From Semitic Foundations to Eschatological Fulfillment: A Historical-Theological Reflection
The ancient Levant was home to several North Semitic peoples—Hebrews, Arameans, Phoenicians—whose cultural and linguistic influence shaped the ancient Near East. Aramaic, in particular, rose to prominence as the administrative language of the Neo-Assyrian Empire (c. 911–609 BCE), later adopted by the Achaemenid Persians (c. 550–330 BCE) as a lingua franca across their vast domains.
The Hebrew people, with their distinct covenantal identity, maintained the longest recorded historical claim to specific territories in the Levant. The northern kingdom of Israel fell to Assyria in 722 BCE, and its tribes were dispersed and assimilated. The southern kingdom of Judah was exiled to Babylon in 586 BCE, but under Cyrus the Great’s edict in 538 BCE, many Jews returned to Jerusalem, rebuilt the Temple (completed c. 516 BCE), and re-established their religious and scriptural traditions.
During the Hellenistic period (following Alexander the Great’s conquests, c. 330 BCE), and later under Roman rule (from 63 BCE onward), Jews lived under foreign dominion, often with limited autonomy. By the time of Jesus of Nazareth—whose life, death, and resurrection Christians affirm as the pivotal moment of divine incarnation and redemptive history—the region was under Roman control, and tensions between Jewish identity and imperial power were mounting.
In AD 70, Roman legions under Titus sacked Jerusalem and destroyed the Second Temple, fulfilling Jesus’ prophecy that “not one stone will be left on another” (Matthew 24:2). While the command structure was Roman, the legions included many auxiliary troops from Syria, Arabia, and North Africa. This destruction marked the beginning of the Jewish diaspora, though Jewish communities already existed across the Mediterranean, including in North Africa, Asia Minor, and Europe.
The Romans renamed the province “Syria Palaestina” after the Bar Kokhba revolt (132–136 CE), deliberately erasing Jewish ties to the land. The term “Palestine” thus entered Western usage, though the region remained ethnically and religiously diverse.
Meanwhile, South Semitic peoples—Arabians and others—grew in influence. Aramaic declined, and Phoenician became extinct. By the 7th century CE, a new force emerged: Islam. According to Islamic tradition, Muhammad received revelations in a cave near Mecca beginning in 610 CE, allegedly from the angel Gabriel. Christians, however, have long questioned the spiritual origin of these revelations, viewing Islam as a theological inversion of Christianity.
Joel Richardson’s Mideast Beast argues that Islam represents not merely a rival religion but a prophetic challenge to Christianity. He posits that the Antichrist will arise from a Muslim context, and that Islam’s eschatology mirrors and inverts biblical prophecy—where the Islamic Mahdi resembles the biblical Antichrist, and the Islamic Jesus (Isa) returns to abolish Christianity.
As Islam expanded, Jews faced new pressures—forced conversions, massacres, and expulsions. Many fled to Europe, where they encountered both refuge and persecution. Poland and Protestant Britain offered relative tolerance, while the Ottoman Empire provided sanctuary after the Spanish Inquisition (1492). Yet antisemitism persisted across Christendom.
During the Reformation (16th century), theologians like Matthew Henry (1662–1714) interpreted biblical prophecy as foretelling a Jewish return to Israel. Though he could not foresee the geopolitical mechanisms, his commentaries reflect a theological expectation of restoration.
Following the Holocaust (1939–1945), in which six million Jews were murdered, global sympathy for a Jewish homeland intensified. Under British Mandate (1920–1948), the land of Palestine was partitioned. Three-quarters became Transjordan (now Jordan), while the remainder was designated for a Jewish state. The term “Jordanian” is modern; many inhabitants were Arabs from Palestine.
Israel declared independence in 1948. Britain, ambivalent and often obstructive, withdrew. The nascent Israeli state fought for survival against surrounding Arab nations. Shortly thereafter, the British Empire unraveled—a poetic justice, some argue, for its failure to support Israel.
Today, many nations recognize “Palestine” as a state, though its historical and legal foundations remain contested. Jordan, with its Palestinian majority, could be seen as fulfilling that role. Meanwhile, Arabs live in Israel with full citizenship, provided they respect its secular and pluralist laws—unlike Jordan, which prohibits Jewish settlement.
As prophesied in Zechariah 12 and Ezekiel 38–39, the nations of the earth appear to be aligning against Israel. Christians who read these texts with faith and discernment know where they stand in the unfolding drama.
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The gravest danger for Israeli Jews and the Jewish diaspora lies in the ease with which under-informed ignorant ramblings and lies about the Jewish origins and their culture and history, can be spread across the social media networks. Smear campaigns, venomous misinformation and ingrained prejudice have a ready-made platform to reinforce the hatred that is already out there.
It is in many ways thanks to the Jewish people that democracy social care, the sciences, legal frameworks and ethics have flourished. It was also the wellspring from which Christianity grew.
