Jewish History: Six Challenging Times

Norman Cantor (1929-2004), a Jewish medieval historian, wrote a book entitled The Sacred Chain: The History of the Jews (HarperCollins, 1994). In its first chapter, he mentions six particularly painful times in Jewish history that we do well to keep in mind.

The City as Our Future

From beginning to end, the biblical witnesses do not hesitate to describe the City as both the greatest expression of our rebellion against Yahweh and the greatest work of the Olympian gods whom we adore. At the same time, the biblical witnesses consistently reveal that, in the new age to come, we humans will all live happily with Jesus in a city.

The City as Parasite

The City is parasitical. This is especially true of today’s Global Technological System (GTS).

It takes its vitality from God’s good creation. Minions of the City call God’s good creatures “natural resources” to excuse sucking their vitality from them. The GTS has grown so large that it now requires the systematic destruction of habitats and extinction of species to survive let alone continue its reckless growth. This includes not just food for urban inhabitants but also minerals and especially energy for urban artifacts like buildings, autos, and roads.

Jesus Replaces Jerusalem

For the love of David, king of Israel, Yahweh freely chose to take the conventionally Olympian city of Jerusalem and make it holy as well. This happened shortly before 1015 BC. When Jesus came, he embodied the holy future of Yahweh-with-us to which Jerusalem pointed. With his crucifixion and resurrection in AD 30, he replaced Jerusalem as the center of Yahweh’s kingdom on earth. In this way Jerusalem became just another Olympian city once again.

Jesus as Our Liberator from the Crowd

Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” (Matthew 9:35-38, New Revised Standard Version).

Olympian leaders use us like sheep. They keep us sheepish, regularly shear us, and finally eat us (consuming our remaining vitality).

Jesus and the Crowd

In cities we are always part of a crowd. Thanks to today’s mass media of communication, we can live in the country and still be part of the crowd. Our Olympian need to keep up with current events keeps us immersed in the crowd from which Jesus would rescue us.

Jesus in the City

Holy Jerusalem remains unholy
John baptized Jesus in the Jordan River. Immediately afterward Satan tempts Jesus to misunderstand the meaning of being the savior of all people.

One of these temptations takes place in Jerusalem, the holy city, the one city chosen by Yahweh to point toward Yahweh’s redemption of all cities (Matthew 4:5). So even this chosen city continues to serve Satan, like all cities, as a place of Olympian temptation.