The July issue of the Biblical
Heritage Center newsletter -- Creating Safer Better Lives By Discovering
Ourselves & Our Biblical Heritages – is now online. It contains the
following articles and July Memorials.
Once upon a time a minister, professor and rabbi
took a journey. . .
The
title sounds like the beginning of a good joke, but it isn’t. It is proof that
people with different biblical heritages can work together to tackle religious issues
that most people try to avoid. I am the minister, Ike Tennison is the professor
and Jeffrey Leynor is the rabbi. I have been on this journey for over
thirty-five years now. Ike joined it about thirty years ago when I enrolled in
a course in Classical Greek he was
teaching at the University of Texas at Arlington. Jeffrey became part of our
journey a little over twenty-five years ago when I enrolled in a course he was
teaching about the Prophets at the
Jewish Community Center in Dallas.
The Forgotten Father: The Man that Raised Jesus
For
most of his life, he was most likely known as “Jesus son of Joseph.” However, as a result of Gentile theologies
that developed in the fourth and fifth centuries CE, in our opinion, the role
of Joseph in the life of Jesus has faded into the distant past. It always helps
to put subjects into a chronological context, especially when they are discussions
about someone’s life. Scholars are divided about how long Jesus personally led
the Jesus Movement; some say three
years while others say one year. In either case, they pretty much agree that he
began it when he about thirty years old. So, it was at least thirty years
before anyone called him “The Son of God”
or “The Anointed One” (Christ) -- until then people would have known him as Jesus son of Joseph.
The Importance of Creating Sacred Spaces in Life
“Holy places” and “sacred spaces” are important in the Bible. It could be “physical place” or “space of time.” In the Hebrew Bible “holy” does not mean “religious,”
it means “set apart for a specific
purpose.” The Hebrew word translated “holy”
is QADASH and its first appearance
in the Bible is Genesis 2:3.
