Israel restored??? During Jesus' lifetime the Romans ran Judah (Israel) as a puppet state. The Romans crucified at least 50,000 and perhaps as many as 200,000 Jews in Judah. The Romans put abominations (idols) in the Temple. The Romans destroyed Jerusalem (for the most part), the Temple and eventually the country itself -- exiling the Jewish people in 135 CE and renaming it "Palestine" after the ancient Jewish enemy: the Philistines. So tell me exactly how Jesus fulfilled a prophecy to restore Israel? Neither John 18:37 or Romans 11:25-27 make a claim that Jesus restored Israel. What does Hoshea / Hosea 3:4 -5 say? "For the children of Israel shall remain for many days, having neither king, nor prince, nor sacrifice, nor pillar, nor ephod nor teraphim. Afterwards shall the children of Israel return, and seek the L-rd their G-d and David their king, and they shall come trembling to the L-rd and to His goodness at the end of days." Hoshea / Hosea 3:4 -5. The Jews still have no king. Jews still have no prince. Jews still have no sacrifice (the Temple having been destroyed in 68 CE). Sacrifices did remain until that time -- 35 to 40 years after Jesus' supposed death. Jews still have no "pillar" Jews still have no אֵפוֹד / ephod: holding the אוּרִים וְתֻמִּים / Urim and Tummim. The kohein gadol (high priest) wore an אֵפוֹד (ephod) -- it looked like an apron. Inside the apron was the אוּרִים וְתֻמִּים / Urim and Tummim -- a piece of parchment which had G-d’s holiest name (the Tetragrammaton). This paper was placed inside the high priest's breastplate (choshen), between the two folds. On it was a breast plate (חֹשֶׁן) which had a pouch inlaid with 12 precious stones engraved with the names of the 12 tribes of Israel. The pouch held the אוּרִים וְתֻמִּים (unim and thummim). Because the Urim was an oracle the breast piece was called "the breast piece of decision" (חֹשֶׁן הַמִּשְׁפָּט). None of this happened in the time of Jesus, and 2000+ years later we are still waiting. Jesus was not a Davidic king -- and had no right to the throne. The last Davidic king ruled 600 years before Jesus. . . Who is Hosea? He lived during the reign of Yarav'am (Jeroboam) around 2800 years ago. He was a prophet to the northern kingdom of Israel (not the southern kingdom of Judah where Jesus supposedly lived). The first three chapters of the book of Hosea discuss Hosea’s “marriage." G-d told Hoshea to marry a prostitute and have children with her, the result being that others will question their paternity. Hoshea married a prostitute named Gomer and had three children with her, two sons and a daughter. Chapters four through thirteen are warnings to the northern kingdom to return to G-d or face destruction. The final chapter, fourteen, promises restoration. Israel, the northern kingdom, had been gone about 600 years before Jesus' supposed birth -- and he did nothing to restore it. Yet another claim that a biblical passage is "fulfilled" by Jesus which, upon even a cursory view, falls apart with a simple reading. In 1948 the modern state of Israel was created -- out of the ashes of the Holocaust where half of the world's Jewish population perished in "Christian" countries. The modern state is not the messianic state -- there is no Davidic king and the prophecies of Hosea have yet to occur.
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