3.4 The State of Israel

People often cite the Jews living in the land of Israel as confirmation of the Bible record and God’s hand at work. But this doesn't prove a causal relationship. There are other equally plausible explanations for the Jewish people returning to their ancient land.

For me it is a story of humans confusing providence, chance and the miraculous. The Jews returning to their land certainly wasn't miraculous in the sense that something supernatural happened, in the sense that fire came down from heaven and consumed their enemies. It could have been providence, that is to say God working within the realm of the natural, but there is no evidence of this - God remained 'hidden' throughout. Or it could have been nothing more than human political will that they returned to their land. Humans that thought mistakenly they were carrying out the will of God, just as Osama Bin Laden did when he orchestrated the attacks on the World Trade Centre. Either way, there are explanations that invoke God and those that don’t so we are unable to use this as evidence to confirm or deny God's existence – we need to look elsewhere.

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