God's Evidences

In Why the Jews Rejected Jesus, David Klinghoffer writes,

"The Talmud states that from forty years before the Temple's destruction and onward, there were supernatural omens of the disaster to come--that is, starting from the inception of the Christian religion following the death of Jesus. The eternal fire of the Temple altar would not stay lit. The monumental bronze Temple gates opened by themselves. Josephus confirms the Talmud's account of the inner Sanctuary's east gate and its mysterious openings. He adds other portents from these years: a bright light shinning around the altar and the Sanctuary at three in the morning, a cow brought for sacrifice giving birth to a lamb, apparitions of chariots and armies flying through the sky above the whole land of Israel." (pg. 117)

Why would someone trying to debunk Christianity make such an incredible admission? Klinghoffer adds, "Was God not warning the people of the disastrous course some [the Jewish Christians] had set out upon?"
But the Christians had fled to safety across the Jordan to Pella! According to Klinghoffer, it was the Christians who should have been penalized for their heresy. However, it was the Jews who didn’t believe in Christ, who were left to pay the price.

What is even more striking about this confession is the timing of the omens. They began, according to Klinghoffer, at approximately the time of the Crucifixion (30AD) and lasted for forty years until the destruction of the Temple. Omens are warnings of doom which culminated in the destruction of the Temple, when all the signs stopped. But what were the people doing that warranted God’s warning? Klinghoffer asserts that the warnings were directed towards the Jewish Christians who had gone astray. However, if this had been the case, calamity should have fallen on them. Instead, it fell upon the nation of Israel. Why? Israel had refused to repent of their sins and seek God’s mercy, as Jesus had warned:

"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate.” (Matthew 23:37-38)