Part of the premise of the 13th Tribe is that many modern Jews are not the descendants of the ancient Jews but descendants of a Russian tribe known as the Khazars. Everything you need to know about Wierwille's take on this book can be found in the appendix "Jew and Judaean" in Jesus Christ Our Passover.
I read about half of it. It was very dry and textual. It was interesting to me though. I found the theory to be very plausible really. In essence, Koestler propounded through historical documentation, that the European Jews were decendants of a warlike southern Russian bunch known as the Khazars. They were very tough and warlike, and as a people not very manageable by their leaders. They needed to be, according to Koestler, cemented together by something or another, and their leadership picked Judaism for a national religion. There were three major religions at that time; Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
And so, they sent over to Jerusalem and asked for some Rabbis to come over and teach the people the Jewish religion, the language, and the culture of Judaism. And according to the history propounded in the book, that is how European Judaism took root and grew in that region of the world. I guess from there, it spreadto Poland, Germany, and other nearby places.
When one considers the fact that Israel is a very long way from the Russian Steppes, Germany, and Poland, this theory as to where the European Jews came from is plausible.
The reason Koestler refers to them as the "Thirteenth Tribe" is because he contends that the modern day Jews who "returned" to Israel to reclaim their homeland, are not decendants of Israel and his twelve sons who are the fathers of the Twelve Tribes. He contends that they are Khazars, and not true Israelites. Imposters.
This bit of research of course, in the eyes of people who hate Jews, is further "proof" that they, the white supremist types, are right to persecute the Jew.
The book was dry and boring at times as most "expose' type books tend to be, but I thought it was worth reading and considering. I didn't find it to be anti-semitic at all, because, the book contended that todays Jews are not actually Semites anyway. He does contend that there may be some with original Hebrew blood, but that they didn't come from Europe.
To me, it is a moot point anyway. I do know from the scriptures, that by the time Jesus Christ appeared on the scene, the only tribe of the Twelve left in much tact, was the tribe of Judah, where he began his ministry in the region of Judah. And even then, it, the religion had been reduced to godless idolatry, with whom Jesus was constantly at odds with. They eventually crucified him, as we all know. At least that is the clear biblical version of it, which of course is substantiated by secular history as well.
This book and theory that todays Jews are not really from the ancient bloodline of Judah is the basis for Craig Martindales comment that "the Jews of today are no more God's chosen people than the Apaches!"
I agree with that statement myself, but not because I believe in Arthur Koestler's theory about this imposter Thirteenth Tribe, but rather because I believe that those who are chosen by God through Christ Jesus our Lord, are God's chosen people.
In fact, it always has and still does bug me that todays TV preachers are always saying that we need to "save Israel", support our governments' support of modern Israel, because Israel is God's chosen people. Well, sorry, but if they are biblical believers, as they propound that they are, how can a group of people (the Jews) who teach that Jesus was not really The Messiah, be God's Chosen people when they've rejected the one who in the Bible was sent to save them? But that is for another thread really...
An interesting side note to all this is how Israel has had to deal with the issue of . Israel passed the law of return in 1950 allowing any Jew the right to immigrate to Israel.
quote:In fact, it always has and still does bug me that todays TV preachers are always saying that we need to "save Israel", support our governments' support of modern Israel, because Israel is God's chosen people. Well, sorry, but if they are biblical believers, as they propound that they are, how can a group of people (the Jews) who teach that Jesus was not really The Messiah, be God's Chosen people when they've rejected the one who in the Bible was sent to save them?
A good point Jonny. The tribe of Judah was chosen by God to bring forth the Messiah. But today, it means nothing without Christ.
Being of Jewish decent, I read most of the book (boorrrring).
I agree it is plausible - though I read somewhere the author later retracted his theory.
My family is Jewish and comes from Russia, Poland, and Hungary. My grandmother claimed we stemmed from the tribe of Levi, though I've never seen anything to document this.
