Gog and Magog:
the false prophetic underpinnings for war.
by HD Kailin.
In remarks delivered before the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee 02/01/07, Dr. Zbignew Brezinski said:
The war in Iraq is a historic, strategic, andThough no angel by any means, yet even the hard-bitten,
moral calamity. Undertaken under false
assumptions, it is undermining America's
global legitimacy. Its collateral civilian
casualties as well as some abuses are
tarnishing America's moral credentials.
Driven by Manichean impulses and imperial
hubris, it is intensifying regional instability…
If the United States continues to be bogged
down in a protracted bloody involvement
in Iraq, the final destination on this downhill
track is likely to be a head-on conflict with
Iran and with much of the world of Islam
at large. A plausible senario for a military
collision with Iran involves Iraq failure to
meet the benchmarks; followed by accusations
of Iranian responsibility for the failure; then
by some provocation in Iraq or a terrorist
act in the U.S. blamed on Iran; culminating
in a "defensive" U.S. military action against
Iran that plunges a lonely America into a
spreading and deepening quagmire eventually
raging across Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and
Pakistan. … A mythical historical narrative
to justify the case for such a protracted and
potentially expanding war is already being
articulated…"
hawkish, Cold-war warrior, Dr. Brezinski felt compelled to
try to head off another war, this a 21st century religious war
gamier than any he ever promoted, for it is a demonstrated
fact that:As it stands at present, some 30% of the electorate, mostMen never do evil so completely and
cheerfully as when they do it from
religious conviction. (Blaise Pascal)
of these being "born-again" Christians continue blithely on
their merry way, giving their unreserved backing to the
Administration's war policies:A report from the Pew Forum, theWere it not for the strong backing of the Protestant/
Washington-based religion and public
life research centre, said: "The 2004
exit poll showed that a whopping 78%
of white evangelicals voted for President
Bush and that they comprised 23% of
the overall electorate, making them
by far the single most potent voting
block in the electorate."
(The Guardian, 05/31/06)
Fundamentalist camp, there would be no war but, that which
Brezinski called a "mythical historical narrative," plays all
too well with this audience for in their eyes, this is no myth
but God's revealed will as they understand it. Furthermore,
by their reading of the Bible, they believe a climactic battle
is just around the corner between the forces of Evil and
Light (the former being identified with "Gog and Magog,"
while the latter is made up of good folk like themselves).The sleeping giant of Christian ZionismIt has indeed. And it is that "giant" which is fueling the
has awoken. (Reverend John Hagee,
Pastor, Cornerstone Baptist Church)
drive to war. Behind it all, is the Fundamentalists' unlimited
support for the secular Zionist State. However murderous or
shabby it may be in reality, to them, it is "the apple of God's
eye," representing God's prophetic fulfillment to His chosen
people. Said Luis Lugo, the director of the Pew Forum on
Religion & Public Life regarding this phenomenon:I can tell you, from all of our polling, thatIt's apparent from the above finding why they're called
no issue more encapsulates an evangelical
view of the world than the United States'
relationship to Israel. I have had evangelical
leaders say that George Bush can do just
about everything and not alienate his base,
except on the issue of Israel.
"Christian Zionists." But let us observe, they are not
Christian Zionists in the older sense of the term, that of
wishing to win the Holy Land for Christendom (as was
the case a 1000 years ago during the Crusader period) nor
do they seek to win the Land for Jesus by persuasive means;
rather, they are "proxy-Zionists" who wish to win the
Holy Land for unbelieving Jews. It's an open question to
what extent theirs is the faith once for all delivered to the
saints, and to what extent they are participants in a death-
dealing, doomsday cult of recent derivation.If we just let our vision of the world go forth,That is Zionism in a nutshell, "total war" on behalf
and we embrace it entirely and we don't try
to piece together clever diplomacy, but just
wage a total war ... our children will sing great
songs about us years from now.
(Richard Perle, Pentagon advisor)
of a self-serving goal, that of ruling the world from
Jerusalem. Presumably, Perle the Zionist would be good
to his own children but - in plotting aggressive, unjust
war - he has made himself an unholy terror to the
neighbors' children. Ethnic cleansing, dead American
soldiers, the maiming of civilians seem to be a matter of
no moment to a "pragmatist" of his stripe for whom the
end always justifies the means. Conversely, it is the place
of all moral Jews and all moral Christians to affirm that
all God's children are valued in God's eyes.
Undergirding the fundamentalists' religio-political
movement is a theological construct known as
"Dispensationalism." A totally artificial prism through
which the Bible is viewed, it is a system that promotes
such impossibilities as a "Dispensation of Law" and a
"Dispensation of Grace," as if Law and Grace were ever,
or could ever, be separated. An intricate, even arcane,
hermeneutic, Dispensationalism is not, as some might
suppose, "that old time religion," but a Johnny-come-
lately, 19th Century novelty with which neither the Bible
not Church fathers, nor the major creeds - whether the
Apostles Creed, the Nicene Creed, or the Westminster
Confession of Faith - know anything about or could
have ever fathomed. Numbering between 20 to 25 million,
the Dispensationalists constitute Bush's core constituency.
