Christians the world over are going to be thrilled to know that Jesus was a Palestinian.
At least that’s what HBO’s Bill Maher told CNN’s Piers Morgan Monday evening in a discussion about Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow (video follows with transcript and commentary):
BILL MAHER: You are allowed to have your opinion. You’re allowed to have your opinion that a Palestinian 2000 years ago walked on water and did magic tricks and he was really still his own father and all that stuff. That’s fine. You can have whatever opinion you want, and the fact that a billion other people believe it gives you a lot of strength and credence. But I also have the opinion that that’s ridiculous, that it’s anachronistic, this is the 21st century.
As the late New York Senator Daniel Moynihan said, folks are entitled to their own opinion but not their own facts, and to claim Christ was Palestinian ignores the immutable truth that he and his disciples were Jews.
That was after all a Passover seder they were having at the Last Supper.
Maher’s position also appears to assume that all people that lived in what Greek historian Herodotus described as “Palestini” are Palestinians, which of course is preposterous.
The reality is the first known usage of the term “Palestinian” dates to some time in the 19th century well after Christ’s time.