Friday, May 01, 2009

Maybe I'm A "Restored" Jew?

...the publication of the King James version of the Bible...inspired a movement called “restorationism,” promoting the restoration of Jews to their biblical homeland.

Puritan theologians and legislators such as Thomas Brightman (1562-1607) and Sir Henry Finch (1558-1625) published sermons and what were called “documents”: In 1615 Brightman wrote: “Shall they return to Jerusalem again? There is nothing more certain: the prophets do everywhere confirm it and beat upon it." In 1621 Finch, who spoke Hebrew, wrote The World’s Great Restoration urging Jews in the Diaspora to claim their homeland. "Out of all the places of thy dispersion, East, West, North and South, His purpose is to bring thee home again and to marry thee to Himself by faith for evermore." In 1649, Ebenezer and Joanna Cartwright petitioned parliament to welcome Jews and help “…transport Israel’s sons and daughters to the land promised to their forefathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, for an everlasting inheritance.”

The movement, albeit small scale, continued after the return of Jews to England. Dr. Joseph Priestley (1733-1804), a clergyman, teacher and scientist who discovered oxygen, was a member of the London Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews, but his prestige encouraged others to support non-millennial (Messianic conversion) Zionism.”

The influential Lord Shaftesbury (1801-1885), whose ring bore the inscription “Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem,” presented a declaration to Lord Palmerston (1747-1865) the deeply religious British Foreign Secretary for the “restoration of the Jews to the soil of Palestine to establish the principles of European civilization” and in March of 1841 several hundred Christians issued a plea to parliament: “The land of Palestine was bestowed by the Sovereign of the Universe upon the descendants of Abraham as a permanent and inalienable possession nearly 4,000 years ago, and … neither conquests nor treaties among men can possibly affect their Title to it.”


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