One of the most pernicious of the Dispensationalists'
novelties is the idea that it is the place of believers to
advance End Time prophecy, as if moral imperative
attached to this. Moral imperative attaches to healing the
sick or feeding the hungry, not to starting apocalyptic
wars so as to bring prophecy to pass. What motivates
them is the puerile belief in "the pre-tribulation rapture"
which will leave them sitting pretty while everyone else
burns.What they are unaware of is that the sequence: RaptureThe United States must join Israel in a pre-
emptive military strike against Iran to fulfill
God's plan for both Israel and the West ... a
biblically prophesied end-time confrontation
with Iran, which will lead to the Rapture,
Tribulation [...] and [the] Second Coming of
Christ. (Reverend John Hagee, July 2006)
and Tribulation is a wholly made-up doctrine for which
there is not one iota of Biblical support. What I hope to
do hereafter is to rescue the truth of the Bible by appeals
to reason and Scripture.
This we know and can trace historically, that Zionism
and Dispensationalism are inextricably linked, having
arisen at the same time and place, (mid-19th Century
Great Britain, and both were sponsored by the same elite
establishment. As it were, they are two horns grown from
the same head, that being Anglo-Israelism. As such they
compliment each other in curious ways. On the one hand,
the intellectual foundation for the Jewish return is provided
by Christian Dispensationalists. By returning to the Land,
the Jews provide the Dispensationalists with the visible
"proof" they need that their system of exegesis is approved
of God. The Jewish Zionists, through their control of the
mass media, also provide Dispensationalist ministers the
oxygen of publicity. Hence, a platform for Jerry Falwell,
or Frank Graham, etc. while these clergymen merchandise
their flock to raise up canon fodder for the Jews.Location, location, location.While we often think of Zionism in terms of being a
19th Century political movement to establish a homeland
for the Jewish people, yet, in reality, its history long
predates our times. After the Temple's destruction by
the Romans in 70 AD, Mount Zion was deliberately left
vacant and in ruins for almost 600 years, first by pagan
Rome, then by Christian Byzantines as a sign of God's
judgment against the Jews. But then, following the
Muslim conquest led by Omar ibn al-Khattab in 638 AD,
the order went forth to clear the Temple site. Some 50
years later, the Dome of the Rock was constructed, not
as a mosque, but as a house of prayer. This then was
Muslim Zionism.
Then in 1090 AD, the crusaders took possession of the
Temple Mount, converting the Dome of the Rock into a
Christian Church called the Templum Domini i.e., "Temple
of our Lord." This then was Christian Zionism and so it
remained until Saladin's army retook Jerusalem in 1187 AD
and restored the Dome to Islam.
Later, in 1492, Christopher Columbus set sail to distant
parts in search of treasure. Immediately on finding the
source of the Native Americans' gold, he enslaved all he
could lay his hands upon and worked them to death to mine
it, but his motive was not, as some have surmised, personal
enrichment for he was a religious zealot who had taken
to wearing a Franciscan habit and referring to himself
by the title "Christ-bearer." His expressed intention was
to fund an expedition to retake the Holy Land. In this he
was acting as an agent to King Ferdinand of Spain, who,
on his deathbed, in 1516 told his minions that he could not
die yet, that God had told him that he would lead a great
crusade to recapture Jerusalem but he died a disappointed
man.
What then is Zionism? It is the impulse to seize, not
the moral high ground, but the religious high ground, to be
king of the mountain, of which none stands higher in the
eyes of monotheists than that of the Temple mount in
Jerusalem. But it matters not whose Zionism it is, whether
Muslim, Christian, Jewish, or any other, for it necessarily
entails cancelling God's Judgment of 70 AD. Most
religiously-instructed Jews know better than to trample
the Temple's precincts, that it's sacrilege, yet Zionism is
enticing them on in that direction. In that, it is most
insidious.... The same families who own and control the[Please see: www.TheGoldenReport.com for the full story,
Federal Reserve and other major financial
institutions have their eyes set on the Temple
Mount, and the Holy City of Jerusalem. ... one
thing I am convinced of is that Holy men of
God will not be the ones to rebuild the Temple,
it will be the Illuminati. For God would not
send men to that place to perform blood
sacrifices. His Son’s blood was the perfect
sacrifice;
... The Supreme Court building sits on a plot of
land opposite the Knesset and next to the
Foreign Ministry and the Central bank of Israel.
It is important to keep in mind that it sits in
line with the Knesset, for we will be talking
about Ley- Lines that cross under this pyramid
running to the Knesset, with other ley-lines
that cross in perfect order to the center of
Jerusalem and on to the Rockefeller Museum.
... The first thing you will notice is the pyramid
with the all Seeing Eye just like the one you
will see on the American dollar bill, it sits in
a circle to the left. The larger circle you see
at the bottom of the picture is an inverted-
cross designed to walk on. It is the only
religious emblem designed to be trampled
on under foot. At the top of the picture is
a Moslem Gravesite, and just out of view to
the right is an Egyptian Obelisk. And all
through the building you will detect Hindu
Altars. All of this will make more sense as
we go along, keep in mind we are talking about
the establishment of a form of Government
that will usher in the anti-Christ.
... Giving recognition to the Rothschilds, you
will notice the Rothschilds emblem at the top.
It is the symbol for the founder of the
Rothschild Dynasty and his five sons, who
established central banks throughout Europe.
The Rothschilds made several stipulations
with the Israeli Government before the
building began, among them were. The
Rothschilds would pick the plot of land to
build the Supreme Court; they would use their
own architects, and no one would ever know
how much the building cost. It took them four
years to build this structure with many secrets
built into it. ("The Roots of Evil in Jerusalem,"
Jerry Golden)
particularly as there are numerous photographs involved.]
