Sublime

An inscription written around the time that Jesus is supposed to have lived reads: This day has given the earth an entirely new aspect. The world would have gone to destruction had there not streamed forth from him who is now born a common blessing. Rightly does he judge who recognises in this birthday the beginning of life; now is that time ended

These and similar verses inspired the renowned third-century-CE* rabbi, Eleazar ben Pedat, to assert that “God sent Israel into Exile among the nations only for the purpose of acquiring converts.”

Verse 15 is an enormously difficult verse to translate but is probably best understood as combating the heresy and its anti-marriage stance (4:3). A literal translation would yield, “But she will be saved by childbirth, if they remain in faith and love and holiness with propriety.”

and one faction of Roman forces actually destroyed the city of Troy, Rome’s ancestor. It was the…

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For he knows that Zionism has no church and no theology and no mythology. He knows that Zionism is on the brink and needs a poignant symbol that will be a substitute for church and theology and mythology. In Masada he finds this symbol that will unite and inspire Zionism’s followers. He finds a pillar for Zionist identity that is at once concrete,

What Jesus did and said in relation to the symbols of Jewish identity grew not from an intention to propagate a system of religion or ethics, certainly not from an ‘opposition’ to ‘Judaism’ conceived as a ‘religious system’, but from the conviction that the climax of Israel’s history was dawning, bringing with it great opportunity and great danger.