theduchess666 asked: How does a Christian hate the race their messiah came from lol
Jesus was Syrian, not a Jew.
And I said fire…to the site…Watch it burn because… Nothing is right….
In what universe was Jesus a Syrian? Good grief…
….Jesus was a Rabbi, how was he NOT Jewish?
He was “the king of the Jews”….wtf
People are idiots.
dude was born IN BETHLEHEM
I was born on a ship in the sea, doesn’t make me a fish!
Well fish aren’t usually born on ships….
HOLY HELL I AM THE CRY. HELLO KIND PEOPLE WHO HAVE PROTESTED THE IDIOCY ABOVE, PLEASE ALLOW ME TO DO A LITTLE RANT.
Okay. Hi. I am a Christian (please hold your tomatoes until the end of the post). My father is a minister (of the Congregationalist denomination if that means anything to you). My mother was raised Catholic (and she was pretty shitty at it to be honest, possibly because she is fabulously bisexual). I chose my religion myself at the age of seven, making an informed decision to convert from Judaism to Chrisitanity, and my family has always held tolerance and understanding of other religions as a capital priority (like, you wanna talk Hinduism or Taoism or Islam, hit me up, I know some stuff and I always like learning more stuff). But more pertinently, all three of us are extremely well educated in the Christian religion.
SO. ABOUT JESUS.
Point one: Syrian? The fuck? First of all, that has nothing to do with whether or not he was Jewish, technically Syrians were permitted to marry into Hebrew families even though it wasn’t frequent, just by sheer virtue of it being a big fucking planet even now that we have cars and trains and planes. Gotta bring in new blood, after all, or the inbreeding would have been scary shit. Scarier than it usually was in small, poorly traveled villages. ANYWAY. Jesus, son of Mary and Joseph, who was a descendant of the tree of Jesse (that’s King David’s father for anyone not up on their Biblical begats) as per Isaiah 11:1. That’s a very Hebrew bloodline on both sides, as Mary’s cousin was Elizabeth, a woman married to a powerful rabbi, Zachariah—they didn’t make Jews with less-than-stellar Hebraic bloodlines rabbis. And your spouse’s bloodline was considered as a part of yours. BUT THAT PART ASIDE. Joseph and Mary lived in Nazareth. Where is Nazareth, you ask? Well, currently, it’s the largest city in Northen Israel, but two thousand years ago it was sort of a backwater (‘Nathaniel said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”’ John 1:46); think of it, basically, as the Jersey of 30-ish BC Israel—now imagine getting told that the Messiah was born on the Jersey Shore. Here is the Wikipedia page for Nazareth. (Also it’s primarily Muslim, which I did not know but probably would have figured out if it wasn’t fuck-all-thirty in the morning, and is known as the Arab capital of Israel, which is pretty interesting). But Jesus wasn’t really born there, so…. True, he was born in Bethlehem, as anyone with any religious familiarity (or working ears around Christmas time) should be aware. Where is Bethlehem, the City of David (that’s still King David)? Well, actually, it’s in Palistine at the moment. But the thing about two thousand years is that it’s a long time for borders to move around and also, hey, when you’re under the thumb of the Roman Empire (what up, Herod, killed any sons lately?), little things like country borders get blurry. The thing is that it was considered an Israelite city at the time of Jesus’ birth (remember, folks, the Israelites were a wandering people long before they put their name on a country). Here is the Wikipedia page for Bethlehem. Okay? Can we at least agree that neither of these things were in Syria?
Point two: Jesus. Was. Jewish. Let’s have a brief tour through the New Testament to prove this point, and it will only be the most cursory wander because, as I mentioned above, it’s fuck-all-thirty in the morning and I have class in a few hours. There’s Luke 2:41-52 (x), more commonly known as the Finding in the Temple. Quick recap: Mary and Joseph (two Jews) brought li’l twelve-year-old Jesus to Jerusalem (a primarily Jewish city at the time) for the Passover (a major Jewish holiday) and the kid went missing, took them three days to find him because it’s a big fucking city and also because poetic license, turns out he’s been in the Temple (a Jewish temple) lecturing the teachers (Jewish rabbis) about Jewish law. Jesus is identified many, many times as ‘Teacher’ by both his disciples and by others—in fact, out of 90 times he’s addressed directly, 60 of them are with the title ‘teacher’—and the thing that doesn’t come across in the English is that, in the original Biblical Hebrew (what up, Dad, thanks for those lectures while you were in seminary), that translates to rabbi. As in. You know. A rabbi. They’re literally meant to be teachers, the word means teacher. I am not citing sources for all these occasions because there are too fucking many. The Last Supper (x), which you might be familiar with as the reason Maundy or Holy Thursday if you’re Christian, it’s the one with the whole breaking of the bread and pouring of the wine (the first Communion/Eucharist, this is my body, yadda yadda yadda, you know the shpiel), was a Passover Seder. It says so here, here, here, and here, if you feel the need for Scriptural support. AND. As someone so kindly mentioned above, I would like to point my final supporting argument at Matthew 27:37 (HERE in every translation ever). ”And above his head they placed his accusation: Here is Jesus, King of the Jews.” You may be familiar with this as ‘INRI’ in statues and paintings of the Crucifixion. Summary: Jesus was fucking Jewish. Jesus fucking Christ, people, no pun intended.
Point three: why do some Christians hate Jews? I don’t know. Having been on both sides of that exchange—I was Jewish until my decision to convert and I still carry many of the traditions close to my heart—I can tell you that it sucks from every angle. I’ve never understood it. When I was younger, it was largely because I saw the logical progression of ‘Jesus was Jewish, therefore Christians should honor and celebrate their culturally Jewish heritage even if they aren’t Jews themselves.’ I try to celebrate all of the High Holidays in at least some small manner, to remind myself and to keep the memory of the yenta who taught me (sadly now deceased; shalom, Eloise) alive—it’s Purim and I’m going to be subjecting my roommate Adler to some stories and songs and cookies. But also because of Luke 10:27 (x). You might be familiar with the last half of it. The gist is that Jesus tells a man, a teacher in the Temple, to abandon all the meticulous rules of the Torah for the simple rule of “love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.” To me, it has always seemed that someone who calls themselves a Christian should follow the only rule Jesus ever. Fucking. Laid. Down. (Looking at you, Westboro Baptist, looking right the fuck at you.) Jesus never says ‘slay the unbeliever’ or ‘do not lie with someone of the same gender’ or ‘do not have an abortion’ or any of that shit.
It’s literally “Don’t be a dickhead.”
That’s all.
(The tomato throwing can now commence.)
