believed by Freemasons that they were formed from a much older Noahide group called "The order of Noachites or Chevaliers Prussian." The Noahide High Council is desperate to separate Freemasonry from Noahidism as people are catching on to the connection (here)... this is just more proof of the undeniable conspiracy. Please notice if you click on the source link to view the PDF you will have to search "Noachide" or "Noachite" and then copy and paste the text in another program as for some reason some of the pages look blank in the PDF. 

A Freemason's Ceremonial Oath Includes To Promise To Behave Like A True Noachide

amination, by which one Mason may know another." The Examination was conducted by Sabas, who afterwards led the Candidate "round the Tower, and then knocked at the Brazen Gate nine Times. . . . In Order that the Watchman of the Gate might know, that he had been with me round the Tower, which was nine Miles." The diameter of the Tower was three miles, its height 5146 paces. "The Passage that went to the Top, was on the Outside, and, like a Winding Stair-Case, of a very great Breadth, so that Camels and Carriages might go up and down, and turn with Ease " ; 500,000 men were employed on the work for 53 years.l The reason this Tower was built so very extensive was " to make them a great Name, and also to save them from a second Deluge." The Candidate was led to Belus, who charged himTO obey the Master, Superintendent, Wardens and Deacons of the Lodge; to submit to their Directions, and do his 'L Daily Task with Freedom, Cheerfulness and Sobriety." TO " behave like a true Noachide, and instruct the younger Brethren, using all Endeavours to increase Brotherly Love." 

Freemason Built On Older "The order of Noachites or Chevaliers Prussian."

Nimrod is given as prominent a place in Part II., as Solomon is in Part [II., though it must be admitted that in another song of a later date it is stated that "he was no excellent Mason." The degree of "Noachite, or Prussian Knight" is based upon legends connected with the Tower of Babel though the ritual of 1768 bears very little resemblance to that printed bp Slade. The Tower of Babel figures on old " trazing-boards " and jewels in such a manner as to leave little doubt that it was at some time an important symbol in Freemasonry. I therefore think it is possible that Slade's publication may contain something which if not actually in use in his day had been worked at an earlier period in some such manner as he describes. Bro. J. C. BROOKHOUSE writes:- The very interesting paper read by Bro. Thorp upon Slade's " B'reemason Examined" leads on to a further consideration beyond the '' exposure" itself, for a later author has seized the matter therein contained, has attributed the ritual to an actual society and has gone so far as to give a history, certainly rather sketchy but a history none the less, of the masonic body working the ceremonies which are thereby laid open. Among the modern books which have at various times and with various motives professed to publish to the world our secrets, " The Mysteries of Freen~asonry," by John Fellows, A.M., is one of the best known; the edition in my hands was published in London and bears date 1866. The section of interest in this connection runs from the middle of page 324 to the foot of page 327 and is headed '' The order of Noachites or Chevaliers Prussian." Mr. Fellows opens his account of this order by stating that there is reason to believe that it was instituted by tlhe ancient Prussians and that it claims priority over that of the Freemasons of England. He continues that the ceremonies of the Noachites seem to have served in some measure as a model upon which those of Freemasonry were founded. Kext there appear some extracts from Polish and Prussian history with the suggestion that the order was evidently a military organization and undoubtedly intended as a rallying point for the recovery of the civil and religious liberties of the nation, and a statement that the society was probably founded in the year 1000. A short quotation from Bernard follows :-" The Grand Master-General of the Order, whose title is Chevalier Grand Commander, is Frederick William, King of Prussia. His ancestors, for 300 years, have been protectors of this Order. The Knights were formerly known by the name of Noachites. " The Noachites, formerly called Prussian chevalier*^, are descended from Peleg, the Grand Architect of the Tower of Babel, their origin being more ancient than that of the Masons descended from Hiram. The Knights assembled on the night of the full moon in the month of March (the vernal equinox) in a secret place, to hold their Lodges ; and they cannot initiate a candidate into the mysteries of this Order unless by t,he light of the moon."l So much for the quotation from Bernard; we return to the ingenious Mr. Fellows, whose next paragraph deserves to be set out in full. " Great innovations have been introduced into the ceremonies of this Order. I have a copy of its ritual, which, from its antiquity and Druidical style, may be presumed 'This is apparently taken from Les Plus Secrets MystBres des haufs grades de la Maqonnerie ddvozlds, &c., 1768, in which the description of the grade of Le Noachite, ou Chevalier Prussien is said $0 be translated from the German by M. de Berage. 110 Transactiolzs of the Quahor Cmonati Lodge. genuine. It was reprinted from a London copy, by John Holt, New York

 SOURCE: "Ars Quatuor Coronatorum, being the translation of the Quatuor Coronati Lodge No. 2076 London." 1907. Retrieved 08/12/2020 from: http://www.masoniclib.com/images/images0/161571047136.pdf

Poetry magazine claims Christians "persecuted" and "suppressed" Noahides, preparing a grievance industry?