I do know, there is a tribe (reuben? benjamin?) which carries a rare genetic disorder that is still prevelant today - which would seem to indicate the Jewish bloodline is alive, though certainly diluted.
In either case, I see it as somewhat irrelevent because if you practice the Jewish religion, you consider yourself a Jew regardless of your bloodline.
Additionally, I doubt Hilter would have bothered with genetic testing (were it available then) before sending someone off to a concentration camp. Likewise, those who hate/fear Jews today probably don't care whether or not their bloodline is pure.
VPW certainly seemed to enjoy depreciating modern-day Jews. But then he also depreciated Catholics and Protestants. About the only religion he didn't seem to depreciate was Hindi. Seems a bit odd, doesn't it?
Koestler's work was plausible, but I never thought he sufficiently proved his thesis. He strung together a lot of documents, but they didn't add up to the sum at the bottom IMHO.
As has been stated, Koestler did not suggest that all Jews were descendents of the Khazars, just those who were in Eastern Europe in the 1800-1900's. These are properly called the Askenazim. Those who were decsended from the Jews of medievel Spain and Portugal, and those who were found in the mediterranean area and middle east were termed Sephardim.
Wierwille (and later Martindale) misrepresented Koestler to the extent that they taught that all modern Jews were descendents of the Khazars. Whether this was intentional or one of Wierwille's failures to understand what he read, I don't know. But there are continuous records of Jews in Europe from biblical times through the late Roman empire and all through the Christian ascendancy in Europe.
Wierwille also incorrectly taught that Yiddish was a form of the Khazar language written with Hebrew characters. In fact Yiddish is considered a dialect of German, with many additions from Hebrew, Russian, Polish and other Eastern European languages. Khazaric was related to Turkish.
quote:What does this book.....this "private interpretation" of Koestler.....have to do with my spiritual walk before God?
Confused Confused
Am I the ONLY one who never connected the dots on this one? What did wierwille want us advanced class students to take from all of this?
I suspect that (and this is my opinion), this was brought to us in the Advanced Class, not to show a hatred toward the Jews, or to be anti-Semitic, as we were accused of, but rather to "show us" that there is a lot more going on in the world around us than what the media tells us. You know, we as spiritual men and women had the "secret inside information", because we are "tapped in".
Just like the whole Illuminati thing. We knew who really ruled the world in terms of which seed boys were running which organization. "None dared call it conspiracy", but we chosen few! Shoot, you're just too pure hearted Skyrider... :)-->
Now, I remember going along with the whole Jewish/Khazar theory back in those days, and thinking; "Ya know, it is really devilish that our government continues to pump billions of tax payers dollars into Israel, when those who claim to be "Israelites", are really just the decendants of a bunch of "wild assed Khazars!" You see, I had the inside scoop on this stuff man! Cuz "those people were no more God's Chosen than the Apaches! I'm an Advanced Class grad!"
Well, I know that you all were no doubt more mature than I, but, that "inside knowledge" did pump up my ego somewhat...
Now personally, I still don't like it that we support Israel, but not for those reasons. Personally, I don't think of Israel to be a whole lot different from the A-Rabs that they stole the land from. Hell, if I were those goat herdin Palestinians back in 1945, I'd be p.o.'d
at the Americans and the Brits and whoever else it was that "gave" that land to the European Jews so that they could have a homeland. Personally, I think they should have gone back to their respective countries, such as Germany, Poland, Hungary, etc...
But that of course is a topic for yet another thread :)-->
You know, as an aside (de-rail), I'd be willing to bet that if the Allies had known in 1945 that the Arab countries were sitting on a veritable OCEAN OF OIL, they might not have been so gung ho about supporting Israel the way we did. In hindsight, with all of that oil over there, it would be more in our favor to be good friends with them, and not enemies...
Funny, "The Thirteenth Tribe" didn't offend me like "The Myth of the Six Million" did.
