Ok so let’s deal with a lighter topic this week – evidence for God’s existence.
Just kidding – about the light topic part – not the God part.
Because I actually think that there is compelling evidence for the existence of God.
And while people use different avenues to provide evidence – the most compelling one for
me is a quick analysis of Jewish history.
What I’d like to do is show you five phenomena which have taken place in Jewish history – things
that any objective historian would agree are unprecedented, remarkable and extremely unlikely.
And then I would like to show you how each of these phenomena were explicitly promised
and foreseen in the Hebrew Bible.
My argument is that only a Being unbound by time would have had the foresight to make
these predictions – only a God could have done so.
Phenomena number 1 - the survival of the Jewish people over the last 3000 years.
We take it for granted that there are still Jews around but consider all the ancient peoples
that existed at the same time as the ancient Israelites and are now extinct - the Canaanites,
the Hittites, the Jebusites.
But its not just ancient peoples, even the greatest empires and nations, often those
that actually tried to persecute the Jews, have died while the Jews remain.
If you would have gone up to a Roman imperialist 2000 years ago and asked him - "who do you
think is more likely to be around in 2000 years time - your imperialist nation, the Romans
or the Jewish people?"
He would have laughed at you.
In his essay on the Jews, Mark Twain noted that “The Egyptian, the Babylonian, the
Persians, the Greeks and the Romans all enjoyed their moment in the spotlight in history but they now
“sit in twilight”, and yet the Jew remains - “what is the secret of his immortality?”
he asked.
Leo Tolstoy said “The Jew is the emblem of eternity”.
Historians are in fascination at the continued survival of the Jewish people, while so many
other tribes and peoples and empires and nations have faded away.
Now let’s have a look at what the Torah says about Jewish survival.
God says - “Just as I am God and I do not change, so too you, the children of Jacob shall
never be wiped out”.
Number 2 - Worldwide Exile – throughout most of Jewish history, the Jewish people
have been scattered across the globe.
There are Jews on all five continents, and Jews are constantly on the move.
What’s so interesting is that while the Jews are one of the oldest peoples in the world,
in terms of the countries they currently occupy they are actually one of the youngest – because Jews
are always moving around.
Sociologists will tell you that if you want to assimilate a people, if you want to get
rid of them, then scatter them and they will disappear.
And yet despite worldwide exile the Jewish people have remained.
All this - clearly foreseen in the Torah - and yet despite this grave threat of global exile
the Torah remains convinced of Jewish survival.
Number 3 – few in number.
The total number of Jews in the world has never exceeded 16 million – and rarely exceeded
1% of total world population.
This is particularly remarkable because at one point millenia ago the Jewish people
were about the same in population as the Han Dynasty of China – about 12 million.
Yet today the Chinese population is 1.3 billion according to the most recent census – give
or take about 14 million, while 14 million is the entire number of the Jewish people!
And today there are fewer Jews than there were before the H olocaust.
Now obviously our small population can be explained partly by the high levels of persecution,
but our tiny size, coupled with worldwide dispersion, makes our survival even more remarkable.
And the Torah clearly states: “And you shall remain few in number among the nations where
God shall lead you…”.
Number 4 – anti-Semitism - something which has baffled historians for four key reasons
- its longevity, its universality, its intensity - consider the long list of words
created specifically to describe Jew hatred - and its irrationality - just consider the
reasons given for hating Jews: they’re money-grabbing capitalists but also revolutionary communists,
they’re parasites on other nation’s societies and when they have their own state they’re
militant occupiers of a land not their own.
No historian has been able to find a consistent reason to explain anti-Semitism throughout history.
A common explanation for prejudice given by sociologists is the ‘dislike of the unlike’
– that if a group of people can manage to assimilate, they will no longer face persecution.
Yet when the Jewish people assimilate, such as in Germany where they declared ‘Berlin
is our Jerusalem!’, they eventually faced the most intense persecution ever seen in
modern history.
The Nazis declared, stop trying to become like us and infiltrate our race!
Anti-Semitism is totally irrational.
And once again the Torah clearly forewarns the Jewish people of the persecution that
they will face in exile.
So the Torah forewarned global exile, being few in number, and intense persecution - an
unprecedented recipe for national extinction - and yet the Torah remained convinced that the
Jewish people will survive.
But we’re not done yet.
Number 5 – the remarkable impact of Judaism on the world.
When I was at college studying history we were asked by our lecturer who we thought
was the most influential human being in all of human history.
I think it is pretty easy to make the case that this man was Abraham.
Just think about this – the majority of the world today believe in the God of Abraham
– the majority of the world is made up of Christians, Muslims and Jews.
Yet 3000 years ago in Abraham’s time, or even 2000 years ago – the majority of the
world was polytheistic or pagan – believing in many gods.
What’s even more remarkable is that Abraham was a man with no army, no empire to command,
no political power and nearly everyone was against him.
And yet somehow the author of the Torah was convinced thousands of years ago that one
day the world would look to Abraham as their spiritual forefather.
God tells Abraham “I will bless you and make your name great…and all the families
of the earth shall bless themselves by you.”
But it’s more than monotheism that Judaism brought to the world – many of the
world’s values that the world holds dear today were first articulated by the Bible
- the value of human life, the importance of the family, peace as an ideal, justice
and equality, social responsibility and education.
These were not concepts that were given much credibility 2000 years ago – the Jews were
looked down upon for upholding them – war was glorified by the Romans, the Greeks practiced
promiscuity as an ideal, the poor were blamed for their own misfortune, people's social
status defined their rights.
John Adams, the 2nd President of America said: “I will insist that the Hebrews
have contributed more to civilize men than any other nation.
If I were an atheist, I should still believe that fate had ordained the Jews to be the
most essential instrument for civilizing the nations”.
Now surely, if the Jewish people are going to be small in number, how could they make
such a worldwide impact?
And if they are hated, who is going to listen to them?
And if the Jews really are looked up to, wouldn’t others want to join them?
Does it make sense that the Jewish people have had such an impact?
The very fact that they have survived is eye-opening in and of itself,
but they have also thrived in the global conversation of ideas.
All this, clearly foreseen when Isaiah prophecised that Israel would be the "light unto the nations."
Somehow, despite being intensely persecuted, small in number and dispersed all over the
globe, the Jewish people have managed to survive while countless Empires have come and gone.
And despite all these setbacks, Judaism has influenced mankind in an astonishing way.
Now if all these events had simply occurred without being foretold, I would be willing
to say, you know what, all of this is pretty remarkable but maybe it was just a fluke, maybe the Jews
got lucky.
Or alternatively, if the predictions were based on normal historical processes then
I would say that the writers of the Torah were probably human and were simply making
educated guesses.
But the problem is that all of these predictions are totally extraordinary, not following any
of the rules of the history of nations.
In my mind, the only reasonable option we have is that the author of the Torah must
have been a being not bound by time, a being that transcends time - God.
Blaise Pascal, the founder of probability theory – someone who had a thing or two
to say about making a decision on what is most probable, was asked by King Louis 14th
of France for proof of God’s existence.
And Pascal responded: "The Jews, your Majesty ― the Jews.”