SIGN THE PETITION 

The Deronda Review is a yearly poetry publication produced by Esther Cameron. In this article by Cameron she claims that early Christians in the 2nd Temple Period "persecuted" and "suppressed" Noahides. Is this a new grievance industry being produced to chide Christians into not condemning the Noahides? Cameron also seems to support the deception that Christians are Noahides, which they are not (here & here) and she confirms that Noahidism was adopted by Freemasonry (here).

DIRECT QUOTE

There is, of course, a Jewish universalism – the Noachide covenant, based on the commandments given to Noach after the flood. During the Second Temple period many people actually declared themselves Noachides, till this phenomenon was suppressed by Christian persecution. In the Enlightenment period the Noachide covenant was, if fleetingly, remembered. The Freemasons made some use of this concept.5 And Moses Mendelssohn, in Jerusalem; a Treatise on Ecclesiastical Authority and Judaism, proposed to regard Christians as Noachides.6 But as Judaism understands it, the Noachide covenant reserves, at the center of a universal faith, a place for the Chosen People. This the Enlightenment could not absorb.

FULL ARTICLE

https://www.derondareview.org/nathanthewise.htm

Esther Cameron

THE STREET OF NATHAN THE WISE,
or
THE FLAWED CONTRACT OF TOLERANCE


As the bus rolled down one of the main avenues of Tel Aviv, I noticed at the entrance to a side street a small plaque with the words: Rechov Natan HeChakham. Nathan the Wise Street.

How odd, I thought.  Streets are usually named for historical figures, people who actually lived.  Whereas Nathan was, like Job, a fable.  On the other hand, he certainly did have an effect on history...

Nathan was the hero of a blank verse drama, Nathan der Weise, by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729-1781), Enlightenment philosopher, friend of Moses Mendelssohn, critic of Christian intolerance. Few literary works have been written with better intentions than Nathan der Weise, and few have been more gratefully received. Yet it proposed a contract of tolerance that is deeply flawed, with fateful consequences not only for Jewry but for the Western world.

Lessing’s drama is built around an “interfaith” folk-tale1 that apparently came to Lessing through Boccaccio’s Decamerone. In its oldest version (from Il Novellino, a late thirteenth century compilation) the Sultan wants to press a Jew for money and begins by embarrassing him by asking him which faith is the best. The Jew gets out of it by telling a story about a father who had a ring which each of his three sons wanted, and who solved his problem by having a jeweler make two rings identical to the first, and presenting a ring to each son in private. Each son then believed he had the true ring, but the true ring was known only to the father; similarly with the religions. The Sultan, hearing this, “did not know how to entrap him, and let him go.”

We may already note that the three-ring parable is not told in an open forum of inquiry. The Sultan is not the Khazar king with whom one could reason about the respective merits of the three faiths. The best the Jew can hope for is a bit of sportsmanship. Boccaccio already begins to idealize the story, naming the Sultan Saladin (the one Muslim leader whom the West has been able to find sympathetic) and the Jew Melchisedek (the non-Jewish priest of Genesis 14:18!). In this version the Jew, having won the battle of wits, offers the loan of his own accord; Saladin pays it back in full, and the two become great friends.2

In Lessing’s version the parable is greatly expanded and embellished with many elevated sentiments. The stone of the ring “ha[s] had the hidden virtue him to render/ Of God and man beloved, who in this view,/ And this persuasion, wore it.”3 Regarding the claims of the three sons, Nathan observes that Muslim, Jew and Christian have equal grounds for their beliefs, namely the word of their loved and trusted ancestors: “How can I less believe in my forefathers/ Than thou in thine. […] The like of Christians.” As in preceding versions, Saladin concedes the game. “By the living God,/ The man is in the right, I must be silent.” Not content with this, Nathan has the three sons take their quarrel to a judge, who declines to pronounce judgment but notes that the real ring should eventually manifest its “hidden power to make the wearer/ Of God and man beloved” through their actions. Each brother should “… vie with both his brothers in displaying/ The virtue of his ring; assist its might/ With gentleness, benevolence, forbearance.“ Thus, Lessing/Nathan envisions a contest of virtue among the three religions, each determined to make the best of his own while refraining from enforcing it upon others. Lessing/Nathan’s “modest judge” concludes with the suggestion that after “a thousand thousand years” the litigants’ descendants might then appear before a greater judge, who would then decide. Nathan clinches the argument:

