[Sandwich]

Originally posted by Singh
....The thing about taking any reference and particularly any statement from God in there is that it is way too easy to twist it's meaning to a particular situation and for one's own ends. I seriously doubt that those phrases have any comprehensible meaning today, since they are taken entirely out of context and age.

Comprehending them would require interpretation, which mostly means only the interpretation with the most appeal to the masses will 'survive' so to speak, but it might not necessarily be hte right one. but then the correct one might not be any of the minority groups either, since we are unable to think in the same way as the person who wrote down the information or read what he was trying to intent (again, its just an interpretation) rendering such information nearly useless.

All quite true. My only response would be that when in doubt, K.I.S.S.  Although there are some things we can be sure are an improvement in accuracy (see the King James' popular error in translating the "Thou shall not kill/murder" commandment), there are many others where, as you say, we simply lack the cultural and historical understanding to completely undestand the motives behind people's actions. This does not mean that we cannot glean anything out of such instances, however, it merely means that we should read as little as possible into them, and trust in God to help us with the rest.

At least, that's how I believe we should deal with things... most people - especially public figures in the church - probably aren't that careful to temper their interpretation of the Bible with the "we aren't the author" clause.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by redmenace
I am not sure quite what messiah they are waiting for.

No idea either but they've rejected Jesus as being him so obviously they're still waiting.

Originally posted by redmenace
What I mean is that the old testament prophecies were fullfilled, assuming the new testament account of Christ was correct. What I mean is, the jews rejected jesus because, partly because of the religous leaders, but also because they were looking for a warrior to defeat the Romans and restore Israel to its former glory etc.

From the point of view of a christian the prophecies were fullfilled. I'm not disputing that or why the Jews rejected Jesus as being their messiah. From the point of view of a Jew however they haven't been. Which means that they are still waiting for the prophesy to be fullfilled. So it looks like they're waiting for a prophet to lead them.

5:4  And he shall stand and feed in the strength of the LORD, in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God; and they shall abide: for now shall he be great unto the ends of the earth.
5:5 And this man shall be the peace, when the Assyrian shall come into our land: and when he shall tread in our palaces, then shall we raise against him seven shepherds, and eight principal men.
5:6 And they shall waste the land of Assyria with the sword, and the land of Nimrod in the entrances thereof: thus shall he deliver us from the Assyrian, when he cometh into our land, and when he treadeth within our borders.

Doesn't sound much like Jesus to me but christians can believe whatever you want. I'm talking about the Jews. They're still waiting for this guy to turn up.

Originally posted by redmenace
I am just wondering to my self, what do they expect from a Messiah in the modern era. That said, this all has nothing to do with the pull out of Gaza (however a very interesting conversation indeed).

Actually it does. My point was pretty simple. The Jews can't claim that the land of Israel is being given back to them by God until he sends them the messiah to throw the Assyrians out. Then and only then do they have proof that God wants them to have the land back. Till then it's just guesswork whether he wants them to have the land back or if he wants them to eventually be thrown out a second time and spend another thousand years without a homeland.

Originally posted by redmenace
But like I said before, this is not simply some people invading anothers country. The jews had lived in the area for 1000s of years before being removed in the diasperas.

So? The Palestinians have lived there for 1000s of years after the jews were removed in the dispora. Quite frankly I'd say they have the better claim. If you're going to use prior ownership as a claim you might as well all pack up the whole of America and give it back to the native americans. Surely they have an even better claim than the one the Jews have on Israel. They were there for 10s of thousands of years after all and were never actually kicked out of the country.
 Hell for that matter the Welsh could knock on my door and demand their country back too. If you start making claims on what happened  hundreds and thousands of years ago it ends up getting stupid. Quite frankly the Spanish have the best claim to Israel if you start doing that. They're partly the descendants of the carthaginians who are the desendants of the phoenicians who were the people the Jews turfed out to make their homeland in the first place.

Originally posted by redmenace
And to make things even more awefull, these settlers have to leave their lives, homes, businesses etc. And not only that, but people, some of which would like to see the entire Jewish race wiped out, not get to take your homes, your businesses, and left over property to be claimed as their own. Personally my heart goes out to those that are being evicted.

Their own stupid fault really. Who told them to go settle on stolen land? If they believed that God had given them land and would let them keep it forever (Despite the precidents in the bible) then they were fools.
 If they believed that politicians could be trusted (especially a wanker like Sharon) then again they are fools.

I said the first time that I heard of the settlements that these people were f**king idiots for settling in the middle of a potential warzone and that sooner or later the land would have to be given back to the palestinians. In fact pretty much the whole world said that.

I don't bother to feel sympathy for someone who is suffering the consequences of doing something incredibly stupid after being warned several times that it was incredibly stupid. They brought it on themselves plain and simple.

EDIT : Tell a lie. I feel sorry for the kids involved. They weren't responsible for their parents stupidity. That said if their parents weren't being such dicks about leaving the settlements this would be no more traumatic to them than moving house usually is.

[TrashMan]

One strange this I recall for the bible is that it sez Israel will be formed AFTER the Messiahs arrival.

Israel as a state was formed a long time ago. Doesn't that mean the messiah was allready here? Who are they waiting for then?

[Sandwich]

Don't ask me, you know what I believe.

Anyway, as usual, Joseph Farah cuts right to the point in his editorials:

[q]Who's victimizing whom in Mideast?

For a moment, just put aside all of your preconceived ideas about the Middle East.

The conventional wisdom of the U.S. State Department, the European Union, the United Nations, the international media and, of course, the Arab oil potentates suggests the root problem is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

It is suggested that Israel is not doing enough to help the poor, homeless Palestinian Arabs.

Read more...
[/q]

[q]Ariel Sharon's logic

In forcibly removing thousands of Jews from their homes and businesses in Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon came up with yet another justification for this illegal, immoral and strategically illogical move.

In a televised speech this week on the eve of the unilateral surrender of Jewish communities to terrorists, Sharon praised Gaza's settlers as "pioneers," but insisted that it is time for Israel to leave the area after 38 years.

"We cannot hold Gaza for good," he said. "More than a million Palestinians live there, doubling their numbers every generation."

Now that may sound like sensible pragmatism. Jews are outnumbered and the demographics are getting worse.

But, in reality, it makes no sense. It is nothing more than excuse-making for irresponsible, shortsighted and outrageous actions.

If this is strictly a numbers game, Israel ought to consider packing up and leaving the Middle East altogether right now. Because the fact of the matter is that Jews are vastly outnumbered in their neighborhood. Period. End of story. There are 300 million Arabs in the Middle East and fewer than 5 million Jews.

Read more...
[/q]

And out of curiosity, I used Google Earth to measure the distance between Gaza City, Gush Katif, and Ashkelon. The distance between Gaza City and Gush Katif is ~11.5 miles; the distance between Gaza City and Ashkelon is ~9 miles. Oh, and Gaza City to Jerusalem? ~47 miles.