What happens to the Jewish people in the Christian apocalypse?

Great Debates
1

For a while now I have had a feeling that America’s enthusiasm for Israel has a very sinister undertone to it because of the religious aspect. However, I am not an expert on end times mythology so I could be missing something important here. But my Google research so far presents the fate of the Jewish people as something I don’t think they’d be eager to embrace.

For example, one Google result brought me to a page of prophecies that “have been fulfilled” and others that are in progress:

(christinprophecy? Dafuq? Might not be the best source but their enumerated list addressed some questions I had while raising a bunch of others.)

So apparently all the Arab nations are going to get together to attack Israel but they will be soundly defeated. I feel like this already happened back in about 1973 but according to this site it’s yet to come. Israel then dwells in security and prosperity which I am pretty sure they are already doing. I know there are ongoing issues in Israel with the knife and car attacks but I am also certain that when I wake up tomorrow there will still be an Israel.

So next, a Russian coalition of Muslim nations is supposed to attack. So the Russians are going to go to the Chechens and say “Hey guys, I know you hate us but you know who you can hate even more? Israel! We’ll give you tanks and guns and shit and you just go get 'em!”

The Russian coalition will be supernaturally destroyed by God. Okay, some OT wrath… good callback to how Yahweh gets it done. But after this I think the narrative completely loses the plot and gets stupidly offensive. At this point the anti-Christ is supposed to intervene and guarantee the security of Israel. Now I am no expert on the subject but I feel as though Israel would never ever hand their security to an outside consultant who promises them that they can rebuild the temple… especially if there’s a prophecy that specifies that this dude is going to be the worst thing that ever happened to this nation! (And these prophecies are in the book of Daniel so it’s not as though the population of Israel is going to be caught off guard.)

So next the anti-Christ sits around for three years before walking into the rebuilt temple and declaring himself God. However, the people of Israel are wise to this bullshit and reject him. Here’s where it gets really questionable. The anti-Christ responds by wiping out two-thirds of the Jewish population. There’s at least 14 million Jewish people in the world and this story requires 66% of them to be wiped out. And that would be at least nine million people right there.

But the survivors get to do something they’ve probably always wanted to do. They get to become worshipers of Jesus! So from what I have gathered, that is the fate of the Jewish people in the Christian end times. Sixty six percent of them get wiped out (66.6 really, ermagerd) and the rest get to be Christians. That’s a genocide followed by a forced conversion. Israel then becomes the greatest nation on earth during Jesus’s thousand year reign and God fulfills his promises to the Jewish people (which should be easy since there are none of them in this scenario. Also, is God known for making promises to other groups and not keeping them?)

This could just be one wingnut sites’s creative interpretation of bible verses that say no such things but I can’t help but wonder about the idea that Israel’s fate is to fight and die for Jesus. If I were Jewish I would not be okay with that.

2

I’ve reported your post for a move to a different forum. I don’t think there is a factual answer to a thread about Bible prophecies.

Regards,
Shodan

3

I’m Jewish, and while I can’t speak for all Jews, I think it’s safe to say that most Jews don’t spend a lot of time worrying about the fine points of fringe Christian theology. Also, since a core Christian belief is that Jesus is just one aspect of the God of the Jews, “Israel will fight and die for [the Jewish] God” isn’t such a crazy out-there idea.

4

Pretty much nailed it in one.

I was raised as an apocalyptic, End Times Christian. As it was during the Cold War, all of the Biblical prophecies revolved around a gigantic nuclear confrontation between the U.S. and U.S.S.R., which would usher in the era of the Antichrist (who would be the leader of the U.S., not Israel.) After glasnost broke out, the prophecies were suddenly re-configured to interpret stuff like 1/3 of the world burning & 1/3 of the oceans turning to blood as global pollution, not nuclear war, and that was THE TRUTH and no other TRUTH came before. “We’re at war with Eurasia, we’ve always been at war with Eurasia…”

I still find Biblical prophecies fascinating, though. Regarding the role of the Jews, there’s the passage from Revelation 7 in which God seals the foreheads of 144,000 “sons of Israel”, specifically 12,000 from each Jewish tribe. (The sticky wicket is that 10 of the 12 tribes have been “lost” since the Assyrian Captivity; therefore, the descendants of those tribes would probably have no idea they were Jewish, and would probably be Christian or even Muslim instead.) Later, in Revelation 14, the Chosen 144,000 appear on Mount Zion before the Lamb of God singing, “I’m a Pepper, you’re a Pepper, he’s a Pepper, she’s a Pepper…” …or something like that.