If present-day "Christian Zionism" is "proxy-Zionism,"
so also is Jewish Zionism merely "placeholder Zionism."
The Jews emigrate to the Land in order to wrest it from
its native, Arab inhabitants that they might have it for
themselves but then, in due course, they too will get shoved
aside, for from the beginning the plan has been to replace
Judaism by a universal Zionism more suitable to the task
of melding all the peoples in the world into one religious
system. For that is the goal: a one-world religion, a one-
world economic system, a one-world government for this
suits the overweening ambitions of the New York money
men, the Anglo-American Establishment, and other elites
who seek to rule the world from Jerusalem.
One hotbed of Zionist sentiment is Anglo-Israelism.
It entails the belief that the British royal family are
descendants of the Merovingian dynasty. Presumably,
this line descends from the physical union of Jesus and
Mary Magdalene. It further believes, that their offspring
are ordained by God one day to rule the world from the
revived Davidic throne in Jerusalem. (Recently these
concepts have been given common coin in the Da Vinci
Code, for the book and movie each reached audiences in
excess of 50 million.) All of this stands on its head the
egalitarianism of Jesus' "little flock," his summoned-
out community. However anachronistic it may seem to
us, the concept of the Divine Right of Kings still
resonates in certain circles of privilege.
Meanwhile, Zionists of whatever stripe, whether
Jewish or Christian, whether Neo-Cons or Theo-Cons,
are making common cause for both see an apocalyptic
"clash of civilizations" (actually a clash of religions) as
bringing about their respective visions of a "New World
Order" ruled from Jerusalem. With this in mind, that
a nuclear war against Iran is imminent, on 01/17/07, the
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists appropriately moved
the minute hand on its "doomsday clock" two minutes
closer to midnight. Or, as the Reverend John Hagee
put it recently:
Just before us is a nuclear countdown with
Iran, followed by Ezekiel’s war (as described
in Ezekiel, chapters 38 and 39), and then the
final battle — the battle of Armageddon.
Following Ezekiel 38, Russia will give military
leadership to the radical Islamics who want to
destroy the state of Israel and control Jerusalem.
That is the battle of Gog and Magog. And
God himself will destroy the Russian-Arab
coalition. The world will see God defending
Israel as it hasn’t seen since Pharaoh.
The end of the world as we know it is rapidly
approaching, ... Just before us is a nuclear
countdown with Iran, followed by Ezekiel's
war (as described in Ezekiel, chapters 38
and 39), and then the final battle -- the
battle of Armageddon.
(John Hagee, Jerusalem Countdown '06)
I do not take Rev. Hagee, a nationally known minister of
the Word, to task for resorting to Holy Writ as his source
for prophetic understanding, for it is written:
Surely YHVH will do nothing, but he revealeth
his secrets unto his servants the prophets.
(Amos 3:7)
but I do take Rev. Hagee to task for the way he reads the
Bible, perceiving that he grossly perverts its meaning.
Inasmuch as Hagee has invoked the names "Gog and
Magog," I think it appropriate to repair to the only two
books in the Bible mentioning them - Ezekiel and
Revelation - and this in only three chapters. Also , there
is a single, but significant, mention of Magog in Genesis
10:2-3. In other words, this subject can be investigated
without the need for doing a long, involved study. But
let us be sure to consider both Ezekiel, chapters 38 and 39
and Revelation, chapter 21 in tandem, side-by-side,
(something fundamentalists often fail to do), for then
it will become readily apparent that the Scriptural
time-frame cannot be squared with the Dispensationists'
time-frame.
Thus reads Revelation:And when the thousand years are expired,Once this straightforward statement is accepted, then
Satan will be loosed out of his prison, and
shall go out to deceive the nations which
are in the four corners of the earth, Gog
and Magog, to gather them together to battle:
the number of whom is as the sand of the
sea. And they went up on the breadth of
the earth, and compassed the camp of the
saints about, and the beloved city: and fire
came down from God out of heaven, and
devoured them all. (Revelation 21:7-9)
one cannot be buffaloed so easily by Zionists and their
Dispensational allies (who overlap for they are often one-
and-the-same) into supporting their nefarious wars.
Anyone who says to us, "Gog and Magog is at hand,"
should be pointed in the direction of the verse above or
better yet, taken by the hand and shown it, then, gently
informed, "Sorry, but it would appear that you're more
than a 1000 years off in your prediction."
Writing in 1911, T. B. Baines in his 5th edition of The
Revelation of Jesus Christ, wrote regarding John's
Apocalypse:
Gog and Magog are here used in a wider sense
than in Ezekiel, and their invasions differ in
time and details, though agreeing in character
and object, with that which he foretells.
Apparently, in his opinion, the Gog and Magog of John's
Revelation is not the same as is found in Ezekiel. More
recently, concurring in this view, Dallas Theological
Seminary's celebrated Dispensationalist theologian, John
F. Walvoord, in his book, also titled, The Revelation of
Jesus Christ, made claim to two Gogs and to two Magogs:
Ezekiel's battle probably occurs previous to the
battle of the great day of God Almighty before
the millennium, whereas this [in John's
Revelation] occurs after the thousand years
have been finished.
That the End Time's sequence of events has been, and
remains, an unsolved riddle is evident from the book The
Magog Invasion. Written by Couer d'Alene's fundamentalist,
teacher/evangelist/organizer, Chuck Missler, it states:The sudden appearance of "Gog" in the Ezekiel
text, without any apparent background from
other passages, has puzzled commentators for
centuries.
