Herod the Great - The Man of Four Cultures ... And His Amazing Projects (National Geographic)

I was just reading about Herod the Great and came upon this wonderful slideshow at National Geographic. He was the king in Palestine during the time of Jesus' birth. He ordered the slaughter of all the male babies under the age of 2 in Bethlehem.

I was reading the book "Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes" and learned some amazing things about Herod.  He was really a "quadruple-cultural" man.

1.  He was Arab ethnicity.  He had a brother named Yousef and brother named Faisal.

2.  He was Jewish in religious background.  His family, several generations before him, had been forced to convert to Judaism.

3.  He was Greek.  His primary language of communication was Greek and he sought to make Jerusalem a Greek-like city.

4.  He was politically Roman.  He served Ceasar in Rome.  He had sided with Mark Antony in his fight against Octavius (who later became Ceasar).   But when Marc Antony lost the battle Herod sought an audience with Ceasar.  He told him, "I want you to consider, not whose friend I was, but how good a friend I was".  Ceasar made him king of Palestine.

Pope Benedict Prays for Jews... and Gets Bad Reviews

Just getting to blog about this from earlier in the month... Pope Benedict has reinstituted a prayer for Jews to recognize Jesus as Savior of the world. The prayer is only in a Latin service that takes place on Good Friday before Easter. I first read about this in this NY Times article. Here's what the translation of the prayer

An unofficial translation of the new prayer reads: “Let us pray for the Jews. May the Lord Our God enlighten their hearts so that they may acknowledge Jesus Christ, the savior of all men.”

The reason this is in the news is that a conservative worldwide assembly of Jewish rabbis has condemned it and says, "the prayer would cast a harsh shadow over the spirit of mutual respect and collaboration that has marked these past four decades, making it more difficult for Jews to engage constructively in dialogue with Catholics."

This is one of those situations that I just struggle to understand. The Jewish body is effectively saying that we can't talk or have dialogue if you insist on saying that what historic Christianity and the Bible say about Jesus is true. But to deny the exclusive nature of claiming that salvation comes through faith in Jesus is to deny orthodox Christianity.

I suppose this flows from a mindset that says that disagreement about Truth is counter productive to good relationships with others and has historically led to violence. The reasoning usually goes that absolute truth claims necessarily lead to violence.

But this isn't true for a religion who's God commands them to "love your neighbor" and "pray for your enemies"; ala Christianity. The violence of some Christians through history is better explained by things like people who call themselves Christians but are not truly regenerate or by pointing out that God's elect, the Church, continue to be sinful despite being redeemed by him. Both of these explanations fit the Biblical description of mankind.

I disagree with Roman Catholics about some theological issues. But on this one... I stand with them. It is Biblical and right to pray these kinds of prayers.

What do you think?