Zionism and Christian Zionism (Defining Judaism)

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As seen in the early development of Dispensationalism in England and Scotland, Jewish restoration and resettlement were pivotal concepts to dispensational theology. The restoration of Israel would become a critically important doctrine to dispensationalism and eventually mainstream Evangelicalism and this would be based first on the belief that the restoration of Israel in Palestine was prophesied in scripture and that the European Jewish population were the remnants of a displaced population after the fall of Jerusalem and Masada at the hands of the Romans.  In the early 1800’s a movement was started to establish a homeland for the Jewish people, referring principally to European and Russian Jews. The eventual perceived head of the movement was Theodore Herzell who, from his own experiences, came to see a separate homeland as the only way to address anti-Jewish persecution in Europe and Russia.  This is documented in his book “The New Jewish State”. He appealed mainly to younger Jews and was very effective at building and leveraging alliances. This also corresponded to the onset of Modernity when Rabbinic authority in Jewish communities was giving way to secular civil authority.(9 pp. 3-5)

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The relationship between the Jewish restoration movement and its Christian counterpart in terms of a timeline isn’t completely clear as events and even people overlap.  Some historians have suggested the Christian restorationists actually passed the idea to Jewish groups although not all Jews or Jewish groups favored the creation of a separate Jewish homeland, especially in the early years of the movement. These two movements jointly created the political will to bring about the objective and the gradual decay of the Ottoman Empire coupled with the collapse of the dismembering of two remaining Christian monarchies, the Austrian Hungarian Empire and the Russian Empire, created the opportunity. Christian restorationists originally included progressive Millennialists and post Millennialists but, over time, supporters of Christian Zionism became primarily pre-Millennialists.

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A critical question at this point then is to what extent the European Jewish population was/is traceable to 2nd Temple Jewry and the Biblical period when the Biblical texts were actually generated. In this section we will address this question ethnically or genetically, linguistically, and religiously.  The religious aspect, which a practicing Christian may well find to be most significant, will look at not just the degree to which the Jewish religion is practiced but how traceable modern Jewish religion is to the beliefs and practices of ancient Israel.

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 In order to maintain a consistent ethnic identity it would have to be assumed that Jews from the 2nd Temple period forward didn’t attract a large number or percentage of non-Jewish converts. It would also be most easily associated with the idea of a single migration going to specific locations that then didn’t intermarry or inter-breed with other populations. There are potential problems with all of this.  It now does appear that Judaism did attract a substantial number of non-ethnic Jews and Jewish variants (i.e. God Fearers). Secondly, there is no historical record of a forced exile from the holy land during the time period in question even from Jewish historian Josephus who wrote that large numbers of Jewish people had already left by that time and were residing in Europe[1]. In fact, the fall of Jerusalem was the first of three Jewish wars of the period and although devastating, was less catastrophic than Kitos War (115-17) [2] and Bar Kokhab War (132-36). According to genetic professor Dr. Harry Ostrer, at the time of the fall of the second temple there were as many as 6 million Jews living throughout the Roman Empire but not in Israel and only about 500,000 living in Israel (10). Numerous archeological sites show evidence of continuous Jewish settlement including 80 synagogues in and around Galilee in the six centuries following the destruction of the temple. There was a quasi-Jewish state there that was recognized by Rome until 429A.D. The Jewish population there was large enough to support three significant revolts against first the Romans and then the Byzantines into the seventh century.  Over time some Middle Eastern Jews would have been assimilated into Islam but others would remain Jewish and would simply remain in their ancestral lands as part of an ethnically and religiously diverse population that generally tolerated each other until recent times.

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Estimates of population, it should acknowledged, are educated opinions but assuming consensus values to be somewhat correct, it’s not certain how the Jewish population during this era grew and spread. Due to large cultural differences it would seem surprising if the bulk of this growth was in Greco-Roman populations and a more plausible hypothesis is that Judaism spread to a greater extent amongst other Semitic people which would make genetic tracing largely impossible but it would probably imply that the northern kingdom of Israel was the main source of Diaspora Judaism in the Roman era.  This would specifically refer to Phoenicians[3], which would explain the geographical spread of the faith as the Phoenicians were seafarers, to Carthidge and throughout North Africa. Based on the relatively large Jewish population across the Roman Empire, it would be very easy to explain the modern European Jewish population if they had to a significant extent remained a distinct population but they didn’t and largely blended into the other ethnic and religious groups. By the 13th century estimates of the Jewish population worldwide are only around 2 million with only 250,000 living in Christian lands which makes the origins of European Jews an interesting question that has received a good deal of attention.

