We all know that the Jewish have been persecuted for the last three thousand years of more. The question is why? What it is that creates essence of anger towards them? My study to this question let me some Jewish friends after a details discussion….
I am presenting my understanding as to how the Jews may have misread the Bible and got into this unfortunate situation.
The story relates to Prophet Abraham. In Genesis 15:18 it is said that God gave the land between the River of Mitsrayim and the Perath River to the blood descendants of Abraham. This means that the Bible gives the séances to take this land, because they have God’s directions to them.
Then we come to Genesis 17:2 in this words again God confirms his agreement or covenant with Abraham. Genesis 17:2 only has five Hebrew root words. These are Confirm agreement (covenant), between, many, multitudes.
There is no mention here of blood descendants of Abraham. Some Hebrew friends say that the words “me” and “you” are indicated in the suffixes of the Hebrew words which are not translated. I am not a Hebrew scholar and am not in a position to comment on this point. So, for the present, we can consider two possibilities: Genesis 17:2 either mentions or does not mention “me” and “you.” Thus, we can read Genesis 17:2 in two ways:
- I confirm my agreement between me and many.
- I confirm my agreement between me and your many blood descendants.
I have seen about 15 translationsof this verse. All of them say that this verse should be read as translation (2) above, that is, it tells of an agreement between God and blood descendants of Abraham. However, we still cannot take this as necessarily the correct interpretation. So the question whether God gave the land to “all believers in One God” or to the “Jewish people “in Genesis 17:2.
In Genesis 17:3 the name Abraham, which was originally Abram, was changed to Abraham by addition of an “h.”Biblical scholars in say that addition of an h means that the writ Abraham has been expanded. It is no longer limited to his family but now it encompasses all the people (who believe in One God).
We can now state the sequence of events as follows:
To begin, God gives the land between the River of Mitsrayim and Perath River to the blood descendants of Abrahamin Genesis 15.18.
God confirms the agreement with Abraham in Genesis 17:2 but two interpretations are possible: God gave the land to blood descendants of Abraham or to all his followers.
God expands the writ of Abraham to all humanity by adding “h” in his namein Genesis 17:3.
God gives the Land of Canaan to all followers of Abraham in Genesis 17:4-14. There is no mention of blood descendants in these verses.
God blesses Abraham to beget a son in Genesis 17:15-22. These verses are related to the blood descendants of Abraham. However, there is no mention of giving any land in these verses.
God blesses his biological descendants to “take possession of the strongholds of their enemies” in Genesis 22:17. However, once again, there is no mention of giving any land in this verse.
One possible interpretation of these verses is that in initially God give the Land between the River Mitsrayim and Perath River to the blood descendants of Abraham. Then Abraham outgrew his affection the family and he became the Father to the Multitudes. And, after his becoming Father of the Multitudes, there is no giving of Land.
If we accept this interpretation, God has only told the blood descendants of Abraham to have sons and to win over the enemies.
So the question is whether we will limit the giving of land by God to Abraham to be limited to the Jewish people or expand it to all believers in One God. If we interpret Genesis 17:2 in the sense of blood descendants, then the promise me made by God in Genesis 15:8 to give the Land between River of Mitsrayim and Perath River to descendant of Abraham is valid and then they get a moral sanction to occupy the Land of Israel.
However, if we think that there was a material change at Genesis 17:3 and Abraham now became a Father of the Multitudes, and then the moral sanction from the Bible for the occupation of Israel by the Jewish community does not hold.
I think the Jews have done a great service to humanity by preserving the Bible by bringing the message monotheism this world. Christianity and Islam have grown out of Judaism. So Judaism is the flag bearer of the philosophy of monotheism. I think a time is come for not only to Jewish but all Abrahamic religions to understand that Abraham was a Grand Prophet. He established monotheism and that it is the rock bed of all Abrahamic religion.However, interpreting these verses in the sense of blood descendants has led to many conflicts. It is unfortunate that people who believe in the monotheism of Abraham are fighting with each other because some may have misread the verses in the sense of giving land to the blood descendants. We need to move ahead.We need develop friendship between religions. Every religion as to look into its own self and reinterpret their scriptures in a way that puts humanity first and our own community later.