The End Time Church: From the Cathedrals to the Catacombs

By Dan L. White

Copyright 2020 by Dan L. White, all rights reserved.

Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (WEB) which is in the public domain.

Chapter 82

The Miracle of the Persecuted, Perpetual Jews

The history of the Jews is the history of a people who were repeatedly defeated, deported and depopulated, yet they always came back.

The history of the Jews is the history of a people who were cast around the world, yet wherever they were forced to, they were still Jews.

And the history of the Jews is the history of a people always rejecting their King.

When the twelve tribes rejected Yahweh as King in Samuel’s time, Judah was part of that. They wanted to be under a human monarch.

About a millennium later, the Jews again rejected their King, and chose to be under a human emperor — Caesar.

This rejector of the King had a special place among the tribes of the King.

Reuben was the firstborn of Jacob’s sons, but his father Jacob said this of Reuben.

Gen 49
4) Boiling over as water, you shall not excel; because you went up to your father’s bed, then defiled it. He went up to my couch.

Simeon and Levi were the next two sons born to Jacob, and Jacob prophesied this of them.

Gen 49
5) “Simeon and Levi are brothers. Their swords are weapons of violence.
6) My soul, don’t come into their council. My glory, don’t be united to their assembly; for in their anger they killed men. In their self-will they hamstrung cattle.
7) Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce; and their wrath, for it was cruel. I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel.

Those tribes were disfavored rather than favored. Then Jacob came to Judah.

Gen 49
10) The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until he comes to whom it belongs.

Reuben, Simeon and Levi, although older than Judah, did not receive the promise of the scepter. Judah did.

Micah reaffirmed this promise to Judah.

Mic 5
2) But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, being small among the clans of Judah, out of you one will come forth to me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting.

If the scepter does not depart from Judah, then Judah has to remain as Judah.

The other ten tribes are described as the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel. There is much argument and endless speculation as to where they are today. DNA tests do not indicate where these people might be. But Judah?

Judah has remained as Judah. They’re scattered over much of the world, but they’re still known as Jews. Their DNA shows they are Judah.

Who am I?

British mostly. But my White progenitor line goes back to one Joseph White, born in North Carolina about 1770, and then stops there. Other lines in the family go back to 1000 AD, but the patriarchal line stops 250 years ago. Who was old Joe White? His parents and place are unknown at this time.

As with many Americans.

But Judah is Judah, the family of the Jews. Even after nearly four millennia, they are still Judah.

That’s amazing.

Well, no – that’s a miracle. For them to retain their identity through all those ages is nothing short of miraculous.

Ironically, knowing who the Jews are has made them persecutable. If they weren’t known as Jews, they couldn’t be persecuted for being Jews. But they are known as Jews and they are persecuted for being Jews.

The three patriarchs of Israel were Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Jacob’s name was changed to Israel. He had twelve sons, and their families became the twelve tribes of Israel. Actually thirteen, since Levi, the God serving tribe, was scattered among the others, and the sons of Joseph, Ephraim and Manasseh, became two tribes.

The Kingdom of Israel had three kings, Saul, David and Solomon. After Solomon’s sins, the kingdom was divided into two parts. The ten tribes were ruled by 8 different families. The Kingdom of Judah was ruled by the descendants of David. Because of their sins, the ten tribes were conquered and carried out of the Holy Land in 721 BCE. Because of her sins, Judah was conquered and carried out of the Holy Land in 586 BCE, as Jeremiah warned.

Jer 25
3) From the thirteenth year of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah, even to this day, these twenty-three years, the word of Yahweh has come to me, and I have spoken to you, rising up early and speaking; but you have not listened.
4) Yahweh has sent to you all his servants the prophets, rising up early and sending them (but you have not listened, nor inclined your ear to hear)
5) saying, Return now everyone from his evil way, and from the evil of your doings, and dwell in the land that Yahweh has given to you and to your fathers, from of old and even forevermore;
6) and don’t go after other gods to serve them or worship them, and don’t provoke me to anger with the work of your hands; and I will do you no harm.
7) Yet you have not listened to me, says Yahweh; that you may provoke me to anger with the work of your hands to your own hurt.
8) Therefore thus says Yahweh of Armies: Because you have not heard my words,
9) behold, I will send and take all the families of the north, says Yahweh, and I will send to Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will bring them against this land, and against its inhabitants, and against all these nations around; and I will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment, and a hissing, and perpetual desolations.