I'm also descended from Ashkenazi Jews. My grandparents were from Germany, Romania, Poland,and Russia. My mom's folks spoke Yiddish (I only know the cuss words!).
I always thought that Koestler's theory was possible - that the Jews of The Pale were converted Khazars. But then again - there's the possiblity that they might be the real thing. Remember, the twelve tribes were "scattered abroad". Who knows where they ended up? And if they were Khazarian converts - so what? There are Ethopian Jews and Sephardic Jews who may or may not be direct descendants of Jacob any more than the Ashkenazi Jews are.
And, IMO, what makes someone Jewish isn't blood - it's in how one worships God. If Jews are a "race" of people, then why did they so easily assimilate into the cultures of the countries they lived in? Why do we say "African American" and "Italian American" but not "Jewish American"? Because it's a RELIGION - we don't say "Catholic American" either.
Anyway - there's another book titled "Jews, God and History" by Max I. Dimont that I highly recommend if you're interested in Jewish History.(check it out on Amazon.com - read an excerpt)
I think that Koestler's book fed into VP's Anti-Semitism - but I also don't think he gave it too much thought. I wonder if he even read it or just had someone give him the "Reader's Digest" version. He probably thought it was written by the same type of people who wrote "The Myth..." I didn't get that from Koestler's book at all.
quote: And, IMO, what makes someone Jewish isn't blood - it's in how one worships God. If Jews are a "race" of people, then why did they so easily assimilate into the cultures of the countries they lived in? Why do we say "African American" and "Italian American" but not "Jewish American"? Because it's a RELIGION - we don't say "Catholic American" either.
Well, that is certainly fore shore. And if Sammy Davis Junior were still alive, no doubt he would echo that sentiment! :)-->
The whole Jews = Khazars thing didn't bother me so much; if it was true it was true, if it wasn't it wasn't; it didn't seem to have too much impact on my life.
What bothered me, especially after I actually read The Thirteenth Tribe, was how it was misrepresented in TWI. During my whole time in TWI I only knew of ONE other person who read it all the way through, yet almost EVERYONE that I knew in TWI owned a copy. Most people simply went by what Wierwille wrote in his appendix to JCOP, "Jew and Judean". (That's another thing: "Jew" is simply a worn down version of the word "Judean", which Wierwille actually demonstrates in his appendix, not a name that describes a different people - in many languages the word for "Jew" sounds very similar to "Judean".)
In my observation this was simply another example of how wayfers would blindly accept whatever Wierwille said, despite glaring evidence to the contrary.
Hey Jonny Lingo:
I know I'm continuing your slight derailment, but...
There were a small number of Jews living in Palestine/Israel at the turn of the century, more came in every year after WWI, but mostly settled in areas that the Arabs were not heavily settled in.
When the U.N. partitioned Palestine after the British gave up the job there was to be a Jewish state and an Arab state. The Jewish state comprised areas that held a majority of Jews, the Arab state areas that were mainly Arab. The Kingdom of Jordan was left outside this plan due to separate agreements made with the Hashemite clan of Saudi Arabia to give them their own kingdom.
When the neighboring Arab countries attacked the newly proclaimed Israel, many Palestinian Arabs fled to neighboring countries and lived as refugees. When the dust cleared Israel still stood, but the planned Palestinian state had been absorbed (occupied if you will), by Jordan (amazing how Palestinian supporters rarely mention how an independent Palestinian state could have been established fifty years ago if Jordan hadn't occupied it.)
VPW's teaching about the Jews was something I pretty much dismissed as irrelevant. I never read either of those books all the way through. I just wasn't interested after skimming them.
I'm a simple person. Re: the "Myth of the Six Million" premise, I always figured that whether the people were Jews or not didn't matter...if six million people were killed, that was six million people who shouldn't have been killed under the dictatorship of an evil, twisted man and his cohorts.
