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News to Note, October 17, 2009: A weekly feature examining news from the biblical viewpoint (fascinating STEM CELL piece in story #5!)...

The Anti-Defamation League, the country's leading group dedicated to fighting anti-Semitism, is rightly sensitive to the offense of trivializing the Holocaust. Why, then, has the ADL said nothing in protest against the Darwinian biologist and bestselling atheist author Richard Dawkins and his comparison of Darwin doubters to Holocaust deniers?...

What Language(s) Did Jesus Speak and Why Does It Matter? by Rev. Dr. Mark D. Roberts February 2004 (updated 2/2007) Copyright © 2004 by Mark D. Roberts Note: You may download this resource at no cost, for personal use or for use in a Christian ministry, as long as you are not publishing it for sale. All I ask is that you give credit where credit is due. For all other uses, please contact me at mark@markdroberts.com. Thank you. Part 1: Introduction Although responses to Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ movie varied widely, every viewer was struck by...

This 4 minute video just shows you what innovative things you can do with scholarship. It allegedly claims that a prominent figure in the world today is associated with Satan. Click This link to watch the video

WITH A PUEFACE BY THE BISHOP OF OXFORD. ' And the august abode from whence they came.' Speculations as to an Eastern emigration are scarcely more than glanced at here; and it may appear almost superfluous to refer to two groundless hypotheses which have been formed—the first, that Greek remains have been discovered in South America, and that faint vestiges of Greece are also traceable in the islands of Hawaii. The other supposition is that of the Hawaiian race being of Hebrew origin, and that these islanders represent the lost tribes of the house of Israel.

Think you've got pressure at work? Consider Rabbi Avraham Bloomenstiel's day. His project will take about 18 months to finish, is guided by more than 4,000 Jewish laws and requires absolute precision. One mistake — or even a badly misshapen letter — and the offending page may have to be buried in a cemetery, according to Jewish law. "Unless the text is 100 percent accurate, there is no point in doing what we're doing," said Bloomenstiel, who was admitted to Harvard University at age 16 to study chemistry and later received a master's degree in music from the Peabody Institute...

Koogle is the name of a new Hebrew-language Internet search engine that allows surfing without getting drowned in sexually explicit and other offensive material. The brainchild of Yossi Altman, Koogle is a pun on the Jewish noodle pudding known as “kugel.” The new search engine maybe a boon to the hareidi religious community, whose rabbis often ban the use of the Internet because of the accessibility to pornography.

A leading Egyptian expert on Islamic culture is concerned about the growing trend of Arabs living in Israel who pepper their language with Hebrew. “Palestinians inside Israel have always resisted Judaization and Hebraization. They have to insist on preserving their identity and not giving in to Israeli set-ups,” Dr. Mohammed Imara told the Al Arabiya news network. Imara, who lectures at Cairo’s Al Azhar Al Sharit Islamic Research Academy, noted that in some Israeli towns, up to 30 percent of Arabs prefer speaking Hebrew over Arabic. About 60 percent prefer Arabic, while 10 percent speak English. “In other towns, it...

There are centennial celebrations planned in Israel and around the world to celebrate the first 100 years of Israel's first "modern" Hebrew city. Note, the first "modern" Hebrew city in Israel. Certainly not the first "Hebrew city." On that note, Jerusalem has been Hebrew and Israeli since David established Israel's capital city there. After Islamist forces were defeated in 1967, for the first time in about 2000 years, all of Jerusalem was restored to Israel and no longer suffering foreign "occupation." Same is true of Judea and Samaria. Link to Israeli site describing the celebrations:http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Israel+beyond+politics/Tel-Aviv-Yafo_celebrates_100_years.htm

Donald W. Parry, shown here with an Isaiah scroll, has been appointed as an editor for a new edition of Biblia Hebraica Quinta, the Hebrew Old Testament Biblia Hebraica Quinta used worldwideBrigham Young University professor of Hebrew Donald W. Parry has been appointed as an editor for a new edition of Biblia Hebraica Quinta, the Hebrew Old Testament. Parry will work on the updated translation of Isaiah along with scholars of the United Bible Society and the German Bible Society. Biblia Hebraica Quinta will be used by 140 worldwide Bible organizations and translated into 140 different languages, including Spanish,...

