Just a Reminder

On CNN, on Christmas no less, a Catholic Priest and commentator, Edward Beck, said, “The story of Christmas is about a Palestinian Jew born into an occupied country, having to flee as refugees into Egypt.” Christopher Lamb, CNN’s Vatican correspondent, preceded Father Beck on Christmas Eve, tweeting that “If Jesus were born today, he would be born in Gaza under rubble.”

I’d appreciate it if someone at CNN would pass this along to the new boss, Mark Thompson.

The Vatican correspondent does not seem to realize that Bethlehem is in the West Bank, not Gaza. The priest who the network had on for Christmas does not seem to realize that Jesus Christ was born in Judea more than one hundred years before the Romans created Syria Palaestina.

Both men are using Jesus Christ, whom more than two billion people woke up yesterday to worship as God made flesh, to make political points and got their basic facts wrong. Both were on CNN, and I hope someone at the network takes note and makes changes.

Both men attempted to use Jesus Christ to make political points, and both men presuppose Christ would be born a Palestinian, which is a very subtle way of suggesting Israel does not pre-date territory referred to as “Palestine.” It is a very subtle form of anti-Semitism used by the Western elite to rewrite the history of the Middle East.

Archeologically, the Twelve Tribes of Israel made their way into their promised land probably around 1200 BC and had a kingdom by 1047 BC. They were united until 930 BC when the kingdom split between Israel and Judah. Though conquered repeatedly, the land remained tied to the Jewish/Israelite people until the Roman purge under Emperor Hadrian in 132 AD.

Even then, Judea remained a thing until the Byzantine reorganization of the 5th century, fully changing the whole Levant’s name to “Palestine.” There has never been a Palestinian nation, but there has indisputably, more than once, been an Israel.

But there’s another point that needs to be made.

A whole lot of people who want to call Jesus a Palestinian and make the case that he was a political refugee in Egypt will use Jesus Christ as their political prop, but they will never ever worship Him as God Almighty.

In fact, the very historical texts that tell us about Jesus, his birth, his life, his death, and his resurrection are very clear that Jesus Christ is the Lord who spoke the universe into being.

If you’re going to use him as a prop to push your political agenda, at least have some decency to be truthful about where he was born, how he and those around him viewed him, and how over two billion people do not see him as a political prop, but as the Messiah.

And, Father Beck, Christopher Lamb, and CNN this is how they viewed him — he was born “Bethlehem, in the land of Judah” (Micah 5:2) and would come as “a ruler who [would] shepherd my people Israel.” (Micah 5:4)

Those aren’t my words. Those are God’s own words. So get it right next time.

He was, after all, executed in Jerusalem with a sign over his cross that read, “The King of the Jews,” not the Palestinians.

Shame on you guys.