Jesus was Palestinian and why it matters - Jehanzeb Dar

[azurnoir]

Because of modern alarmist reactions to the word “Palestine,” many non-Arabs and non-Muslims take offense when it is argued that Jesus was a Palestinian (peace be upon him).

Jesus’ ethnicity, skin color, and culture often accompany this conversation, but few people are willing to acknowledge the fact he was non-European. A simple stroll down the Christmas aisle will show you the dominant depiction of Jesus: a blonde-haired, blue-eyed, white man.

<snip>


When I’ve spoken to people about this, I’ve noticed the following responses: “No, Jesus was a Jew,” or “Jesus is not Muslim.” The mistake isn’t a surprise to me, but it certainly is revealing. Being a Palestinian does not mean one is Muslim or vice versa. Prior to the brutal and unjust dispossession of indigenous Palestinians during the creation of the state of Israel, the word “Palestine” was a geographic term applied to Palestinian Muslims, Palestinian Christians, and Palestinian Jews. Although most Palestinians are Muslim today, there is a significant Palestinian Christian minority who are often overlooked, especially by the mainstream Western media.

That dominant narrative not only distorts and misrepresents the Palestinian struggle as a religious conflict between “Muslims and Jews,” but consequentially pushes the lives of Palestinian Christians into “non-existence.” That is, due to the media's reluctance to report the experiences and stories of Palestinian Christians, it isn’t a surprise when white Americans are astonished by the fact that Palestinian and Arab Christians do, in fact, exist. One could argue that the very existence of Palestinian Christians is threatening, as it disrupts the sweeping and overly-simplistic “Muslim vs. Jew” Zionist narrative. To learn about many Palestinian Christians opposing Israeli military occupation, as well as Jews who oppose the occupation, is to reveal more voices, perspectives, and complexities to a conflict that has been immensely portrayed as one-sided, anti-Palestinian, and anti-Muslim.

Yeshua (Jesus’ real Aramaic name) was born in Bethlehem, a Palestinian city in the West Bank and home to one of the largest Palestinian Christian communities. The Church of the Nativity, one of the oldest churches in the world, marks the birthplace of Jesus and is sacred to both Christians and Muslims. While tourists from the around the world visit the site, they are subject to Israeli checkpoints and roadblocks. The Israeli construction of the West Bank barrier also severely restricts travel for local Palestinians. In April of 2010, Israeli authorities barred Palestinian Christians from entering Jerusalem and visiting the Church of Holy Sepulchre during Easter. Yosef Zabaneh, a Palestinian Christian merchant in Ramallah, said: “The Israeli occupation in Gaza and the West Bank doesn't distinguish between us, but treats all Palestinians with contempt.”

http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=345198

[Dick Dastardly]

1. Jesus is watching you as Moses wisely warned.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-TptxLR9Vs

[msongs]

2. pretty twisted logic in this article lol nt

[azurnoir]

4. Twisted how? what was Jesus then Israeli? Roman? and he was a Jew n/t

[Ken Burch]

32. Israelite...not "Israeli"

There's a HUGE difference.

Jesus would proudly consider himself a resident of the ancient Land Of Israel.

He wouldn't volunteer for the IDF, or live on an illegal settlement, or defend Operation Cast Lead, though.

Even though Jesus was as Jewish anybody else.

[cvoogt]

5. The article seems pretty on the money to me.

Palestinian does not equal Muslim. Jesus was a Jew living in what was known as Palestine. He was a Palestinian Jew. What's the problem?. Since 9/11 I like to think that if Jesus returned today, he'd be on the no-fly list.

[Dick Dastardly]

3. The Greatest Action Story Ever Told

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFrufPxjwX0&feature=related

[gerenimox]

6. What you call Jesus was an Arab

even though it is disappointing for the christian crusaders. He was also the son of a prostitute called Mary but that is irrelevant.

[azurnoir]

7. I think you have your "Marys" confused

the Mary or Mary Magdalene that was supposedly a prostitute or at least was presented as one after the Council of Nicea got done creating their version of the "new Testament" was not Jesus's mother his mother was a young Jewish girl who was according to the story a virgin

[sabbat hunter]

8. One small problem

the area was called Judea by the Romans during that time period. The name Palaestina (or actually Philistina to be more accurate) did not come along until about 80 years after the time that Jesus was thought to have been crucified.

The area did not become fully Arabized (for lack of a better term), until the Arab invasions of ~640AD.

[azurnoir]

9. yes that Has already ben discussed on another forum

but I do find the the need to prove that Jesus was not Palestinian quite fascinating if not almost comical

[sabbat hunter]

10. I just wnat to be historocally accurate

I was a history major in college. :)

[azurnoir]

11. self delet better answer below n/t

[azurnoir]

12. apparently not in Greek history

This article critically reexamines the origin of the name Palestine. The earliest occurrence of this name in a Greek text is in the mid-fifth century B. C., Histories of Herodotus, where it is applied to the area of the Levant between Phoenicia and Egypt. Josephus, the Jewish historian of the first century A. D., explicitly links this name to the land of the Philistines and modern consensus agrees with him. Yet, some 300 years earlier, the translators of the Greek Septuagint version of the Pentateuch chose Philistieim rather than Palaistinoi to describe the Philistines. In the earliest Classical literature references to Palestine generally applied to the Land of Israel in the wider sense. A reappraisal of this question has given rise to the proposition that the name Palestine, in its Greek form Palaistinē, was both a transliteration of a word used to describe the land of the Philistines and, at the same time, a literal translation of the name Israel. This dual interpretation reconciles apparent contradictions in early definitions of the name Palaistinē and is compatible with the Greeks' penchant for punning, especially on place names.

http://www.jstor.org/pss/1357617

[sabbat hunter]

13. in that same article it says

that the greeks called the area Philistieim.