CAIRO, April 5 (Reuters) - When speaking Arabic, Gabriel Rosenbaum is assiduous about observing the Egyptian variations of the language so alien to many of his fellow Israelis. Three decades into a peace accord that has not much deepened understanding, he considers such immersion key to running the Israeli Academic Centre in Cairo, where Egyptians can similarly grow intimate with the Hebrew language and culture. "I think the problem is that neither side knows the other," says Rosenbaum, a professor on leave from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and also affiliated with Cambridge University. "When you get to know a...

Critics of the Bible have often said that the writings of Genesis reflect an “unscientific view” of the universe—one that reflected the cosmology of the ancient world. One of these criticisms centers on the Hebrew word raqia used in the creation account of Genesis 1. Several Bible versions, such as the New King James, translate this word as firmament: Genesis 1:6–8, NJKV Then God said, “Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.” Thus God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from...

SNIPPET: "Many citizens get messages from al-Qassam organization threatening to kidnap, kill Israeli officials. 'This is jihad, victory or martyrdom,' email says" SNIPPET: ""More than 1330 of Islamist fighters had entered Palestine," said a threatening email received by many Israelis on Thursday night. The message warned that several prominent people would be abducted and killed. "This is jihad, victory or martyrdom," it concluded."  SNIPPET: "The message was sent in English, Arabic and Hebrew from an email account registered on Google's Gmail service, which enables any person to open an account for free without requiring identification." SNIPPET: "Surfers reported of...

An Israeli archaeologist has discovered what he says is the earliest-known Hebrew text, found on a shard of pottery that dates to the time of King David from the Old Testament, about 3,000 years ago. Professor Yosef Garfinkel of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem says the inscribed pottery shard -- known as an ostracon -- was found during excavations of a fortress from the 10th century BC. Carbon dating of the ostracon, along with pottery analysis, dates the inscription to time of King David, about a millennium earlier than the famous Dead Sea Scrolls, the university said. The shard contains...

(IsraelNN.com) Archaeologists have discovered what they say is the oldest Hebrew text ever found, at a site they believe was King David's front line fortress in the war against the people of Pleshet, also known as the Philistines. The site overlooks the Elah Valley, where the young David slew Goliath, the Philistine giant, with a well-aimed shot from a sling. The text is written in ink on a pottery shard. It is made up of five lines of text in Proto-Canaanite characters separated by lines. The discovery, by archaeologists Prof. Yossi Garfinkel and Sa'ar Ganor of Hebrew University, is being...

An Israeli archaeologist digging at a hilltop south of Jerusalem believes a ceramic shard found in the ruins of an ancient town bears the oldest Hebrew inscription ever discovered, a find that could provide an important glimpse into the culture and language of the Holy Land at the time of the Bible. The five lines of faded characters written 3,000 years ago, and the ruins of the fortified settlement where they were found, are indications that a powerful Israelite kingdom existed at the time of King David, says Yossi Garfinkel, the Hebrew University archaeologist in charge of the new dig...

Tracking pages of ancient Hebrew Bible Crusaders held it for ransom, fire almost destroyed it and it was reputedly smuggled across borders in the Middle East hidden in a washing machine. But in 1958, when it finally reached Israel, 196 pages were missing - about 40 percent of the total - and for some Old Testament scholars they have become a kind of holy grail. Researchers representing the manuscript's custodian in Jerusalem now say they have leads on some of the missing pages and are nearer their goal of making the manuscript whole again. The Crown, known in English...

Yesterday, Michael Medved spoke about conservatives being a little wary of having conservative bumper stickers on their cars or signs in their yards because the liberals are liable to attack. There was a car in my neighborhood that was completely keyed up because it had Bush bumper stickers on it. My car has been keyed. Some friends of mine who had conservative stickers on their van had the stickers completely scraped up by angry liberals. Another friend who lives across the street from a public school had the Bush lawn sign I gave them ripped up a few times. So...

