The OP is nearly three years old and its premise has been thoroughly addressed. Its author hasn't been seen onsite for 15 months. Perhaps it is permissible to divert to your Kittel comments for the edification of the readership.
Let's catch up in the kitchen while we fry Kittel's kettle of fish.
Nearly 90 years ago, the Fuerher and his friend Kittel coined the term," Positive Christianity." Gerhard Kittel and Hitler worked together to hawk the Root-race theory to the last generation.
The 'Nazi connection' will shock Christians of even nominal sensitivities. Adolf Hitler's name is a household word, used synonymously with the consummate evil of this century. Gerhard Kittel's name is a household word - among New Testament Greek scholars. It would seem the chasm between two such men would be monumental. Kittel edited the ten volume standard reference work used in New Testament Greek word studies, the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. The NIV translators relied on its judgements when selecting words, as do all translators.1 When a pastor or 'media preacher' elaborates with reference to 'the Greek', it is virtually certain he is citing a judgement about the correct meaning or choice of a word from this dictionary or an abridged compendium which has adopted its citations.
Kittel's labors on his ten volume Greek New Testament dictionary also began the same year he became Hitler's 'hired man'.
As previously mentioned, Kittel's trial, conviction and imprisonment for his key part in the extermination of two thirds of Europe's Jewish population is a harsh fact, hidden to those pridefully seeking 'hidden' meaning in the Greek. This same pride impels New Age mystics in their pursuit of hidden 'gnosis' or knowledge.
Adolf Hitler hired Kittel to curse the seed of Israel in Germany. The apostle Peter warns of these 'false prophets' and 'false teachers' who are "gone astray following the way of Balaam...who loved the wages of unrighteousness...[T]hey speak great swelling words of vanity." (II Peter 2:1, 15) A more apt description of Kittel's dictionary and his diatribe against the Jews could not be penned.
In Gerhard Kittel, Satan found a man who could destroy both the seed of Israel and the "incorruptible seed." His writings penned between 1937 and 1943 caused the physical death of countless Jews and spiritual death for untold others. Using the cloak of 'Christianity' and 'science', Kittel was the chief architect of the so-called 'racial science' and 'Christian base' for Hitler's anti-Semitism. Scholar Robert Ericksen, winner of the 1987 Merit of Distinction from the International Center for Holocaust Studies, writes, "He established a solid Christian foundation for the opposition to the Jews."2 Kittel called himself "the first authority in Germany in the scientific consideration of the Jewish question."3 William Foxwell Albright, a prominent archaeologist and Semitic scholar, writes:
Kittel is...even darker and more menacing...than Goering or Goebbels...[He credits Kittel with]...the grim distinction of making extermination of the Jews theologically respectable.4
The NKJV and all new versions have abandoned the traditional Old Testament Hebrew, Ben Chayyim Masoretic Text, and follow Rudolph Kittel's 1937 corruption, Biblia Hebraica, which follows Leningrad Ms B 19a.