Judah’s troubles were because of Judah’s sins. The destruction of Solomon’s Temple and the destruction of Jerusalem were only a foretaste of the continuing troubles of the Jews.

50 years after the destruction of Solomon’s Temple, Cyrus allowed the Jews to return to Jerusalem and to begin building a second Temple. A Persian king after Cyrus stopped the building, then another Persian king encouraged it. So 70 years after Solomon’s Temple was burned, the second Temple was finished, in 516 BCE.

But the throne of David was in ruins. Judah was ruled by Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome, but they were never again under a king from David’s family. Rebelling against the Greeks, the Maccabees, with an alliance with Rome, ruled Judah for about a century. They were Jews, but not of the family of David. And in 63 BCE, their Roman ally turned against them and Rome conquered Jerusalem. Rome then placed vassal rulers over Judah.

Rome then went from a republic to a tyrannical dictatorship. After Julius Caesar was killed, Octavian Augustus became the first dictator/emperor of Rome in 27 BCE and he ruled when Yeshua the King of the Jews was born in 4 BCE. Rome’s puppet king Herod tried to kill this baby boy when he had all the baby boys in the Bethlehem area slaughtered.

The Christ child lived through that. However, about thirty-three years later the Jews demanded that Rome execute Yeshua. The Jews formally rejected Yeshua as King of the Jews.

Mark 8
31) He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.

The Jews said they had no king but Caesar. They also said this.

Matt 27
25) All the people answered, “May his blood be on us, and on our children!”
26) Then he released to them Barabbas, but Yeshua he flogged and delivered to be crucified.

Judah admitted their guilt in the death of their King, and even accepted that guilt on their children. They caused and embraced their coming tribulations.

However, even with the throne of David in ruins, as James said —

Acts 15
16) ‘After these things I will return. I will again build the tabernacle of David, which has fallen. I will again build its ruins. I will set it up,

Even with the throne of David in ruins, the promise of the scepter to Judah still held.

Ezek 21 English Standard Version
25) And you, O profane wicked one, prince of Israel, whose day has come, the time of your final punishment,
26) thus says the Lord GOD: Remove the turban and take off the crown. Things shall not remain as they are. Exalt that which is low, and bring low that which is exalted.
27) A ruin, ruin, ruin I will make it. This also shall not be, until he comes, the one to whom judgment belongs, and I will give it to him.

Forty years after the Jews rejected their King, in 70 CE, Rome attacked Jerusalem and burned the second Temple. Again, the Jews paid a high price. Hundreds of thousands of Jews were killed, and other thousands were enslaved by Rome and sent to far parts of the Empire.

About six decades later, the Jews found their messiah. He was Simon ben Kosiba, meaning Son of the Star, a messianic title. Better known as Simon Bar Kochba, he led a rebellion against Rome in 132 and for a few years Judah was independent of Rome. Rome crushed that rebellion in 135 CE.

According to Cassius Dio, 580,000 Jews were killed in the overall operations, and 50 fortified towns and 985 villages were razed to the ground, with many more Jews dying of famine and disease.

…the majority of the Jewish population of the province killed, enslaved, or exiled, and their national hopes definitively crushed. The Jewish people would not regain their political independence until the Zionist era and the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 CE.
https://www.ancient.eu/The_Bar-Kochba_Revolt/

Jerusalem was plowed to destroy any remnant of the city. Roman emperor Hadrian built a new city there dedicated to Jupiter, and renamed Jerusalem as Aelia Capitolina. No practicing Jews were allowed in Jupiter’s city. This also excluded the descendants of first flock Christians, which had begun on a Bible festival and who still followed the Bible days instead of the Roman days. Gentile Christians began to forsake the Bible for pagan practices, and by accepting some of Jupiter’s religion, they were allowed in Jupiter’s city. Hadrian renamed Judea as Palaestrina, or Palestine. Although Jerusalem is no longer called by Hadrian’s name, his name of Palestine for the land of Israel is still used by the world today.

