Don't get sucked into this weird vortex of evangelical prophesy and christian zionism (an absurd heresy as those words are mutually exclusive) for no TV show is going to lead one to the truth; it is far more likely to lead one into The Kaballah or Glenn Beck Pseudo/Christic-Mormon Zionism* or just the plain ordinary heresy of Christian Zionism
As an additional antidote to this sort of popular poison, , here is some crucial must-know background of the weird vortex of, The Dig.
History of the Future
Mr. Gorenberg calls the reading of the future by believers in the Christian, Jewish, or Muslim traditions “the history of the future.” Really, what he has given us in The End of Days is a history of heresy from at least two of those traditions. He starts with what he described as two religious revolutionaries of the era of the building and destruction of Herod’s Temple . We are all familiar with one, Jesus, but the other, Yohanan ben Zakkai, a Pharisee, may need a little introduction to most Christians; both would see the other as leading a heresy from the true Old Testament religion among the children of Israel .
In the uproar over the release of Mel Gibson’s movie, people forget that Jesus Christ, as recorded in the Gospels, not only had harsh words to say about the chief priests and the Temple cult but against the scribes and Pharisees as well, telling his hearers not to follow their example.
Ben Zakkai was one of the Pharisees who foresaw the destruction of the Temple during the 70 A.D. revolt and whom Jewish tradition has it was smuggled out of encircled Jerusalem in a coffin.
From his new base at the Palestinian town of Yavneh , ben Zakkai created what we today would know as Orthodox Judaism centered on worship services in the local synagogue with study of the written and oral law as paramount. While there were daily prayers for the coming of the Messiah who would restore the Temple cult (it was after all one vast slaughterhouse when it was in operation), the essence of modern Judaism was study. This study was codified by the intellectual descendants of ben Zakkai into the two Talmuds (Babylonian and Palestinian, the first having precedence) containing the oral law (Mishnah) and rabbinic commentary (Gemara) with the latter having ultimate normative authority in the Jewish religion.
As for these early rabbis, the openness to any type of “Judeo-Christian tradition” was slammed shut when, true to the words of Christ, his followers were expelled from the synagogue with the adoption in these first decades of the Eighteen Benedictions, a prototype Jewish creed still recited in synagogue morning prayer services, whose Twelfth Benediction was actually a curse against “slanderers,” historically interpreted as the Jewish Christians:
And for those who slander us, let there be no hope, and let all wickedness vanish in an instant. May all your enemies, the enemies of your people, be quickly cut off, and as for the insolent may you quickly trouble, shatter, overthrow and humiliate them in our time. Blessed are you, Adonai, who shatters the enemies and humiliates the insolent.
Among the petitions for the end of the exile, return of the people to Jerusalem and restoration of the Temple cult, there is no room for the never-discussed Judeo-Christian tradition from the rabbis’ perspective.
O, and don't tell me The Dig writers have never heard of Mr. Larkin, for countless are the demented devotees of this world class crackpot and one can see these evangelical protestants on TV any day of the week and they are all Christians working for Israel Uber Alles.
http://clarencelarkincharts.com
* We at ABE Ministry sometimes like neologisms.