This guardian article is demonstrable nonsense. Professor Römer is either ignorant, or is intentionally gaslighting Bush.

Gog and Magog are well-known figures mentioned in both the Hebrew Bible and the Quran. Playing dumb because it's not also in the Old Testament is not a good look for someone who's supposedly an expert.

This article is a silly hit piece written to fool people who are totally ignorant of religious history.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gog_and_Magog

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Yajuj-and-Majuj

> This guardian article is demonstrable nonsense. Professor Römer is either ignorant, or is intentionally gaslighting Bush.

Surely you meant gaslighting Chirac ? (which I disagree with, anyway).

> Gog and Magog are well-known figures mentioned in both the Hebrew Bible and the Quran. Playing dumb because it's not also in the Old Testament is not a good look for someone who's supposedly an expert.

Good thing he's an old testament expert and not a Hebrew bible or quran one then. You think Bush was referring to the Gog and Magog from the Hebrew bible or from the Quran or from the old testament ? Should have called an Hebrew or an Islam expert instead of an protestand Old Testament expert ?

Here's a different report of how things happened: https://wp.unil.ch/allezsavoir/george-bush-et-le-code-ezechi... and that might shed a light on why you think Gog and Magog is not as well known in France as you seem to think they are.

It's simply not possible to be an expert on the Old Testament and to be that unaware of the context from which it was derived. Especially as they are also mentioned in the parts that made it into the Old Testament.

Imagine claiming to be a LOTR expert and then feigning ignorance as to the events that took place in the Hobbit!

I'm not religious or even particularly interested and even I am aware of this history. Ridiculous.

I don't understand your point. How do you reach the conclusion that Professor Römer doesn't know about Gog and Magog ? Or that he doesn't know about the multiple interpretations of who or what they may have been ?

I would imagine President Bush was referring to the prophecy in Revelations 20:7-9. Basically in this case, it means nations who are an enemy to the people of God... not so much crazy talk imho, considering that nations really like to fight each other these days.

I'd say it's crazy talk when you are using that as an argument (among others, of course) to convince a french president (whose country has a clearer separation between state and church than the US) to go to war.

That's fairer.

I'm not saying Bush didn't say that because I don't know, I can believe it. But it seems odd because 1) Gog and Magog are a somewhat well know part of Islamic eschatology, and 2) I pretty sure Google existed at that point in time, but without it I am sure his staff had access to dictionaries and encyclopedias which would have led them to 3) Encyclopedia or web entries on Darbyism or Dispensationalism, easily answering their questions.

France's Ministry of Foreign affairs isn't advising the President on things like this, they don't have subject matter experts? Forgive me, maybe I give governments too much credit or, but seems like an odd article.

I'd be very worried if international diplomacy fell down to a cabinet member who happened to be well versed in Islamic eschatology or worse, that cabinet members would rely on dictionaries or Wikipedia to understand words or cultural references they don't know.

Calling an expert was the right call.

> France's Ministry of Foreign affairs isn't advising the President on things like this, they don't have subject matter experts?

Seems pretty obvious to me that they wouldn't have experts on every subjects, especially on things like that.

> I'm not saying Bush didn't say that because I don't know, I can believe it. [..] Forgive me, maybe I give governments too much credit or, but seems like an odd article.

There's healthy skepticism and there's something else.