Recently, a biblical scholar corrected the frequently touted left-wing narrative that Jesus Christ was a Palestinian Jew. Historian and Aurelio Professor of Scripture emerita at Boston University Paula Fredriksen claimed that liberal politicians have been using Jesus to spread a “historically false” and “inflammatory” politicized message about the ongoing conflict in Gaza.
“This Easter, let’s not try to pretend Jesus was a ‘Palestinian Jew,'” Fredriksen said. During Christmas, it was a popular talking point among the members of the Democratic “Squad” in Congress who suggested that Jesus was a “Palestinian Jew” residing in an “occupied” country. “So caught up were these advocates in their own spin that they mischaracterized reality,” the historian said.
Politicians such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) took the Christmas holiday as an opportunity to politicize the most important figure in the Christian faith. “In the story of Christmas, Christ was born in modern-day Palestine under the threat of a government engaged in a massacre of innocents,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote, discussing Jews who lived in the land over 2,000 years ago that was controlled by the Roman Empire at the time. “He was part of a targeted population being indiscriminately killed to protect an unjust leader’s power.”
The Democratic representative continued, suggesting that “right-wing forces” are continuing to occupy the land in a similar manner. “Thousands of years later, right-wing forces are violently occupying Bethlehem as similar stories unfold for today’s Palestinians, so much so that the Christian community in Bethlehem has canceled this year’s Christmas Eve celebrations out of both [fear for their] safety and respect,” she added.
However, Fredriksen rebuked the AOC’s claims, informing her that Christ’s birthplace has been under Palestinian rule for decades. “But Bethlehem has been administered by the Palestinian Authority since 1995. Once a significant majority there, the Christian population plunged from 86 percent in 1950 to less than 12 percent in 2016,” she stated.
The Boston University professor further added that the term “Palestine” derived from Rome nearly one hundred years after the death of Christ. Therefore, she claims any attempt to paint Jesus as a Palestinian to demonize Israel is “inflammatory” and “historically false.” “For two millennia, Jews have been blamed for Jesus’ execution by the Romans; casting him as a Palestinian just stokes the fires of hate, using Jesus against Jews once again,” Fredriksen said.
The historian gave additional context as to why it’s inappropriate to remove Jesus from his proper “Jewish context.” “It is, further, an act of cultural and political appropriation — and a clever rhetorical move. It rips Jesus out of his Jewish context. And it rips 1st-century Jews — and 21st-century Israeli Jews — out of their ancestral homeland, turning them into interlopers. This is polemic masquerading as history,” she continued.
However, it hasn’t only been progressive leftist politicians spreading such narratives, where Catholic priest Father Edward Beck also gave a similar statement on Christmas. “I think the message of Christmas is that God enters into it with us and we’re not alone in it,” Beck said. “What I’m so struck by is that the story of Christmas is about a Palestinian Jew- how often do you find those words put together? A Palestinian Jew born into a time when his country was occupied, right? They can’t find a place for her to even give birth, his mother. They’re homeless. They eventually have to flee as refugees into Egypt, no less. I mean, you can’t make up the parallels to our current world situation right now.”
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