Islam in the beginning gave the world some fine thinkers and mathematicians and it was even a tolerant religion in its infancy living side-by-side with Jews and Christians. It became perverted along the way to become the politically motivated, intolerant bellicose ideology we so often see today. This could change for the better perhaps and it is to be hoped it does. Unfortunately, whilst we wait for that to happen many non-muslims are driven to malice against the Jewish people because they believe unquestioningly anti-Israeli propaganda that they here from Islamic sources or muslim friends. It is always upsetting to hear of innocent children and adults being killed in any war and the war in the Gaza is no exception. However it was indefensible for islamic terrorists to attack, injure and kill innocent Israeli citizens (young, old and infants) going about their daily lives. The Jews have known atrocities throughout all of their history and now they are in a position to respond to such aggression and evil they will do it in no uncertain terms. That is what we are now seeing. Jews will do (have to do) everything in their power to ensure no repeat of the horrors they suffered under the Nazi regime. The context of what is going on in Gaza and the historic precedents for it, clearly demonstrates the paradox of Netanyahu having an arrest warrant hanging over him.
Many thanks for that, Alan.
I would argue on one matter, namely you say that in the early days Islam was apeaceful and tolerant religion. The texts and history of how Islam spread by the sword say otherwise. They also continually raided both Europe and Africa for slaves. The times of “Muslim Enlightenment” such as Cordoba or when the Sultan of Turkey extended asylum to Jews fleeing “Christian” persecution from the Spanish Inquisition and others, these times were like oases of intellect in a desert of destrcution. The whole of North Africa was ex Roman Empire, had a great deal of Enlightenment not least the great library at Alexandria, Christian and Jewish Communities all over the places, and all these things were just swept away in the onslaught.
They pick a handful of these oases of civilization and run them out as propaganda all the time. But they were not part of the “infancy” of Islam, they were if you like periods of “thaw”, to use terminology more usually applies to the Soviet Union. You cannot compare the first 300 years of Christianity in which Christians were exclusively on the receiving end of violence, with the first three hundred years of Islam, in which they were the perpetrators. Neither can we compare a religion who tells us not to confuse God’s Kingdom with this world (up toe the point where the larger parts of them chose to ignore this) with a faith system which is statist and political from the get-go.
One only needs to compare the acts of Mohammed and his immediate successors with the acts of Jesus and the Acts of the Apostles to see that they could not be further from one another.
Yes the Church has been through 1,360 years of disobedience, but that was its failure. The period of time in which Islam has built its Empire – these have been successful by the criteria set for in their own writings, and the more violent they were, the more successful.
Thanks for that. “They also continually raided both Europe and Africa for slaves. ” I wasn’t aware of that but I suppose in the context of the times slavery was considered normal. I’ve only just discovered the extent and the brutality of the trade in both adults and child slaves by the ancient Greeks (the ones we in the west so admire). What a truly awful species human beings are !
Well that’s right, there is always barbarism, and the root problem is sin rather than slavery per se. People tend to get very upset by passages written by Paul in a Roman context, take for instance the Epistle to Titus where he has admonnitions for five classes of people, young men, young women, old men, old women, ad slaves as the fifth, and basically enjoins stoicism on the latter class.
People seem to think the Bible ought to be imposing some modern political solution to slavery.
But in fact the issue to be resolved in Biblical framing is that of sin and how to walk according to a righteous path. In Philemon Paul enjoins the eponymous recipient to receive Onesimus, his escaped slave, again, but this time “as a brother”.
To explain why this is completely the corretc approach, one on;ly needs to point out the abuses we can encounter in systems of employment where in theory anyone is free to walk out of the door. These are of course still better than systems where you can be whipped and even murdered on a whim, but there is such a huge overlap that I can say there there are many peopole working in the world today who are given to believe that they are free who would have been better off indentured under a kind master in the past.
If someone is unemployed or working at a hateful job in fear of unemployment, then I doubt their position is any better than thise of slaves in the past.
As far as the Ottoman Empire was concerned, the extent of the slavery practised by them was very large, to the point where one fifth of the population of cities in the sixteenth century were slaves, and millions of Europeans were included in that number in the Centuries, some captured in battles or by pirates, some purchased at slave auctions in Venice and other slave trading centres. But to give them some credit a certain proportion of these people, on condition fo their betraying their Christian faith and becoming Muslim of course, were able to rise up through the system, become educated and were given higher up roles in society. This tended to be available to European slaves more than to those they took annually for Africa. The African Turks are a class apart to this day, while Europen slaves tended to become assimilated which is why many Turks are indistinguishable from Europeans. For black slavery I don’t see that the Muslim world has a better record than the Americans but for the fact that in 1857 Turkiye abolished slavery (in fact largely under pressure form Britain) while 1857 was a year in which the USA saw a setback to abolitionism, with the Scott v Sandford ruling that deprived free slaves of citizenship rights and legal agency. This was not put right until the 13th Amendment 10 years later.
If we look at the two countries of America and Turkiye today, I am not sure which place is better to liev in for the descendents of slaves – if they have the talent to rise up, then America has more opportunities to become a great success for blacks and whites alike. For those, on the other hand, who have a tendency to sink to the bottom, America seems to offer a deeper abyss also.