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“You’ll find our text this morning in the Old Testament…” I know this is a rare announcement on a Sunday morning, but when you heard it last, what did you think? “Oh no! Not another historical lecture.” “We’re going to get a whipping with the law today.” “Why? I came to church to hear about Jesus.” “What’s Israel and Babylon got to do with my family struggles?” Or maybe you didn’t just think it. You said it or emailed it to the pastor afterwards. And pastors are feeling the pressure. Some surveys put the ratio of Old Testament to New...

U2 frontman Bono talks about his faith and answers the question "Who is Jesus?" in the video below. Click play to watch. Link Here with Video (2 mins 46 secs)

Dr Irving Finkel In 1985 a man called Douglas Simmonds brought a bag of miscellaneous antiquities to the British Museum for inspection. Dr Irving Finkel, the museum’s assistant keeper of ancient Mesopotamian script, languages and cultures, went through the curiosities and quickly discovered that one of them, a small Babylonian tablet covered in cuneiform (an ancient form of script) was a historical document of great significance. As an expert in Assyriology and cuneiform, Finkel only needed to read the first few lines of this small, craggy tablet to realise that this was a segment of an ancient Mespotamian myth, the...

Introduction: Although the "New Testament" contains the same twenty-seven books for almost all Christians, there are some major and important differences between the "Hebrew Bible" (HB) used by Jews and different versions of the "Old Testament" (OT) used by various Christian churches and denominations: The foundational texts are different: Jewish Bibles are based on the HB; the OT section in Christian Bibles is arranged according to the order of books in the "Septuagint" (LXX), the ancient Greek version of the Jewish scriptures;however, the translations of individual OT books in Christian Bibles are now usually based on the texts of the...

Dr Laura Schlessinger is a US radio personality who dispenses advice to people who call in to her radio show. A few years back, she said, rightly, that homosexuality is an abomination according to Leviticus 18:22, and cannot be condoned under any circumstances. An open letter to Dr. Laura was penned and posted on the Internet. It has since done the rounds: ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Dear Dr. Laura, Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God's Law. I have learned a great deal from your show, and I try to share that knowledge with as many people as I...

Archaeologists discover holes carved into the ground in Shiloh which could have held the beams of The Tabernacle or Tent of Meeting, which, according to the Bible, housed the Ark of the Covenant. A model of the Tabernacle at Timna Park in Israel << 1 2 >> The Tabernacle or Tent of Meeting -- which, according to the Bible, housed the Ark of the Covenant -- was a temporary structure made of wooden beams and fabric, not materials cut out for thousands of years of survival. Nevertheless, undaunted, archaeologists have searched for evidence of the Tent of Meeting for years,...

Fox News anchor Bill O’Reilly, who is writing an upcoming book titled “Killing Jesus,” proclaimed on his program Wednesday night that “a lot of the Bible is allegorical,” and the New Testament Gospels contradict themselves. O’Reilly made the remarks during an interview with “Touched by an Angel” star Roma Downey and her husband Mark Burnett, executive producers of “The Bible” TV miniseries which begins this Sunday night on the History Channel.

Featured Term (selected at random):SEPTUAGINT The most important translation of the Hebrew Old Testament into Greek. As the story goes, the Egyptian king, Ptolemy II (309-246 B.C.), sought a copy of Jewish law for his library. Eleazer, the Jewish high priest, sent six scholars from each of the Twelve Tribes to Alexandria to work on the translation. Because of the number of the scholars involved, their joint co-operative production was called the Septuagint, abbreviated LXX. The early Christians used the Septuagint as a basis for their belief in Jesus as the Messiah. As time went on, it steadily became a...

8 Alleged Resting Places of the Ark of the Covenant The Ark of the Covenant is an artifact associated with Jewish, Islamic, and Christian faiths. Depending on the source, the Ark holds the Ten Commandments, a staff that once became a snake, a portion of the Torah, and more. After the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem in the 6th Century B.C.E. (sic), the Ark of the Covenant disappeared from religious records. Where did it go? Here are eight incredible, conspiracy-minded theories. 1. The Tomb of King Tut A 1922 picture of the early excavation of the tomb of Tutankhamun shows an...

Found: Ancient Warrior's Helmet, Owner Unknown A Greek bronze helmet, covered with gold leaf and decorated with snakes, lions and a peacock's tail (or palmette), has been discovered in the waters of Haifa Bay in Israel. But how this helmet ended up at the bottom of the bay is a mystery. The helmet dates back around 2,600 years and likely belonged to a wealthy Greek mercenary who took part in a series of wars, immortalized in the Bible, which ravaged the region at that time. Archaeologists believe that he likely fought for an Egyptian pharaoh named Necho II. Dredging discovery...

