Any translation, and it's very clear Jesus says they're not Jews. KJV, "which say they are Jews, and are not". He wasn't referring to first-century Jews but to first-century Gentiles. Now people can insult any group they want with that epithet, but it wasn't what Jesus meant, as my link showed exactly the group of people he was referring to; one of them may have been the then-pagan Onkelos.
People-groups determine for themselves who is genealogically continuous with them, not outsiders. You wouldn't want a group of foreigners to decide who is and isn't American, and to say that we say we are Americans and are not, would you? There is continuous existence of the Jewish people, with some having genealogies that go all the way back, and the intermarriage of any group of converts does not make the Jewish people lose title to the name "Jew".
Jesus hints at seven works of satan in the link, among Jew and Gentile, and we are not to ignore any of them or to focus on any one race in realizing the enemy's work; that would be to ignore much of the rest of his work. Of course to the degree anyone is doing the work of the synagogue of satan in Jesus's judgment, that is deceit and lies and connects with murder; but since Jesus says they're not Jews then we don't get to say (as you do in this comment) they are Jews. Even if you meant "his synagogue (alleged Jews)" instead, the problem is that the Golden Rule prohibits us from saying those accepted as Jews by Jews are Jews, and there has been no church finding that they are not Jews.
So whatever tradition brought you to infer things like assuming that all Jews are to be called the synagogue of satan just because Jews have synagogues, even when Jesus was actually referring to a Gentile institution (proven by Ignatius) that he called a synagogue, it doesn't agree with the Bible. Romans 11 says that all Israel will be saved, meaning the vast majority of Jews will someday become Christians (in Hebrew, "Messianics") and accept Jesus as Lord just as they first did in Jesus's time. It's been estimated that there were a million Messianic Jews in that century (Acts 21:20 mentions many myriads, at least 30,000), and that there are again a million Messianic Jews today. These people don't get to be told "you're not Jews you're Christians", nor "you're not Christians you're Jews"; they are our brothers. The other millions, the Rabbinical Jews, should be evangelized. For instance, the Catholic Church has a vicariate of the LPJ that allows Jews who believe in Jesus to continue Jewish traditions like Passover while worshipping as full Roman Catholics. The fact that many Jews (and Gentiles) are satanists does not dissuade us from evangelizing any group. Thank you for understanding.
Which religious group do you belong to? Do you consider yourself to be judeo-christian, catholic, lutheran, or something else?
Ignatius is not mentioned in the Bible, and his writings, assuming they were real, were not included in the canonical Bible for a reason. To use his writings to try to come to conclusions from canon is unorthodox and some would consider it to be sacrilegious. Out of curiosity, do you consider the Apocryphal writings to be at the same level as the directly-inspired words of God of the 66 canonical books?
I find that today’s events make it clear and solidify that God is speaking of self-proclaimed jews when describing the Synagouge of Satan in Revelations as-written without needing external, peripheral writings that may or may not be applicable to the Holy Word of God. There’s simply too many coincidences for Christians to turn a blind eye to the jew-ish problem (and how they treat Christians and goyim) and it’s further supported by the aforementioned verses.
Thank you for asking! I'm a Jesus-is-Lord Christian, in a Reformed church and also regular in the Hebrew-roots community (not the legalistic one, the covenantal one). I also got confirmed Lutheran, get along well in Catholic churches, and claim all the spiritual rights of the New Israel, and claim just about any other title in Christianity. I'm a solid 66-book Bible guy.
To use history to come to contextual conclusions about the Bible is straightforward, such as to use the Herods and Caesars to date Paul's journeys. Because I'm in covenant with all believers, Ignatius the martyr is my friend and I believe God preserved his words to the same churches Jesus wrote to, where Ignatius was firsthand 12 years later. Ignatius, companion of John, is believed in history to have been one of the children Jesus blessed. I prayed for decades to learn the history of those churches where Jesus called out individuals and practices, and then I was blessed to realize the church always had the history and didn't tell me. (Obviously the deuterocanon apocrypha are not held by anyone to the same level as the 66 books, though they have human inspiration and are valued by many, and the patristics and other histories are treated as ordinary historical documents.)
Yes, before I discovered the history, I inferred grammaticohistorically that Jesus was indeed talking about (then-extant) "self-proclaimed [J]ews when describing the" synagogue of satan. (Your caps are funny.) Yes, there's secondary application if we find people whom we know are not Jews by the same high standard of knowledge as if Jesus said so. Jesus never said we get to deny the continuing Jewish community the right of being Jews, only two small groups of Gentiles (where we learn details of their infiltration from Ignatius). So the question goes to how we would get the right to tell a group externally that their self-designation is false, if we don't accord them the same external right to overrule our self-designation as Americans. That's not how nations work.
The fact that many Jews and many Gentiles are satanists is indeed the problem, but you are focused only on the Jewish side of it and ignoring the full work of the enemy (some people cherry-pick Jews and then call all outliers shabbos goyim, which is special pleading). I gave the grammaticohistorical reasons that Jesus is calling out seven works of satan, not just one. You add the althist idea that a continuous population that absorbs another one can be declared broken and replaced rather than identical, but that's not how any merger works in Bible, history, or law.
Paul says all Israel will be saved, the Jews will persevere until the vast majority of them turn to Jesus. Catholics and Protestants have finally learned how to start giving Jews the good news of Jesus and there's a Messianic Jewish explosion. And part of seeing them saved is removing stumbling blocks, such as our removing the right of self-identification, our treating the race monolithically, or our blaming most all satanic works on Jews. He uses them as human shields!
