TBS Quarterly Record 596 - Trinitarian Bible Society (Australia)

Issue Number: 596 – July to September 2011Flickr/floundrwhistleern Israel. In Tel Aviv the cafés, nightclubsand shopping malls attract fashionablydressed young people seeking the sameself-indulgentpleasures asin any mod-ern Westerncity, regretfulthough that is.In Jerusalem,Tel Aviv street scenes:shopping and cafécultureFlickr/jeffwilcoxhowever, theactiveness of theHaredim ultraorthodox Jews makessuch a Westernised ed way of life difficult.Tel Aviv stands for what a modern Israeliauthor has called ‘effortless Judaism, inwhich children grow up as Jews and celebrateJewish holidays and speak Hebrewwithout having to make any consciouspersonal decision as to their Jewish identity’.8 Jerusalem represents religious commitmentof the most intensekind. Tel Aviv, althoughhaving absorbed andtransformed the Port ofJaffa, was itself builtfrom new, neither crowdingnor displacing anArab community.Jerusalem, on the other hand, somehowhas to contain groups of Jews, Arabs,Muslims and Christians representingsome bewildering differences.Those groups in Israel denominated asChristian make for less than 2.5% of thepopulation and only 0.2% are Protestant(in seventeen denominations!). Overeighty missionary agencies work in Israel,and it is not easy to establishan overallidea of actual numbers of workers.‘JewishChristians’ arenot accordedany recognitionassuch by Israeliauthorities, andalthough religiousgroups arefreeto ministerwithin their owncommunities,opentestimony,outreach and evangelism are frownedupon; indeed, some such activities leavethose seeking to witness for Christ opento prosecution.21THE WORD OF GOD INHEBREWIn the light of all this we return to theburden of our opening paragraph, rejoicingin the publication of our HebrewScriptures, and particularly the revisionof the Hebrew New Testament that is nowin progress. We are delighted that theseHebrew Scriptures are owned of God forthe continued lifting up of the Lord JesusChrist among His own, to whom Hecame.The first printed Hebrew Scripture of theNew Testament to be published was theGospel according to Matthew in 1537,having been translated almost two centuriesearlier by Shem Tob ben Shaprut