I didn't connect the dots, either, Skyrider. I never got what those two books had to do with anything, either for modern-day Christians OR modern-day Jews.
Wierwille's view of Judaism was also skewed by his dispensationalism.
When Darby invented dispensationalism, it was to lend seemingly biblical support to his idea, that God was preparing two different groups of people to inhabit eternity in two different places: the Jews, a physical people on a physical earth; and Christians, a spiritual people in a spiritual heaven.
To maintain this position, dispensationalists teach that the Church is completely separate and discontinuous from Israel. The scriptural truth is that the Church consists of the believing remnant of Israel under the New Testament promised to Israel in Jeremiah 31, with believing Gentiles grafted in on the same basis as believing Jews, by grace through faith.
This scriptural truth is set forth in Romans 9-11, which are actually addressed to the Christian believers in the congregation at Rome, and especially to the believers from Gentile backgrounds.
The passage of PFAL where Wierwille stressed the importance of paying attention "To Whom Addressed" is a classic example of a technique stage magicians call "misdirection". While preaching "To Whom Addressed", Wierwille lied (and I can only surmise deliberately) about "To Whom" Romans 9 and 10 were "Addressed", and particularly about the content of Romans 9:4. Romans 9 and 10 are ABOUT the Jews, but they were not addressed TO the Jews.
The Gentiles of Romans 11 were not unbelieving Gentiles, they were the Christians who had come to Christ from Gentile backgrounds. These chapters open up whole vistas of the relation between Jews and Gentiles in the Church that are vastly different from what Wierwille taught in PFAL.
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OnionEater
I bought the book back in 1980 and I still haven't read it yet.
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Shellon
That book, it's instruction, etc., was such a pain to follow.
Never did understand it
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Raf
Part of the premise of the 13th Tribe is that many modern Jews are not the descendants of the ancient Jews but descendants of a Russian tribe known as the Khazars. Everything you need to know about Wierwille's take on this book can be found in the appendix "Jew and Judaean" in Jesus Christ Our Passover.
DNA testing has proven Koestler's thesis false.
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J0nny Ling0
I read about half of it. It was very dry and textual. It was interesting to me though. I found the theory to be very plausible really. In essence, Koestler propounded through historical documentation, that the European Jews were decendants of a warlike southern Russian bunch known as the Khazars. They were very tough and warlike, and as a people not very manageable by their leaders. They needed to be, according to Koestler, cemented together by something or another, and their leadership picked Judaism for a national religion. There were three major religions at that time; Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
And so, they sent over to Jerusalem and asked for some Rabbis to come over and teach the people the Jewish religion, the language, and the culture of Judaism. And according to the history propounded in the book, that is how European Judaism took root and grew in that region of the world. I guess from there, it spreadto Poland, Germany, and other nearby places.
When one considers the fact that Israel is a very long way from the Russian Steppes, Germany, and Poland, this theory as to where the European Jews came from is plausible.
The reason Koestler refers to them as the "Thirteenth Tribe" is because he contends that the modern day Jews who "returned" to Israel to reclaim their homeland, are not decendants of Israel and his twelve sons who are the fathers of the Twelve Tribes. He contends that they are Khazars, and not true Israelites. Imposters.
This bit of research of course, in the eyes of people who hate Jews, is further "proof" that they, the white supremist types, are right to persecute the Jew.
The book was dry and boring at times as most "expose' type books tend to be, but I thought it was worth reading and considering. I didn't find it to be anti-semitic at all, because, the book contended that todays Jews are not actually Semites anyway. He does contend that there may be some with original Hebrew blood, but that they didn't come from Europe.
To me, it is a moot point anyway. I do know from the scriptures, that by the time Jesus Christ appeared on the scene, the only tribe of the Twelve left in much tact, was the tribe of Judah, where he began his ministry in the region of Judah. And even then, it, the religion had been reduced to godless idolatry, with whom Jesus was constantly at odds with. They eventually crucified him, as we all know. At least that is the clear biblical version of it, which of course is substantiated by secular history as well.
