Dr. Mary Mikhael and Horizon's Bible Study workshop at San Francisco Theological Seminary

I wrote on Saturday evening of my trip that day to San Francisco Theological Seminary with two friends. I didn't keep my promise. We attended the workshop offered by the Presbyterian Women for the 2009-2010 Bible Study, “Joshua: A Journey of Faith.” It was presented by Dr. Mary Mikhael the author.

The drive was early and beautiful. Clouds and then lightening enlivened our trip. Even a few rain drops encouraged us since California is in a drought. Later, on campus, it poured for a few minutes. We were all grateful.

But the workshop was not much different than the one presented by Mikhael at the PW Gathering during the summer in Kentucky. But still, I was once again full of thoughts about such a presentation. My thoughts center around three issues. And they all fit together to form a troubling portent of the future.

They have to do with Mikhael’s view of Scripture, God and contemporary Middle East issues.

She once again stated that God’s word is contained in Scripture. That is, the Bible is not the word of God but it contains the word of God. She also talked of God having the attributes of compassion, love and justice. And because of this she believes that the center section of Joshua is simply oral stories gathered into one story, not fully true or even useful.

And in fact she informed us that many in Lebanon, where she is the Dean of the Near East School of Theology, would like to rid the Bible of the book of Joshua. Mikhael went on to say many would like to rid the Bible of the Hebrew text.

While Mikhael would certainly not go that far and found much worthy of use in Joshua, still she insists that Joshua is full of rocks that must be broken up to find any diamonds.

I am reminded that an earlier generation, particularly in Europe, tended to disregard the Hebrew Bible, cutting away its hard corners so as to make it fit neatly into nineteenth & twentieth century cultural views of God. Some cut the Hebrew Bible away altogether thus turning the Lord Jesus Christ into a cultural monstrosity made important only because of changing human ideals.

At that time it was easy to invent humanly contrived ideals about Jesus Christ and pull the New Testament around the ideal. For instance Jesus was noble or a hero and God was loving but never wrathful. However, one must ask, does God fit into a New Testament milieu but not in all Old Testament views of God?

Mikhael went on to say that the importance of the Bible is because we know God in Scripture. God reveals himself in his word. And while she insists that he is more clearly revealed in the New Testament she went on to speak of him as Creator, personal and a God of covenants in the Hebrew Bible. And she reminded us that God may be angry for the sake of the oppressed. This was all good.

But two points need to be explored. Yes, we more clearly understand God in the New Testament through the eternal Son of the Father, Jesus Christ. Christ is God’s final revelation and in him we may see how God works out the promises of the Hebrew Bible. And yet, the Hebrew Bible is full of the eternal Son, both in Theophanies and promises to come.

Certainly all that Jesus said of himself came from the Hebrew text. Nonetheless this should never demean the history of the Hebrew Bible. And contrary to post-modern sensibilities all the attributes of God found in the Hebrew Bible find a twin in the New Testament.

God is love. But he is also a God of justice and wrath. Certainly, in God’s perfection, his wrath as well as his love, leads to justice. Think of Jesus in the temple, with a whip in his hand, overturning the moneychangers’ tables, driving out the unholy from the Holy. Think of references to the Lord’s compassion and care in the Hebrew Bible:

“How can I give you up, O Ephraim? How can I surrender you, O Israel? …My heart is turned within Me, all My compassions are kindled. I will not execute My fierce anger; I will not destroy Ephraim again. For I am God and not man, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath. (Hosea 11:8-9)”

His judgment and wrath is in the Hebrew text; it also belongs to the New Testament. (Acts 5:110; 12:22-23; 13:6-12) His compassion is in both.

Mikhael, attempting to reconcile her pacifism, a legitimate Christian view, with Scripture admits that God may be angry and he seeks justice. He is for the oppressed. Yet, his wrath and judgment against sin is not mentioned. And she, a pacifist and a Christian, in both workshops has lifted up the terrorist group Hezbollah whose goal is to destroy Israel. According to Mikhael they are simply a resistance group.

She also had good words to say about the booklet, Steadfast Hope, published by Israel/Palestine Mission Network. IPMN was at the workshop selling the booklet.

I have been writing on the booklet now for several weeks. It contains several anti-Semitic ideas in it such as the insistence that the Jewish immigrants to Israel were not really genetically Jews but the descendents of converts to Judaism.

During the comment time I had to protest such one-sided political views in a Bible study workshop. Mikhael insisted that the American people never hear the true story, and she never backed off from her views about Hezbollah. I felt fairly alone as most of the women clapped for her after our exchange. However, I was not alone. (I know the Lord was there)

Several women came up to me thanking me for speaking up. One had two sons-in-law who were messianic Jews. One had a friend who had also been in Lebanon during the war between Hezbollah and Israel. She told me part of the story, but I never got to hear the end. I hope I do sometime soon.

