"Having eyes, see ye not?" - Why God Sent His Son around AD 1

Tokyo

Why God Sent His Son around AD 1

There is causal relation in anything, including the establishment of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

Especially, why God sent His Son to the world is very important, since the mainstream of the world today is based on the European/American culture and civilization enabled by Christianity.

So, what were major events before the birth or the mission of Christ Jesus?  It is natural to check who the king of Judaists at the time was, since the role of a king was more decisive in the ancient world than those of today's kings.

The study of Herod's reign includes polarizing opinions on the man himself. His critics have described him as "a madman who murdered his own family and a great many rabbis",[82] "the evil genius of the Judean nation",[83]and as one who would be "prepared to commit any crime in order to gratify his unbounded ambition."[84] His extraordinary spending spree is cited as one of the causes of the serious impoverishment of the people he ruled, adding to the opinion that his reign was exclusively negative.[85] Herod's religious policies gained a mixed response from the Jewish populace. Although Herod considered himself king of the Jews, he let it be known that he also represented the non-Jews living in Judea, building temples for other religions outside of the Jewish areas of his kingdom. Many Jews questioned the authenticity of Herod's Judaism on account of his Idumean background and his infamous murders of members of his family. However, he generally respected traditional Jewish observances in his public life. For instance, he minted coins without human images to be used in Jewish areas and acknowledged the sanctity of the Second Temple by employing priests in the construction of the Temple. 

However, he was also praised for his work, being called "the greatest builder in Jewish history,"[82] and one who "knew his place and followed [the] rules."[87] In fact, what is left of his building ventures are now popular tourist attractions in the Middle East, which many have come to cherish as both a historical and religious area.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herod_the_Great#Opinion_of_his_reign

The king of Judaists before the birth of Christ Jesus was Herod who killed his family members to secure his position; flattered shamelessly to Caesar, Cleopatra and Antony, and finally Augustus; made Jewish people poor by spending big money to build various lavish constructions including the Second Temple, and showed very pro-Roman inclination in his handling of the Temple and social life while being supported by Roman troops.

And when Herod died, "heavy outbreaks of violence and riots followed Herod's death in many cities, including Jerusalem, as all the built-up grievances against him were unleashed. The momentum from these revolts led to an increased demand for Jewish freedom from Roman rule. Herod's leadership caused enough anger for it to become a prime cause of the Great Revolt of 70 C.E (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herod_the_Great#Opinion_of_his_reign)."

Therefore, before Christ Jesus was born, the Jewish-Roman wars were destined due to Herod's corruption, arrogance, and betrayal of Judaism.  Even if God had not sent His Son to the Jewish community at the time, the fall of Jerusalem and the Diaspora of Judaists should have been inevitable in decades and extinction of Hebrews in centuries.

From the viewpoint of the Roman Empire's side, it was another victory of their rule by sword.  And after the vanishing of Jewish Palestine, there would have been no core of religion against the Roman civilization which was based on polytheistic religion, slavery, militarism, abstract Greek philosophy, etc. without strong ethical codes.  Dispersed Judaists in the Roman Empire territory should have lost the essence of their religion as time went by.

So, to save the teachings of God given to Judaists in preceding 1000 or 2000 years, God had to interfere with the history of Judaists and the Roman Empire.  So, God acted timely when Herod died.  Judaists had been tested enough till the timing.  The King of Judaists acted like a clown before Caesar, Cleopatra and Antony, and finally Augustus, losing every dignity and respect as a king of people God helped and educated for preceding 1000 or 2000 years.

So, even to save His dignity in having chosen Hebrews, God had to interfere.  Accordingly, Christ Jesus was sent to Palestine around AD 1, although the successor of King Herod, Temple priests, and Roman troops put Christ Jesus on the cross.

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Mar 8:18 Having eyes, see ye not? and having ears, hear ye not? and do ye not remember?
Mar 8:19 When I brake the five loaves among five thousand, how many baskets full of fragments took ye up? They say unto him, Twelve.
Mar 8:20 And when the seven among four thousand, how many baskets full of fragments took ye up? And they said, Seven.
Mar 8:21 And he said unto them, How is it that ye do not understand?

