Biblical Heritage Center Blog

  What you believe is what you see! That is a scientific fact. We now know that the brain creates belief models from information received from its sensory organs, searches for information that confirms its beliefs, and generates individual realities from those beliefs.   In my last email I discussed two interpretations of the Garden of Eden story in Genesis. When we view it through the eyes of ancient sources, we see a wisdom text that taught this lesson.   Act together by following the instructions of your Creator, be the “united image of the Creator” – guard and protect each other’s lives -- instead of ignoring the Creator and acting like wild animals.   Earlier I discussed the salvation message of the Jewish Jesus. The nations that will enter eternal life did the following things.   They gave food to the hungry, drinks to the thirsty, shelter to strangers, clothes to the naked; they visited the sick and went to those in prison.  ...

  Beliefscapes are like pictures or paintings we call “ landscapes .” Instead of seeing trees, mountains, rivers, animals, etc., we are able to see belief models . Beliefscapes reveal belief models that exist at the subconscious level of the brain, an invisible environment that we are usually unaware of at the conscious level .   The brain uses belief models to make distinctions between things and assign meanings to them. Without belief models , the conscious level could not function as it does. Image life in world where meanings do not exist .   Creating a beliefscape begins with these two steps.   1.     Define the immediate context for the words we are reading.   2.     Identify “ things ” in that context. A “thing” is an object that one need not, cannot, or does not wish to give a specific name to.   Let’s create a beliefscape for the first verse in Genesis . Below are translations from different ver...

  (Originally published April 16, 2015.)   There is a wonderful book by Mitchell Chefitz called " The Curse of Blessings ." It has ten tales, each teaching a unique wisdom. My favorite is “ The Curse of Blessings .”   An arrogant, uniformed officer of the law encounters a wise man in rags. The wise man puts a most unusual curse on the officer of the law:   “ Find something new to bless each day – or die at sundown! ”   So, he finds something new to bless every day! Eventually his life becomes a blessing to himself and to others. Others are drawn to him. The recognition of blessings changed his attitude and his actions.   I try to incorporate this idea into my own life. It really has made a difference and enabled me to be happier and recharge my energy.   Every day, I count my blessings. I recognize new ones I never noticed before.   As the Psalmist wrote: " Teach us to number our days and help us achieve a heart of Wisdom ." As you count your days...

  The scroll in the picture above is “ 1QIsa a ” – “ 1Q ” means it came from “ Cave 1 at Qumran ” and “ Isa a ” means it is a scroll of “ the Book of Isaiah .”   Scribes copied the scroll between 356 and 100 BCE (based on radiocarbon and paleographic/scribal dating). It is now housed in the  Shrine of the Book  at the  Israel Museum in Jerusalem.   Please take a minute and think about the fact that “ you and the 1QIsa a scroll both exist now! ” Now consider the following information related to the scroll in the picture.   ● It existed about 170 years before the Second Temple was destroyed.   ● It was about 100 years old when Jesus was born.   ● It was about 400 years old when Constantine the Great lived.   ● It was over 1,500 years old when Christopher Columbus, Martin Luther and Nicolaus Copernicus lived.   ● It was about 1,900 years old when the United States became a nation.   ● It was 2,100 ye...

  This email is about the second time Jesus used the Hebrew idioms “ good eye ( generous person ) and evil eye ( stingy person )” in his teachings. In order to will you understand it better, you need to be aware of public fasts ceremonies in ancient Israel. The Torah ark was wheeled into the city square, where an elder addressed the crowds:   “ Brethren, it does not say about the men of Nineveh that God saw their sack cloth and fasting , but that God saw their deeds , that they had turned from their wicked ways .” [i] People hearing Jesus would most have likely connected those public fasts to what Jesus taught in Luke 11:29-36. It begins with the words below:   29 And while the crowds were thickly gathered together, he said, “ This is an evil generation. It seeks a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah the prophet. 30 For as Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites, so also the Son of Man will be to this generation .” (vv. 29-30...

  It was close to the end of 1990, a few months after my first grandson was born. I was sitting in my study flipping through a magazine when my eyes immediately locked on the soles of two little shoes.  As I looked at those little shoes, I wondered if that the little child had a grandfather somewhere. Didn't he care as much for this child as I did for my new grandson? What about the child's mother? And then this question popped into my mind:   What was so powerful that it caused someone to do that to that child?   And then it hit me --  It must have been their religious beliefs! My first reaction was  I would never do anything like that to my grandson! But as I thought about the preacher, Jim Jones, who orchestrated the things that happened at Jonestown, I realized that I preached many of their same things at my church. Many of the doctrines of my church were things the people at Jonestown believed. We both ...