Biblical Heritage Center Blog

I use the phrase “ Yeshua, the Jewish Jesus ” to distinguish between the person that lived in the first century who was named “Yeshua ” and the person they read about in the New Testament called “Jesus” and “ Jesus Christ ” and “ beliefs about Jesus ” that were created centuries after the Romans executed him. I think there are a lot of people, Christian and Jewish , that have a “ Pre-K understanding ,” like I used to have, about what “ Christian and Jewish ” mean. I was an ordained minister and I viewed 2,500 years of history as the histories of two religions – Judaism and Christianity . Back then I viewed “ Jesus as the founder of Christianity ” and “ the Jews as the people that opposed Jesus .” In other words, my whole reality was built around “ my beliefs about Jesus .” In order to know what “ The Jewish Jesus ” means we have to view Yeshua in the context of the world in which he lived and know what “Christianity” was like in the second and third centuries CE . T

The word Hebrew word above that is transliterated " Torah " in English is derived from the root ירה, which in the hif'il conjugation means “ to guide ” or “ to teach ” (cf. Lev 10:11). Its meaning, therefore, is " teaching ", " doctrine ", or " instruction ". In its earliest use, Torah ( meaning “instruction” or “guidebook”) refers to the central text of Judaism -- the scroll that contains the first five books of the Bible. However, as time passed, the meaning of the word “Torah” expanded. Continue reading at -- http://www.biblicalheritage.org/torah.html

Do You Really Want Accurate Beliefs? Are You Committed Enough to Take the Pledge? Click below to learn more: http://www.biblicalheritage.org/guidelines.html

The Bible is one of the most important books in the world because people of every nation, people of every color and race, and people that speak thousands of languages read it, believe in it and used it to learn about God and what God wants them to do. But, Bible readers also go to war against other Bible readers. Why? We call finding an answer to that question -- Exploring Our Biblical Heritages.   It is a science based approach to discovering the histories of the Bible and Bible based institutions. It is the journey described on the above graphic, which introduces people to twelve important factors. #1. Prioritizing facts before unexamined beliefs. #2. Incorporating the roles DNA and the brain play in belief systems and human actions. #3. Learning about the roles three Persian Kings – Cyrus the Great, Darius the Great and Artaxerxes I – played in the creation of Second Temple Judaism [6] (building the Second Temple [#4] and creating the first Torah scroll [#5])

Did the Jewish Jesus require gentiles to convert to Judaism in order to be saved? That is a question I hear a lot and the answer is “ No .” When the Creator created the Heavens and the Earth he also created a kingdom – he did not create a religion . ● The Heavens and the Earth are the Creator’s Temple in the first story in Genesis. ( Click here to learn more .) ● The Creator’s Kingdom is a kingdom of creatures “created in his image .” ( Click here to learn more .) The Jewish Jesus was a member of and practiced Late Second Period Temple Judaism . The Jerusalem Temple and the Laws of Moses played major roles in his life. His movement was a Jewish Movement . But his primary message was about the “ Kingdom of God (Heaven) ” and he preached it to Jewish audiences, but it wasn’t a message that was exclusively for Jews. Pay close attention to his words below: When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of hi

Chapter and verse divisions act like stop and yield signs for Bible readers . They slow down at verse markers and come to a full stop at chapter divisions. While they are very useful for locating specific texts, they often destroy the contexts in which verse and chapter divisions were inserted. One example is the first story in the Bible. ● The story begins at Genesis 1:1 and ends at Genesis 2:4a. ● The first sentence of the story begins in verse 1 and ends at the end of verse 2. ● The first chapter ends with the work done by the Creator on Day Six. ● The insertion of the chapter 2 division separates Day Seven from the other six days. ● The end of the first story in the Bible is in the middle of a verse (2:4a). ● Verse 2:4b is actually the beginning of the second story in the Bible. With the insertion of chapter and verse divisions, the first story is viewed as “ The Creation of the Heavens and the Earth ,” but when we view it in its original context it is

The powers of mind, spirit, and body with which we have been created, and which we use in religion and politics, belong to us simply because of who we are. Simply by coming into being as a human we have them. We have the right to keep these powers permanently – that’s what the words “endowed by the Creator” mean in the Declaration of Independence . Any effort to take these powers away from someone is an effort to rob him of his fundamental human property. This leads us to the two of most challenging questions Americans have ever faced. 1. How is it that we come into being as humans in the first place? 2. And how is it that we come not merely to have these powers of mind, spirit, and body but also to have a right to them? In the Declaration of Independence these questions, in turn, lead us straight back to the Creator. “ We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable R

In Christianity and Judaism, the answer to that question is based on which institution you belonged to or identify with. However, historically, the answers of Christian and Jewish institutions fall into two groups and they reflect how members of the religion describe themselves. Since Judaism has been around much longer than Christianity and Yeshua, the Jewish Jesus was “Jewish,” I will begin with Judaism. Jewish groups describe people who are members of the group as “ observant ” or “ non-observant .” O bservant  Jews follow the laws in the Torah, as per the explanations and instructions of the Talmud . “ Talmud” is the generic term for a large collection of documents that comment and expand upon the Mishnah ( Oral the Law ), which was written down around 200 CE. Today there are two Talmuds. The Talmud used by observant Jews is the Babylonian Talmud, which was completed around 500 CE. “ Non-observant ” refers to Jews who are more secular. People who are not Jewish are called “

As a former pastor and law enforcement chaplain, why something bad thing happened was a question I was asked many times. Many of the answers people give are directly linked to the five belief options below. Keep in mind that the answers are Institutional Truths, Personal Opinions or combinations of both . Making clear distinctions between the type of information beliefs are based on is one of the most important skills you can develop for dealing with the massive amounts of information you encounter every day ( click here for more information ) . Belief Options About the Role God Plays in Human Actions Today Option #1 : People have freewill to do good or bad things. Bad things happen because people chose to do them or nature caused them – There are reasons that things happen . Option #2 : People have freewill, but God intervenes in events from time to time. Option #3 : God predetermined all human actions at the creation; every person is born with a prewritten, but unk