Not just a few clouds or streaks of lightening, but a whole storm may be coming at the next General Assembly. Perhaps it is time for more Presbyterians to speak up for the sake of God’s chosen people the Jews.

I didn't keep my promise

Okay, I know I said I would be good today. Anyway that is what I told some friends, both those I went with, and those I ate with the other night. But who could be quiet. Well, I guess most but I couldn't. I know some of the past, I know some of the present, I know what the future might bring. So I could not be quiet.

Today at the Presbyterian Women's workshop on the Horizon's Bible Study at San Francisco Theological Seminary with Dr. Mary Mikhael the author presenting I simply felt discouraged. I went with two good friends, one from my church Fremont Presbyterian Church, and the other from Peace Presbyterian Church.

When Mikhael started referring to the Hezbollah as a resistance group which simply formed to rid Lebanon of the Israeli occupation, it was too much. When she suggested that the only reason Israel invaded Lebanon in 2006 was because Hezbollah kidnapped two soldiers my burden of knowing the truth was just too much. She opened the session for comments and I entered that door.

Hezbollah shot rockets into Israeli towns; they not only kidnapped two soldiers but also killed at least ten others on that day. And the story is also, as usual, very complex.

And only a resistance group? This is in their charter:

"The Necessity for the Destruction of Israel:"Our primary assumption in our fight against Israel states that the Zionist entity is aggressive from its inception, and built on lands wrested from their owners, at the expense of the rights of the Muslim people. Therefore our struggle will end only when this entity is obliterated. We recognize no treaty with it, no cease fire, and no peace agreements, whether separate or consolidated."

Later Mikhael lifted up the booklet Steadfast Hope. A representative from Israel/Palestine Mission Network was selling it just outside the door in the church. That is the booklet I have been blogging about for several weeks. It is the one that encourages the reader to believe that the Jewish people who immigrated to Israel are not really Jewish but only children of converts. It is the booklet that insists that the Israel lobby and other Jewish groups control the media in the United States.

Because I am weary, because tomorrow is Sunday, a day for the body of Christ to gather for worship I am just going to finish this with a song I like and then, perhaps, write on it some more later. But I have to admit I did not keep my promise.

Reading Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein of the Simon Wiesenthal Center

This article was originally lined to the VOW site which no longer exists. I have linked to the article on the Layman site. For the second part of Rabbi Adlerstein's article look under the Laymen's archives of VOW articles.  

For the weekend I am linking to an article that is relevant to the subject of Israel and Palestine. It is at the Voices of Orthodox Women's web site, and is a review of Dr. Mary Mikhael's "Joshua: A Journey of Faith," Horizon's Bible Study.

The article is by Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. In speaking to the study he is also dealing with some of the issues I have been writing about here. In the body of the article he takes various statements from the study and explains how they are either insufficient in information or simply wrong. The article is "A Rabbi Reflects on the Horizons Study of Joshua Part I" it begins:

"The Book of Joshua is part of the Bible. To believers, every part of the Bible offers us some Divine instruction. In some cases, the message is instantly available and always uplifting. In other cases, the simple meaning of the text is obscure or even disturbing. In such cases, the true student will realize that he/she must work even harder to insure that what is learned is part of G-d’s teaching, and not our own agendas catching a ride on His words.

I read Joshua: A Journey of Faith by Mary Mikhael with sadness and pain. It does not at all read like a study guide, but as advocacy for a political position. I believe that the content is not only imbalanced, but full of distortion, error, and counter-factual material. I do not expect anyone to take my word for it, but I am honored to have the opportunity to present a very different narrative. It is my hope that people who are interested in the truth realize that it only emerges by listening with rapt attention to differing and often opposing perspectives. The truth usually emerges from the dialectic."

And a different part:

"Following the 1948 establishment of the state of Israel, approximately 750,000 indigenous Palestinian Arabs and Jews were displaced and forced from their homes. [From the Study]

"In 1948, after the UN Partition went into effect, five Arab armies attacked the fledgling State. Azzam Pasha, Secretary-General of the Arab League announced, 'This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades.'

Israel had explicitly welcomed its Arab residents to become citizens. Some Arabs ran in fright. Others were told by their own to leave their homes, because Arab armies were going to wipe out the Jews, and they would be able to return when the battle was one. They were forced by their own leaders, not by Jews, with some notable exceptions that did occur. Benny Morris, long a leftist critic of Israel, did the definitive study and brought to light the exceptions – and then surprised the world by showing how they were a very minor part of the exodus from Israel."

So please, here is an opportunity to read the story from the point of view of a Jewish scholar. Do go to the VOW site and read.