NATHAN.  Saladin,
Feel'st thou thyself this wiser, promised man?
Again Saladin obligingly yields to the force of truth.
SALADIN.  I dust, I nothing, God! [Precipitates himself upon Nathan, and takes hold of his hand, which he does not quit the remainder of the scene.]
Nathan then offers the loan of his own accord; Saladin accepts with shamefaced reluctance; later a long-expected tribute replenishes Saladin’s coffers, evidently obviating the need for the loan, which is forgotten amid the happy resolution of an elaborate subplot. But note again that the power relations are still there, in the guise of a contest of magnanimity which the Jew must win in order to keep in Saladin’s – and the audience’s – good graces.

The aforesaid elaborate subplot serves to fill out five acts and also to involve some Christian characters. To cut as straight a path as possible through the labyrinth: Saladin ordinarily executes any Templar who falls into his hands. But he has pardoned one Templar who reminded him of a much-loved deceased brother. This Templar, though he dislikes Jews, nonetheless rescues Nathan’s adopted daughter Recha from a fire. In a meeting with Nathan, he at first expresses Christian prejudice but then yields to the appeal of Nathan’s noble nature. The knowledge that Saladin has pardoned Recha’s rescuer supplies a second, nonpecuniary motive for Nathan’s meeting with Saladin. The Templar falls in love with Recha and asks Nathan for her hand, but Nathan puts him off, wishing first to investigate the Templar’s parentage, for which he is then provided with the necessary clues. In the final scene, Nathan reveals to Saladin, his sister Sittah, the Templar, and Recha that the Templar and Recha are brother and sister, born to Saladin’s late brother and a Christian lady. Thus the wedding is off, but in its place we are offered the hugs and kisses of an interfaith family reunion: “During the silent continuance of reciprocal embraces the curtain falls.”

It would not easy to play Nathan der Weise straight these days. Its style, elegant and elevated, presumes an audience prepared to believe the best about humanity and to participate in outpourings of noble and generous sentiment. That was the period. Nathan der Weise is the verbal equivalent of, say, a symphony by Haydn. We can still listen to the music without embarrassment; words, however, cannot help reminding us of things. The reader no longer caught up in Enlightenment enthusiasm cannot but notice how much Nathan had to give up in order to “deserve” the tolerance Lessing sought to obtain for him. Nathan clinches his victory in the magnanimity contest by relating, to the messenger who once brought him the infant Recha, how her arrival had reconciled him to God and man after the Christians had murdered his wife and seven sons. In a previous scene we were told that Nathan has not reared Recha to be a Jew but has given her only “the mere knowledge/ Of what our reason teaches about God.” It would not have served Lessing’s purpose to mention (if he knew it) that the Torah would have encouraged Nathan to marry again and raise a second family to carry on the lineage and faith of Israel. To portray the "ideal" Jew as one who has foregone all attempts to perpetuate either his lineage or his faith, is to offer tolerance on condition of extinction.

It is also tolerance on condition of dissociation. In the reconciliation scene with the Templar, the Templar begins as a Christian bigot; but when Nathan expounds his live-and-let-live philosophy, the Templar switches gears. Now he is an indignant universalist, railing against the nation that “first began to strike at fellow men” (the Jews invented warfare?), that “first baptized itself the chosen people” and “bequeathed” its pride to Christian and Muslim. His own eyes have been opened by the strife he has witnessed “here” – in the Holy Land. Nathan must (under Friedrich as under Saladin) forbear to mention to whom, in the script which both Christianity and Islam have pirated, the Creator granted that land. Nor may he object to Israel’s being blamed for the misdeeds of the plagiarists. Instead, Nathan magnanimously responds:

We must, we will be friends. Despise my nation -
We did not choose a nation for ourselves.
Are we our nations? What's a nation then?
Were Jews and Christians such, e'er they were men?
And have I found in thee one more, to whom
It is enough to be a man (Mensch)?