So what is one to do when an apparent discrepancy
is identified, in this instance, between Ezekiel's and
Revelation's Gog and Magog accounts? Should we grant
Revelation precedence for being more recently written
or should we follow the Law of First Mention whereby
a Scriptural designation is that which it was first defined
as being, and grant Ezekiel's account precedence? Some
have concluded that Scripture is inherently conflicted
and have given up seeking any rhyme or reason to it
whatever. In this instance, there's reason to look to the
manuscript record as a way of clearing up this apparent
discrepancy, for there is reason to believe that deliberate
tampering has occurred.
These are the facts: in 1871 a 5th Century AD Latin
palmpiset codex came to public attention, published in
Vienna by Ernst Rasnke, as "Palimpsetorum
Wirceburgensis: Antiquuissimae Veretis Testamenti
Versionis Latinae Fragmenta." Denominated "Codex
Wiceburgensis," it provides the best text of the Vetus
Latina, that is, the Old Latin, that we know of. This then
is the ordering of its text in Ezekiel:
Chapter 36:1-15: regeneration of the Land; 36:16-23b:
regeneration of the people (but 36:23c-38, a
transitional section found in "canonical" Ezekiel
is absent from Wirceburgensis and its allied texts.)
Chapter 38: two prophesies against Gog;
Chapter 39:1-20; a third prophecy against Gog: 39:21-
29: Israel's Return.
Chapter 37:1-14; a vision of the Valley of Dry Bones;
37:15-28; the two Sticks.
The existence of this one, seemingly aberrant, text did
not register greatly with scholars, at least not initially, but
then, in 1931, a Greek 3rd Century papyrus text,
denominated "P967," surfaced. It contains the oldest copy
of Ezekiel we currently have. Lo and behold, it too has the
same ordering of the text as does Codex Wirceburgensis,
only the latter's text is less corrupted and more complete,
a sure indication that antecedent to both the Latin codex
and the Greek papyrus was an older text of the same, general
family.
Another salient point - both the Latin and Greek
manuscripts lack Ezekiel 36:23c-38. Were it only a matter
of text having been transposed, one might suppose that an
accident had occurred involving leaves falling from a
manuscript which were then picked up and put back together
out of order or that a careless scribe went off to lunch and
forgot where he left off on returning but something more
is going on. Filler has been added to bridge and smooth
the gap between Ezekiel 36:23b and Ezekiel 37:1. That
cannot be written off as mere happenstance or as
inadvertence either.
Then, more recently, amongst the Dead Sea Scrolls, was
found what is called Pseudo-Ezekiel, the oldest copy of
which is 4Q391, which is dated paleographically to the
late 2nd Century BC. Not Ezekiel but modeled on Ezekiel,
Pseudo-Ezekiel, according to Dr. Devorah Dimant in the
book Qumran Cave 4, XXI: Parabiblical Texts, Psudo-
Prophetic Texts, page 312, follows not canonical Ezekiel's
order but what I shall now term "archaic" Ezekiel an
appropriate name, I think, for a text having a goodly claim
to preserving the original order.
Arises then the question, who would tamper with
Ezekiel's text and why? Evidently it was someone who
wanted the vision of the "Valley of Dry Bones" and the
joining of the "Two Sticks," those being Judah and Israel,
to happen before the battle with Gog and Magog. We
cannot at this late date say with absolute certainty what
someone's motivations were who lived that long ago,
but it would seem by way of an educated guess, that there
are two plausible explanations, that it was someone who
saw the occupying Roman Empire as Gog and Magog,
and wanted to do immediate battle or else, somewhat later,
it was someone desireous d of seeing the Dispersion
foreshortened following the Fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD.
Either way, it would have had to have been someone who
had the power to control the manuscript tradition. Only
one party that I know of comes to mind, namely, the late
1st century, rabbinical academy operating under Rabbi
Yohannon ben Zakkai's auspices, which was located in
the costal village called Yavnah. This academy is thought
to have decided what is or is not "canonical." I would
identify their activities as being the first, tentative
stirrings of the current Zionist movement.
Moving on, let us consider how secure the sequence
of End Time events really are. According to Dr. Thomas
Ice, one of the Dispensationalists' heaviest hitters, has 20
books to his credit. His Th.M was from Dallas Theogical
Seminary and his Ph.D. is from Tyndale Theological
Seminary:
The battle of Gog and Magog in Ezekiel 38 andHow plain is that? About as plain as mud, yes? A big
39 is one of the most debated items in the area
of biblical prophecy. Commentator Ralph
Alexandr said, "One of the perennial enigmas
of Biblical prophecy is has been the Gog and
Magog event described in Ezekiel 38 and 39."
Almost every aspect of this ancient prophecy
has been disputed, including whether it was
fulfilled in the past or is still a future prophecy.
Who are the peoples involved and do they relate
to modern nations? How should we understand
the weapons that are described? If a future
event, when does it take place on the prophetic
timeline?
Prophecy expert, Mark Hitchcock notes: "By
far, the most controversial issue in Ezekiel
38-39 is the setting or timing of the invasion.
The specific time of the invasion in Ezekiel
38 is difficult to determine." Tim LaHaye
and Jerry Jenkins in their best-selling novel
Left Behind, invasion of Israel right before
the rapture of the church. The strength of
this position is that it accounts for the burning
of the weapons of war for seven years as
mentioned in Ezekiel 39:9. However, Tim
LaHaye has told me personally that even
though they represented a pre-rapture
position on Ezekiel 38 and 39 in their novel,
he tends to place it after the rapture but
before the tribulation.
