There are Three Percenters representing every religious belief (and none whatsoever), and the Constitution extends to everyone regardless of race, creed, color or religion. If it doesn't it means nothing. At the risk of starting a religious argument (which is not my intention), a Christian friend reminds me that "Yom
Teruah starts this evening at sundown, by the Biblical reckoning. . . We will be blowing the shofar and celebrating tomorrow. Yom Kippur starts the evening of the 16th, and Sukkot starts the evening of the 21st. I
think it's a good idea for believers to be on God's calendar. Jesus
was very angry at the Jews for not recognizing the signs of His arrival,
fulfilling the Spring Feasts.
Let's not disappoint Him again at His fulfillment of the Fall Feasts. Shabbot Shalom!"
Now I'm a Southern Baptist by affiliation and I'm not proselytizing one way or the other, but that doesn't mean I agree with everything the SBC comes up with. Far from it. And I daresay that the average Southern Baptist adherent wouldn't know a Yom Teruah from a Yom Kippur or recognize a shofar if the ram who was missing it butted him in the behind. That doesn't mean he should celebrate his lack of knowledge or fail to appreciate the Judeo part of our shared Judeo-Christian heritage.
6 comments:
I have studied under rabbis, or rebehs, as well as Hindu and of course, teachers of my own Christian faith. I believe that the Jews are our elder brothers, and that Israel remains a jewel in the heart of God - witness that His hand has kept her preserved through the milennia despite the efforts of every hate-filled tyranny on the earth attempting to destroy her and her people.
I honor and respect the holy days of my Jewish friends, as they do mine.
I'm very glad to see you mention this, Mike.
There is a growing movement in "Christianity" in the US now....it's called "Hebrew Roots" by many or "Messianic", but it's a very broad definition with different opinions as the true meaning is revealed by the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) or discovered through prayerful study.
The movement is largely arguing for a return to the kind of "Christianity" that Jesus (or Yeshua) himself actually practiced, which included observance of the Feasts of the Lord which were to be observed FOREVER (according to the Bible).
With your love of history, I believe you would find the background to the movement extremely interesting as it takes the oldest Hebrew and Greek texts and uses the translations from online Hebrew and Greek Interlinear Bibles to help unwind some of the confusing passages of scripture that have led us away from the appointed times, feasts and festivals of YHWH (God) in addition to conflicting with Judaism and pushing false teachings based on pagan idolatry or festivals. It clarifies the seeming "contradiction" of the God of the OT (Tanakh) and the God of the NT (Brit HaDasha) by revealing that just as scripture says, YHWH is the same today, yesterday and forever.
What you'll find in many oft-quoted passages in conventional "Christian" wisdom is the addition of words and phrases that mislead the reader from the true message. For example, in Hebrews 8:7 the word "covenant" has been added to the text...to give the false impression that the "old law" of Moses had been done away with, when in fact, what's being referred to is the Levitical priesthood. You can verify the addition by looking at a Greek Interlinear Bible....In short, God's Commandments/Laws/Torah were not done away with by Yeshua's sacrifice on the cross at all...they are "teachings and instructions" and lead us to Yeshua.
Sorry for the length, but the HR movement is quite detailed...one other quick note: Saturday may not actually be the technical Sabbath. In short, the calendars we are currently following on not based on God's planned calendar.
In the Pentateuch, God clearly lays out a system for His calendar. According to the Bible, the Sabbath is the 7th day of the week, but His word tells us that we are to count the days from certain moon phases. As an example, Tuesday this year *could* be the Sabbath b/c our Gregorian calendars don't follow His method of counting....and even the Jewish calendar is corrupted at this point (for various reasons...one of which was the deletion of over 200 years to avoid Yeshua fulfilling Daniel's prophecy of his coming to Jerusalem).
If you are interested in knowing more, please contact me and I'd be happy to point you in the direction of more study.
Sean King
sean.king1776 at yahoo.com
I'm a Baptist too but I never really understood a lot of the New Testament until I began studying what the Old Testament was all about. Jesus was a Jew, after all. Yes, we just had Rosh Hashana, the Feast of Trumpets if I recall correctly, and now on to the others.
@Sean King:
I have a very limited knowledge of Christianity, but from what I've gathered it seems that much of the movement away from Judaism was the result of attempts by Paul and others to make Christianity more palatable to the pagan communities then in existence.
In short, they watered down Judaism enough that it was acceptable to a far broader audience.
As far as missing years go, it's important to note that the alleged years fall largely between the destruction of the first and second temples. It was a period of great strife that ultimately lead to a major transformation of Jewish religious doctrine/practices. There are plenty of plausible explanations for the apparent discrepancies that do not involve the sort of motivated tampering you allude to.
HSR47,
Paul's writings are the "deep end" of the pool in Christianity.
Paul did not water down or introduce pagan principles in order to appeal to the gentiles. He did clarify things, as did Peter (take Acts 10:14 and 28 and read them in the interlinear Greek). This misunderstanding that you reference by way of the assertion that Paul was making "Christianity" palatable to gentiles was either accidental or intentional when Catholicism and later Protestantism added/deleted or incorrectly translated text from the Biblical record.
I can point to detailed proof in passages and videos if anyone wishes...the offer still stands, (unfortunately, I don't have the time to spoon feed anyone, but can point them in the right direction if they are moved to study) but this blog is likely not the place to discuss it.
I do completely agree that the missing years are from a time of great strife, and what I posted about the removal of those years is a key point for orthodox Jews to reject Yeshua as Messiah (they will often call him Yeshu as the change in spelling denotes a meaning of "may his name be obliterated") along with the trinity doctrine which is contrary to the Jewish understanding of the 1st commandment.
It is just one conspiracy theory about the missing years, and I believe it is likely true (if Yeshua is/was indeed the Son of God; it would make sense, in part, as to why his own people didn't recognize him when he came the first time as the sacrificial lamb).
But again, I agree that other factors could have easily played a part.
Shalom. :)
Sean
I studied a short time under Zola Levitt and attended a Passover Seder that he conducted. I highly recommend this eye opening book.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Seven-Feasts-Israel-ebook/dp/B00A7UPJ7M
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