At last the Templar is won over, and this exchange too concludes with a handclasp. Nathan, in the name of humanity, has cut himself off from his people. He is to be found only in the singular; no other Jews come onstage, though there are three Muslims and four Christians. Nor may he favor his own; Al-Hafi praises him by saying that he gives “as freely,/ As silently, as nobly, to Jew, Christian,/Mahometan, or Parsee–'tis all one.” Again it would not have been politic to mention that while the Torah does enjoin benevolence toward all, there is also a scale of priorities that enjoins one to provide first for one’s own needs, then for those of one’s family, and so on in widening circles. Without that scale, the Jewish nation would not have survived.

But, of course, the survival of nations interested the Enlightenment not at all. All humans were to become brothers, in a global surge of magnanimity. This was specifically the ideal of the Masonic order to which Lessing belonged, as did Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and many other Enlightenment figures. The Freemasons’ Book of Constitutions obliged masons only to “that Religion in which all men agree, leaving their particular Opinions to themselves.”4 In Nathan der Weise one can literally see Lessing’s imagination literally reaching around the globe, as Al-Hafi sets off to learn from the “barefoot sages” on the banks of the Ganges. Freemasonry, which originated in Scotland, hoped to defuse the religious conflicts that had torn Europe apart by postulating a religion in which “all men agree”; but it is doubtful that its founders were personally acquainted with anyone whose ancestors had not learned the Ten Commandments.

In some respects, Nathan der Weise does represent the Jewish ideal fairly. Among the other characters Nathan stands out as moderate, deliberate in judgment and consistently benevolent. In contrast to Saladin, who bankrupts himself by grand gestures of generosity, Nathan gives prudently so that he may keep on giving. In contrast to the dervish Al-Hafi, Nathan while undoubtedly “spiritual” does not seriously consider throwing up his worldly responsibilities. In contrast to the Templar, he waits to get a clear picture of the situation before acting. In the end he is acclaimed as the wise teacher and father by all onstage.

But in all this, Nathan never refers to the Torah, nor is he ever shown engaging in any specific Jewish practices. A very careless reader could get the impression that Nathan is the embodiment of Enlightenment reason, and wonder why Lessing saw fit to make him a Jew. But of course the character which Lessing does partially succeed in depicting is not the fruit of reason alone. It results rather from a practical discipline, from the observance and study of the mitsvot, by no means all of them rationally explainable, which govern every area of Jewish life. It is these mitsvot that mark Israel as the holy people, the one nation without which the world cannot continue. Rationalism did not, and still does not, recognize the importance of the unique – the possibility that, just as life apparently originated only once in the universe, so the giving of the Torah and the choice of Israel may represent a unique chance for humanity.

There is, of course, a Jewish universalism – the Noachide covenant, based on the commandments given to Noach after the flood. During the Second Temple period many people actually declared themselves Noachides, till this phenomenon was suppressed by Christian persecution. In the Enlightenment period the Noachide covenant was, if fleetingly, remembered. The Freemasons made some use of this concept.5 And Moses Mendelssohn, in Jerusalem; a Treatise on Ecclesiastical Authority and Judaism, proposed to regard Christians as Noachides.6 But as Judaism understands it, the Noachide covenant reserves, at the center of a universal faith, a place for the Chosen People. This the Enlightenment could not absorb.

The Christian and Muslim characters seem designed to support the position that good people are to be found everywhere. Actually the Christian figures are shown in the least favorable light. Daya, Recha’s Christian nurse, is bigoted and superstitious; the Templar is also bigoted at first; the Patriarch is a cruel fanatic; the Friar though good is bound in mistaken obedience to the evil Patriarch. In the conflict with the Muslims as portrayed by Sittah, the Christians are the intransigeant ones: “'Tis this people's pride/ Not to be men, but to be Christians.” (Of course, in a work set in medieval Jerusalem, there is no need to refer to later events, such as the siege of Vienna in 1683.)