OT: By cosmic coincidence, in the Mayan Calendar (which could not have been cross-contaminated by JudeoChristian culture for obvious reasons) 144,000 days is the exact length of one baktun, or twelve katun cycles. We’re currently living in the 13th Baktun, which began on Dec. 21, 2012 – yep, that’s what the supposed “Mayan Apocalypse” was all about.

5

Moderator Action

The answer to this is probably more of a religious debate than something factual. As such, let’s move this to GD.

Moving thread from General Questions to Great Debates.

6

I count religion but a childish toy, and hold there is no sin but ignorance.
Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593)
'Nuff said.

7

As other posters have pointed out, you’re right that this whole “End Times” eschatology is a modern phenomenon, and most Christians don’t interpret the biblical text in that way and never have.

But it’s far from being just the brainchild of “one wingnut site”. A seminal 2002 article explains the roots and doctrines of right-wing Christian Zionism:

8

As your link points out, the evangelical belief that Jews (and, more specifically, Jews who live in Israel) will have a role to play in the apocalypse is one of the reasons there’s such a strong pro-Israel contingent on the conservative side of American politics. So it’s probably a net gain.

Contrast this with, say, the Mormon habit of posthumously baptizing Jewish Holocaust victims.

9

It would be genocide followed by a forced conversion –
except that the side responsible for the genocide is not the side responsible for the conversion. And it’s not a forced conversion.

Other than that, your characterization is accurate.

Incorrect. Some of the early Church Fathers wrote about the End Times. Isaac Newton devoted a great deal of time and effort to studying Biblical prophecy. You MAY be correct in your assertion that most Christians haven’t interpreted the Bible that way, but if so, that’s ONLY because most Christians have never bothered to study End Times prophecies in the first place.

10

Take threadshitting to The BBQ Pit.

No one is forcing you to read or contribute, so if you have nothing relevant to the topic expressed in the OP, stay out of the thread.

[ /Moderating ]

11

Some of the early church fathers did indeed write on eschatology, but their ideas were radically different from the End Times guff we are presented with today. As for Newton, I’ve no idea what he thought about biblical prophecy but he’s hardly an “early church father”; he’s squarely in the modern era, and is not mainly notable as a religious thinker.

12

it’s this

13

Different Christian traditions are all over the map when it comes to eschatology - some believe in a very specific, detailed chronology of the End Times mapped from snippets of verses in the book of Revelation and other parts of the NT. Others (like my own denomination) are content to say “He [Jesus] will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead.”

Specifically concerning Jews, most Christian traditions believe that they receive special consideration as God’s chosen people; people of The Promise. The primary biblical rationale for this is from Paul, who wrote in Romans 11:

14

My understanding is that Christians are waiting for the second coming of the Messiah … Jews are waiting for the one-and-only coming of the Messiah … once the Messiah comes, both are saved.

15

Would the “messiah” the Jews are waiting for be acceptable, or even recognized, by Christians?

16

Judaism doesn’t really have the concept of “saved” and the messiah is one who achieves specific real world accomplishments: ingathering of the exiles; restoration of the religious courts of justice; an end of wickedness, sin and heresy; reward to the righteous; rebuilding of Jerusalem; restoration of the line of King David; and restoration of Temple service. The Jewish messiah is fully human, and the Messianic Age that follows is not appreciably different than today, just more peaceful and prosperous.

The Christian and Jewish messiahs are very different.

17

What Telemark said. One key feature of the Jewish Messiah is that he is an ordinary human being, he is not an incarnation of God. So no, the same person can’t be both.

18

I think Christians would recognize him as the leader of a major world religion with close ties to our own; religious leaders will sometimes work together to accomplish common goals. But, no, the Jewish messiah would not be the divine Christ.

Unless you mean something like “Would the coming of the long-awaited Jewish messiah convince Christians that they were wrong to recognize Jesus as such?” Well, it would if he’s actually right. I like this paragraph from Telemark’s link:

19

Well, it wasn’t that obvious the first time around, but I guess that’s because the “messiah” that had been picked out by the Christian sect didn’t fit the prophesies clearly laid out in the Jewish texts. I think that any return of that “messiah” would be about as connected to the Jews as sudden appearance of Apollo. If the Christian “messiah” makes an appearance in the fashion moist major sects believe he will, then it will go against the promises of the deity the Jews worship.

20

Are you suggesting that you can’t go around saying you’re the messiah just because some watery tart lobbed a scimitar at you?