Question:

I am a Jew who lives in Israel, in recent times I began to wonder why my way, Judaism, is true. I talked with some rabbis, and their best claim against the other religion was that Judaism has survived thousands years. Despite all of the pogroms, anti-Semitism and the Holocaust, even though they were so weak and didn’t have any army. They say that the only way to explain that is that God saved them all the time. To strengthen the claim they quote Mark Twain who was not Jewish and agreed that the history of the Judaism is supernatural:

"If the statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one percent of the human race. It suggests a nebulous dim puff of star dust lost in the blaze of the Milky Way. Properly the Jew ought hardly to be heard of, but he is heard of, has always been heard of. He is as prominent on the planet as any other people, and his commercial importance is extravagantly out of proportion to the smallness of his bulk. His contributions to the world’s list of great names in literature, science, art, music, finance, medicine, and abstruse learning are also away out of proportion to the weakness of his numbers. He has made a marvellous fight in the world, in all the ages; and has done it with his hands tied behind him. He could be vain of himself, and be excused for it. The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed, and made a vast noise, and they are gone; other peoples have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, or have vanished. The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?" Do you have answer about this evidence? Are there historians that say that the christian history is supernaturel? Thank you very much.

Response:

My response to this evidence is to completely agree with it. The history of the Jews provides clear evidence of the supernatural intervention of God. Their salvation from slavery in Egypt is nothing short of miraculous. Their return from captivity in Babylon, as prophesied in their own scripture was clearly miraculous as well. God saved them from the persecutions of the Greeks during the time of Antiochus Epiphanes (as remembered in Hannukuh). God saved them from the persecutions in Persia during the time of Esther. God used one of the smallest people as a lynchpin in history time and again. As a Christian, of course I acknowledge this miraculous history. Three years ago we sponsored a debate between a prominent Rabbi, Shmuley Boteach, a prominent imam Shabir Ali and my friend Dr. Doug Jacoby on the premise: Judaism, Christianity, Islam: Which is the true legacy of Abraham? Clearly, the Jewish position has an advantage in this debate.

A Christian will not debate with the claim of these Jewish rabbis. What Christianity has to offer to this question is to show what the Jewish history was pointing toward. It was pointing toward the arrival of Jesus Christ. The entire story of the Jewish people points toward the second Moses, the second David, the second Elishah–Jesus Christ. Dozens of prophecies of the Jewish scripture points toward the historical fulfillment of the Jewish legacy when the Messiah came to the earth. Jesus IS the fulfillment of this history. Micah 5:2 tells us that God would come in Bethlehem. The Messiah is called the Son of David and the Root of Jesse (David’s father) (Isaiah 11:1-2). The Messiah was to be crucified (Psalm 22:16). In my book From Shadow to Reality (available at www.ipibooks.com) I list hundreds of examples of foreshadows, prefigures and prophecies of Jesus in the Old Testament. All Christians see the person Jesus Christ as the fulfillment of Jewish history. Jesus said I… have come to fulfill the [Mosaic] law. (Matthew 5:17). He said that he fulfilled everything that was written about the Messiah in the Old Testament (Luke 24:44).

My response to the point that rabbis make that the Jews are specially God’s people is to agree with this contention. I would add to that the Christian perspective that the culmination and fulfillment of the Jewish expectation and of God’s plan is found in the person Jesus Christ. After the time of Jesus it is not clear that God particularly favored the Jewish people. His favored people today are found in the Christian church. To the extent that Jewish people have continued to follow the law of Moses to this very day, God has been able to protect them and bless them. However, I believe God’s desire for the Jews is that they should acknowledge the one he sent to them–Jesus of Nazareth.  This is a huge topic, which I could expand on for many pages, but I hope this will get you started.

John Oakes