"is not rich toward God" - When God Abandons the Mankind

Tokyo Station

When God Abandons the Mankind

Since the beginning of the 21st century, we have observed warfare and continued turmoil in Iraq, the birth place of the Mesopotamian Civilization.  Then the ravages of war started to prevail in Afghanistan where Alexander the Great had reached in his campaign to the east.  And, the Arab spring eventually led to the fall of the autocrat in Libya and revolutionary uproar in Egypt, further putting Syria into a tragic civil war; all of the countries were once important areas for the Roman Empire.  So, since the beginning of the 21st century, part of the history was repeated up to the era of Christ Jesus.  This must be a great warning to the mankind. 

In addition, China is strengthening its national power as it was a major empire around A.D. 1.  Russia has shown no inclination for observation of Western democracy, pursuing its hegemony in the world like that they had in the Cold War era.  The UK is withdrawing from the EU to protect its independence.   The US chose as its president a business man associated with entertainment, who shouted for America to pursue national interest more than any other predecessors in a more direct and coarse way than was seen in the White House.  Nations seem to be standing against other nations.  It may be the situation predicted by Christ Jesus in terms of the end of the world.

In the 20th century, the mankind experienced the two world wars.  But the third one might be closer although most of nations are enjoying prosperity supported by hi-tech based commercialism.

And if the mankind could continue to survive and further develop technologies and science, dangerous future can be only estimated more than rosy future.  Even today, people have come to be aware of dangerous use of digital systems, the Internet power, and Artificial Intelligence in addition to the gene engineering technology.  If science and technology continue to develop at the present pace, the future of the mankind might be at real risk.  For example, the mankind might be taken over by robots equipped with advances AI, say, 1000 years later.  In the word of robots, global warming and other natural disasters will not be any problems.  They need not even breathe.

And this trend of the fall of the mankind and the rise of robots with super AI might be started around early 21st century, namely today.

Future robots with super AI might start to conquer the universe.  As there is no physical restriction as living things for them, they might travel distance of many light years to reach other solar systems and planets.   They can be the ruler of the universe.  This might be a simple scientific fiction story, but there is a possibility.

However, there is one specific advantage for the mankind.  It is the power and ability to believe in God who is the creator of the universe.  As long as God supports the mankind, robots will not be able to defeat the mankind in case they come to have such an intention.

But if the mankind loses its faith in God and God abandons the mankind, any scientific fictions can be reality.  It is the time for us to reflect our faith and consider future.　



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Luk 12:20 But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?
Luk 12:21 So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.

"the first took a wife, and dying left no seed" - Jesus Learned Judaism in Qumran

Around Tokyo

Jesus Learned Judaism in Qumran

Christ Jesus often referred to the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible).

1. JESUS:
But he answered, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” (Matthew 4:4, cf. Luke 4:4)

1. OLD TESTAMENT:
And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. (Deuteronomy 8:3)

2. JESUS:
Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’” (Matthew 4:7; cf. Luke 4:12)
2. OLD TESTAMENT:
“You shall not put the Lord your God to the test, as you tested him at Massah.” (Deuteronomy 6:16)

3. JESUS:
Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.’” (Matthew 4:10, cf. Luke 4:8)
3. OLD TESTAMENT:
It is the Lord your God you shall fear. Him you shall serve and by his name you shall swear. (Deuteronomy 6:13)

4. JESUS
“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ ” (Matthew 5:21)
4. OLD TESTAMENT:
“You shall not murder.” (Exodus 20:13)

5. JESUS:
“It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’” (Matthew 5:31)
5. OLD TESTAMENT:
“When a man takes a wife and marries her, if then she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house . . . (Deuteronomy 24:1)

6. JESUS
“Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.’” (Matthew 5:33)
6. OLD TESTAMENT:
If a man vows a vow to the Lord, or swears an oath to bind himself by a pledge, he shall not break his word. He shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth. (Numbers 30:2; cf. Deuteronomy 23:21)

7. JESUS:
 “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’” (Matthew 5:38) 

7. OLD TESTAMENT:
But if there is harm, then you shall pay life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe. (Exodus 21:23–25; cf. Leviticus 24:19-20, Deuteronomy 19:21)

8. JESUS:
He answered them, “And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? For God commanded, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ But you say, ‘If anyone tells his father or his mother, “What you would have gained from me is given to God,”he need not honor his father.’ So for the sake of your tradition you have made void the word of God.” (Matthew 15:1-6 ); cf. Mark 7:10) 

8. OLD TESTAMENT:
“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.” (Exodus 20:12, cf. Exodus 21:17)

9. JESUS
He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” (Matthew 19:4–6), cf. Mark 10:6-8) 

9. OLD TESTAMENT:
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:27)
Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. (Genesis 2:24)

          Etc.

https://jewsforjesus.org/answers/jesus-references-to-old-testament-scriptures/

So, it is apparent that Christ Jesus learn Judaism enough to preach Judaism with his own words, freely citing expressions from the Hebrew Bible.  It also means that Christ Jesus read the Judaism holy books.

However, conventionally it is said that Christ Jesus had been living as a poor carpenter in a local village, Nazareth.  But who taught Him the religion in such a local place?  Was there a good or suitable synagogue in Nazareth?  Or did He sometimes travel to Jerusalem to learn Judaism from priests of the Temple?

The only reasonable answer  is that Christ Jesus learnt how to read and write as well as Judaism in Qumran.


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Mar 12:19 Master, Moses wrote unto us, If a man's brother die, and leave his wife behind him, and leave no children, that his brother should take his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother.
Mar 12:20 Now there were seven brethren: and the first took a wife, and dying left no seed.

