Bartholomew's Notes

Hal Lindsey is at it again, using his WorldNetDaily column to puff the new “Sanhedrin” in Israel:

Two remarkable developments took place recently that are extremely relevant to students of Bible prophecy.

For the first time in 1,600 years, the Israeli Sanhedrin was re-established. It occurred in Tiberius, the site of the Sanhedrin’s last meeting in AD 425.

…On Feb. 9, just a few weeks after the Sanhedrin’s re-establishment, another enormously important development took place. The religious sages began to consider the rebuilding of the Temple and reinstitution of ancient animal sacrifices as prescribed in the Law of Moses.

Lindsey directs us to the Israeli newspaper Arutz Sheva for further details:

Meeting in Jerusalem’s Old City, the Sanhedrin consists of representatives of all stripes of religious Jewish society. Hareidi-religious, Hassidic, national-religious, Ashkenazi, Sephardic, modern Orthodox and university professors sit side by side in a semi-circle, seeking to re-establish Jewish legal tradition after 2,000 years of exile.

That’s hardly “all stripes of religious Jewish society”. Even if we ignore Jewish-Israeli followers of other faiths, it of course completely ignores the Reform tradition. And, given that many Orthodox and Conservative Jews reject the idea of humans rebuilding the Temple before the Messiah comes, the “Sanhedrin” is likely to be rather unrepresentative there as well. The Jerusalem Post has the details Hal doesn’t want his credulous readers to hear about:

Shortly after the establishment of the State of Israel, religious affairs minister Judah Leib Maimon raised the notion of reinstituting the ancient body, to no avail.

The group composed largely of Kahane sympathizers that gave itself the name Sanhedrin in October, however, met Sunday to discuss the creation of a Jewish monarchy in the State of Israel.

…Rabbi Yosef Dayan from Psagot, known for his recent threats to place a death curse on Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, is said to be a leading candidate to become the “king of Israel.”

“Dayan has the best lineage to King David,” several members of the Sanhedrin told The Jerusalem Post. They say he has two documented ancient sources which draw a direct line between him and the males in his family to King David some 3,000 years ago.

In other words, the supposed “Sanhedrin” has been “re-established” in the same way that the USA has crowned Reverend Moon as Messiah (see here for Kahane). And those responsible are bigoted fundamentalist cranks who hate Israeli democracy and believe that they have a divine right to lord it over the nation (I blogged on Dayan and the “death curse” previously). Back to Lindsey:

Sanhedrin member Rabbi Yisrael Ariel is the most ardent believer that the Temple is to be rebuilt in this generation. He is the former Yeshiva head, founder of the Temple Institute, and one of the paratroopers who took part in the 1967 liberation of the Temple Mount.

But just as Lindsey ignores the monarchism (perhaps too absurd even for him), the tasteless “death curse”, and the Kahanist links, he neglects to tell us that Ariel is not much different from the apologists for Hamas WND so despises. As it happens, I just read this in Timothy P Weber’s On the Road to Armageddon:

Ariel is a doer who is not afraid to justify violence in the achievement of his ends. During the mid- and late 1980s, he was the leader of Tzfiyah (“expectation”), a right-wing group organized to support members of the Jewish underground who had been jailed after their attempt to blow up the Dome of the Rock. Ariel was furious that some members of the Gush Emunim had condemned the actions of the underground. He argued that “thou shalt not kill” applied only to killing fellow Jews, not non-Jews…he co condemned all Jews who did not support the building of the third temple and declared that since Christians and Muslims were idolators, they should not be allowed to live in Israel (pp. 260-61; sourced from Gershom Gorenberg, End of Days).

I’m not sure what’s more degrading: Lindsey’s complete abandonment of Christian theology or ethics in an endless quest to remain a “prophecy expert”, or his attempt to curry favour with people who despise him and his religion. But either way, it is his support for bigots and terrorist-sympathisers that is the most shameful.

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