"they received the Holy Ghost" - Why has the Vatican Failed?

Tokyo

Why has the Vatican Failed?

Christianity has failed to prevail in the three major regions of Asia: India, China and Japan.

Christians account for 2.3% of the Indian population, 7.5% of the Chinese population, and 2.3% of the Japanese population.

India had Hinduism, China had Taoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism, Japan had Shintoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism before European Christian missionaries arrived in these countries.  India and China had longer history than the Vatican, and Japan had almost the same period of history as the Vatican.  And European Christianity or the Vatican could not succeed in diffusion of Christianity in these regions.

However, in the African regions south of the Sahara, Christians account for 63% of the peoples.  And 93% of South Americans are Christians.  These regions had no civilization history comparable with Europe's.

So, it is rather a surprise that Christianity prevailed in the Roman Emperor and post-Roman Europe.  Or we should think that Christianity when it prevailed in Europe and Christianity when the Vatican tried to diffuse it in India, China, and Japan were different.  Christianity changed from its original status when the Vatican took control of the religion.  The Vatican's version of Christianity was effective to Africans and native South Americans who had no civilization comparable with Europeans'.   But it was not sufficient to India, China, and Japan that had comparable civilization with Europeans' when the Vatican started to try to diffuse its version of Christianity.      

These situations seem to suggest that there is something wrong in the Vatican version of Christianity.  Furthermore, the Vatican could not compete with Islam when Islam started to prevail in the Middle East.  It also suggests that there is something wrong in the Vatican version of Christianity.

From the beginning, when Christianity first started to diffuse in the Roman Empire, there was no such theology as was established by the Vatican in later centuries.  Early Christian priests engaged in mission work only relying on words of Christ Jesus and the Gospels or letters from Paul, etc. but not on Vatican theology such as divine trinity.

Put simply, because there were some critical defects in the Vatican version of Christianity, it was not fully accepted by Hindus, Chinese, Japanese, etc., although the Vatican succeeded in Africa and South America by leveraging its cultural superiority.   And due to the defects, the Vatican could not defeat Islam.

Even in the US, Catholics account for 24%.  The Vatican version of Christianity is not attractive even in the US where 70% of the people  are European origin.

What I want to emphasize is it is time for the Vatican to review its theology, since the global history and situations tell that there is something wrong in the Vatican version of Christianity.  And, it must also apply to other schools of Christianity, including protestants.

Indeed, there are reasons in any situations in history.  And the largest issue in this 2000-year-long history is why the Vatican has failed in India, China, Japan, the US, Islamic regions, etc.  The next 2000 years for the mankind must be based on this review.


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Act 8:17 Then laid they their hands on them, and they received the Holy Ghost.
Act 8:18 And when Simon saw that through laying on of the apostles' hands the Holy Ghost was given, he offered them money,
Act 8:19 Saying, Give me also this power, that on whomsoever I lay hands, he may receive the Holy Ghost.
Act 8:20 But Peter said unto him, Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money.

"many that were possessed with devils" - Worldly Interests and American Presidents

 

The Tone River, one of the largest rivers in Japan, at its Estuary to the Pacific Northeast of Tokyo

Worldly Interests and American Presidents

Interests of individuals are major causes and motivations for their behaviors.

Material interests are easy to detect, but psychological interests are a little difficult to see through.  Hate and love come mainly from these interests.

When Barack Obama was elected in 2008, most of American voters have material interests to vote for an African American candidate who had no deep connection with establishment of the financial sector and Wall Street businesses that were responsible for the 2008 Financial Crisis.  And many of American voters have psychological interests to vote for an African American candidate even only because of his position as a minority member in the US society.

However, during Obama's eight-year presidential term, the US economy was recovered and the most wanted terrorist Osama bin Laden, who also symbolized a dubious relationship between US elites and Arab rich men, was executed by a US military special unit.   The momentum that enabled the first black American President was gone.   The time of emergency for the US was gone.  Obama was a kind of emergency relief.  When the US economy experienced a 10% unemployment rate and the US military could not take on the main culprit of the 9/11 Terror, American voters wanted a kind of revolutionary regime change.  So Obama was elected.

