I need to know. Anyone, please provide me with a definition.
You're viewing a single comment thread. View all comments, or full comment thread.
Comments (13)
sorted by:
The main problem stems from the fact that the word Jew/Judaism has multiple meanings, but most people don’t realize this. This confusion was brought about intentionally. The word Jew was invented a couple centuries ago in English translations of the Bible as a shortened form of the word Judean. This refers to the province of Judea, which at the time of the New Testament was a multi-racial, multicultural area, whose capital city was Jerusalem, which was controlled by the Pharisees. Jesus and most of His disciples did not come from Judea–they came from Galilee–and therefore were not Jews by the Biblical definition. Judea was originally inhabited by the Israeli tribe of Judah, but by this point was quite mixed. Whereas Galilee was inhabited only by the Israeli tribe of Benjamin. The only disciple that was a Jew was Judas, who betrayed Jesus.
The Pharisees were the evil Talmudists who Jesus opposed, and who ultimately got Jesus killed for daring to disagree with them. Later, Jerusalem was destroyed, and some Pharisees survived and became rootless nomads. Along the way they mixed with more people who converted to Talmudism. Then, after the invention of the English word Jew, the Talmudists started calling themselves Jews, and renamed their religion Judaism. They started claiming that they’re the people who lived in ancient Israel, and that they’re the “chosen people” spoken of in the Bible. In reality, their religion completely contradicts the Old Testament–even the Torah–and they know it, but they’ll never admit it. They brought about such a deliberate conflation and confusion of the word Jew that today people now use a definition of Jew that is expanded to include everyone in ancient Israel when that’s not at all what Jew meant originally. They also like to conflate Judaism with Hebrewism, but the religion of the Pharisees (Talmudism) only began after they returned from captivity in Babylon, and the Old Testament religion of the Hebrew people before that was quite different. Today, only a tiny minority of people who call themselves “Jews” don’t follow the Talmud.
The modern confusion comes from the fact that most people–even most Christians–don’t realize this linguistic and historical deception. This is especially true of the English-speaking world (Protestants, foremost), due to modern, bastardized, heretical translations of the Bible, plus a divorce from the true traditions of the original Christian church. They’ve totally forgotten how the Jews persecuted Christians endlessly before Christians eventually gained power through the Roman Empire and started dishing it right back to them. Just like a nation becomes ruined when it forgets its own history, the same is true of a religion. In fact, the same arguments used to claim that Christianity is inherently weak because it has now been subverted can be used to say that Western nations are inherently weak because they have been subverted, or that white people are inherently weak because a genocide is being committed upon them thanks to their altruism. It’s just not a good argument at all.
The reason I asked the question was to get someone else to give this exact answer which I am aware of but becuase I am not popular I would be discredited for if i provided it.
The term "Jew" can be used in an ambivalent way as it fits cicumstances.
So any time I interact outside this forum I always ask the question "tell me what you mean by Jew or Jews"...
Exactly. The linguistic confusion is on purpose. You can’t hold any discussion if you don’t even share definitions between speakers.