Biblical Heritage Center Blog

You are invited to download the survey, complete it and share your thoughts with us. Names will not be revealed. Our goal is to simply gather information that helps us understand the range of meanings associated with this verse. We will share our findings in future articles. Thank you! Download survey in PDF format at – http://www.biblicalheritage.org/BHC_Handouts/Your_Thoughts_on_Genesis_01.pdf Download survey in Word format at – http://www.biblicalheritage.org/your_thoughts.htm

Rabbi Leynor asks a very important question -- What kind of believer are you?   It doesn’t make any difference whether you are a die-hard fundamentalist – Christian, Jew or Muslim – or whether you are a die-hard atheist. You are a believer.  View Rabbi Leynor's video at -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lm1oaD_PLgA

We have probably all heard about the horrible  attacks on Norway's government headquarters and a youth retreat that left at least 93 dead on Friday. While doing some research about the belief system of the man who has confessed to doing those violent acts the following news stories popped up.   They all happened in the United States on Saturday. 7 wounded in casino shooting near Seattle 07/23/11 -- An armed, 42-year-old Covington-area man entered the club looking for a woman who was possibly his wife or girlfriend, Sidell said. He discovered her with another man and shot them both. The man then fired multiple rounds, hitting five more people, Sidell said. http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2011/07/24/2114414/police-7-wounded-in-casino-shooting.html#ixzz1T2BoPgqh 9 wounded in house party shooting in central Fla. 07/23/11 -- A suspect fired several shots from a handgun after fighting erupted among teenagers at a birthday party at a central Florida home, leaving nine people woun...

India's Tata Group--known as the maker of the world's cheapest car--is setting its sights on the world's cheapest home, with a $720 flatpack house that can be constructed in a week. . . The basic flatpack model is 215 square feet, consists of coconut fiber or jute walls and interiors, and has a life expectancy of just 20 years. Tata plans to offer a prefab kit containing windows, roofs, doors, and more to customers.  Read the complete article at -- http://www.fastcompany.com/1767825/tata-introduces-the-720-home

It is clear that the leaders of the Pharisees and Sadducees were very interested in Jesus’ position on issues that were important to them. It was in an encounter with a lawyer, who was also a Pharisee, that Jesus that was asked a question that members of other Jewish sects would have been very interested in knowing his answer. The question was this – “Which commandment is the greatest commandment?”  Read complete article at  -- http://www.biblicalheritage.org/DTB/0711_DTB_The_Greatest_Commandment.pdf

The Biblical Heritage Center’s primary mission is to provide factual information that will help you make quality decisions in life, religion and spirituality. BHC is not a religious organization and thus requires no one to adhere to an official “Statement of Faith” or “Religious Creed,” but hopes and strongly suggests that you adopt our “ Informed Believer’s Primary Guideline ” -- no matter what your religious or spiritual background: "My Belief System will be large enough to include all of the facts; I will be open enough to allow it to be tested; and I will be flexible enough to change it when I become aware of errors or new facts." How can one be committed to the “truth” if he or she excludes facts from their Belief System? If one refuses to allow his or her Belief System to be tested, how will they know if it contains erroneous information or lacks specific facts? Wouldn’t it be dishonest for a person to say that he or she values the truth the most, but refuses to chang...

Prasch routinely travels and meets with members of the Christian body worldwide. A recent trip took him to Vietnam, where a large number of the Hmong tribal peoples of the nation's Central Highlands are Christian. They are referred to in the West as Montagnards. They had heard of Camping's prophecy and not having sophisticated methods for evaluating its validity, took it literally, he explained. The result, for many, was death, Prasch reported in an email to supporters: After listening to a translation of Camping's prediction 7,000 of these people (known in the West as Montagnards) gathered on a mountain praising God their suffering at the hands of the communist regime was about to end because Jesus was returning that day in May to establish a new kingdom. The police and military police slaughtered many of them at gunpoint – beheading two pastors. Others were arrested. I am told by Hmong pastors that so many were shot dead that they were buried in mass graves bulldozed o...

I just finished reading "Popes & Bankers: A cultural history of credit & debt, from Aristotle to AIG" by Jack Cashill. It is a very good book that I highly recommend. Below are some of quotes from it, which reveal a great deal about the origin of the financial crisis our nation (and the world) is now facing. "On October 6, 1979, Paul Volcker announced that the money supply would no longer fluctuate with the business cycle. The Fed would fix the money supply and allow interest rates to float. Just three years nearly 25 percent of the nation’s four thousand Savings & Loans Associations had collapsed. [i] On Wall Street bond traders raked in profits, because the Fed’s efforts to get the money supply under control helped turn credit into the world’s greatest growth industry. Between 1977 and 1985, the combined indebtedness of American governments, corporations, and consumers increased by an incredible factor of twenty. [ii] The young guys coming out of g...

Wealth Distribution in US 1947-1979: Bottom 20 percent of the income distribution : 118 percent increase Second-to-bottom 20 percent : 100 percent increase Middle 20 percent : 111 percent increase Second-to-highest 20 percent : 114 percent increase Highest 20 percent : 99 percent increase Highest 5 percent : 86 percent increase 1979-2008: Bottom 20 percent of the income distribution : 7 percent  decrease Second-to-bottom 20 percent : 6 percent increase Middle 20 percent : 11 percent increase Second-to-highest 20 percent : 23 percent increase Highest 20 percent : 49 percent increase Highest 5 percent : 73 percent increase Highest 1 percent : 224 percent increase Read complete article at -- http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/jul/05/united-fair-economy/liberal-group-says-family-incomes-grew-equally-pri/

Nikolay Gunko, a Ukrainian lawyer and statesman offered the priests, who hold worships on Sunday, to prove by a text from the Holy Scriptures that Sunday is a holy day. In order to attract more ministers to the research, he promised to pay a reward worth 100 000 euro for finding a text.      Nikolay says that daily studies of the Holy Scriptures caused him to make such a statement. Neither in the Old, nor in the New Testament had he found a verse giving grounds for the holiness of Sunday which is the first day of the week.      "If the Bible tells us about the holiness of the Sabbath day, God himself calls Sabbath the day of the Lord, holly and honored, then why should people, who profess to be Christians, keep Sunday holly, which has never been sanctified by the Lord?"  --  asks Nikolay. "Many people argue that by keeping Sunday holly they honor the resurrection of the Lord. Truly Jesus had risen on the first day of the week, but He did not c...

I was doing research today on the word "timocracy" and found an interesting paper -- The Five Stages of Government: Aristocracy, Timocracy, Oligarchy, Democracy, Tyranny. It is a discussion about book VIII of "The Republic," Plato has Socrates describe the five stages. Below are a few quotes. In an aristocracy, the good and wise leaders, being human, will fail. The intelligence of the senses will seduce them into producing children and future leaders unworthy to be guardians of the state, people who are chained by their senses. . . Philosophers will lose their power to warriors, who are cruder and less knowledgeable about philosophy, leading to Timocracy. Timocracy is pattered after Sparta. Here the warriors will rule, but the moneyed class will be empowered. . . Property will eventually be coveted more than the good on the state. Personal ambition will replace ambition for the state. Citizens will become overly obedient to the state. Timocracy will give way to ...