This book and theory that todays Jews are not really from the ancient bloodline of Judah is the basis for Craig Martindales comment that "the Jews of today are no more God's chosen people than the Apaches!"
I agree with that statement myself, but not because I believe in Arthur Koestler's theory about this imposter Thirteenth Tribe, but rather because I believe that those who are chosen by God through Christ Jesus our Lord, are God's chosen people.
In fact, it always has and still does bug me that todays TV preachers are always saying that we need to "save Israel", support our governments' support of modern Israel, because Israel is God's chosen people. Well, sorry, but if they are biblical believers, as they propound that they are, how can a group of people (the Jews) who teach that Jesus was not really The Messiah, be God's Chosen people when they've rejected the one who in the Bible was sent to save them? But that is for another thread really...
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J0nny Ling0
Hey Raf, I didn't know about the DNA testing. Interesting. When did this information come out?
Like I said though, it doesn't really matter to me who they are. They are in a tough situation though, that's for sure...
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skyrider
Thanks Raf & Jonny...
Maybe I was sleeping during some of these class sessions......BECAUSE I still don't get it?
What does this book.....this "private interpretation" of Koestler.....have to do with my spiritual walk before God?
Am I the ONLY one who never connected the dots on this one? What did wierwille want us advanced class students to take from all of this?
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oldiesman
Just kidding.
I think he wanted it in the bookstore so that we could read another viewpoint on this topic.
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Jim
An interesting side note to all this is how Israel has had to deal with the issue of . Israel passed the law of return in 1950 allowing any Jew the right to immigrate to Israel.
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Raf
I think your joke was closer to the truth than your serious comment, unfortunately.
This was not "another viewpoint" on the topic: it was the viewpoint he accepted and propounded as truth.
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oldiesman
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Abigail
Being of Jewish decent, I read most of the book (boorrrring).
I agree it is plausible - though I read somewhere the author later retracted his theory.
My family is Jewish and comes from Russia, Poland, and Hungary. My grandmother claimed we stemmed from the tribe of Levi, though I've never seen anything to document this.
I do know, there is a tribe (reuben? benjamin?) which carries a rare genetic disorder that is still prevelant today - which would seem to indicate the Jewish bloodline is alive, though certainly diluted.
In either case, I see it as somewhat irrelevent because if you practice the Jewish religion, you consider yourself a Jew regardless of your bloodline.
Additionally, I doubt Hilter would have bothered with genetic testing (were it available then) before sending someone off to a concentration camp. Likewise, those who hate/fear Jews today probably don't care whether or not their bloodline is pure.
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Jim
Thanks for your insight Abigail.
VPW certainly seemed to enjoy depreciating modern-day Jews. But then he also depreciated Catholics and Protestants. About the only religion he didn't seem to depreciate was Hindi. Seems a bit odd, doesn't it?
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Tom Strange
Raf... Oldies... do you guys shop at the same haberdashery?
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Raf
Ony when we're out to make a splash, Siree.
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Oakspear
Koestler's work was plausible, but I never thought he sufficiently proved his thesis. He strung together a lot of documents, but they didn't add up to the sum at the bottom IMHO.
As has been stated, Koestler did not suggest that all Jews were descendents of the Khazars, just those who were in Eastern Europe in the 1800-1900's. These are properly called the Askenazim. Those who were decsended from the Jews of medievel Spain and Portugal, and those who were found in the mediterranean area and middle east were termed Sephardim.
Wierwille (and later Martindale) misrepresented Koestler to the extent that they taught that all modern Jews were descendents of the Khazars. Whether this was intentional or one of Wierwille's failures to understand what he read, I don't know. But there are continuous records of Jews in Europe from biblical times through the late Roman empire and all through the Christian ascendancy in Europe.
