{"id":819,"date":"2011-03-14T11:30:16","date_gmt":"2011-03-14T15:30:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/faculty.bbc.edu\/mstallard\/?p=819"},"modified":"2011-03-14T11:30:16","modified_gmt":"2011-03-14T15:30:16","slug":"zeal-for-zion-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/2011\/03\/zeal-for-zion-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Zeal for Zion"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I have just finished my reading of Shalom Goldman\u2019s excellent book Zeal for Zion: Christians, Jews, and the Idea of the Promised Land<\/em> (UNC Press).\u00a0 Goldman is professor of Hebrew and Middle Eastern studies at Emory University.\u00a0 I had made an earlier post on it in my earlier stages of reading.\u00a0 While I think there are times when he is off in his assessment of various relationships and his portrayal of various theological views, on the whole he has provided an excellent outline of the historical convergence of Christian forms of Zionism and Jewish forms of Zionism since the late 1800s. \u00a0Perhaps the primary contribution he makes to the history of Zionism is to show that it is not a monolithic movement.\u00a0 While this has been recognized on the Jewish side, on the Christian side it has been assumed in some circles (popularly?) that modern dispensationalism, which is Zionist by its very nature, is the only Christian form of Zionism.\u00a0 This came home to me a few years ago at the Evangelical Theological Society.\u00a0 Tommy Ice, a dispensationalist responder, pointed out to the main speaker Timothy Weber, that in his analysis (see Weber\u2019s book On the Road to Armageddon<\/em>) he assumed that all Christian Zionists were dispensationalists, when such is not the case.\u00a0 Goldman\u2019s book helps to support Ice\u2019s conclusion and critique.<\/p>\n

I found Goldman\u2019s six categories of uneven interest for me. \u00a0That could be because of my own background and preferences than any lack of value to Goldman\u2019s presentation.\u00a0 I really could not easily get into chapter 4, his discussion of Catholicism and the Jews in recent times.\u00a0 I was fascinated by the connection between Laurence Oliphant and Naphtali Imber (chapter 1) and the pro-Zionist position of the Anglican Herbert Danby, translator of the Mishnah (chapter 3).\u00a0 Although I already knew quite a bit about Theodor Herzl, Goldman filled in the gaps of Christian relationships in the early days of the formal Zionist movement (chapter 2). \u00a0I also knew quite a bit about recent relationships such as Jerry Falwell and other evangelicals (chapter 6) so the last chapter filled in small gaps for me but was still appreciated.\u00a0 The discussion of literary \u201cpilgrims\u201d Jorge Luis Borges, Robert Graves, and Vladimir Nabokov marked new territory for me (chapter 5).\u00a0 Among them I only had serious knowledge of Graves, having read his scandalous novel King Jesus<\/em> almost thirty years ago.\u00a0 I found the discussion fascinating although in this section Goldman shows an interest in the literature for literature\u2019s sake in my opinion.\u00a0 The actual focus on Zionism in these men perhaps did not get the attention it deserved. \u00a0The coverage of these men also shows that the idea of \u201cChristian\u201d in the book is quite broad.\u00a0 There is the possibility that none of these men would be considered orthodox by any measurements.\u00a0 Such is true for others as well.\u00a0 But Goldman is dealing with men who are self-professed from Christian tradition, so it may not have been necessary for him to label such things more fully (he does mention problems at certain points), although it would have been helpful to have more.<\/p>\n

\u00a0In this section, I would like to list some random thoughts that emerged as I read Goldman\u2019s book:<\/p>\n

\u00a01.\u00a0 I found it interesting that many of the early Zionists viewed Zionism (the return of the Jews to their homeland in Palestine) as the solution to anti-Semitism.\u00a0 Now that the Jews do have a home in a national Israel in Palestine, one has to ask if the proposed solution actually worked.\u00a0 Regrettably, the answer is no. \u00a0Israel as a nation has become the new target.\u00a0 Anti-Israel is now the new anti-Semitism.\u00a0 There has just been a shift in the application of the evil spirit of anti-Semitism.\u00a0\u00a0 Dispensationalists like me view themselves as helping to stand against worldwide anti-Semitism when we support the nation of Israel.<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0 The hostility against Zionism is not always anti-Semitic.\u00a0 Sometimes it is simply theological (wrong-headed theology from my point of view).\u00a0 One example Goldman points out is the 1945 statement by Bishop W. H. Stewart of St. George\u2019s Anglican Church in Jerusalem:<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cThere is an uncommon tendency today both in England and in America, to base large Zionist claims on the Old Testament history and prophecies, and thereby to win support from many Christians whose respect for the Bible is perhaps greater than their understanding of it\u2026The Christian doctrine of the New Testament is that the new spiritual Israel of the Christian Church, with its descent by the spiritual birth of baptism, is the sole heir to the promises themselves also spiritualized, which had been fortified by the Old Israel after the flesh, with its descent by human generation\u201d (p. 142).<\/p>\n

\u00a0This is what is called replacement theology or supersessionism.\u00a0 In this scheme, one cannot really trust the Old Testament statements at face value.\u00a0 The devaluing of Israel follows.\u00a0 There is no use for Zionism and a future for national Israel in this scheme.<\/p>\n

\u00a03.\u00a0 At times Goldman misses the mark badly.\u00a0 For example, when referring to the Left Behind<\/em> series as influenced by dispensationalism, he notes that in the series, only \u201cBorn Again Christians\u201d are saved (p. 286).\u00a0 Those who are not saved, he mentions, end up in eternal damnation (hell).\u00a0 The way that Goldman words this, he gives the impression that this belief is something radical or different.\u00a0 However, it is not.\u00a0 This view is the orthodox Protestant view.\u00a0 It is not unique to dispensationalism.<\/p>\n

\u00a04.\u00a0 Goldman mentions Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook who viewed the killing of European Jews as a type of cleansing or purification from the impurity of exile\u00a0which would\u00a0lead to the establishment of national Israel.\u00a0 What struck me was that this is in spirit similar to the dispensational understanding of the nature of the coming tribulation, among other things a cleansing of the nation of Israel.\u00a0 What will follow is the national restoration in spiritual glory in the land.\u00a0 The similarities\u00a0are a bit striking.\u00a0 It appears that Kook had read the Old Testament carefully.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Again, I highly recommend Goldman\u2019s book to you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have just finished my reading of Shalom Goldman\u2019s excellent book Zeal for Zion: Christians, Jews, and the Idea of the Promised Land (UNC Press).\u00a0 Goldman is professor of Hebrew and Middle Eastern studies at Emory University.\u00a0 I had made an earlier post on it in my earlier stages of reading.\u00a0 While I think there […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,14,16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/819"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/819\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}