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| The Thanksgiving holiday creates many images for us, from Pilgrims and Indians sitting down together at a table and giving thanks to God to football games and colorful parades. In essence, the holiday is a special time for family togetherness, which provides an opportunity for expressing gratitude to God for His goodness and blessings. However, it is often forgotten that in the daily life of Jesus and His disciples, thanksgiving and blessing were an integral part of their everyday experience and customary practice. Reflected both in early Jewish literature and in the daily liturgy of the synagogue from Bible times to modern, it is a fact that the Jewish people have made giving thanks a significant part of every aspect of daily life.
| | written by: Brad H. Young, Ph.D. - posted: September 17 2003 | | More... |
| In a previous article my colleague, David Bivin, wrote on the subject, "Jesus and the Oral Law." I would like to continue our discussion on the subject with the article that follows. Mr. Bivin and I collaborated together on this subject, so it is only proper that I acknowledge his contribution to the material that follows.
| | written by: Roy B. Blizzard, Jr., Ph.D. - posted: September 17 2003 | | More... |
| The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke have been preserved in the language of Koine Greek. Indeed, the Greek language was widely spoken during New Testament times. This development began three centuries earlier because Alexander the Great had been able to spread the use of Greek culture and Greek ways throughout his vast empire. However, the historian discovers a strong resistance to the process of Hellenization within some areas of Alexander's domain. This resistance was nowhere more prominent than within the land of Israel, where pious Jews struggled to worship God according to the Hebrew Scriptures and to maintain faithfulness to their ancient beliefs and customs.
| | written by: Brad H. Young, Ph.D. - posted: September 17 2003 | | More... |
| Each word from the lips of Jesus has great meaning. Sometimes, even one word can point to a revolutionary concept relating to our relationship to our Father in Heaven. We can easily overlook the deeper meaning of the words, "this day," or in Hebrew, what would have been a single word, 'ha-yom', in the prayer which Jesus taught his disciples to pray: "Give us this day our daily bread" (Mt. 6:11). While I have written about the meaning of this petition in my monograph, The Jewish Background to the Lord's Prayer, I have not addressed the larger context of the words "this day" in ancient Judaism. The words of Jesus have a rich heritage in the Jewish culture and custom of the period, and often the original meaning of the Lord is lost because of our modern perspective.
| | written by: Brad H. Young, Ph.D. - posted: September 17 2003 | | More... |
| In the teachings of Jesus, there is one underlying and
overriding theme, a theme on which Jesus consistently
dwells, a theme that serves as the foundation upon which
biblical faith is built. If one looks at the Bible as a whole,
if one includes additionally all Jewish literature that is
extant, the oral law, the written law, the commentaries,
and search for one, single, overriding theme that is the
foundational theme of biblical faith, one would have to
conclude that that foundational theme is summed up
in the Hebrew word tzedekah, the word frequently translated into English as righteousness. Tzedekah is the
outstanding, overriding, and yet simple, theme of Jesus.
| | written by: Roy B. Blizzard, Jr., Ph.D. - posted: September 17 2003 | | More... |
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