The Christian characters represented the community with which Lessing was polemicizing, the congregation he hoped to move to repentance, and certainly not to fortify in any sort of prejudice. This doubtless led him to portray the Muslim characters somewhat euphemistically. The first Muslim who comes on the scene, Al-Hafi, is Nathan’s friend and chess-partner and shares his ideal of the universal Mensch. With Saladin, on the other hand; the positive image has a shadow-side which is never fully turned toward us, but which is never entirely out of sight either, until the final hug-fest which is supposed to sweep away all reservations. It is striking how much credit Saladin gets for not killing the Templar. Moreover, his allegiance to the rules of the game is tenuous. In his chess game with Sittah he cheats in order to give her the victory, and when Al-Hafi points out how he can still win, he overturns the board. From a generous motive, yes. Al-Hafi has been persuaded to become Saladin’s treasurer in the hopes of assisting him in acts of generosity, only to become disillusioned: “What! and is't not cheating,/ Thus to oppress mankind by hundred thousands,/ To squeeze, grind, plunder, butcher, and torment,/ And act philanthropy to individuals?” Saladin’s generosity is in large part vanity. Behind his charm is bloodthirstiness; Al-Hafi takes it for granted that he could be impaled or beheaded, and his resignation of the treasurer post may necessitate his departure for India. Sittah is little more than a foil to Saladin, an affectionate sister, none too scrupulous. But it is precisely she who sounds one of the most screeching cognitive dissonances in all literature. Sittah says to Saladin:

Come awhile with me
Into my harem: I have bought a songstress,
You have not heard her, she came yesterday

Leaving aside the matter of slavery (again, Saladin’s and Sittah’s amiability plays against the background of their barbarism): if a woman ever kept a “harem” in a Muslim country, this may be the first and last mention of the matter. In other plays Lessing showed much sympathy with women, and the true position of women in Islamic society would presumably not have sat well with him. But to acknowledge it here would have derailed his project of tolerance. We see now that the whole affectionate and equal exchange between Saladin and Sittah was set up to keep our minds off this reality.

It seems that “tolerance” cannot always refrain from “editing” the to-be-tolerated, refashioning them into what it can live with. Thus it may fail to recognize what needs recognition, and to reckon with what will have to be reckoned with.

Evidently, Lessing earnestly desired the reconciliation of all peoples, and was impressed by the Jewish people in particular. He seems to have sensed that only the Jewish approach held the key to reconciliation and peace. But….One could imagine the Spirit of Quick Solutions whispering in his ear that to confront everyone with their past crimes and present failings – worse yet perhaps, with the necessity of recognizing the superiority of Israel and the Torah – would bring the work of getting everyone together to a grinding halt. To get past this difficulty, a great of surge of magnanimity had to be invoked that would lift everyone over all divisions. Only: if such a surge of magnanimity were real, wouldn’t it make it possible for everyone to confront their past crimes and present failings, and to rejoice in the greater merits of others? Again, we note a failure of reason, which thus shows itself insufficient as a source of human strength. Again, it was not reason that sustained the Jewish people through centuries of intimidation, but the faith expressed in Psalms, a faith anchored in Israel’s particularity. Failure to respect that particularity abets a cultural process that could end in the extinction of reason itself, through deference to the aggressor, through a culture of intimidation that shuts down thought, objective perception, creativity, and hope. Lessing’s shockingly absurd reference to Sittah’s “harem” was an early warning sign. From here we can see down the road to that ideology of “peace” which casts Israel’s existence as the problem.

That road: to what extent it was paved by the influence of Nathan der Weise can never be exactly assessed. But that influence was certainly considerable. The “reciprocal embraces” of the finale continue in Schiller’s “Ode to Joy” (“All humans become brothers…Be embraced, millions,/ This kiss for the whole world!”), written in 1785. On the wings of Beethoven’s music, this poem did indeed circle the globe, still sounding in many places where the name of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing is forgotten.

Most deeply affected by Nathan der Weise were the Western European Jews who, with its encouragement, gravitated toward assimilation and, often, conversion. The model for Nathan, Moses Mendelssohn, remained Orthodox in practice and had six children; but after his death all his children converted to Christianity. Tolerance and brotherhood were watchwords among assimilating Jewry, to judge from Heine’s poem “To Edom”: “You, you tolerate my breathing,/ while I tolerate your raving.// Only sometimes, in dark times,/ you were in a curious mood/ and your pious, loving paws/ you dyed with my blood.” Heine knew that that “curious mood” could return. Saddest of all, many assimilating Jews, having signed the contract of tolerance, contracted the Christian prejudice against those Jews who still clung to their ancestral peculiarities. In European society as a whole, resistance to universalism soon became manifest. The religious sectarianism which Lessing and his fellow-Masons hoped to dispel, was replaced by a secular nationalism which showed itself quite as belligerent. The secular Jews who had disclaimed their particularity and subscribed to the ideology of humanity, now saw themselves branded as “rootless cosmopolitans.”