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Modern European Jews have two general groupings.  One is Sephardim Jews and the other is the Ashkenazi Jews. Sephardim Jews refers to Jews from the Iberian Peninsula who were expelled from this region when the Moors were deposed from what is now Spain and Portugal at the end of the 15th century.  Prior to that the Sephardim Jews along with Spanish Moors built a civilization based out of Cordova that lasted for centuries with the period from the 8th to 11th century being considered the “golden age” for Spanish Jewry after the Moors were victorious over the Visigoths.  While they were treated as a subject people to the Moors, referred to as dhimmis, they generally flourished and there was significant cultural interchange between the Sephardim Jews and Spanish Moors.  Jews are believed to have lived in this area since the time of Solomon and after being expelled from Spain, they settled principally in North Africa (Ottoman Empire), Turkey, and Greece. Despite their long and relatively well established history, Sephardim Jews now make up only about 10% of the modern Jewish population (11)and were not the result of any sort of mass exodus from the holy land during the Roman era.

The remaining questions then have to do with determining who the Ashkenazi Jews are genetically, culturally, and religiously and there are two competing theories in this regard and neither is based on Jewish migration immediately following the second temple period. The first most generally accepted is the “Rhineland hypothesis” that holds that the modern European Ashkenazi Jewish population originated from two mass migration events.  The first wave is proposed to have occurred within the first 200 years following the Muslim conquest of Palestine in 638 CE and the second wave coming from 50,000 Germanic Jews who migrated eastward beginning in the 15th century out of a total Ashkenazi Jewish population of app. 150,000. Tracing the male linage or Y chromosome, a 2014 study indicated that 50% to 80% of the DNA originated in the Near East. On the maternal side, however, 80% of these lineages traced to Europe and very few were traceable to the Near East (10). This study concluded that Ashkenazi Jews descended from 350 individuals who lived between 600 and 800 years ago. For this to be a complete explanation, however, would require a very high birth rate that would have been several times higher than that of the surrounding populations and/or an unusually high degree of genetic isolation.  Modern Ashkenazi Jews have a genetic makeup that generally varies from 40% to 60% European and 40% to 60% Middle Eastern so the Rhineland explanation fits these parameters if the high birth rate is accepted.

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If the assumptions of a very high birth rate and genetic isolation are not accepted then the population would have had to been augmented by converts from Europe and to some extent this would be expected.  The greater the extent that the population is augmented by converts the greater the level of dispersion (i.e. standard deviation) and there would also tend to be distinctly different subpopulations. The controversy associated with this centers on who that added population is which leads to the controversial Khazar hypotheses. There are a minority of academics that advocate this position today but there is evidence that supports it. The Khazars were a once powerful kingdom comprised of Slavic, Scythian, Hunnic–Bulgar, Iranian, Alans, and Turkish tribes who formed in the central–northern Caucasus region. Caught between the Byzantines and the Moors, a substantial portion of the Khazar population, especially the ruling class, mass converted to Judaism around 740 CE.  Anti-Zionist Israeli historian Prof. Shlomo Sand is probably the most recognized advocate of the Kazarian theory and geneticist Eran Elhaik has also published a number of papers supporting this conclusion. The following paragraph which is summarized from a journal article by Elhaik gives a good summary of the Kazarian hypothesis.

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Biblical and archeological records indicate that active trade relationships existed between Proto-Judeans and Armenians prior to and during the time of Jesus and the Second Temple that likely resulted in a small scale mixing of these populations. After their conversion to Judaism, the population of the Judeo–Khazars was further impacted by multiple migrations of Jews from the Byzantine Empire and Caliphate to the Khazarian Empire. Following the collapse of the Khazarian Empire and the Black Death (1347–1348) the Judeo–Khazars migrated westward settling in the rising Polish Kingdom and Hungary and then spreading to Central and Western Europe. The Khazarian hypothesis proposes that European Jews are comprised of Caucasus, European, and Middle Eastern ancestries. Further, European Jewish communities are anticipated to be different from one another genetically. (12).

