Hello:
From your article in Christianity Today:
"It is not difficult to conclude that Jacobovici is sensationalising an archeological find for the sake of notoriety and financial gain." I disagree. Investigate Jacobovici's background: he is someone who has a great deal of chauvinism towards his own religion and ethnicity. While that is unremarkable in a general sense, when you consider that his religion and ethnicity are that of Orthodox Judaism, then it becomes clear. Contemporary Christians are unwilling to state this in public forums or polite company for fear of being labeled anti -Semites, but the truth is that Jews loathe the existence of Christianity, and Orthodox Jews even more so. The usual reasons given are their fears of persecution at the hands of Christians, but the truth is that the claims of Christianity: that Jesus Christ was the Jewish Messiah and God in the flesh and the Word portion of the God that exists eternally in Tri - Unity who died as a blood sacrifice for our sins so that we could be resurrected to eternal life with God - deeply offends them. It is not enough to say that they denied the story from day one, but they OPPOSED it; sending Jesus Christ and his followers to the Romans to be crucified. So of course modern Jews, the descendants of the Pharisees of the times of the New Testament (the Sadducees ceased to be with the destruction of the temple) are still doing all that they can to destroy a religion that they see not so much as false, but personally offensive. That is why Jewish groups have done all they can to promote and confer legitimacy on liberal and apostate "Christian" bodies who deny the deity of Christ, the literal interpretation of the Bible, and the inerrancy of scripture. It was only recently, when certain groups began to turn on Jews by calling on divestiture from Israel, that Jews began to point towards theologically conservative (but often doctrinally suspect!) evangelicals. The tactics are generally the same: they hold "interfaith dialogues" where first they demand that Jews not be targeted for conversion, then they point to areas of the New Testament that are "anti - Semitic", "hurtful", "have led to persecution in the past", or are "counterproductive" and suggest that they no longer be taught, or "should only be taught in their proper context." Then they introduce their "experts" ("Christian" in addition to Jewish) who are able to make an excellent cases that the things and events described in the gospels COULDN'T POSSIBLY have happened as depicted, because there are SO MANY logical errors, confused dates, and contradictions. And then they talk about how Hebrews and the apostolic letters are SO HARSH in their depiction and treatment of Jews, obviously done so in order to please the Romans and get them to convert so the persecution would cease, so PLEASE stop relying on those as well. Then Revelation, which states that Jews will accept Jesus as the Messiah one day - has to be discarded as well. Instead, we are told that Christians and Jews ARE BOTH AWAITING THE SAME MESSIAH! By the time that a pastor is done with these "interfaith exchanges", he either denies his entire religion or agrees to no longer preach and teach it. Which, of course, is fine with them. The fewer people going around claiming that Jesus Christ was the God in the flesh Messiah whom they rejected and sent to the Romans to be crucified only to have Him rise again and be accepted by the Gentiles instead, the less offense they have to endure. (The comments on this prominent Orthodox Jewish weblog that I read from time to time: they LOVED the Da Vinci Code, and took glee in the reports that Christians were abandoning their faith over it! Similar comments were expressed on the comment boards on the Jerusalem Post's website when reports of the movie's airing first came out: "hopefully the claims of this movie will be verified, and this false religion will finally die out!")
Interesting that in an article on the Jerusalem Post's website, Jacobovici DENIED that he was trying to destroy Christianity. Oh no, he claimed, he had much respect for Christians and their values, traditions, history, etc. He claimed that his movie would actually HELP CHRISTIANITY by "correcting thefalse impression that it is based on a deity, and that a stronger, better Christianity would emerge." Do we need any more evidence that such was his entire goal in making the movie? It had nothing to do with money; you don't make any money by putting your documentary on low profile basic cable. It was all about attempting to undermine Christianity. Jacobovici knows that the claims in the movie are unsupported (that is, unless in his zealotry he has convinced HIMSELF that they are true, which is possible but unlikely), but so long as he gives yet another line of ammunition so the people that deny the Bible can use not only in the media, but also in our very religion colleges and seminaries that train our pastors (where "The Da Vinci Code" and "The Gospel of Judas" were huge hits), then he will have accomplished his goal of striking a huge blow in the undermining of Christianity, maybe if not today definitely 20 from now when the second full generation of preachers will have been educated in religion schools, seminaries, and Bible colleges that now view the gnostic heresies as being more legitimate than the Bible, and where Bible deconstructionism is a far bigger field of interest than is apologetics. And this is not Jacobovici's first contribution in this area, either. "Secrets of the Ancient World: James, Brother of Jesus?" was another broadside.
Christians should not allegations of anti - Semitism, nor the rise of "Christian Zionists" like John Hagee (once an uncompromising Biblie literalist who after making political ties in the American and Israeli Jewish community has recently taken to publicly preaching that neither he nor his church will evangelize Jews, and that Jesus Christ was killed by the Romans because of his political beliefs) prevent them from seeing, publicly stating, and CONTENDING AGAINST Jews who are opposing the true gospel of Jesus Christ. People like Simcha Jacobovici and Jewish leaders who are going around demanding changes from Bible publishers, religious schools and colleges, denominations, and pastors deserve to be viewed and treated no differently than the World Council of Churches, Katharine Jefferts Schori, or any of the other group that denies the Bible and demands that all else do as well. Thank you.
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