Even after the final tragedy in Europe, the work of Paul Celan testifies to the persistence of Lessing’s vision. True, Celan’s style is very different from that of the Enlightenment. But the dream of a world-embracing spiritual union lives on in “The Meridian” and in The No-One’s Rose, where the word Mensch sometimes has much the same ring that Lessing gave it. And the speaker of “Before a Candle” pronounces on a figure who seems to personify his remaining hopes, the following “blessing”:

In the name of the Three
who feud with each other until
the sky plunges down into the grave of the feelings,
in the name of the Three, whose rings
shine on my finger […]
in the name of the first of the Three
who cried out
when he had to live where his word had been before him,
in the name of the second, who looked on and wept,
in the name of the third, who heaps up
white stones in the middle7

This is nothing other than a remake of the “ring parable.” Like Lessing, Celan evidently counts on a settling of religious feuds in the light of their effects on human life (“the sky plunges down into the grave of the feelings”). The first of the Three is Judaism, whose adherents had to live among nations that held faiths derived from, but antagonistic to, the Torah. The second is Christianity, which “looked on and wept” at deeds inconsistent with its founder’s preachment of love. The third, however, is not Islam. It is the poet, the exponent of human feelings, who is piling up white stones in a no-man’s land between two religions. The year was 1953, and the Islamic resurgence was still below the horizon. Perhaps Islam – or some other embodiment of totalitarian coerciveness – does come in at the poem’s end, in the guise of “the “Amen which drowns out our voices” and, edged by an “icy light,” “steps towering into the sea” – a nightmare vision against which perhaps only a final protest is possible

Such a conclusion to European and world history could not be warded off by an ideology of tolerance that rejected distinctions and that had an inbuilt animus against the particularity of Israel. Celan himself never gave up his Jewish identity, and in his last years, with such poems as “Just Think” and “The Poles,” his sense of Israel’s centrality gained a clearer voice.8 But in the end, perhaps weighed down by the European culture to which he was so deeply committed, he did not heed the call of Israel’s God: “Seek ye Me and live.” (Amos 5:4)

If this history holds some lessons for the present, perhaps it may suggests some reservations to the much-cherished belief that “to fight injustice to one group of human beings affords protection to every other group,” as Ben Hecht put it.9 If Israel’s particularity is what must first be recognized, then there is danger in pleading every cause but Israel’s own

But one should not conclude without at least pointing to some more positive tendencies which may have emanated from Nathan der Weise, or which at least indicate the direction in which a correction of its course could lead us. Nathan der Weise must, after all, have moved some Westerners to regard Jews in a more friendly light; and some Westerners, in the course of the nineteenth century, did look deeper into Jewish particularity. One reader of Lessing’s works was George Eliot, whose novel Daniel Deronda gave encouragement to the nascent Zionist movement.10 Early in the twentieth century the hope of an Israel-friendly universal culture was, at least briefly, in the air; and surely this was part of the background for HaRav Avraham Yitzchak Kook. In Orot Rav Kook warns that a universalism not based in a strong consciousness of Israel’s mission is to be avoided “like an ox that has been known to gore.”11 Yet at this same time he envisions not only a revived Jewish state but also a great circle of world culture with Israel as its center.12 And today there are again individuals, even congregations, who declare themselves as Noachides. There may yet be hope of rewriting the contract between Israel and the nations, and of laying a better foundation for world peace.13 Only if these things are possible, will the street of Nathan the Wise be other than a dead end.

                                  