But in 2016, the financial and economic crisis was gone, and America looked safer from Islamic terror, a majority of white voters came to give priority to their own interests.  Now, the whole America was saved and pulled through the worst years.  It is time, they must think, to pursue their own interests, white Americans' interests.

There, rich and egoistic Trump appeared as a presidential candidate, appealed to white voters, and succeeded in winning the 2016 Presidential Election with overwhelming support from working-class whites in swing states.  And, now most of Americans, including the whites who voted for Trump in 2016, are getting embarrassed by President Trump's behavior.

This is a clear example of what would happen when people act based on worldly interests.

In this world, even in the human world, desire for fulfilling interests alone cannot sustain peace and prosperity of individuals and societies.   The Roman Empire needed Greek philosophy; Chinese dynasties needed Confucianism, Buddhism, etc.; even the British Empire needed products of culture accumulated over centuries since the European Renaissance.

Trump is a symbol of success in the domain of interests, while Obama represents some ideals.  Situations based on interests are unstable while philosophy, ideology, religion, etc. give more solid foundation that assure long-term peace and stability.

However, every thing changes in this world, but the words of God do not change.  Therefore, any American presidents who got reasonable reputation had to show more respect for God than Trump.

(But President Trump may be effective against very anti-Bible force in the American society than is found even among liberal or progressive Americans.)


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Mat 8:16 When the even was come, they brought unto him many that were possessed with devils: and he cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick:

"I judge no man" - Eight Books in Auschwitz

Around Tokyo

Eight Books in Auschwitz

There were eight books in the Auschwitz concentration camp in WWII.   And a girl managed the books secretly kept from German guards.

The Librarian of Auschwitz
by Antonio Iturbe (Author), Lilit Thwaites (Translator) 

Based on the experience of real-life Auschwitz prisoner Dita Kraus, this is the incredible story of a girl who risked her life to keep the magic of books alive during the Holocaust.
Fourteen-year-old Dita is one of the many imprisoned by the Nazis at Auschwitz. Taken, along with her mother and father, from the Terezín ghetto in Prague, Dita is adjusting to the constant terror that is life in the camp. When Jewish leader Freddy Hirsch asks Dita to take charge of the eight precious volumes the prisoners have managed to sneak past the guards, she agrees. And so Dita becomes the librarian of Auschwitz.
Out of one of the darkest chapters of human history comes this extraordinary story of courage and hope.
https://www.amazon.com/Librarian-Auschwitz-Antonio-Iturbe/dp/1627796185

Dita was rescued alive in 1945 by allied troops.  She married a man who had been also put in Auschwitz after WWII.  She must deserve the Nobel Prize in Literature.

But what eight books should we choose if we are allowed to keep them in any circumstance if not in Auschwitz?   On one site, the following eight books (novels) are nominated.

1 . Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

2 . In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust

3 . Ulysses by James Joyce

4 . The Odyssey by Homer

5 . War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

6 . Moby Dick by Herman Melville

7 . The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri

8 . Hamlet by William Shakespeare
http://thegreatestbooks.org/


But, the gravest sin of Nazi Germany is that they didn't allow captured Judaists to keep their holy books.

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Joh 8:15 Ye judge after the flesh; I judge no man.
Joh 8:16 And yet if I judge, my judgment is true: for I am not alone, but I and the Father that sent me.

"the disciples had forgotten to take bread" - Invisible Man in 1952

A Lighthouse Northeast of Tokyo

Invisible Man in 1952

An African American man published a novel in 1952, which was called "the most impressive work of fiction by an American Negro" in The New York Times.

Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man shows a kind of internal conflicts among African American men and in an African American man against the background of irresponsible dominance of white men in the American society.

The protagonist, a young African American man, of the novel eventually did not trust socialism, African American human rights movement, and Christian churches but his own judgement on the situation.

The one who did the most harmful thing to the protagonist was the black president of a university in a small Southern town for African Americans where he studied before moving to New York.  But the one who triggered the tragic event for the protagonist was a white board member of the university who came to visit the university from New York.