Another major argument is based upon the
statement that Israel will be "living securely,
all of them" (Ezek. 38:8), which is the result
of the false peace brought by the anti-Christ
in the first half of the tribulation. This view
has a lot in its favor. The last major view is
that the battle of Ezekiel 38 and 39 will occur
at the end of the millennium. The basis for
this view is significant since Revelation 20:
7-9 speaks of a conflict at the end of the
millennium when Satan is released. Verse
8 says, "(Satan) will come out to deceive the
nations which are in the four corner of the
earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them
together for the war . . ." The strength of
this view is obvious, Gog and Magog are
specifically mentioned in the text.
("Ezekiel 38 and 39, Part I", Thomas Ice)
question marks hangs over Gog's and Magog's identity.
Are we sure that we've got "the bad guys" properly ID'ed?
Misidentifying Gog and Magog can only result in unjust
wars. It seems to me we owe it to ourselves, as well as to
anyone else, to get our identifications right before going
on a killing spree. This much we know from Genesis
10:3, that Magog is one of Japheth's sons. That means
he's Caucasian. Beyond that, there's little to go on that's
obvious.
There is the Hashemite Kingdom Theory, the Caucus
Theory, the All Europe theory, the Russian Theory, the
Indo-European Theory, etc. In the Middle Ages,
Christians saw the Mongel invaders as Gog and Magog. A
1000 years earlier, Josephus identified the Scythians as
being Gog. In this we start to see a pattern, Josephus was
a Roman citizen and the Scythians were Rome's enemy.
Certain apocalyptic web sites identify Bin Laden as Gog
(that despite his excellent credentials for being a Semite!)
Some Muslims identify the West in general as being Gog
and Magog, and so it goes.... when the Scythians threatened, it was theInterpreting the Bible by current events rather than
Scythians; when the Huns threatened, it was
the Huns; and when the Alans threatened,
someone would call the Alans 'Gog and
Magog'; so too with the Khazars, the Turks,
the Magyars, the Parhians, the Mongols.
Marco Polo in the thirteenth century thought
that Gog and Magog must be represented by
the Mongol horde which had just conquered
most of the East ...
interpreting current events by the Bible is an example of
"newspaper exegesis," whereby Gog and Magog are usually
little more than one's favorite bad guy of the moment.
Personally, if I wanted to play this silly game, I would
choose the Khazar Theory, whereby the Ashkenazi
Zionists, the Holy Land's current occupiers, are identified
as "Gog and Magog."
Of the Khazars, Heinrich von Neustadt, around 1300 AD,
wrote, that they were as the "terrifying people of Gog and
Magog." Along this line, Arthur Koestler wrote:The evidence ... adds up to a strong case ... thatWhat makes identifying Gog and Magog so important
the bulk of modern Jewry is not of Palestinian,
but of Caucasian origin. The mainstream of
Jewish migrations did not flow from the
Mediterranean across France and Germany to
the east and then back again. The stream moved
in a consistently westerly direction, from the
Caucasus through the Ukraine into Poland and
thence into Central Europe. When that
unprecedented mass-settlement in Poland
came into being, there were simply not enough
Jews around in the west to account for it; while
in the east a whole nation was on the move to
new frontiers.
... their ancestors came not from the Jordan but
from the Volga, not from Canaan but from the
Caucasus, once believed to be the cradle of the
Aryan race; and that genetically they are more
closely related to the Hun, Uigur and Magyar
tribes than to the seed of Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob. (Arthur Koestler, The Thirteenth Tribe)
is that there are those who are using this prophecy to justify
preemptive, nuclear war. For example, on CNN's Live
From ... (07/26/06), a nine-minute segment was devoted to
anchor Kyra Phillips' quizzing best-selling Christian
authors, Jerry Jenkins, co-author of The Left Behind book
series, and Joel C. Rosenberg, author of The Ezekiel Option,
about the current Middle East situation:PHILLIP: so Joel are we living in the last
days? I mean, let's talk about the specific
signs to watch. You've written about them.
What does the Bible say, and are we there?ROSENBERG: Well, people are very
interested, I agree. Tim and Jerry's books
deal with the Rapture, the disappearance
of the church, and the events going
forward in Revelation. My theories --
The Ezekiel Option, The Copper Scroll --
are about events that could lead up to the
Rapture and the return of Christ. Yeah,
people are interested because the rebirth
of Israel, the fact that Jews are living in
the Holy Land today, that is a Bible
prophecy. When Iran, Libya, Syria,
Lebanon, Russia, they begin to form an
alliance against Israel, those are the
prophecies from Ezekiel 38 and 39. I've
been -- that's what I'm basing my novels
on.I've been invited to the White House,
Capitol Hill. Members of Congress,
Israelis, Arab leaders all want to
understand the Middle East through the
lens of biblical prophecies. I'm writing
these novels that keep seeming to come
true. But we're seeing Bible prophecy,
bit by bit, unfold in the Middle East
right now.PHILLIPS: And you talk about epic
ROSENBERG: Well that's right. Ezekiel
battles for Jerusalem -- the biblical
prophecy. Get specific with us. Tell us
what's happening now that totally
correlates with what you've written
about biblically.
36 and 37, those are chapters in the Bible,
the Old Testament, about the rebirth of
the state of Israel and Jerusalem coming
back under Jewish control. We've seen
those prophecies happen. Ezekiel 38 and
39, what my novel The Ezekiel Option is
about, is an alliance of Islamic countries
to destroy Israel and liberate Jerusalem.