NOTES

1. “The Three-Ring Parable: Tales of Aarne-Thompson Type 972,” edited by D.I. Ashliman, 1999, www.pitt.edu/~dash/type0972.html.
2. Ibid.
3. Quotations from Nathan der Weise are taken from Nathan the Wise, A Dramatic Poem in Five Acts, translated by William Taylor of Norwich. This translation, first published in 1830, is posted at www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext03/natws10.txt.
4. From the first article, “Of GOD and RELIGION “ 1769 edition of Anderson’s Book of Constitutions, www.phoenixmasonry.org/masonicmuseum/1769_andersons_constitutions.htm
5. See James Anderson, Anderson’s Constitutions of 1738, Kessinger, 2004, p. 4.
6. Moses Mendelssohn, Jerusalem; a Treatise on Judaism and Ecclesiastical Authority, translated by M. Samuels, London: Longman, Orme, Brown and Longmans, 1838, p. 212
7. Gesammelte Werke, vol. I, Frankfurt, Suhrkamp, 1983, pp. 110-111. Translation mine. For a full translation of the poem see Selected Poems and Prose of Paul Celan, translated by John Felstiner, Norton, 2001, pp. 61-63.
8. Celan, Selected Poems and Prose, pp. 306, 362.
9. Quoted in Rafael Medoff, “A Jewish Refugee Ship that Changed History,” Midstream, Vol. LIV No. 6 (November-December 2008), p. 12.
10. See Paul Johnson, “Behind Te (sic) Balfour Declaration,” New York Times, November 14, 2008.
11. Orot, Hotsaat Meavnei HaMakom, 5764, p. 339.
12. Ibid., p. 326.
13. I am thinking here of an article shown to me some years ago by Rabbi Dr. Zvi Faier, which argued that acknowledgment of Israel’s right to its land would be the true foundation of world peace.

Jewish professor of Christianity noahidises Christians


SIGN THE PETITION 

Many Jews and Jewish organizations such as The Center for Jewish-Christain Understanding & Cooperation (CJCUC) are taking the liberty of speaking for Christians by telling them that their religion is Noahidism (here) and that Paul demanded non-Jews follow the Noahide code (here). According to his Wikipedia page "David Flusser (Hebrew: דוד פלוסר; born 1917; died 2000) was an Israeli professor of Early Christianity and Judaism of the Second Temple Period at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem." Flusser has also said the early Christians were Noahides, so we can see how this deception is being perpetrated upon Christian even by academia, which also includes the University of South Africa which was affiliated with a paper that said Apostle James promoted Noahide Law (here).

V The Law 

The first adherents to the new faith among the Gentiles were recruited from among non-Jews who were already close to Judaism. These were the “Godfearers”,16 who accepted certain basic Jewish obligations, at least the so-called Noachide precepts; I hope to show elsewhere that the western text of Acts 15:29, giving the decree of the Apostles, is the original one. According to this, idolatry, shedding of blood, and grave sexual sins were forbidden to Gentile believers. These were originally the Noachide precepts accepted also by the Synagogue on which the Gentiles were obliged.17 It is logical that the Apostolic Church of Jerusalem should accept the view of the Synagogue on the conditions which Gentiles needed to fulfill in order to be saved. It can easily be shown that, according to Jewish opinion, the fulfilment of other commandments of Judaism was not prohibited to Gentiles. On the contrary, the Noachide precepts were only seen as the minimal condition for Gentiles to be recognized as God-fearers. They were so understood by the God-fearers themselves, who were attracted to the Jewish way of life and accepted many Jewish commandments without becoming full proselytes. This was also the attitude of Christian God-fearers, as may be seen from the Epistle to the Galatians;18 many of them wished to observe as many Jewish precepts as they could. It is evident that, while the leadership of the Mother Church decided to lay no burden upon the Gentile believers beyond the Noachide precepts (Acts 10:28-29; see Gal. 2:6), it did not object to their voluntarily observing more. Among the figures of the primitive Church who instructed Gentile Christians to observe more precepts than these essential ones was Peter, as we know from Paul’s criticism of him for demanding that Gentiles live like Jews (Gal. 2:14). Rather than interpreting the apostolic decree as a minimum, Paul evidently saw in the Noachide precepts the maximal obligations of Gentile Christians,19 even if he always strongly recommended a sympathetic understanding of individual Christians who observed personal restrictions. But at the same time, speaking about the incident with Peter at Antioch, he says (Gal. 2:15-21), among other things, that “no man is ever justified by doing what the law demands, but only through faith in Christ Jesus: so we too have put our faith in Jesus Christ, in order that we might be justified through this faith, and not through deeds dictated by law; for by such deeds, Scripture says, no mortal man shall be justified... If righteousness comes by law, than Christ died for nothing.” If this was what Paul thought about the Jewish way of life and of worship, we can easily understand why he did not accept the view that Gentile Christians should or could accept Jewish ritual obligations.

SOURCE: David Flusser. "THE JEWISH CHRISTIAN SCHISM (PART I)". NEW TESTAMENT AND FIRST CENTURIES JUDAISM. Retrieved 08/12/2020 from: http://www.etrfi.info/immanuel/16/Immanuel_16_032.pdf