Wierwille also incorrectly taught that Yiddish was a form of the Khazar language written with Hebrew characters. In fact Yiddish is considered a dialect of German, with many additions from Hebrew, Russian, Polish and other Eastern European languages. Khazaric was related to Turkish.
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J0nny Ling0
I suspect that (and this is my opinion), this was brought to us in the Advanced Class, not to show a hatred toward the Jews, or to be anti-Semitic, as we were accused of, but rather to "show us" that there is a lot more going on in the world around us than what the media tells us. You know, we as spiritual men and women had the "secret inside information", because we are "tapped in".
Just like the whole Illuminati thing. We knew who really ruled the world in terms of which seed boys were running which organization. "None dared call it conspiracy", but we chosen few! Shoot, you're just too pure hearted Skyrider...
:)-->
Now, I remember going along with the whole Jewish/Khazar theory back in those days, and thinking; "Ya know, it is really devilish that our government continues to pump billions of tax payers dollars into Israel, when those who claim to be "Israelites", are really just the decendants of a bunch of "wild assed Khazars!" You see, I had the inside scoop on this stuff man! Cuz "those people were no more God's Chosen than the Apaches! I'm an Advanced Class grad!"
Well, I know that you all were no doubt more mature than I, but, that "inside knowledge" did pump up my ego somewhat...
Now personally, I still don't like it that we support Israel, but not for those reasons. Personally, I don't think of Israel to be a whole lot different from the A-Rabs that they stole the land from. Hell, if I were those goat herdin Palestinians back in 1945, I'd be p.o.'d
at the Americans and the Brits and whoever else it was that "gave" that land to the European Jews so that they could have a homeland. Personally, I think they should have gone back to their respective countries, such as Germany, Poland, Hungary, etc...
But that of course is a topic for yet another thread
:)-->
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J0nny Ling0
You know, as an aside (de-rail), I'd be willing to bet that if the Allies had known in 1945 that the Arab countries were sitting on a veritable OCEAN OF OIL, they might not have been so gung ho about supporting Israel the way we did. In hindsight, with all of that oil over there, it would be more in our favor to be good friends with them, and not enemies...
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Hope R.
Funny, "The Thirteenth Tribe" didn't offend me like "The Myth of the Six Million" did.
I'm also descended from Ashkenazi Jews. My grandparents were from Germany, Romania, Poland,and Russia. My mom's folks spoke Yiddish (I only know the cuss words!).
I always thought that Koestler's theory was possible - that the Jews of The Pale were converted Khazars. But then again - there's the possiblity that they might be the real thing. Remember, the twelve tribes were "scattered abroad". Who knows where they ended up? And if they were Khazarian converts - so what? There are Ethopian Jews and Sephardic Jews who may or may not be direct descendants of Jacob any more than the Ashkenazi Jews are.
And, IMO, what makes someone Jewish isn't blood - it's in how one worships God. If Jews are a "race" of people, then why did they so easily assimilate into the cultures of the countries they lived in? Why do we say "African American" and "Italian American" but not "Jewish American"? Because it's a RELIGION - we don't say "Catholic American" either.
Anyway - there's another book titled "Jews, God and History" by Max I. Dimont that I highly recommend if you're interested in Jewish History.(check it out on Amazon.com - read an excerpt)
I think that Koestler's book fed into VP's Anti-Semitism - but I also don't think he gave it too much thought. I wonder if he even read it or just had someone give him the "Reader's Digest" version. He probably thought it was written by the same type of people who wrote "The Myth..." I didn't get that from Koestler's book at all.
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J0nny Ling0
Hope said;
Well, that is certainly fore shore. And if Sammy Davis Junior were still alive, no doubt he would echo that sentiment!
:)-->
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Oakspear
The whole Jews = Khazars thing didn't bother me so much; if it was true it was true, if it wasn't it wasn't; it didn't seem to have too much impact on my life.