"spoken by Esaias the prophet" - Survival of Ashkenazi Jewish People

 Mt. Fuji, Japan, 100 Km Far

Survival of Ashkenazi Jewish People

Good or bad, Jewish people are a kind of representative group of the mankind, not because of the huge scale of their size but because of their importance in religion and culture of human beings.

Today, they have virtually their own state called Israel where about 90% of the population are descendants of a group of Jewish people called Ashkenazim who are believed to be formed in Europe.  However, how Ashkenazi Jewish people were established is a kind of mystery.

A model based on the genetic sequencing of 128 Ashkenazi Jews concludes that today’s Ashkenazim descend from the fusion of European and Middle-Eastern Jews during the medieval era, between 600 to 800 years ago.
(https://www.haaretz.com/science-and-health/.premium-ashkenazim-derive-from-350-people-1.5263886)

It can be easily inferred that the era of the Crusades (1000s to 1400s) should have a decisive influence on the Ashkenazi Jewish people.

After the two Jewish-Roman Wars about A.D. 70 and 130, the new diaspora began.  Jewish people were driven out of Jerusalem and Palestine, scattering around the Mediterranean and in the Roam Empire.

(https://matome.naver.jp/odai/2137950327511744801/2138207016613203003)

In the above figure, the dark spots and areas marked black are Jewish residential areas between 100 and 300 after the Jewish-Roman Wars.  It is interesting to refer to a map showing Roman arterial roads.

So, it can be thought that some Jewish people moved in the Roman Empire along Roman arterial high ways deep into the north of the Alps up to the Rheine.  Probably they traveled with Roman troops, providing services to the troops or joining the troops.  Or they might be treated as slaves by Roman troops.  Anyway, it is likely that Jewish people crossed over the Alps, accompanying Roman troops or being forced to follow them after the Jewish-Roman Wars.  But before 500, the Empire collapsed facing invasion of  Germanic people, called Great Barbarian Invasion between 400 and 600.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Migration_Period)

Then, what happened to those Jewish people who immigrated into Western Europe accompanying Roman troops?  When the Empire fell, Roman soldiers who were stationed in Western Europe must have decided to stay and become local citizens or villagers rather than going back to Rome.  And the Jewish people working and living around the Roman troops must have followed suit.  Anyway, there were no places for them to return to.  These people became ancestors of Ashkenazi Jewish people.

As time went by, the Kingdom of the Franks rose to accept Christianity:
The Frankish Church grew out of the Church in Gaul in the Merovingian period, which was given a particularly Germanic development in a number of "Frankish synods" throughout the 6th and 7th centuries (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francia).  According, those Jewish people must be suppressed by these Church and the Vatican.  They must have moved from the Rhine river region to the Germanic areas.

But, finally, a great tragedy fell on the Jewish people fleeing from Christian Franks to the east of the Rhine.  The Crusade began around 1000.  The main forces of the Crusade started around today's Paris and got across the Germanic areas to the east and then down to the south to Palestine or got down south to the Mediterranean and sailed to Palestine.  And along both the routes, many Jewish people were killed by Crusade soldiers.

(https://sites.google.com/site/portfoliowilliamsteaching/assignments/homeworkforweekofoctober11th/mapping-the-crusades)

As the massacre of the diaspora Jewish people by the crusades was so intense and  through, almost they were extinct.

The math also indicates that today’s sprawling community of Ashkenazi Jews — there are more than 10 million around the world — derived from just 350 people or so. That previously postulated population bottleneck — a drastic reduction in population size — occurred between 25 to 32 generations ago, the scientists say.(https://www.haaretz.com/science-and-health/.premium-ashkenazim-derive-from-350-people-1.5263886) 

So, surviving Jewish people spoke Yiddish in which their past movements were reflected.

Yiddish is the historical language of the Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century[4] in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a High German-based vernacular fused with elements taken from Hebrew and Aramaic as well as from Slavic languages and traces of Romance languages. Yiddish is written with a fully vocalized version of the Hebrew alphabet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yiddish

The ancestors of Ashkenazi Jewish people left Palestine after the Jewish-Roman Wars and got mingled in Roman citizens or slaved by Roman troops and moved with Roman troops to Western Europe, while those Jewish people kept Hebrew and Aramaic languages or before they completely forgot those languages; but after the fall of the Empire, they stayed there or Western Europe where Roman troops had been stationed.   But afterwards, they got driven out of the Rhein region by the Frankish Churches to east Germanic region but later suffered massacre by the Crusade.  But only hundreds of Jewish people who ran away into a Slavic region must have been able to survive.  All these past movements are reflected in their language, Yiddish, as the above citation implies.

So, Judaism today owed much to these hundreds Jewish people who could escape attacks from the Christian churches, the Vatican, and the Crusades between 1000 and 1500.  Their sense of enthusiasm for sticking to Judaism realized further survival of Judaism.

However, it is thought that the Old Testament adopted by Christianity into the Christian holy books helped these Jewish people who were almost annihilated.  Whereas those Jewish people lost almost all of their assets and traditions due to severe attacks by the crusades, Christian churches presented Jewish traditions to them through the Old Testament.  Based on the Old Testament, modern Judaism must have been rebuilt, ironically, at least for Ashkenazi Jewish people. 




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Mat 12:17 That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying,
Mat 12:18 Behold my servant, whom I have chosen; my beloved, in whom my soul is well pleased: I will put my spirit upon him, and he shall shew judgment to the Gentiles.