Some Israelis have described being moved almost to tears by a rare viewing of the Great Isaiah Scroll, the best preserved and most complete Dead Sea biblical scroll, on special exhibit this summer at the Shrine of the Book at the Israel Museum for the first time in 40 years. The familiar, unfulfilled prophecy of the 2,100-year-old scroll - "and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more" - undoubtedly arouses emotion here. But there is also a thrill born...

'''Yahwah''' '''Yahwah''' is God’s personal name based upon the ancient Semitic language. Take note that the letter 7 in Biblical Hebrew was known as waw and pronounced as w, as in Yhwh, “Yahwah.” In Modern Hebrew 7 is known as vav and pronounced as v. The derivation of Yahwah is from the ancient Semitic words HaYah and HaWah. HaYah means “The Life or The Living.” HaWah means “The Beginning or The happening.” This is a partial list of words associated HaWah: Be, is, was, became, happened and appeared. '''Yahwah reveals His name to Moses''' '''Exodus 3:13-15.''' 13 And Moses said...

Israeli Jewish believers in Jesus say the recently publicized Hebrew tablet describing the death and resurrection of a messianic figure challenges centuries of teachings by rabbinic Judaism that the redemptive process of Jesus was a departure from biblical Jewish understanding. The unique stone tablet dubbed “Gabriel’s Revelation” contains 87 partial lines of archaic Hebrew in which the archangel commands a messianic ruler identified as the “Prince of Princes” to rise after having been dead for three days.

Anyome have great links for English to Hebrew? Example: Trust God All WisdomHow Would that script out in Hebrew or close to it?

Shortly before he died, one of Israel's most prominent rabbis wrote the name of the Messiah on a small note which he requested would remain sealed until now. When the note was opened, it revealed what many have known for centuries: Yehoshua, or Yeshua (Jesus), is the Messiah. A few months before he died, one of the nation’s most prominent rabbis, Yitzhak Kaduri, supposedly wrote the name of the Messiah on a small note which he requested would remain sealed until now. When the note was unsealed, it revealed what many have known for centuries: Yehoshua, or Yeshua (Jesus),...

"Good morning. I'm Senator Barbara Boxer from California and Chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee. Next week, the Senate will begin debate on one of the most important issues of our time -- global warming. "Senators have come together across party lines to write a law that will not only enable us to avoid the ravages of unchecked global warming, but will create millions of new jobs and put us on the path to energy independence. Other benefits of our legislation will be cleaner air, energy efficiency, relief for consumers and the alternative energy choices that American families...

Ten years ago, when Dr. David Sagiv began preparing the Arabic-Hebrew Hebrew-Arabic dictionary he recently completed, he was more optimistic than he is today. At that time, he and his wife, Marcelle, would go every year to Cairo, where he had established contact with some of the most important intellectuals in Egypt. The shelves of his bookcase in Jerusalem are filled with Arabic books, some of which contain dedications from Egyptian authors. For several years, it seemed as though cultural relations between Israel and Egypt were gradually being woven. But in the last few years, since the Al-Aqsa Intifada broke...

Amid all the doom and gloom that seems to fill the news of late, here is a neat little statistic that offers a glimmer of hope. Despite years of relentless propaganda and concerted media indoctrination, a majority of Israelis continue to hold patriotic views. In its latest monthly peace index survey for March 2008, Tel Aviv University's Steinmetz Center for Peace Research found that, by a wide margin, the majority of Israeli Jews view Judea and Samaria, the heartland of the Jewish people, as "liberated" rather than "occupied" territory. Summarizing their findings, the researchers noted that, "We were surprised to...