What bothered me, especially after I actually read The Thirteenth Tribe, was how it was misrepresented in TWI. During my whole time in TWI I only knew of ONE other person who read it all the way through, yet almost EVERYONE that I knew in TWI owned a copy. Most people simply went by what Wierwille wrote in his appendix to JCOP, "Jew and Judean". (That's another thing: "Jew" is simply a worn down version of the word "Judean", which Wierwille actually demonstrates in his appendix, not a name that describes a different people - in many languages the word for "Jew" sounds very similar to "Judean".)
In my observation this was simply another example of how wayfers would blindly accept whatever Wierwille said, despite glaring evidence to the contrary.
Hey Jonny Lingo:
I know I'm continuing your slight derailment, but...
There were a small number of Jews living in Palestine/Israel at the turn of the century, more came in every year after WWI, but mostly settled in areas that the Arabs were not heavily settled in.
When the U.N. partitioned Palestine after the British gave up the job there was to be a Jewish state and an Arab state. The Jewish state comprised areas that held a majority of Jews, the Arab state areas that were mainly Arab. The Kingdom of Jordan was left outside this plan due to separate agreements made with the Hashemite clan of Saudi Arabia to give them their own kingdom.
When the neighboring Arab countries attacked the newly proclaimed Israel, many Palestinian Arabs fled to neighboring countries and lived as refugees. When the dust cleared Israel still stood, but the planned Palestinian state had been absorbed (occupied if you will), by Jordan (amazing how Palestinian supporters rarely mention how an independent Palestinian state could have been established fifty years ago if Jordan hadn't occupied it.)
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J0nny Ling0
Thanks for the history Oak...
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Abigail
That is very interesting Oak. I had done some research on the history of Israel and Palestine but never came across that.
I too thought it was wrong for the Palestinians to be kicked out of their homes - but what you've added gives it an entirely different perspective.
Oh, and the Myth of the 6million bugged the hell out of me - I have family that was in Auschwizt (sp). But like a good little wafer I remained silent.
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Linda Z
VPW's teaching about the Jews was something I pretty much dismissed as irrelevant. I never read either of those books all the way through. I just wasn't interested after skimming them.
I'm a simple person. Re: the "Myth of the Six Million" premise, I always figured that whether the people were Jews or not didn't matter...if six million people were killed, that was six million people who shouldn't have been killed under the dictatorship of an evil, twisted man and his cohorts.
I didn't connect the dots, either, Skyrider. I never got what those two books had to do with anything, either for modern-day Christians OR modern-day Jews.
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Steve Lortz
Wierwille's view of Judaism was also skewed by his dispensationalism.
When Darby invented dispensationalism, it was to lend seemingly biblical support to his idea, that God was preparing two different groups of people to inhabit eternity in two different places: the Jews, a physical people on a physical earth; and Christians, a spiritual people in a spiritual heaven.
To maintain this position, dispensationalists teach that the Church is completely separate and discontinuous from Israel. The scriptural truth is that the Church consists of the believing remnant of Israel under the New Testament promised to Israel in Jeremiah 31, with believing Gentiles grafted in on the same basis as believing Jews, by grace through faith.
This scriptural truth is set forth in Romans 9-11, which are actually addressed to the Christian believers in the congregation at Rome, and especially to the believers from Gentile backgrounds.
The passage of PFAL where Wierwille stressed the importance of paying attention "To Whom Addressed" is a classic example of a technique stage magicians call "misdirection". While preaching "To Whom Addressed", Wierwille lied (and I can only surmise deliberately) about "To Whom" Romans 9 and 10 were "Addressed", and particularly about the content of Romans 9:4. Romans 9 and 10 are ABOUT the Jews, but they were not addressed TO the Jews.
The Gentiles of Romans 11 were not unbelieving Gentiles, they were the Christians who had come to Christ from Gentile backgrounds. These chapters open up whole vistas of the relation between Jews and Gentiles in the Church that are vastly different from what Wierwille taught in PFAL.
Love,
Steve
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