So, this story suggests that black men have two enemies, rich and dominant white men and rich and successful black men who serve rich and dominant white men.

Barack Obama became US president only after the 2001 9/11 Terror and the 2008 Financial Crisis, because even ordinary white men found that they had their enemies in rich and dominant white men.

But as today ordinary white men are satisfied with remoteness of Islamic terror in the US and recovered economy, they have opted to have a white president, Trump, who is, though, very rich and biased in his social philosophy.

African American men seem to have to continue their experiments in their struggle to establish their kingdom like the protagonist of Invisible Man.


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Mar 8:13 And he left them, and entering into the ship again departed to the other side.
Mar 8:14 Now the disciples had forgotten to take bread, neither had they in the ship with them more than one loaf.
Mar 8:15 And he charged them, saying, Take heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, and of the leaven of Herod.

"Thou bearest record of thyself" - History of Prejudice against Jewish People

Pacific Coast and the Tone River Northeast of Tokyo 

History of Prejudice against Jewish People

Jewish people were not always hated and attacked.

Roughly between AD 1 to 500, Jewish people were enjoying their living and business in the Roman Empire though they were expelled out of Palestine and Jerusalem after the Jewish-Roman wars around 100.  Christian churches were busy trying to establish their base in the Empire, and thus Christian authority did not especially hate Jewish people.   Specifically, before the Great Barbarian Invasion started around 300 and continued through 500 to 700, Jewish people had already settled in many European cities under control of the Roman Empire.  So, when ancestors of current Germans and Frenchmen started to settle in regions of Germany and France of today, Jewish people had been already living there.   Without prevalence of Christianity, Jewish people had no problems in coexisting with those new settlers, namely ancestors of Germans  and Frenchmen of today.

Roughly between 500 and 1000, Christian churches were busy establishing their base in Europe after the collapse of the Roman Empire.  In the period of the early Middle Ages, most of European people did not read the Bible but heard preaching of priests in churches.  They had no special reasons to hate Jewish people as enemies of Christianity.  But church leaders and priests who could read the Bible, written in Latin or Greek, came to feel prejudice toward Jewish people.

Roughly between 1000 and 1500, the Vatican solidified its power base and authority through sending Christian Crusades to Jerusalem.  To further strengthen their power base, they found easy targets in Jewish people.  The contents of the Bible came to be diffused more widely among European people, and they came to find enemies of Christianity in Jewish people.  The more the Vatican system was fixed, the more Jewish people came to look like a kind of enemies of Christianity.

Roughly between 1500 and 2000, the printing technology allowed the Bible to be read by ordinary Europeans.  They found that Jewish people were depicted in the Gospels  as a kind of enemies of Christ Jesus.  While some Jewish people came to be suppressed to live in ghettos, other Jewish people came to become members of the middle class in the European society.   And especially they succeeded in the financial sector like Rothschild, because the Vatican did not encourage Christians to be engaged in money handling and accumulation of income interest.  But this balance between Jewish people and biased Europeans collapsed in the early 20th century, leading to the Holocaust.  However, after WWII, Jewish people succeeded in establishing their nation Israel.

And today, in the early 21st century, it looks like prejudice against Jewish people has gone, while more and more Jewish people are engaged in the financial sector or highly intelligent professions, especially, in the US.

But, the Gospels are still there.  And, Jewish people show no acceptance of Christ Jesus as God, which is the key ideology of the Vatican and other Christian churches.  The underlying issue is not yet solved.

The first step to the solution of the prejudice against Jewish people is to review the key ideology of the Vatican and the religion Christianity that Christ Jesus is God and Jewish people have rejected God.  It is important, since Abraham, Moses, and Christ Jesus were originally all of  Hebrews.


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Joh 8:13 The Pharisees therefore said unto him, Thou bearest record of thyself; thy record is not true.
Joh 8:14 Jesus answered and said unto them, Though I bear record of myself, yet my record is true: for I know whence I came, and whither I go; but ye cannot tell whence I come, and whither I go.