Last week, Chief Marie Smith Jones, the only remaining native speaker of the Eyak language, died in her home in Anchorage, Alaska. Chief Jones' death makes Eyak—part of the Athabascan family of languages—the first known native Alaskan tongue to go extinct. Linguists fear that 19 more will soon follow the same fate. Fortunately, starting in 1961, Chief Jones and five other native-speaking Eyaks worked with Michael Krauss, a linguist at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks, to document Eyak in case future generations want to revive it. How would you go about learning a language that nobody speaks? It depends....

I have been looking for the Hebrew symbol that means "bond servant". I know that when I can't find the answer to something myself that there is always a Freeper expert out there. Would appreciate any information. Thank you.

03 September 2007 Hebrew University excavations reveal first beehives in ancient near east in ‘Land of milk and honey’ Archaeological proof of the Biblical description of Israel really as “the land of milk and honey” (or at least the latter) has been uncovered by researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Institute of Archaeology. Amihai Mazar, Eleazar L. Sukenik Professor of Archaeology at the Hebrew University, revealed that the first apiary (beehive colony) dating from the Biblical period has been found in excavations he directed this summer at Tel Rehov in Israel’s Beth Shean Valley. This is the earliest apiary...

The first Hebrew language charter school in the United States was ordered to temporarily suspend Hebrew classes on Wednesday, while officials determine whether teachers are advocating the Jewish faith. Broward Schools Superintendent James Notter sent a letter to officials at the Ben Gamla Charter School in Hollywood, Florida, on Wednesday advising them to halt Hebrew classes until the school board could further examine the curriculum. "If it comes up in the course of conversation, that is one thing but if it comes to promoting religion or proselytizing, we don't want it While charter schools are generally publicly funded, they differ...

The Greek View Until we can reconstruct with some confidence the emergence of Gnosticism, it is highly speculative to speak of the influence of Gnostic ideas on the emerging Christian faith. There is, however, a body of Greek literature that contains a view of man and the world very close to that of developed Gnosticism, namely, those Greek philosophical and religious writings that reflect the influence of Platonic dualism. These are writings that are well known and datable; and it is profitable to compare their view of man and the world with the biblical view in both the Old and...

Kannapolis Police say something very bizarre happened at several churches this past Sunday. It was a disruption, they say, that left some church goers fearful and others saying “it's a God thing.� Nearly a dozen churches reported the same thing to police: three men walked into their church during Sunday morning’s service. They walked right up to the pulpit and began speaking Hebrew. David Lewkowicz is the pastor at West Point Baptist Church and understood what they were saying. “They said things like, ‘God is peace, God is love, God is comfort, God is joy.’ That is all they said...

Folks, recently I was perusing some publications stored in the Association of Hebrew Catholic's website, when I stumbled upon the Hail Mary in Hebrew. As I read through the transliteration I was struck by its inner rhythm and coherence. It's poetic and beautiful. It is, in fact, probably as close as we are going to get to what the Archangel Gabriel actually said to the Blessed Mother – provided he didn't speak to her in Aramaic, which he probably did. Here's the prayer in Hebrew: Here's the transliteration:Shalom lakh Miryam habtulah hakdoshah m'leah khesed. Elohim imekh. At m'vorekhet beyn kol...

Hanukkah Hanukkah, also known as the Festival of Lights or Festival of Rededication, is an eight-day Jewish holiday that starts on the 25th day of Kislev, which may be in December, late November, or, while very rare in occasion, early January (as was the case for the Hannukkah of 2005–2006). The festival is observed in Jewish homes by the kindling of lights on each of the festival's eight nights, one on the first night, two on the second night and so on. In Hebrew script, the word Hanukkah is written חנכה or חנוכה. It is most commonly transliterated to English...

While preparing Shabbat dinner for a couple of close friends and their acquaintances, my long-time girlfriend sliced straight down the middle of this cabbage. She was surprised and amused to find that this particular cabbage had taken the form of the Star of David. She thought it particularly remarkable that this occurred while preparing a Shabbat dinner. No, she wasn't making borscht, the intent was to make a cabbage salad but after cutting it open we decided this cabbage was symbolic and, so, refused to eat it. She in particular recalled the news of the image of Mary appearing on...