Any translation, and it's very clear Jesus says they're not Jews. KJV, "which say they are Jews, and are not". He wasn't referring to first-century Jews but to first-century Gentiles. Now people can insult any group they want with that epithet, but it wasn't what Jesus meant, as my link showed exactly the group of people he was referring to; one of them may have been the then-pagan Onkelos.
People-groups determine for themselves who is genealogically continuous with them, not outsiders. You wouldn't want a group of foreigners to decide who is and isn't American, and to say that we say we are Americans and are not, would you? There is continuous existence of the Jewish people, with some having genealogies that go all the way back, and the intermarriage of any group of converts does not make the Jewish people lose title to the name "Jew".
Jesus hints at seven works of satan in the link, among Jew and Gentile, and we are not to ignore any of them or to focus on any one race in realizing the enemy's work; that would be to ignore much of the rest of his work. Of course to the degree anyone is doing the work of the synagogue of satan in Jesus's judgment, that is deceit and lies and connects with murder; but since Jesus says they're not Jews then we don't get to say (as you do in this comment) they are Jews. Even if you meant "his synagogue (alleged Jews)" instead, the problem is that the Golden Rule prohibits us from saying those accepted as Jews by Jews are Jews, and there has been no church finding that they are not Jews.
So whatever tradition brought you to infer things like assuming that all Jews are to be called the synagogue of satan just because Jews have synagogues, even when Jesus was actually referring to a Gentile institution (proven by Ignatius) that he called a synagogue, it doesn't agree with the Bible. Romans 11 says that all Israel will be saved, meaning the vast majority of Jews will someday become Christians (in Hebrew, "Messianics") and accept Jesus as Lord just as they first did in Jesus's time. It's been estimated that there were a million Messianic Jews in that century (Acts 21:20 mentions many myriads, at least 30,000), and that there are again a million Messianic Jews today. These people don't get to be told "you're not Jews you're Christians", nor "you're not Christians you're Jews"; they are our brothers. The other millions, the Rabbinical Jews, should be evangelized. For instance, the Catholic Church has a vicariate of the LPJ that allows Jews who believe in Jesus to continue Jewish traditions like Passover while worshipping as full Roman Catholics. The fact that many Jews (and Gentiles) are satanists does not dissuade us from evangelizing any group. Thank you for understanding.
Which religious group do you belong to? Do you consider yourself to be judeo-christian, catholic, lutheran, or something else?
Ignatius is not mentioned in the Bible, and his writings, assuming they were real, were not included in the canonical Bible for a reason. To use his writings to try to come to conclusions from canon is unorthodox and some would consider it to be sacrilegious. Out of curiosity, do you consider the Apocryphal writings to be at the same level as the directly-inspired words of God of the 66 canonical books?
I find that today’s events make it clear and solidify that God is speaking of self-proclaimed jews when describing the Synagouge of Satan in Revelations as-written without needing external, peripheral writings that may or may not be applicable to the Holy Word of God. There’s simply too many coincidences for Christians to turn a blind eye to the jew-ish problem (and how they treat Christians and goyim) and it’s further supported by the aforementioned verses.
Thank you for asking! I'm a Jesus-is-Lord Christian, in a Reformed church and also regular in the Hebrew-roots community (not the legalistic one, the covenantal one). I also got confirmed Lutheran, get along well in Catholic churches, and claim all the spiritual rights of the New Israel, and claim just about any other title in Christianity. I'm a solid 66-book Bible guy.
To use history to come to contextual conclusions about the Bible is straightforward, such as to use the Herods and Caesars to date Paul's journeys. Because I'm in covenant with all believers, Ignatius the martyr is my friend and I believe God preserved his words to the same churches Jesus wrote to, where Ignatius was firsthand 12 years later. Ignatius, companion of John, is believed in history to have been one of the children Jesus blessed. I prayed for decades to learn the history of those churches where Jesus called out individuals and practices, and then I was blessed to realize the church always had the history and didn't tell me. (Obviously the deuterocanon apocrypha are not held by anyone to the same level as the 66 books, though they have human inspiration and are valued by many, and the patristics and other histories are treated as ordinary historical documents.)
Yes, before I discovered the history, I inferred grammaticohistorically that Jesus was indeed talking about (then-extant) "self-proclaimed [J]ews when describing the" synagogue of satan. (Your caps are funny.) Yes, there's secondary application if we find people whom we know are not Jews by the same high standard of knowledge as if Jesus said so. Jesus never said we get to deny the continuing Jewish community the right of being Jews, only two small groups of Gentiles (where we learn details of their infiltration from Ignatius). So the question goes to how we would get the right to tell a group externally that their self-designation is false, if we don't accord them the same external right to overrule our self-designation as Americans. That's not how nations work.
The fact that many Jews and many Gentiles are satanists is indeed the problem, but you are focused only on the Jewish side of it and ignoring the full work of the enemy (some people cherry-pick Jews and then call all outliers shabbos goyim, which is special pleading). I gave the grammaticohistorical reasons that Jesus is calling out seven works of satan, not just one. You add the althist idea that a continuous population that absorbs another one can be declared broken and replaced rather than identical, but that's not how any merger works in Bible, history, or law.
Paul says all Israel will be saved, the Jews will persevere until the vast majority of them turn to Jesus. Catholics and Protestants have finally learned how to start giving Jews the good news of Jesus and there's a Messianic Jewish explosion. And part of seeing them saved is removing stumbling blocks, such as our removing the right of self-identification, our treating the race monolithically, or our blaming most all satanic works on Jews. He uses them as human shields!