The reason I left Dr. Mikhael's workshop on Joshua...it's because of the Jewish people

How many times have the Jewish people had to deal with libel? From The Protocols of the Elders of Zion to stories of Jewish ritual murder of Christian children to false charges against Alfred Dreyfus, the French army officer falsely accused of treason in 1894, the Jewish people have had to live with the withering stories spread by both the malicious and the uninformed.[i]

That was the first thing that came to my mind, the libel of Jewish ritual murder, as I, hardly without thinking about what my body was doing, gathered my purse and bag and left the workshop, Horizon’s Bible study “Joshua: A Journey of Faith.”

Oh, the workshop leader, the author of the new Bible Study, did not mean to be malicious and she though she was informed when she told the story, but Dr. Mary Mikhael isn’t quite ready to admit she told a false story about Jewish people, soldiers in this case, when she responded to my comment.

My comment during the workshop had been that, Dr. Mikhael, who will also be part of a continuing interfaith dialogue with Muslim Dr. Muhammad Sammak, had simply stated that “war broke out” when Israel became a state in 1948. She failed to say that five Arab nations had attacked Israel.

Dr. Mikhael first responded by explaining that she was against all wars on either side but she went on to state that in the end the “root” of the violence was Israel’s fault since they had ejected 750, 000 Arabs from the new state. This in itself is simplistic but not the problem I am writing about. She enlarged on her subject to say a young woman who was Jewish, who stayed with her overnight in Lebanon on her way to Gaza, had e-mailed this horrific story about Israeli soldiers shooting Palestinian children.

Supposedly Jewish soldiers entered a Gaza home and insisted that the mother give five of her children to Israel. When she refused the soldiers shot five of the children. And as Dr. Mikhael explained you can find it all over the internet. (But you can’t, just in a few places mostly with a retraction.)

Here is the first statement, part of Barbara Lubin’s e-mail:

“Out of all the devastation I have seen so far, there is one story in particular that I think the world needs to hear. I met a mother who was at home with her ten children when Israeli soldiers entered the house. The soldiers told her she had to choose five of her children to “give as a gift to Israel.” As she screamed in horror they repeated the demand and told her she could choose or they would choose for her. Then these soldiers murdered five of her children in front of her. The concept of “Jewish morality” is truly dead. We can be fascists, terrorists, and Nazis just like everybody else.”

Here is the second statement by the Middle East Children’s Alliance:

"Barbara Lubin and all of us at the Middle East Children’s Alliance believe that we should have confirmed the story about the Gaza woman who was told by an Israeli soldier to choose which five of her ten children should die, and then witnessed their murder. We are doing everything we can now to verify the story, but have been unable to do so. We ask that you do not publish or post this story on the Internet. If you have already done so, please post this statement, as well.
Barbara Lubin went to Gaza to deliver four tons of medicine and other aid to the people there. When she arrived in the immediate aftermath of the Israeli assault the scene she encountered was chaotic and the people traumatized. She heard and retold many horrifying accounts, and saw for herself the devastation to homes, schools, businesses, land and lives.

In these catastrophic circumstances, it’s not difficult to see how Barbara would find this story credible. Unfortunately, we sent it out before taking the time to verify it.”

There is more in both comments you can read them here.

Here is the third statement which entails a second story when read carefully has nothing to do with the first and is itself suspect.

“ A massacre did happen, though not the one as originally outlined during the current assault by Lubin who has offered this to correct her account.

Excerpted from a letter to Barbara Lubin from Talal Abushawish

It’s not so far from from what you reported because the victims are the same…the story happened in Bourij Camp in the middle of the Gaza Strip. The Israelis called the woman, Manal Albatran, and told her that they wouldn’t kill her or her husband Hussein Albatran, instead they would make them die of sadness because they would kill her children. The next day they shot her house with a rocket killing her and 5 of her children.”

Remember this is by way of a fourth party.

Today I went to talk to Dr. Mikhael about my sadness that she would tell a story like this to a workshop of over a hundred women. She stated that someone had e-mailed her yesterday giving her the same link I have shown in this posting.

But she said that she still did not know if it was true or not because so many other atrocities had happened. She said she would not retract her statement in her next workshop because she didn’t want to deal with it again and besides she would never have told the story if I hadn’t made my comment.

Dr. Mikhael also stated that she was not anti-Semitic because she is herself a Semite. Interestingly, one of her editors, the day before had also explained that to me.

When I explained that the word anti-Semitic refers to someone who hates Jews she quickly insisted that she does not hate the Jewish people. And of course she does not, I know she does not. But when she, as a scholar and a Christian tells an unsubstantiated story such as this story to group of people who accept her authority she abets those who do hate the Jewish people.

This is how it begins, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the tales of Jewish ritual child murder the lies about individual Jewish people. As the people who belong to Jesus Christ may we not be guilty of that particular sin, slander.

[i] For the Dreyfus affair see W. Eugene March, God’s Land on Loan: Israel, Palestine, and the World, (WJK 2007), 31.