Kittel, unlike theologians Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, urged:
[A]greement with the state and Fuhrer was obedience toward the law of God.5
Theologian Martin Buber responded publicly that he was not surprised to see Kittel acting as pied piper for the Fuehrer.5
Ericksen notes further:
Theologians who stressed gospel...tended to be immune to Hitler's charms. Kittel's work cannot be seen as anything but a satanic distortion of Christianity.6
Foreshadowing the final false prophet, Kittel promoted a 'New' bible version for Hitler's 'New' church, to replace Luther's traditional German Bible, Die Heilige Schrift, based on the Majority Text.7
In 1933 Kittel joined the Nazi party and his mystical maze hit a turning point. That same year he also began work on the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, a work he hoped would give theology a more secular substructure. One secular historian notes:
The potential for trouble suddenly became concrete in 1933. Ego involvement...must have played a role in Kittel's career after 1933. After 1933 Kittel's work changed in tone. Before 1933 Kittel defended Judaism, afterward he attacked it. Kittel produced a body of work between 1933 and 1944 filled with hatred and slander toward Jews...The bulk of Kittel's research between 1933 and 1945 was devoted to a rigorous and harsh anti-Jewish stance...It corresponded to the worst of Nazi propaganda.8
In 1933 Kittel wrote a book and gave speeches entitled, Die Judenfragen. It's first edition states:
We must not allow ourselves to be crippled because the whole world screams at us of barbarism...How the German Volk regulates its own cultural affairs does not concern anyone else in the world.9
Between 1933 and 1944, as Kittel was cranking out volume after volume of the lengthy Theological Dictionary, he was also taking a leadership role in the Forschungsabteilung Judenfrage, a Nazi organization and publication. Rudolf Hess, one of the earliest members of the Occult Thule Society and Hitler's right hand man, attended the opening ceremonies, which were followed by newspaper headlines pronouncing the organization as, "[T]he scientific weapon in the Nazi fight against the Jews."10 Kittel became the most frequent contributor to this journal, writing 6 of the 8 volumes, the last being cut short by the end of the war and Kittel's imprisonment for war crimes. (The same fate fell to his closing work on the Theological Dictionary.)
Kittel's pseudo-'science' and 'research' for this journal stooped to the ridiculous. For example, he would show ancient drawings of men with "large hooked noses" having sex with women who had small noses. These drawings, he purported, "proved" scientifically that historically "inferior" Jewish men had attempted to mate with "superior" Aryan women in order to improve their racial stock. Kittel's vulgarity included slander and name-calling, using terms such as, "refuse," "depraved" and "enemies of humanity." He wrote of "readiness to speak in racial...terms" and of the Jews being "justly ruined." He recommended all German Jews be dismissed from their jobs, stripped of their German citizenship and their property confiscated. He said, "[T]hough this would cause hardship it was a necessary price to pay for past excesses."11 Doesn't this sound like the Antichrist's plan for the 'unevolved' non-compliant Christians who refuse to take 'the Name' of the beast? The same plan comes from the same source - Satan.
Dr. Josef Goebbels, Minister of Propaganda and Enlightenment, believed Hitler was the reincarnation of Jesus Christ. Goebbels and his SS began the first mass murder of German-Jewry on November 9 and 10, 1938. In 1939, Kittel closed one of his speeches with a tribute to Hitler calling him the, "saving force which stemmed the tide of Jewish infiltration."12 "Knowledge of the killings was widespread within Germany itself," notes one observer. As early as 1942, the London Times reported the mass murder of Jews; Swedish diplomat Baron von Otter also publicly reported mass gassings. The B.B.C. reported the massacre by A.M. and short wave radio. "They all knew what was going on."13 Even with such clear awareness of what was going on, Kittel continued to write for the Fuehrer. In 1943, Goebbels asked Kittel to write for his Anti-Judische Aktion (Anti-Jewish Action), a publication laced with Goebbels' astrological predictions about a German victory in the war. Kittel admitted knowing "about Jewish murders" and wrote of his support for Adolf Hitler's actions:
[T]oday many harsh things do occur and must occur...It was not despotic brutality or barbarism...[for] the Fuhrer...in his radical resolve...to place the Jewish problem on a wholly new foundation...[T]he radical suppression...carried out by National Socialism is not, as almost the entire world maintains, an unheard of cruelty against the Jews.14
To what was Kittel referring when he said, "radical suppression...unheard of cruelty"? - Mass Murder. As late as 1944, Kittel was lecturing at the University of Vienna, speaking of the "depraved Jews who were the cause of the fall of the Roman Empire."15 His writing showed attempts to rationalize the murder of Jews by twisting Talmudic thoughts. Kittel writes:
...full freedom to murder...just as you should smash the brains of even the best snake...[This is] justification for the most anti-Jewish acts.16
The pen of the Psalmist painted a perfect portrait of Kittel. Jerusalem is our mother (Galatians 4:26) and the Jews, the sons of Jerusalem. Ericksen concludes:
The picture of Kittel which emerges is not that of a devout Christian...He refurbished it with a touch of contemporary racial mysticism.17
...continued...
