This book captures many ancient voices, a collection of literary excerpts from ancient Jewish books: Jubilees, Josephus, 4 Ezra, Qumran Scrolls, Talmud, Enoch, Baruch, Maccabees, Mishna, Judith, Apocalypse of Moses, Philo, Mishna, Ben Sira, and many others, fifty passages to be exact. The excerpts are mostly short, sometimes even intentionally
Apostle Paul was a first-century religious Jew, trained at the feet of the best rabbis of his time. Though he addresses primarily non-Jewish audiences, Shaul often writes as a rabbi, resorting to midrash and employing metaphors to illustrate his ideas. Sadly, his readers are not used to this
I wanted to share with you a Morning Prayer and, more specifically, a musical piece I created based on it. The words of this song are inspired by the words of the traditional morning blessings found in the Siddur (Jewish Prayer Book). The person who is praying in the early
What is this Sign of Jonah? The traditional thinking is that it's Jesus' resurrection, three days and three nights... But the passage may not be so simple as it appears on the surface. Interested in taking a closer look and discovering another way to read the text?
Over the years of teaching, I have often referred my students to the books of Enoch. But most of the time, I did so with some reservations. I knew that the broadly distributed copies they would likely come across would be littered with archaic and hard-to-digest language. Finally,
Paul's letters to Rome and to Galatia were written for two different communities who had different ideas about how gentiles belonged to the Jewish church. Geography mattered, but so did the social context. This week we focus primarily
Some people read Galatians as an anti-Jewish letter, but the key to understanding Paul's message is rooted in the Galatian context. Galatian gentile believers wanted to be circumcised to become Jews. They felt that would give them
How is the message about a God who made covenants with a particular people in a particular land move into the gentile world? This was a perplexing issue for the early church, and the early Jewish leaders used the book
This recording is a shiur (a lesson), a teaching recorded live with audience participation at a messianic synagogue (about 45 minutes long). It explores the commandments and customs of Shavuot, focusing on their spiritual significance for Messianic Jews in particular.
Do you know about Shavuot, the holiday called Pentecost in the Christain Bible? This is a short informational (and entertaining) video that gives a very brief overview of the festival and how it is celebrated today by various Jewish communities.
Rachel Elior is a Professor of Jewish Philosophy and Jewish Mystical Thought at the Hebrew University. In this talk, she delves deep into some foundational topics of Kabbalistic thought and focuses on the belief in nothingness. Disclaimer: this video is
Aramaic language is much closer to Hebrew than Greek. And since a version of Aramaic was widely spoken in Israel in the first century CE many feel that its valuable to consider the NT message in Syriac to see the
Today, New Testament exists in many languages. But New Testament in Syrian Aramaic (Syriac) is a very ancient translation. Some Syrian Aramaic manuscripts even predate the copies of the Koine Greek New Testament used as a base of the original
About 1,300 years ago, some unknown scribe in Roman-dominated Palestine took a book of the Gospels in Syriac, erased its original text, and reused the parchment for another purpose. The parchment was scarce in antiquity, so existing texts
The image of the Son of Man is not unique to the Bible. This portrayal of a heavenly messianic figure was not embraced by every Jew in antiquity, but some Jews clearly awaited this majestic figure to appear. The book
Apostle Paul has been misunderstood for centuries. Joseph Shulam (Netivyah Institute, Jerusalem) Mark Hamilton (Professor of Old Testament, Abilene Christian University) George Goldman (Associate Dean, Lipscomb University) David Rudolph (Director of Messianic Jewish Studies, The King’s University) Mark Lanier
In this day and age, most Christian readers are aware that the "New Testament" is a Jewish composition. Yet because these writings have been read as anything but Jewish documents for so many generations now learning how to