Inasmuch as Jewish Christians are generally much
discriminated against in Israel, yet Rosenberg finds
acceptance at the highest levels of the Zionist States'
political establishment, including employment with
former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,
and Member of Parliament Natan Sharansky. This
only makes sense if one assumes that he subordinated
his religion to the needs of the State. His recent
suggestion that Russia be added to Bush's "axis of evil"
fits with that conclusion. In an article titled: "The End
Times Hits Primetime" by Matt Taibbi, posted to
RollingStone.com 08/30/06, Taibbi wrote:There have been indications lately that this
whole End Times business is fast becoming
more than a crazy hobby among the mutant-
evangelist set, and is actually playing an
important role in Middle East politics,
specifically in guiding America’s Israel
policy.Joel C. Rosenberg, born into an Orthodox
Jewish family but a convert to Christ at 17,
is a former senior advisor to Israeli Deputy
Prime Minister Natan Sharansky and
former Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu.Think about it: a former high-ranking
Israeli official returns to the United
States and starts writing a new genre of
End Times bestsellers whose main
ideological thrust is that the United
States must stand by Israel to guard
against a future invasion by a mega-
powerful multinational Antichrist,
one that includes the forces of the Arab
world, Russia, Germany, and those ...
French — an invasion which, he
repeatedly says in numerous television
appearances, is about to happen at any
moment.Rosenberg was on Fox numerous times
throughout this summer’s Israeli-Lebanon
conflict, warning of a cataclysmic attack
by Iran. He appeared on Neil Cavuto’s
show on August 16 and claimed that the
Iranian president was saying that “the end
of the world is rapidly approaching and
that it’s his mission to bring it about by
destroying Israel.” At no time did he
mention that he himself was the author
of apocalyptic novels.
When the end of the world is being soberly
predicted on most of our major television
networks and the Wall Street Journal, and
a group dedicated to End Times fantasies
can summon the attention of Senators, a
Republican Party chairman, and the heads
of two nuclear states, this matter stops
being a conspiracy theory. We might have
to face the fact that American politics as
departed the world of the rational and has
entered the realm of a cultist dynamic.The question arises, are these expounders of
prophecy content to predict terrible events or are they
willing to go further and become collaborators with
those who bring such events to pass? Let us see. On
10/26/01, the highly-connected, multi-millionaire,
Chuck Missler posted to the web an article titled: "A
legacy of hate: Jihad in America" in which he stated:
Even now, none of us have recovered from
the shocks of September 11, 2001. ... We
certainly were shocked, yes; but it should
not have come as a surprise. ... Avi Lipkin,
from our own platform in Coeur d'Alene,
Idaho, warned specifically about the likelihood
of an attack on the World Trade Center in
New York.
(10/01, Personal Update Newsletter)Oh really? And knowing that there was going to
be an attack on the World Trade Center, did Lipkin
warn authorities so that lives could be saved or did he
just sit back and let it happen? And by the way, what
was his source of information? In other words, what
did he know and when did he know it? Since
overwhelming evidence exists that the three Trade
Towers were taken down using pre-placed explosive
charges in controlled demolitions and further
evidence linking the Zionist State's spy agency,
Mossad, to the deed, it is important to pursue this
line of inquiry on that account alone. But there's
more to it than that. Lipkin is now predicting
"another 9/11." Given his track record of specfic,
insider knowledge on the subject; also, given his
background in Israeli government as a high -level,
former advisor to Prime Minister Yitzak Shamir,
one would think it only prudent to take his predictions
seriously. The only question I have is, why wasn't
he taken into custody long go for questioning?The Lord didn't say nuclear, but I doIs this just the Rev. Pat Robertson talking trash or
believe it'll be something like that —
that'll be a mass killing, possibly
millions of people, major cities injured.''
(Pat Robertson, ''The 700 Club'' 01/03/07)
has he been tipped off? Last year (05/06), Robertson
in his interview with Joel Rosenberg had this curious
exchange of views:ROBERTSON: The Ezekiel Option –God bless us all, indeed, and protect us from the
we’ve been talking about it – it looks like
things are lining up in an incredible way.
Who would have that Iran – which is
mentioned in Ezekiel – would now be now
the vicious enemy of Israel, the Sudan
would be an Islamic dictatorship, Russia
would be moving in, the Caucasian
republics … who would have thought this
would happen, say, 50 years ago? It didn’t
seem possible.
ROSENBERG: No, that’s right. Ezekiel
wrote his prophecy 2,500 years ago and
for most of that time people thought this
just proves that the Bible can’t possibly
know what it’s talking about. But as I
wrote in The Ezekiel Option - you and I
have talked about this in the past – this
war is going to happen, what’s called “The
War of Gog and Magog.” Russia, Iran,
Lebanon, Syria, Libya, Sudan, these other
countries are going to come to attack Israel
and wipe her off the planet. Are we there
yet? It’s too early to say, to be honest, but
we are certainly moving in the trajectory
of something that Ezekiel prophesied. I
tried to write out a scenario in my previous
novel – The Ezekiel Option: what would it
look like if it happened in our lifetime?
But people are emailing me from literally
all over the world right now to explain,
“Doesn’t it seem like we’re getting closer?”
And it does seem like we're getting closer.