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This study concluded:

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The geographical origins of European Jews varied for different reference populations but all the results converged to Southern Khazaria along modern Turkey, Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan. Eastern European Jews clustered tightly compared with Central European Jews in all analyses. The smallest deviations in the geographical coordinates were obtained with Armenians for both Eastern (38 ± 2.7° N, 39.9 ± 0.4° E) and Central (35 ± 5° N, 39.7 ± 1.1° E) European Jews. Similar results were obtained for Georgians. Remarkably, the mean coordinates of Eastern European Jews are 560 km from Khazaria’s southern border (42.77° N, 42.56° E) near Samandar—the capital city of Khazaria from 720 to 750 CE (Polak 1951).(12)

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Another study from 2017 documented Frontiers in Genetics and performed by four recognized academics including Elhaik, included both analysis of Biblical terminology and linguistics specifically addressing the characteristics of the Yiddish language, also supported the Kazarian hypothesis.  The Ashkenaz name is associated with the Biblical place name “Ashkenaz” which is one of the most disputed place names in the Bible (13). It appears in the Hebrew Bible as the name of one of Noah's descendants (Genesis 10:3) and as a reference to the kingdom of Ashkenaz, prophesied to be called together with Ararat and Minnai to wage war against Babylon (Jeremiah 51:27). The genetic linkage of the Eastern Jewish population to the Khazarian region also aligns with “Ashkenaz” lands. The Yiddish language further contains elements of many other languages, which would be expected along trade routes that ran through these areas, but the main elements seem to be Turkish, Iranian, and Slavic (13).  The overview and conclusion from this study are as follows:

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"Recently, the geographical origins of Ashkenazic Jews (AJs) and their native language Yiddish were investigated by applying the Geographic Population Structure (GPS) to a cohort of exclusively Yiddish-speaking and multilingual AJs. GPS localized most AJs along major ancient trade routes in northeastern Turkey adjacent to primeval villages with names that resemble the word “Ashkenazi.” These findings were compatible with the hypothesis of an Irano-Turko-Slavic origin for AJs and a Slavic origin for Yiddish and at odds with the Rhineland hypothesis advocating a Levantine origin for AJs and German origins for Yiddish. We discuss how these findings advance three ongoing debates concerning (1) the historical meaning of the term “Ashkenazi;” (2) the genetic structure of AJs and their geographical origins as inferred from multiple studies employing both modern and ancient DNA and original ancient DNA analyses; and (3) the development of Yiddish. We provide additional validation to the non-Levantine origin of AJs using ancient DNA from the Near East and the Levant. Due to the rising popularity of geo-localization tools to address questions of origin, we briefly discuss the advantages and limitations of popular tools with focus on the GPS approach. Our results reinforce the non-Levantine origins of AJs."

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"The meaning of the term “Ashkenazi” and the geographical origins of AJs and Yiddish are some of the longest standing questions in history, genetics, and linguistics. In our previous work we have identified “ancient Ashkenazi,” a region in northeastern Turkey that harbors four primeval villages whose names resemble Ashkenazi. Here, we elaborate on the meaning of this term and argue that it acquired its modern meaning only after a critical mass of Ashkenazic Jews arrived in Germany. We show that all bio-localization analyses have localized AJs to Turkey and that the non-Levantine origins of AJs are supported by ancient genome analyses. Overall, these findings are compatible with the hypothesis of an Irano-Turko-Slavic origin for AJs and a Slavic origin for Yiddish and contradict the predictions of Rhineland hypothesis that lacks historical, genetic, and linguistic support" 

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As to whether the Rhineland hypothesis is an adequate explanation for the genetic origins of the Ashkenazi Jews or whether the size of the population requires significant augmentation from non-Jewish converts will be left to the reader to decide. Regardless, Ashkenazi Jews are at most partial decedents from Middle Eastern ancestors and partially descended from European ancestors and less directly linked to 2nd temple Judaism genetically than others who remained on the land and may or may not practice the Jewish religion or see themselves as part of a Jewish culture. The Yiddish language is Germanic with Slavic elements and some elements of Hebrew (14) so that doesn’t offer any additional clarity. The general conclusion therefore is that the Ashkenazi Jews may have an arguable but somewhat tenuous connection to ancient Israel.

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Moving on to religious beliefs and practices, the first question would be to what extent the Jewish religion and/or culture is observed by the modern inhabitants of Israel?  The person regarded as the founder of Israel, David Ben-Gurion, was the head of the World Zionist Organization and was also an atheist most of his life and was a follower of Lenin (interestingly as opposed to Trotsky) (15 p. 182).  He also became associated with Ho-Chi-Minh.  Amongst those who led the founding of Israel within the World Zionist Organization his views weren’t at all extreme.  They were mainstream and more moderate than some. Ben-Gurion as Israel’s first Prime Minister agreed to a status-quo arrangement with the Orthodox Agudat Yisrael Party principally for public relations purposes.  He recognized that world Jewry would eventually only grow to support Israel if it had a religious context and that this was also largely true of the Christian world especially in America and England. The arrangements he worked out with Agudat Yisrael regarding such things as kosher food and the Sabbath have remained largely in place. Ben-Gurion later in life professed some form of belief in God but never softened his attitudes to Judaism.  One orthodox writer described him “to have hated Judaism more than any other man he had met.” (16 p. 293)