Featured Term (selected at random):LABAN Son of Bethuel, a descendant of Nahor from the land of the Aramaeans. When the aged Abraham sought a wife for his son Isaac, he sent a trusted servant back to his kinfolk to find a suitable wife. With Yahweh's help he chose Rebekah. Bethuel, her father, and Laban, her brother, willingly supported the choice and so Rebekah married Isaac (Genesis 24). Years later Jacob, the son of Isaac and Rebekah, was sent by his parents to live with his uncle in the hope that he would take one of Laban's daughters to be his...

In my previous essay I tried to show how two of Jesus' teachings bear on the issue of whether He condones homosexual behavior. These were words directly from His mouth that deal with our question indirectly. In this article I plan to discuss an indirect way He addressed the direct issue, as well as a direct way He dealt with the matter directly. Yes, Jesus had a surprising amount to say about homosexuality. Jesus' commission: The Apostles speak for Him It must have seemed like a good idea at the time: to print the "Words of Christ in Red." But...

I am getting ready to start a series in my Sunday school class on the Feasts of the Lord, as described in the 23rd chapter of Leviticus. We are Southern Baptists, but there are 3 Seven Day Adventists who attend my class. I know what's coming: we are going to get tangled up with discussing whether or not Christians must follow Old Testament Law. I know the SDAs worship on Saturdays, and at least these 3 people claim to eat kosher (although it seems that to them it just means avoiding pork). I would appreciate any suggestions as to how...

Apologies if this has already been postedAs you sit down with your family on Thanksgiving and consider offering a prayer of gratitude, be aware the turkey at the center of the table may have already been "blessed" – in the name of Allah. Customer service representatives from Butterball, one of America's most popular Turkey brands, confirmed to WND that the company's whole turkeys are – without being labeled as such – slaughtered according to Islamic "halal" standards. "Halal slaughter involves cutting the trachea, the esophagus and the jugular vein and letting the blood drain out while saying, 'Bismillah allahu akbar'...

Christian apologist William Craig has offered a response to atheist intellectual Richard Dawkins who called him "a deplorable apologist for genocide" in his column last week. In a speech at the Sheldonian Theater at Oxford University on Tuesday, Craig responded to Dawkins' allegations during the question and answer session. “There was no racial war here, no command to kill them all,” he said, alluding to extermination of the Canaanites in the Old Testament, “the command was to drive them out.” He then said: “I would say that God has the right to give and take life as He sees fit....

A dull-looking chart projected on the wall of a university office in Jerusalem displayed a revelation that would startle many readers of the Old Testament: The sacred text that people revered in the past was not the same one we study today. An ancient version of one book has an extra phrase. Another appears to have been revised to retroactively insert a prophecy after the events happened. Scholars in this out-of-the-way corner of the Hebrew University campus have been quietly at work for 53 years on one of the most ambitious projects attempted in biblical studies — publishing the authoritative...

An example of ancient Hebrew script...a derivation of proto-Canaanite During the years I've been researching [My name is Reuven; An English teacher by profession, I...possess an insatiable desire to research anything pertaining to my Jewish roots. Born [and] raised in New York City, I have been an Israeli citizen for more than 30 years, and reside in the charming Galilian town of Karmiel] the Hebrew language and alphabet, I've been astounded to discover that the overwhelming majority of Jews and Christians - even observant ones - have been unaware of the existance of the original ancient Hebrew alphabet, the script...

Saturday, December 18, 2010 Because God Became Man (Despite His Flawed Human Ancestors) Posted by Frank —Feast of Blessed Anthony GrassiThis day is just beginning, but I can't let it go forward without mentioning yesterdays Gospel reading. It is from Chapter 1 in Matthew and it is the genealogy of Jesus. Here the gospel writer goes to great pains to show that Our Lord and Savior is indeed descended from the line of King David. Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling with portraits of Our Lord's earthly ancestors. After reading this post, you may think that earthy is a better...

Featured Term (selected at random):NEBI'IM The prophets or prophetical books of the Old Testament, as distinct from the Torah, or Law (Pentateuch), and the Ketubim, or hagiography. The Nebi'im are commonly divided into the early prophets (from Joshua to II Kings) and the later prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, and the twelve Minor Prophets. All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

The recent Synod called by the Vatican of the leaders of the Eastern Church and all the Christian denomination related or accepted to Catholicism from the Middle East was a very revealing occurrence. The final liturgical statement by Archbishop Cyril S. Bustros was, to say the least, quite disturbing to me as a Jew and a Zionist. The Archbishop’s statement that the Jews could no longer use Old Testament Biblical claims to verify the legitimacy of their claim to the Promised Land is ludicrous, not even the small part existing as a sliver of land bordering the eastern Mediterranean Sea....