ROBERTSON: Well, ladies and
gentlemen, it’s a fascinating and fun book
to read. And it’s nice to read one where
you say it’s fiction but yes, this might well
happen. And I won’t give away the plot,
but it’s very interesting, and before it’s
finished the treasure is there, by the way.
Joel, thank you very much…. God bless
you.
fury of these doomsday cultists who claim to follow
You. Theirs is not the historic faith but a religion
of War and Rapture. Seemingly they learned nothing
from their Iraq debacle for now they are all a twitter
at the prospect of a new war, this time with Iran. But
what's in it for them? One word says it all, "rapture."
They believe (or at least promote) the Bible's promise
that before the great tribulation - when things get really
ugly - that they, as God's little biddies, will be raptured
out of the world. What delusion! The concept of a pre-
tribulation Rapture is made from whole cloth. I defy
anyone to demonstrate it from Scripturre. The best
that the Dispensationalists can do is deduce it. Surely
they reason, God will not let his little biddies suffer so.
Their "Judeo-Christianity" is neither historic Judaism,
nor is it historic Christianity, but is a bastardized
amalgamation of Zionism and Dispensationalism of
recent origin, formed for no higher purpose than that
of advancing a self-interested elite.Bomb, bomb, bomb bomb Iran.Yes, they are just looking for their chance. So how is
(Senator John McCain)
it with the Hagees and the Robertsons, the Lipkins and
the Rosenbergs, and other such nukee-pukees who but
salivate at the prospect of a world war? Do they think
to burnish their reputations by the accuracy of their
prophetic council? Actually what this is all about is the
unreality of their profession of faith. As well does their
warmongering reflects poorly on their followers, that
their faith should need this kind of reinforcement - war
and rumor of war - to fortify it.
And when these Jude-Christian warmongers' nasty
little business comes to fruition, if indeed it does (and
let us hope it doesn't), they will have earned the enmity
of all creatures great and small. I predict the day will
come when they will be remembered for the thoughtless
way they went about setting the world afire.
Quote without comment:
The kingdom of God shall be taken from
you [the Jewish nation], and given to a
nation producing the fruits thereof.
(Matthew 21:43)
A growing Christian-Zionist doomsday
cult that has largely rejected the core
teachings of the historical Jesus of the
New Testament in favor of a dangerous
mixture of jingoistic support for
preemptive wars of conquest and an
arrogant determination to force the
appearance of the avenging God of the
Revelation of St. John the Divine on a
schedule of their own choosing.
(Michael Gillespie, 12/28/04)
Political Zionism is an agency of Big
Business. It is being used by Jewish and
Christian financiers in this country and
Great Britain, to make Jews believe that
Palestine will be ruled by a descendant of
King David who will ultimately rule the
world. What delusion! It will lead to war
between Arabs and Jews and eventually
to war between Moslems and non-
Moslems. That will be the turning point
of history. (Henry H. Klein,
A Jew Warns Jews, 1947)We will establish ourselves in Palestine
whether you like it or not. You can hasten
our arrival or you can equally retard it.
It is however better for you to help us so
as to avoid our constructive powers being
turned into a destructive power which
will overthrow the world.
(Chaim Weizmann, 1920)I confess proudly, that Dispensationalism
is the true interpretation of Bible
prophecy. ... God the Father will be
reunited with the Jews ... and will save all
Israel; not by the blood of Christ, but
by restored animal sacrifices. ... Anyone
who denies Israel still has an unfulfilled
Covenant in Abraham without regard
to Christ, is an anti-Semite. (The
Reaper is Coming, John D. DeHann)
Christian believers are instructed by
Scripture ... to actively assist and
participate in the plan of God for the
ingathering of the Jewish People and
the Restoration of the nation of Israel
in our day.
(The Third International Christian
Zionist Congress, Jerusalem, 02/96)
I created the Yishuv [Jewish settlement
in Palestine], I alone. Therefore no men,
neither colonists nor organizations, have
the right to interfere in my plans..
(Baron Edmond de Rothschild)
Even today I am willing to volunteer to
do the dirty work for Israel, to kill as many
Arabs as necessary , to deport them, to
expel and burn them, to have everyone hate
us, to pull the rug from underneath the
feet of the Diaspora Jews, so that they will
be forced to run to us crying. Even if it
means blowing up one or two synagogues
here and there, I don't care. I don't mind
if after the job is done you put me in front
of a Nuremberg trail and jail me for life.
Hang me if you want, as a war criminal.
Then you can spruce up your Jewish
conscience and enter the respectable club
of civilized nations, nations that are large
and healthy. What you don't understand
is that the dirty work of Zionism is not
finished yet, far from it.
(Ariel Sharon, 1983)
Queen Victoria seems to have subscribed
to this Davidic theory and had her male
children circumcised by a Jewish ritual
circumciser, a mohel. Both Edward VII,
the duke of Windsor, and Charles, the
current prince of Whales, were
circumcised by a well-known London
physician and mohel, Dr. Jacob Snowman.
(Shalom Goldmann God's Sacred Tongue)
For in Palestine we do not propose even to
go through the form of consulting the
wishes of the present inhabitants of the
country, ... [T]he Four Great Powers are
committed to Zionism. And Zionism,
be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted
in age-long traditions, in present needs, in
future hopes, of far profounder import
than the desires or prejudices of the
700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that
ancient land.... [I]n short, so far as
Palestine is concerned, the Powers have
made no statement of fact which is not
admittedly wrong, and no declaration
of policy which, at least in the letter, they
have not always intended to violate.