He did.
Let's catch up in the kitchen while we fry Kittel's kettle of fish.
Nearly 90 years ago, the Fuerher and his friend Kittel coined the term," Positive Christianity." Gerhard Kittel and Hitler worked together to hawk the Root-race theory to the last generation.
The 'Nazi connection' will shock Christians of even nominal sensitivities. Adolf Hitler's name is a household word, used synonymously with the consummate evil of this century. Gerhard Kittel's name is a household word - among New Testament Greek scholars. It would seem the chasm between two such men would be monumental. Kittel edited the ten volume standard reference work used in New Testament Greek word studies, the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. The NIV translators relied on its judgements when selecting words, as do all translators.1 When a pastor or 'media preacher' elaborates with reference to 'the Greek', it is virtually certain he is citing a judgement about the correct meaning or choice of a word from this dictionary or an abridged compendium which has adopted its citations.
Kittel's labors on his ten volume Greek New Testament dictionary also began the same year he became Hitler's 'hired man'.
As previously mentioned, Kittel's trial, conviction and imprisonment for his key part in the extermination of two thirds of Europe's Jewish population is a harsh fact, hidden to those pridefully seeking 'hidden' meaning in the Greek. This same pride impels New Age mystics in their pursuit of hidden 'gnosis' or knowledge.
Adolf Hitler hired Kittel to curse the seed of Israel in Germany. The apostle Peter warns of these 'false prophets' and 'false teachers' who are "gone astray following the way of Balaam...who loved the wages of unrighteousness...[T]hey speak great swelling words of vanity." (II Peter 2:1, 15) A more apt description of Kittel's dictionary and his diatribe against the Jews could not be penned.
In Gerhard Kittel, Satan found a man who could destroy both the seed of Israel and the "incorruptible seed." His writings penned between 1937 and 1943 caused the physical death of countless Jews and spiritual death for untold others. Using the cloak of 'Christianity' and 'science', Kittel was the chief architect of the so-called 'racial science' and 'Christian base' for Hitler's anti-Semitism. Scholar Robert Ericksen, winner of the 1987 Merit of Distinction from the International Center for Holocaust Studies, writes, "He established a solid Christian foundation for the opposition to the Jews."2 Kittel called himself "the first authority in Germany in the scientific consideration of the Jewish question."3 William Foxwell Albright, a prominent archaeologist and Semitic scholar, writes:
Kittel is...even darker and more menacing...than Goering or Goebbels...[He credits Kittel with]...the grim distinction of making extermination of the Jews theologically respectable.4
The NKJV and all new versions have abandoned the traditional Old Testament Hebrew, Ben Chayyim Masoretic Text, and follow Rudolph Kittel's 1937 corruption, Biblia Hebraica, which follows Leningrad Ms B 19a.
Kittel, unlike theologians Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, urged:
[A]greement with the state and Fuhrer was obedience toward the law of God.5
Theologian Martin Buber responded publicly that he was not surprised to see Kittel acting as pied piper for the Fuehrer.5
Ericksen notes further:
Theologians who stressed gospel...tended to be immune to Hitler's charms. Kittel's work cannot be seen as anything but a satanic distortion of Christianity.6
Foreshadowing the final false prophet, Kittel promoted a 'New' bible version for Hitler's 'New' church, to replace Luther's traditional German Bible, Die Heilige Schrift, based on the Majority Text.7
In 1933 Kittel joined the Nazi party and his mystical maze hit a turning point. That same year he also began work on the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, a work he hoped would give theology a more secular substructure. One secular historian notes:
The potential for trouble suddenly became concrete in 1933. Ego involvement...must have played a role in Kittel's career after 1933. After 1933 Kittel's work changed in tone. Before 1933 Kittel defended Judaism, afterward he attacked it. Kittel produced a body of work between 1933 and 1944 filled with hatred and slander toward Jews...The bulk of Kittel's research between 1933 and 1945 was devoted to a rigorous and harsh anti-Jewish stance...It corresponded to the worst of Nazi propaganda.8
In 1933 Kittel wrote a book and gave speeches entitled, Die Judenfragen. It's first edition states:
We must not allow ourselves to be crippled because the whole world screams at us of barbarism...How the German Volk regulates its own cultural affairs does not concern anyone else in the world.9
Between 1933 and 1944, as Kittel was cranking out volume after volume of the lengthy Theological Dictionary, he was also taking a leadership role in the Forschungsabteilung Judenfrage, a Nazi organization and publication. Rudolf Hess, one of the earliest members of the Occult Thule Society and Hitler's right hand man, attended the opening ceremonies, which were followed by newspaper headlines pronouncing the organization as, "[T]he scientific weapon in the Nazi fight against the Jews."10 Kittel became the most frequent contributor to this journal, writing 6 of the 8 volumes, the last being cut short by the end of the war and Kittel's imprisonment for war crimes. (The same fate fell to his closing work on the Theological Dictionary.)