After those multiple defeats and deportations, most Jews no longer lived in the Holy Land. A small number did, and a century after Hadrian they were again allowed in the Jerusalem area. However, Constantine “Christianized” Jerusalem and Judea by building churches and monasteries there but along with this “Christian” emphasis, Jews were again denied access to Jerusalem. Roman opposition to the Jews led the rabbis in 359 CE to forsake the original Bible festivals, which were set by observation of the new moon, and replace them with Pharisee calculated days.

After migrating away from the Holy Land, Jews formed a colony in Babylon. Jews also migrated farther west, with the Sephardic Jews settling around the Mediterranean in Spain, Portugal, North Africa and the Middle East, and the Ashkenazi Jews migrating farther north into Europe, especially around Germany. Wherever they were, though, they were still Jews and were often persecuted.

Why were they persecuted?

Because they were Jews. More than any other people, Jews were repeatedly persecuted. Not continuously, but repeatedly.

A few examples —

The Persians conquered Jerusalem in 614 from the Byzantines, but 15 years later the Christians retook it. Then the Jews were in trouble.

The Persians (from today’s Iran) briefly gained control over Jerusalem. But when the Mie Byzantine emperor, Heraclius, repulsed the Persian invasion, and in 629 reconquered the city, he ordered all Jews killed and all synagogues burned. Many Jews sought refuge in Egypt or other parts of the empire.
History-of-Israel.org

Less than a decade later, followers of the new religion of Islam gained control of Jerusalem in 637 and kept that control until the Christian Crusades nearly five centuries later. Most of that time the Jews lived peacefully under the Muslims. In the eleventh century, however, the Muslim rulers began to persecute the Jews. Then in 1099, the Christian Crusaders took Jerusalem. That was no relief for the Jews, though, because the Christians slaughtered several thousand Jews and Muslims.

Several centuries after that, Catholics struggled with the Muslim Moors to control Spain. Jews had lived safely there under Muslim rule, but the Christians went after the Jews.

Over centuries, the Jewish community in Spain had flourished and grown in numbers and influence, though anti-Semitism had surfaced from time to time. During the reign of Henry III of Castile and Leon (1390–1406), Jews faced increased persecution and were pressured to convert to Christianity. The pogroms of 1391 were especially brutal, and the threat of violence hung over the Jewish community in Spain. Faced with the choice between baptism and death, the number of nominal converts to the Christian faith soon became very great. Many Jews were killed, and those who adopted Christian beliefs—the so-called conversos (Spanish: “converted”)—faced continued suspicion and prejudice. In addition, there remained a significant population of Jews who had professed conversion but continued to practice their faith in secret. Known as Marranos, those nominal converts from Judaism were perceived to be an even greater threat to the social order than those who had rejected forced conversion. After Aragon and Castile were united by the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella (1469), the Marranos were denounced as a danger to the existence of Christian Spain.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Spanish-Inquisition

That led to the Spanish Inquisition. The Christians forced the Jews to convert, then persecuted them for false conversions. Jews were executed and expelled from Spain, where they had lived for centuries.

Now we see in that paragraph a couple of interesting things about Jewish persecution.

1- Anti-Semitism is a word specifically for Jewish persecution. Are there any other people who have a word coined for their specific persecution?

2- Also the word ‘pogrom’. Pogrom means a persecution of Jews. Again, are there any other people with words coined to specifically describe persecuting those people?

The play/movie “Fiddler on the Roof” depicted a Russian pogrom, although in less violent terms than really happened. That pogrom and village were fictitious, but they had a lot of real ones to copy.