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert should consider stepping down. His resignation would also result in the resignation of the rest of the government, and would thereby pave the way for new elections. It is clear that conventional political wisdom would advise the prime minister not to do so. "Wait, ride out the storm, and survive," would be the traditional advice. Not this time. Sooner or later, there will be a commission of inquiry - like there was in 1973, and again in 1982. After the Yom Kippur War, Golda Meir opposed setting up an investigation into the war, as did Menachem...

JERUSALEM (CNS) -- From his small balcony, Brother Yohanan Elihay can see the East Jerusalem Palestinian village of Sur Baher and the multilevel apartment buildings of the Jewish Armon Hanatziv neighborhood, where he lives with another brother from his order. It is an apt view for the 80-year-old, who has spent more than half a century in Israel working to bring Israelis and Palestinians together through language -- most recently with The Olive Tree Dictionary, an 8,000-word, 17,000-phrase Arabic-English dictionary published by Minerva. "Language is the key to the heart," said Brother Elihay, who chose to speak in Hebrew. He...

The following information was gleaned from Technical Appendix A, "Details of the New Moon," in the book Cracking the Bible Code by Dr. Jeffrey Satinover (New York: William Morrow, 1997). I find this an excellent summary of these matters despite my disagreements with Dr. Satinover in other areas. The first commandment given to Israel as a people was the commandment concerning the new moon (Exodus 12). When HaShem told Moses to have every household in Israel to take a lamb or kid on "the tenth day of the first month" and then sacrifice it on the fourteenth, He was not...

IDF makes an example of female troops who say one size does not fit all. In a rare moment of navel-gazing, the Israeli army has declared war on the sexy soldier, ordering its female conscripts to close the gap between pants and shirts for the sake of military decorum. The crackdown is intended to restore discipline to a generation of young Israeli recruits whose approach to uniforms has become, well, less than uniform, with many soldiers altering their army-issue fatigues into low-rider fashion statements. Army officials say the issue came to a head at bases in Galilee and Golan Heights,...

The Book of Genesis begins: Berei'shit bara' 'Eloqim 'et-HaShamayim ve'et-Ha'Aretz. This is conventionally translated "In the beginning G-d created the Heavens and the Earth." However, one word cannot be translated into English. This is the word 'et, which in Hebrew is the sign of the definite direct object (though its use is not consistent in the Bible). Grammatically its use here simply means that "he Heavens" and "the Earth" are definite direct objects of the verb bara' (He created). But since the Torah is a wholly Divine text, written by G-d and dictated to Moses letter-for-letter, there is so much...

It's the Church's Bible by Dr. Jeff Mirus, special to CatholicCulture.orgMay 5, 2006 In a recent issue of First Things editor Richard John Neuhaus criticized the New American Bible and commented on some problems plaguing modern Biblical translations in general. One of the contributors to the revised NAB wrote in to defend the scholarship of the translators. Fr. Neuhaus replied that the Bible is “the Church’s Bible, not the Bible of the academic guild.” What can this possibly mean? Determining MeaningOne of the examples Fr. Neuhaus used was Genesis 1:1-3. What has been traditionally rendered as “In the beginning God...

The Gemara in Berachos teaches "shma garim," that a name foretells a person's destiny. It teaches us that a name has a person's future stored in it. Thus by studying names we see the hand of Hashem - for seeing the events ahead of time in a person's name precludes any element of chance. So, for example, Hevel's name, which means "vanity" - and is quite an unusual choice for parents to make - actually prophesied his dying in vain at the hands of his brother. Similarly "Noach" has the same letters as "chein," prophesying the fact that that he...

In the 10th century B.C., in the hill country south of Jerusalem, a scribe carved his A B C's on a limestone boulder - actually, his aleph-beth-gimel's, for the string of letters appears to be an early rendering of the emergent Hebrew alphabet. Archaeologists digging in July at the site, Tel Zayit, found the inscribed stone in the wall of an ancient building. After an analysis of the layers of ruins, the discoverers concluded that this was the earliest known specimen of the Hebrew alphabet and an important benchmark in the history of writing, they said this week. If they...

