Evidence for the Supernatural

Those returning to Israel from the diaspora are often visibly carrying some genes from the areas of exile as well as from their middle Eastern ancestors.If you really want to upset Buzsaw, you could point out to him that the Palestinians might be purer candidates for the title of "the seed of Abraham" than the Israelis.Here's an interesting thing about the the idea of God giving the city of Jerusalem to the Jews for all time. Looked at in religious terms, it is Pagans who have ruled Jerusalem for a greater number of years than anyone else. Second come the Muslims. Third (about equal) come the Christians and the Jews with about the same total ruling time.See below: yellow=Paganism; green=Islam; red=Christian; blue=Judaism. A Jewish historical claim to rule the city looks absurd according to that timeline.

What I was referring to was the first quote you come up with in your great debate that wasn't great and didn't happen. So, was Jerusalem part of this promised land? If so, and we assume your view that the Jews are the seed of Abraham, then God clearly failed on this early promise. He should have said "I will give you this land intermittently for about 10% of the time over the next few thousand years", shouldn't he?"For ever" means from the moment of speaking through the rest of all time.Now, on to your problems with the "seed of Abraham". Most people who identify themselves as Jewish in some sense haven't gone to Israel. Almost all people who identify themselves as Jewish have picked up some ancestry from regions of the world other than the middle-east over the last two millennia.The mixing goes the other way as well, and many people around the world will have a Jewish ancestor somewhere in their history, because many Jews assimilated into the mainstream cultures wherever they were over those two millennia. So, the "seed of Abraham" (any distinctive alleles his original small tribe might have had) are drifting all around the world, and most of them certainly won't ever return to the region.As for your prophecies in relation to modern Israel, what you're seeing with religious Zionists (and to some extent the secular ones) is a classic example of self-fulfilling prophecy. This is when knowledge of a prophecy and belief in it makes it come true.

And "long" is a relative word. So Buzsaw could claim the Kingdom of David as a fulfillment of the prophesy/promise, or indeed, Jewish rule over the area that Abraham could see from the hill he was on for any given period of time that might seem long to nomads (a few years might seem like a settlement of "long duration" to them).As Abraham himself was included in this promise along with his seed, any Jewish conquests of any land after his death seem to be ruled out, though. It would mean, if you look at the timeline I posted, that God has so far granted a hell of a lot more "owlam" (long duration) to Pagans, Muslims and Christians combined than he has to the Jews, so far as Jerusalem is concerned. If you take Buzsaw's view that the Jews are the seed of Abraham, God's promise to them seems rather pointless. He should have said "I'll give these lands to anyone who grabs them", which far more accurately describes the history of the area since Abe's time.