“The term “pogrom” became commonly used in English after a large-scale wave of anti-Jewish riots swept through south-western Imperial Russia (present-day Ukraine and Poland) from 1881 to 1884; during this time, more than 200 anti-Jewish events occurred in the Russian Empire, notably pogroms in Kiev, Warsaw and Odessa…

A much bloodier wave of pogroms broke out from 1903 to 1906, leaving an estimated 2,000 Jews dead and many more wounded, as the Jews took to arms to defend their families and property from the attackers. The 1905 pogrom against Jews in Odessa was the most serious pogrom of the period, with reports of up to 2,500 Jews killed…

This series of pogroms affected 64 towns (including Odessa, Yekaterinoslav, Kiev, Kishinev, Simferopol, Romny, Kremenchug, Nikolayev, Chernigov, Kamenets-Podolski, Yelizavetgrad), and 626 small towns (Russian: городок) and villages, mostly in Ukraine and Bessarabia.”
Wikipedia, pogroms in the Russian Empire

Amazingly, attacks on Jews in Poland continued even after the Holocaust, attacks on Jewish refugees from the Holocaust.

[R]eturning Polish Jews encountered an antisemitism that was terrible in its fury and brutality. The most shocking such episode was the Kielce pogrom – a violent attack in July 1946 by Polish residents of Kielce against survivors who had returned, in which 42 Jews were murdered…

The pogrom sounded an internal alarm: during the months that followed it, survivors fled from Eastern Europe any way they could…

Yet, the murder of 42 Jews in Kielce, as monstrous and harrowing a crime as it was, was not the only story of murder in the post-war period in Poland. As many as one to two thousand Jews may have been murdered after the war by Poles.”
https://www.yadvashem.org/articles/general/anti-jewish-violence-in-poland-after-liberation.html

Then, of course, there was the Holocaust, the Shoah, where half the Jews in the world were killed. Of all the attacks on Jews, from Babylon at the first Temple to Rome and the second Temple, for sheer numbers Hitler’s attacks had to be the worst in history.

All those examples of attacks on Jews just listed were only a part of a larger picture that included many smaller attacks.

After WWII ended, the Jews had lost half their people and much of their property and possessions, yet they were still widely hated. Jews in Europe who had survived often had no family, no home that they could return to, and no place they could go. Immigration into other nations was often prohibited, and Britain even tried to prevent them from emigrating to Israel. From that low point, perhaps the lowest in their history —

Three years later the Jews again were the nation of Israel in the Promised Land.

They were immediately attacked by five surrounding nations, yet infant Israel survived.

Nineteen years after that, they were about to be attacked again by Egypt, Syria and Jordan. The Jews jumped the gun, or the plane, and destroyed the opposing air forces on the ground. In that Six Day War, about nineteen centuries after Vespasian had begun the attack that destroyed the second Temple, the Jews regained the Temple Mount.

So —

Although scattered, the Jews retained their identity as no other people have done.

The Jews have been attacked as no other people have been.

And, after all that going on for 1900 years, the Jews are again the nation of Israel, now planning to build a third Temple.

Any perceptive, unblinded person will look at all this and conclude —

“Something’s going on here! This is all part of a plan greater than any man could make.”

After all these centuries, Jerusalem is still a focal point of the world, frequently in the news around the world.

Is that strange or what?

It’s not strange if you believe in the God of the Bible. It’s just a sign that He is and that He is working.

Wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles.

The Jews say that God has brought them back to their land promised to Abraham. They perceive that. Yet they do not perceive why they have repeatedly received persecution, in near and distant parts of the world. Somehow they can not or will not connect these tribulations with their rejection of Yeshua, the King of the Jews, the Messiah who gave Himself as a sacrifice and then rose from the dead.

The Jews may be the smartest people in the world.

And the dumbest.

The history of the Jews is the history of a people rejecting their King. The Messiah has come, but they’re still waiting for Him. Now they’re set on building another Temple, and their purpose in building that Temple is to welcome another Messiah – specifically not Jesus/Yeshua.

Another Messiah.

After all this time, the Jews are still bent on rejecting their King.

The scepter will not depart from Judah. The King of the Jews — a Jew — will return. But, will the Jews be looking for another Simon Bar Kochba?