[Codeine]

14. More comical than the need to torture history to suggest he was? nt

[azurnoir]

15. No the denial is just sad and very telling of a common theme here n/t

[LeftishBrit]

16. Well, there were no Palestinians or Israelis in the modern sense in those days.

Jews of course did exist then, and all Jews at that time were of direct Middle Eastern origin without the Europaean admixture that many (not all) Jews have nowadays. So presumably Jesus did look Middle Eastern; certainly He would not have looked like a North German, as some modern illustrations suggest.

But I think there's little point in translating Biblical nationalities into current terms -there have been an awful lot of changes of national boundaries since then!

[azurnoir]

17. well at last someone gets at least part of it thank you n/t

[cali]

18. uh, That Jesus was Jewish is far more important to who he was than

that he was a Palestinian. If you don't know why, your knowledge of the most basic elements of Christianity are lacking.

[azurnoir]

19. No one is denying that he was Jewish

as you should know being Palestinian and being Jewish are not mutually exclusive of each other, at least until in the opinion of some very recent times and IMO not even now
As I pointed out to someone no one complains about Jesus of Nazareth, Bethlehem, or Galilee but say Palestine and its seems like a preconditioned negative response which if you read the article carefully was the authors point IMO

eta reread the very first sentence of the post please

[oberliner]

21. But someone is denying that he was born in Judea

Which is the country that Bethlehem was part of during the time Jesus was alive. He also lived most of his life in Galilee. He was not a Palestinian by any definition of the word. Hence the negative response to what is a false statement.

Certainly it is important to for people to break out of the habit of imagining that he was from Europe. On that note, I can certainly agree with the author of this article.

[azurnoir]

24. No it is not as I have repetedly pointed out

Palestine was first used by Herodotus who does predate Jesus

[oberliner]

25. Israel was used prior to that

Neither is relevant. What is relevant is what the land was called at the time Jesus was living there, and it was not Palestine. Therefore, he was not Palestinian.

Insisting that he was is clearly a political act to attempt to create a sense of solidarity between Christians around the world and the Palestinian cause of today.

An understandable attempt at propaganda to be sure.

[azurnoir]

26. Clear to those that are of that mind set to be sure

or perhaps one reads way too much into things?

eta for a question mark so that there is no misinterpretation

[oberliner]

27. Maybe so

I hadn't really given it much thought but it does make sense to me.

What about Judas? Was he Palestinian as well?

And how about the Jews who were historically blamed for "killing Jesus" - wouldn't they all have been Palestinians?

How about spreading the idea that Palestinians killed Jesus?

Can't you see how this can be easily played around with?

[azurnoir]

30. self delete for corrected answer n/t

[azurnoir]

33. CORRECTION yes to 4 #'s 1,2, 3, and 5

# 4 First one have to accept that Palestinians or Jews killed Jesus to the best of my knowledge it was Roman's who were responsible for that

[oberliner]

34. It's a long-standing anti-semitic myth

Have you never heard of it before?

My point is that this new myth (that Palestinians killed Jesus) can replace the old one because all of the Jews in question who are said to be responsible for Jesus's death in this myth would all be Palestinians if Jesus himself was one.

[azurnoir]

35. of course I have heard of it before

the myth that Jews killed Jesus was the basis for centuries of persecution, few believe I would think it any more.

my first read through and answer was done very quickly I was 'multitasking' then I realized the true implications of question #4

[azurnoir]

28. again more over why would a non Christian try to galvanize Christians

to support Palestinians? As to my part as a non-Christian as I see it Christians in the US are solidly behind Israel in whatever it does, I really do not see an article on a relatively obscure news site or an OP here changing that, do you?

[oberliner]

29. Same reason non Christians try to galvanize Christians to support Israel

Both sides do everything they can to get all the support they can get. From articles in major newspapers, to small but self-important blog posts, even to forums on message board that only a handful of people read!

[azurnoir]

31. IMO sir you really give way too much credit if it could be called that n/t

[cali]

22. All I'm saying is that it's immaterial to who he was that he was a Palestinian

or a Judean or a Philistine or whatever.

[azurnoir]

23. take it as you will but Palesine was first named that by Herodotus

in 500BCE as I said the first sentence in the OP describes it well but it seems quite material to point out that it was Judea or at last that in Roman terms? I wonder if the question was posed to Jesus what he would say

[Ken Burch]

20. Jesus was Palestinian AND Jewish

He wouldn't have wanted Palestinians to suffer in the name of a "Last Days" scenario that the crazier of his followers invented.

And He wouldn't want Jews to suffer in that scenario either(or to be blamed for His death, which was actually perpetrated by rich people and the Romans, both of which objected to Him because he championed the poor, rather than for any "religious" reasons.

And He darn sure never looked like THIS:



But he could well have looked like THIS:

[mudplanet]

36. Bravo!

[aranthus]

37. That's because "Palestinian" meant "Jew" until after the creation of Israel.

The big lie of the article is to suggest that Jesus was Palestinian in the sense meant by the Palestinian Arabs today. It's as much BS as the Palestinian claim to be the descendants of the Canaanites, and is made for the same reason. That is to justify the Arab claim to exclusive sovereignty over all of Israel, and to deny the Jews any right to a state there.

[azurnoir]

38. there is no such suggestion in the article n/t

[Ken Burch]

39. It's ENOUGH for Israel to exist within the pre-1967 boundaries

Israel doesn't NEED the West Bank settlements, OR East Jerusalem. What matters is just having a state, not having so much territory that the Palestinians CAN'T have a state(which is what Bibi's proposals would mean).