Kittel's pseudo-'science' and 'research' for this journal stooped to the ridiculous. For example, he would show ancient drawings of men with "large hooked noses" having sex with women who had small noses. These drawings, he purported, "proved" scientifically that historically "inferior" Jewish men had attempted to mate with "superior" Aryan women in order to improve their racial stock. Kittel's vulgarity included slander and name-calling, using terms such as, "refuse," "depraved" and "enemies of humanity." He wrote of "readiness to speak in racial...terms" and of the Jews being "justly ruined." He recommended all German Jews be dismissed from their jobs, stripped of their German citizenship and their property confiscated. He said, "[T]hough this would cause hardship it was a necessary price to pay for past excesses."11 Doesn't this sound like the Antichrist's plan for the 'unevolved' non-compliant Christians who refuse to take 'the Name' of the beast? The same plan comes from the same source - Satan.
Dr. Josef Goebbels, Minister of Propaganda and Enlightenment, believed Hitler was the reincarnation of Jesus Christ. Goebbels and his SS began the first mass murder of German-Jewry on November 9 and 10, 1938. In 1939, Kittel closed one of his speeches with a tribute to Hitler calling him the, "saving force which stemmed the tide of Jewish infiltration."12 "Knowledge of the killings was widespread within Germany itself," notes one observer. As early as 1942, the London Times reported the mass murder of Jews; Swedish diplomat Baron von Otter also publicly reported mass gassings. The B.B.C. reported the massacre by A.M. and short wave radio. "They all knew what was going on."13 Even with such clear awareness of what was going on, Kittel continued to write for the Fuehrer. In 1943, Goebbels asked Kittel to write for his Anti-Judische Aktion (Anti-Jewish Action), a publication laced with Goebbels' astrological predictions about a German victory in the war. Kittel admitted knowing "about Jewish murders" and wrote of his support for Adolf Hitler's actions:
[T]oday many harsh things do occur and must occur...It was not despotic brutality or barbarism...[for] the Fuhrer...in his radical resolve...to place the Jewish problem on a wholly new foundation...[T]he radical suppression...carried out by National Socialism is not, as almost the entire world maintains, an unheard of cruelty against the Jews.14
To what was Kittel referring when he said, "radical suppression...unheard of cruelty"? - Mass Murder. As late as 1944, Kittel was lecturing at the University of Vienna, speaking of the "depraved Jews who were the cause of the fall of the Roman Empire."15 His writing showed attempts to rationalize the murder of Jews by twisting Talmudic thoughts. Kittel writes:
...full freedom to murder...just as you should smash the brains of even the best snake...[This is] justification for the most anti-Jewish acts.16
The pen of the Psalmist painted a perfect portrait of Kittel. Jerusalem is our mother (Galatians 4:26) and the Jews, the sons of Jerusalem. Ericksen concludes:
The picture of Kittel which emerges is not that of a devout Christian...He refurbished it with a touch of contemporary racial mysticism.17
...continued...
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