Bs"d
What we see here, is that, except for Intojoy, nobody can give any rational argument why they think that their holy books are inspired by God.
They say they "believe" in the NT. And when asked why they don't believe in the Quran, the silence is deafening.
So we can conclude that their religion is an accident of birth; they are born in a predominantly Christian country, therefore they are Christians.
If they would have been born in Arabia, they would have been Muslims.
Intojoy says:
And he has a good point there. Many great thinkers noticed that:
Over the past two hundred years thinkers have pondered the metaphysics of Jewish survival.
They appear to marvel at this phenomenon. For example, Leo Tolstoy in his “What is the Jew?” wrote: (9)
“What is the Jew? This is not as strange a question as it would first appear to be. Come let us contemplate what kind of unique creature is this whom all the rulers and all the nations of the world have disgraced and crushed and expelled and destroyed; persecuted, burned and drowned, and who, despite their anger and their fury, continues to live and flourish. What is this Jew, whom they have never succeeded in enticing with all the enticements in the world, whose oppressors and persecutors only suggested that he deny [and disown] his religion and cast aside the faithfulness of his ancestors?!
The Jew is the symbol of eternity. He is the one they were never able to destroy, neither
bloodbath nor afflictions, neither fire nor the sword succeeded in annihilating him. He is the one who for so long has guarded the prophetic message and transmitted it to all mankind. A people such as this can never disappear. The Jew is eternal. He is the embodiment of eternity.”
In his book “The Ancient World” Professor T.R. Glover similarly wrote: (10)
“No ancient people had a history stranger than the Jews..... The history of no ancient people
should be so valuable, if we could only recover it and understand it.... Stranger still, the ancient religion of the Jews survives, when all the religions of every ancient race of the pre*Christian world have disappeared. Again, it is strange that the living religions of the world all build on the religious ideas derived from the Jews..... This then is the problem offered by the Jews to the historian. The great matter is not “What happened?” but “Why did it happen?” Why does this race continue? Why does Judaism live? How did it really begin? Why did it come out so?”
Professor Nicholas Berdkilaev, of the Moscow Academy of Spiritual Culture, in his book “The
Meaning of History” commented thus: (11)
“The Jews have played an all*important role in history. They are pre*eminently a historical people and their destiny reflects indestructibility..... their destiny is to imbued with the metaphysical to be explained either in material or positive*historical terms. I remember how the materialist interpretation of history, when I attempted in my youth to verify it by applying to it the destinies of people, broke down in the case of the Jews, where destiny seemed absolutely inexplicable from the materialistic standpoint. And, indeed, according to the materialistic and positivist criterion, this people ought to have perished long ago. Its survival is a mysterious and wonderful phenomenon demonstrating that the life of this people is governed by a special predetermination, transcending the process of adaptation expounded by the materialistic interpretation of history. The survival of the Jews, their resistance to destruction, their endurance under absolute peculiar conditions and the fatefull role played by them in history, all these points point to the particular and mysterious foundations of their destiny.”
The eighteenth*century Talmudic scholar, Rabbi Jonathan Eibeschutz, commented: (12)
“Will the atheist not be embarrassed when he reflects on Jewish history? We, an exiled people, scattered sheep from antiquity, have endured brutal persecution over thousands of years. There is no nation or people as persued as we. Many and powerfull are those who aspired to totally destroy us, but they never prevailed. How will the wise philosopher respond? Is this extraordinary phenomenon truly by chance?”
Dr Isaac Breuer wrote: (13)
“The “People of the Book” among the nations is the most fantastic miracle of all, and the history of this people is literally one of miracles. And one who sees this ancient people today, after thousands of years among the nations of the world, when he reads the Scriptures and finds that they prophetically relate clearly and simply the ever*transpiring Jewish phenomenon, and does not fall on his face and exclaim: “God, the Lord of Israel, He is God”, then no other miracle will help him. For, in truth, this individual has no heart to understand, no eye to discern, and no ear to hear.”
The French author Jon DeBileda, during the latter part of the ninetheenth century, (i.e. before the Russian Revolution, nazi Germany, and the modern Jewish state) described the situation thusly:
(14)
“In essence, the Jewish People chuckle at all forms of anti*Semitism. Think all you want, and you will not be able to find one form of brutality or strategy that has not been used in warfare against the Jewish People. 'I cannot be defeated', says Judaism. All that you attempt to do to me today has been attempted 3,200 years ago in Egypt. Then tried the Babylonians and Persians. Afterward tried the Romans, and then others and others..... There is no question that the Jews will outlive us all. This is an eternal people..... They cannot be defeated, understand this! Every war with them is a vain waste of time and manpower. Conversely, it is wise to sign a mutual covenant with them. How trustworthy and profitable they are as allies. Look at their patriotism, their commercial benefit, and their ambition and their success in science, the arts, and politics. Be their friend and they will pay you back in friendship one*hundred*fold. This is an exalted and chosen people.”
A more modern*day example of the Jewish people survival mechanism was interestingly described in the secular Israeli newspaper “Maariv” (April 17, 1983) concerning the Jewish State's War of Independence in 1948: (15)
“Is this how things really happened? Just as they are told in the history books? And 650,000 Jews who escaped from the horrors of the Second World War and from the cruel struggle with the oppressive British – did they really build up this whole infantry on their own efforts? Six hundred and fifty thousand who created a nation*state from emptiness and desolation? And they stood in bitter warfare against the organized armies of five Arab countries? Five percent of the Jewish people, and not only did they strike a blow against every enemy that stood up against them, but absorbed hundreds of thousands of refugees from the remnants of European and Middle East Jewry. By all logic, and by all human reason, everything that happened in 1948 is in the category of the impossible. It was impossible with the limited arms that the Jews possessed, with the rudimentary international support they managed to gather, with the limited resources that were available to them, to do all that they did. To bring a system of public services in operation from nothing. To establish a military industry from its beginning. To sustain supplies and minimal services, and to run a war that had no clear delineated front or rear lines, no organized lines of defense, no organized reserves of ammunition, and no expert commanders to lead its battalions!”
(above quotes are from the book "The Anti-Jewish Phenomenon", by rabbi dr Allswang)
This is the sign that God has put in the Jewish people.
For more about the sign of God in the Jewish people, look
HERE.
"Thus says Y-H-W-H: ‘In those days ten men from every language of the nations shall grasp the sleeve of a Jewish man, saying, “Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.”
Zech 8:23
