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Entry: Mopping up the Israel Lobby Link: http://www.takimag.com/site/article/mopping_up_the_israel_lobby#9345 Post contents: 1. If anyone believes a few Jews and a few Romans guilty of Deicide, the only response if that such a view isn’t New Testamental. Luke 23: 34 “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” means "they" are not guilty of Deicide. They may well have been guilty of killing an innocent man, but not of Deicide. Thus Lindsey Wheeler is quite wrong, aside from taking Bible verses grossly out of co-text and context. And if a few Jews and a few Romans are not guilty of Deicide, then who the hell (so to speak) is? Are we to understand Good Friday as some sort of tragic, horrible, calamitous misunderstanding, as in the case of Oedipus? Such a view is also not New Testamental. I have identified the most likely suspect for the crime of Deicide: Satan. 2. If someone believes that a god intentionally killed his innocent divine son, then the rest of us, having some moral sensibility, would rightly ask, Why should such a god be worthy of any glory, laud, and honor? This view of “Penal Substitutional Atonement” is also not New Testamental. In the sentence, used often enough in the NT, “Christ died for us”, the preposition “for” is ambiguous in English. It is not ambiguous in the Koine Greek. The word is <i>hyper</i>, which NEVER means “instead of”, “in place of”, or “as a substitute for”. It always means “on behalf of”, “on account of” and “in the interests of”. Sometimes for “for” the NT uses <i>peri</i>, “concerning” or “about” and drifts in soteriological use to being largely synonymous with <i>hyper</i>. <i>dia</i> and <i>heneka</i> “because of” never occur in the NT in a soteriological meaning. See John McIntyre (a Scottish Presbyterian), <i>The Shape of Soteriology</i>, 1992, chapter 4. Also "atonement" is not a Biblical word. Yom Kippur means "the day of the removing [of blame, guilt]" 3. If someone believes that the event of Good Friday means that the religious leaders of tribe X killed the religious leader of tribe Y, and that thus tribe Y must forever hate tribe X, then I know of no Christian group who teach such, if for no other reason than nothing redemptive can be found in such a view. Nor is it New Testamental. Were a Christian group to so teach, they would rightly be accused of “Antisemitism”. But the charge of Goldhagen does not stick. And it certainly does not stick to the Catholic faith. Were some Catholic leader to have said such a thing, so much the worse for him. 4. If Peter Ramus rejects Deicide, then for the purpose of this discussion, he and I come out at the same place. 5. John Ball is correct, though he may not know it. Jews await the coming of the Messiah, the <i>Christos</i>. That makes them Christians. Paul beautiful reflection on the Jews and Christians in Romans, chapters 9-11 ought be everyone’s spiritual reading today. 6. I again beg Spartacus to cool it with respect to SSPX. We are in a delicate period of negotiation that obliges lowered voices and diplomatic language. The SSPX has a wonderful gift to give to the Church. Sent at: 2008 05 15