( Lord Balfour, letter, 1919)
Pastor Charles Taze Russell, the founder of
the Jehovah's Witnesses, was a prominent
advocate of Christian Zionism in America.
At about the time that Ben-Gurion was
organizing his party, Russell visited the
Holy Land to plan for the repatriation of
the Jews. He visited Palestine twice. In
1909, after he returned to the US from his
second trip to Palestine, he published 12
articles in the Overland Monthly, which
had a readership of 75,000. In those
articles he explained the New Testament
prophecies for the return of Jesus and he
advocated the repatriation of the Jews.
After that, he gave several sermons to large
audiences. On June 15, 1910, he delivered
a sermon at the Brooklyn Academy of
Music to an audience of 2,800. The Jews
were overwhelmed. They were pleasantly
surprised that a Christian minister
acknowledged that there are prophecies
about Israel in the Bible still unfulfilled.
They published his sermons in several
Jewish journals and responded to him
with appreciative letters. In 1914, in a
famous speech to about 4,000 Jews at
the Hippodrome of New York, Russel
proposed that "the most earnest and
saintly Jewish people" should immigrate
(sic) to Palestine. The rest of the Jews
should support, finance, and encourage
those immigrants. His speech aroused
great enthusiasm among the Jews. The
Jewish Advocate noted that Russell's
view created a new basis for a Christian-
Jewish coalition. The goal of this
coalition was the fulfillment of biblical
prophecies. In 1963 the Herzl Press (a
renowned Jewish publication) described
in detail the important role that Russell
played in advocating the return of the
Jews to Palestine. Russell went to
England to talk to about 4,600 Jews in
the Royal Albert Hall in London. After
that, he gave speeches and conducted
meetings in Manchester, Glasgow,
Philadelphia, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and
in other cities. After Russell's death his
successors and his followers (the
Jehovah's Witnesses) turned anti-Zionist,
but his momentum was taken over by
the Christian fundamentalists.
("How the Prophecies of Jesus' Return
Impacted the World" by PT)
Today (May 15th 1948) is truly a holiday, a
Holy Day, and a new fruit is visible before
our very eyes. The Hebrew Revolt of 1944-
1948 has been blessed with success - the
first Hebrew revolt since the Hasmonen
insurrection that has ended in victory.
The State of Israel has arisen. And it has
risen "Only Thus": - through blood,
through fire, with an outstretched hand
and a mighty arm, with suffering and with
sacrifices. It could not have been otherwise.
... Our God-given country is a unity, an
integral historical and geographical whole.
The attempt to dissect it is not only a crime
but a blasphemy and an abortion. Whoever
does not recognize our natural right to our
entire homeland, does not recognize our
right to any part of it. And we shall never
forego this natural right.
(Menachem Begin, radio address)
Balfour and Rothschild were also members
of the mysterious Apostles Club to which
the infamous Bible revisers, Westcott and
Hort, and Henry Sidgwick of the S.P.R.
belonged. An important fact which has
been obscured by the Zionist crusaders,
including those in the Council for
National Policy, is that the plan for the
State of Israel was formulated in the secret
societies of Great Britain. (The Council
for National Policy, Barbara Aho)
I fear the internal damage that Judaism will
sustain due to the development, in our
ranks, of a narrow nationalism. We are not
anymore the Jews of the Maccabees period.
To become again a nation in the political
sense of the word will be equivalent to
turning away from the spiritualization of
our community that we owe to the
generosity of our prophets.
(Albert Einstein)
There's a lot of anxiety inside the -- you
know, our professional military and our
intelligence people. Many of them respect
the Constitution and the Bill of Rights as
much as anybody here, and individual
freedom. So, they do -- there's a
tremendous sense of fear. These are
punitive people. One of the ways --
one of the things that you could say is,
the amazing thing is we have been taken
over basically by a cult, eight or nine neo-
conservatives have somehow grabbed
the government. Just how and why and
how they did it so efficiently, will have to
wait for much later historians and better
documentation than we have now, but
they managed to overcome the bureaucracy
and the Congress, and the press, with the
greatest of ease. It does say something
about how fragile our Democracy is. You
do have to wonder what a Democracy is
when it comes down to a few men in the
Pentagon and a few men in the White
House having their way. Everybody is
afraid to tell Rumsfeld anything. That's
just the way it is. It's a system built on
fear. It's a system that's completely been
taken over -- by cultists.
(Seymour Hersh, remarks delivered before
the Steven Wise Free Synagogue, 01/26/05)
American Naval tactical aircraft, operating
from carriers in the Arabian Sea, have been
flying simulated nuclear-weapons delivery
missions - rapid ascending maneuvers
known as "over the shoulder" bombing -
since last summer, ... within range of
Iranian coastal radars.
(Seymour Hersh, NewYorker, 04/17/06)
A new Armageddon is in the making. The
new Armageddon is not exactly the
Armageddon which George Bush's Christian
fanatics pray for as they dream of their
Rapture. It is an Armageddon in which
Russia and the United States would irradiate
the planet and, perhaps, end human
civilization in the process.
(F. William Engdahl, 2/18/07)
Every evangelical belives the Bible and the
Bible has a clear mandate be supportive of
the State of Israel. (John Hagee)
Let no man deceive you by any means; for
that day shall not come, except there come
a falling away first and that man of sin
be revealed, the son of perdition; who
opposeth and exalteth himself above all
that is called God, or that is worshipped;
so that he as God sitteth in the temple of
God, shewing himself that he is God.
(II Thessalonians 2:4-4)