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Looking at more current and complete data on the religious composition of the Jewish state we see not much has changed. 40% of the population identifies as Hiloni or Secular (no or minimal religious or cultural association to Judaism),  23% as Masorti or traditional, 19% as another faith or no faith, and only 10% as Datl or religious and 8% as Haredi or ultra-Orthodox (17). Religious and secular Jews largely live in separate worlds with few if any common friends and very little inter-marriage.  The same survey notes that secular Jews are more comfortable with the idea of an offspring marrying a Christian than a religious Jew (17) .

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The last and potentially most troubling point of comparison would focus specifically on religious Jews and attempt to correlate modern beliefs to those of the Biblical periods. To assess this we will look at the changes that took place between distinct periods of Jewish history as defined by authors Israel Shahak and Norton Mezvinsky along with other academics who have studied this specific topic.  Jewish history can roughly be broken down into four periods as follows (9):

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Biblical Period: This extends up to the 5th century BC and produced the Biblical accounts and texts.  It is also the basis of the Christian perspective of Judaism. As noted in the Biblical account, idolatry was very common and only a minority of the population of the land followed the faith.

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Second Temple:  This period went from the end of the Biblical period to the destruction of the Temple in 70AD or possibly to the end of the Jewish Wars around 135 AD. This was the formative period during which the Jewish faith and culture was fashioned.  Two new ideas here were Jewish exclusiveness that separated Israel from other peoples (gentiles). The second was that all Jews must follow interpretations of Biblical law as established by Jewish authorities which went so far as to incite civil wars. The Sadducee / Pharisee conflict is the best known of these from the Biblical accounts. Related to this, there was a good deal of extra-Biblical material generated during this time that initially took the form of oral tradition and was eventually captured in the Talmud which was compiled incrementally between the 3rd and 8th centuries. The areas of Judea were dominated by Greece and Rome during this period and these Hellenistic influences had a significant influence on Judaism.

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Diaspora:  After the Jewish wars most Jews accepted that the Temple was not to be rebuilt nor the system of animal sacrifices resumed which was the ritual center of the faith. Jews typically had limited self-rule headed by a Patriarch who generally had some sort of recognized position relative to the Roman governor.  This is shown in the Gospel accounts of Herod and Pilate. There was a great deal of literature produced during this extended time period and the bulk of it was religious in nature. Jewish mysticism, referred to as Cabbala, grew throughout this period and by 1550 to 1750 the overwhelming majority of Western European Jews accepted Cabbala and its beliefs. Messianic Jewish fundamentalism is based on the Cabbala and looks at the later part of the third period of Jewish history as the golden age they seek to restore as opposed to the Biblical kingdom of Israel. The wide circulation of religious literature created a strong sense of Jewish identity.

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Modernity: Modernity arrived at different times in different places but it brought about the end of Jewish self rule which also corresponded with conflicts with the host populations and nations.

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It can probably be assumed that Christians generally believe that observant Jews follow the Hebrew Bible or the Christian Old Testament but the Bible has largely been superseded by the Talmud and Jewish Mysticism. The content of the Cabala is especially troubling because it includes magic and spells that in a Christian context would be regarded as occult. Nearly all information on this topic is from Jewish and Israeli sources.  A few samples are provided below:

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The Talmud “is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law and Jewish theology.” (18)

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Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the centerpiece of Jewish cultural life and was the foundational to all “Jewish thoughts and aspirations” (19 p. 379)

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“The Bible anyway is not the book that primarily determines the practices and doctrines of Orthodox Jews. The most fundamentalist Orthodox Jews are largely ignorant of major parts of the Bible and know some parts only through commentaries that distort meaning.” (9 p. 2)

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“Books in Hebrew detailing instructions for spells and witchcraft recipes have been best sellers in Israel for many years.” (9 p. 156)

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“Tom Segev, a columnist for Haaretz and one of Israel’s best known authors, wrote that the use of magic by Jews was nothing new in Judaism. In his March 26, 1999, Hebrew-language Haaretz article, Segev transcribed a magical recipe found in a book, composed in talmudic times (AD 200–500) but still popular in the Diaspora in the eighteenth century.” (9 p. 157)

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In the earlier days of dispensationalism, these points may well have not mattered much as the intent was simply to return some version of the Jewish people to the land but to the modern Evangelical Christian believer in the west and the United States in particular it would probably matter a great deal if this was generally known.

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