Archaeologists led by a Bible professor from Pittsburgh made an extraordinary discovery in Israel last summer. Their excavation team found the oldest example of the Hebrew alphabet ever seen. The inscription, from the 10th century B.C.E., is written in the same script as early parts of the Hebrew Bible. “Anything written in the days of Solomon,” would have been written in this alphabet, says Dr. Ron Tappy, professor of Bible and archaeology at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. Tappy presented his findings at The Cleveland Museum of Natural History March 8. The discovery was made at Tell Zeitah (Tel Zayit in Hebrew),...

A quiz for Catholics: What language are we speaking when we say "Amen" and "Alleluia"? (A) English. (B) Greek. (C) Latin. (D) Hebrew. The answer is (D). As St. Paul taught long ago, the gentile followers of Christ have been grafted onto the Hebraic root (see Rom. 11). Christ is the vine and we are the branches, and the vine has roots in the rich soil of the Judaic covenant and Israelite history. In one of the most inspired phrases of the 20th century, Pope Pius XI, in the course of condemning anti-Semitism, said that Christians are "spiritual Semites."...

About those "secular" menorahs    TERRY MATTINGLY When it comes to decorating tabernacles and temples, the God of Israel cares about the fine details. Consider these Exodus instructions: "Thou shalt make a candlestick of pure gold: of beaten work shall the candlestick be made: his shaft, and his branches, his bowls, his knops, and his flowers, shall be of the same. And six branches shall come out of the sides of it; three branches of the candlestick out of the one side, and three branches of the candlestick out of the other side." Counting the center candlestick, this created a...

JERUSALEM, NOV. 24, 2005 (Zenit.org).- It is now a half-century since the Hebrew-speaking Catholic community in Jerusalem was granted approval to use its language in the liturgy. Over the past few days, the small Catholic community in Jerusalem that prays in Hebrew, has been celebrating the event, reported the Italian newspaper Avvenire. The community celebrated its golden anniversary with Father Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Franciscan Custodian of the Holy Land, who for years has personally cared for this small community "to keep alive the memory of the bond between Christianity and its Jewish roots," observed Avvenire. "The community was formed in 1948,...

Posted on Sun, Nov. 13, 2005 Research on ancient writing linked with modern Mideast conflict BY RON GROSSMAN CHICAGO - Professorial colleagues think Ron Tappy has made a landmark breakthrough in our understanding of the world of the Bible. He himself is waiting for the other shoe to drop. This week, Tappy will formally unveil his discovery at the meetings of the American Schools of Oriental Research. Normally a presentation titled "The 2005 Excavation Season at Tel Zayit, with Special Attention to the Tenth Century BCE" would hardly be noticed beyond the scholars who will gather at the Hyatt Penn's...

Two lines of an alphabet have been found inscribed in a stone in Israel, offering what some scholars say is the most solid evidence yet that the ancient Israelites were literate as early as the 10th century B.C. "This is very rare. This stone will be written about for many years to come," archaeologist Ron E. Tappy, a professor at the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary who made the discovery, said Wednesday. "This makes it very historically probable there were people in the 10th century (B.C.) who could write." Christopher Rollston, a professor of Semitic studies at Emmanuel School of Religion in...

A Is for Ancient, Describing an Alphabet Found Near Jerusalem By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD In the 10th century B.C., in the hill country south of Jerusalem, a scribe carved his A B C's on a limestone boulder - actually, his aleph-beth-gimel's, for the string of letters appears to be an early rendering of the emergent Hebrew alphabet. Archaeologists digging in July at the site, Tel Zayit, found the inscribed stone in the wall of an ancient building. After an analysis of the layers of ruins, the discoverers concluded that this was the earliest known specimen of the Hebrew alphabet and...