Points to Ponder No 36 23nd October, 2015
The executive members of UNESCO have decided that the Tombs of the Jewish Patriarchs and Matriarchs (Abraham and Sarah; Isaac and Rebekah and Jacob and Leah) in Hebron and that of the Matriarch Rachel in Bethlehem are Moslem Holy Sites.
They ignored the Jewish connection including the recorded purchase of the burial site by Abraham as it appears in Genesis 23. Whatever dating one gives for the Torah, this deed of sale predates the advent of Mohammed and Islam by more than a millennium. They ignored the fact that the Josephus Flavius recorded that the site as it is today was built by King Herod two thousand years ago, six hundred years before the advent of Mohammed and Islam.
But praise the Lord!!! UNESCO did stop short of declaring the Kotel, the Western Wall a.k.a. the Wailing Wall, the place to which had come for centuries to weep for the destruction of the Jewish Temples – the First Destroyed by the Babylonians, the Second by the Romans.
The Palestinians, led by Mahmoud Abbas and Sheikh Raed, have not stopped their tirade against the Israeli attempts to “change the status” of the Temple Mount. But what exactly is that status? To quote from the official guide to “Al-haram al-sharif” issued by the Supreme Moslem Council in 1925 “It’s identity with the site of Solomon’s Temple is beyond dispute. This too is the spot, according to the universal belief, on which “David built there an altar unto the Lord, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings”. (II Sam 24)
This identical quote appears in the 1950 edition of the Wakf guide. In addition there is a full page of what was commonly referred to as “Solomon’s Stables. After a brief description comes the eye opener. “Little is known of the early history of the chamber itself. It dates probably as far back as the construction of Solomon’s Temple. According to Josephus, it was in existence and was used as a place of refuge by the Jews at the time of the conquest of Jerusalem by Titus in the year 70 AD”.
Unbelievable as it seems you can see the Wakf guide book for yourself.
I am at a loss to understand why Christians are silent in the face of the current Palestinians claim that there was no Jewish Temple on the Temple Mount. If there was no Temple where was Jesus brought when he was eight days old (Luke 2:21ff)? Where did he overturn the tables of the money changers (Mat 21:12)? Where did Jesus celebrate Passover (John2:13)?
In November 2014, in a letter published in the Jerusalem Post, I wrote inter alia: “Everyone is talking about the status quo on the Temple Mount but no one really knows which status quo. Logically it should be the one that existed between 1967 and 2000. During those 33 years there were no limits as to who could visit the Temple Mount including the interior of the Dome of the Rock and the Aqsa Mosque.
“The Wakf changed the status limiting visiting hours, banning Bibles; forbidding prayers and many more restrictions. Any Israeli tour guide who worked during the aforementioned period and is still working can confirm this. We should all be aspiring, nay demanding, a return to those halcyon days”.
And now I turn to you, my readers.
Some of you visited the Temple Mount with me prior to 2000. Others have visited in different groups, as pilgrims or not. You all have memories and photographs. Dig out your photographs of your pastors reading from the New Testament, your ministers leading you in prayer or song, your guide holding a diagram showing you how the Temple Mount looked two thousand years ago. Show them to your friends, your fellow Congregationalists, your news media who attack Israel non-stop.
In the words of Desmond Tutu: “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor”.
Thank you.
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