Biblical Heritage Center Blog

Just started reading "The Asylum: The renegades who hijacked the world's oil market" by Leah McGrath Goodman (writer for Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Baron's, & Financial Times). "Contrary to popular opinion, oil prices were not being controlled by Arabs or leftist dictators. They were being controlled by . . . bootstrapping traders . . . Individuals who, like the anonymous Wall Street professionals about to unleash a crippling financial crisis on the world, took the subway and ferry to work, earned unheard-of riches, gave to charity, and thought nothing of bringing the global economy to its knees." (p. 8) Remember the classic Christmas movie "It's a Wonderful Life" and the line "Every time you hear a bell ring an angel gets its wings"? Every time you you fill up your car remember that you helped make another oil futures speculator a billionaire. Goodman also wrote: "Yet nobody seemed to know who, exactly, these New York ...

Information about the countries involved in the current Middle East protests has been added to the BHC website. Population totals, religions, trading partners & major exports.  An overview of countries that are the major trading partners of the countries with protests.  http://www.biblicalheritage.org/Middle_East/middle_east.htm

When I was growing up I remember hearing many sermons, in which ministers declared that women were still experiencing pain during childbirth, and men still had to do hard work, because of the curse that God placed on mankind because of her sin. I imagine that the writings of the famous Church Father Tertullian had something to do with their opinions. God’s judgment on this sex [that is women] lives on in our age; the guilt necessarily lives on as well. You are the Devil’s gateway; you are the unsealer of that tree; you are the first foresaker of the divine law; you are the one who persuaded him whom the Devil was not brave enough to approach; you so lightly crushed the image of God, the man Adam; because of your punishment, that is, death, even the Son of God had to die. And you think to adorn yourself beyond your “tunics of skins”? [1] Something that I have always found interesting is that the Roman Church kept Tertullian’s ideas even after he left it and converted to Montanism . [2...

Daphnea pulex, a 1-millimeter insect that lives in freshwater ponds around the world, has nearly 31,000 genes in its genetic blueprint – more than humans or any other creature decoded to date. Humans like to think of themselves as residing at the top of the evolutionary chain, but the tiny water flea beats them out by at least one measure — the size of its genome. Sere complete article at --  http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-sci-water-flea-20110206,0,7033137.story

Rabbi Leynor and I have been studying   and working together for over 20 years now. BHC   works with people from and with a wide variety of   belief systems. Rabbi Leynor is a Conservative   Rabbi, not Messianic, and provides a truly Jewish  perspective of the Jewish Jesus.   We shot and uploaded the first three videos to  YouTube of the series on the Jewish Jesus. We  will be adding more in the near future. Links to the  videos are at --  http://www.biblicalheritage.org/rabbi_leynor.htm  

In 318 CE, a Christian teacher named Arius accused Bishop Alexander of Alexandria, Egypt of teaching a false doctrine – “God and Christ were of the same essence.” Arius regarded himself as a devout Christian who believed the church had strayed from the original message of Jesus and advocated for the return to the teachings of the early church. Arius said: “God was the Father – one, infinite, and indivisible. He was uncreated, existed forever, and ruled as sole sovereign and judge. No other God existed but He. Given His nature, He could not impart it to any other being. He had no equals.” Bishop Alexander responded: “Arius had drained the dregs of impiety by his unscriptural blasphemy against Christ.” A council of bishops was called by Bishop Alexander, which condemned Arius for apostasy, schism, heresy, and blasphemy. It also declared Arius’ teachings as those of the Antichrist. Now let’s look at what took place between the years of 325 and 360 CE.  The Council of Nicea ruled th...

John of Wessel , a professor at the University of Erfurt in Germany (1445-1456) introduced a new belief that would become very popular: “He who thinks to be justified through his own works does not know what it is to be saved . . . the elect are saved by grace alone.” He wrote, “Whom God wishes to save He would save by giving him grace. . .” Wessel rejected the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation. In 1505 Martin Luther graduated from the University of Erfurt in Germany; the same university where John Wessel had taught fifty years earlier. Did Wessel influence Luther’s work? A number of scholars believe he did, but Luther denied it: “If I had read the works of Wessel beforehand, it might well have seemed that I derived all my ideas from him.” Luther was ordained a priest in 1507 and one year later became a tutor at the same university at the age of 25. Professor Jacques Lefevre (Paris) published a Latin translation and commentary on the epistles of Paul in 1512. He...

The witnesses involved in the stoning of Stephen laid their coats at the feet of Saul. [i] The role of a witness was very different in ancient Israel from what it is in our justice system. The Torah says, "Your hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people," [ii] and again, "The hands of the witnesses shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterward the hands of all the people." [iii] Rabbinic law follows this injunction literally, but confines its consummation within narrow limits. [iv] The men who laid their coats at the feet of Saul were the men that would stone Stephen to death. But why did they place their coats at his feet? The Talmud has an interesting account of the act of stoning that may contain the answer. “When the trial was over, they take him [the condemned person] out to be stoned. The place of stoning was at a distance from the court, as it is said, ‘Take out the one who has cursed.’ [v] ...