- Reasons and excuses behind Messianic Jews not becoming more observant – Don’t let the awkward wording fool you, there’s a great post beneath. It asks, why are so many Messianics not-so-observant of God’s commandments? You know, so many of us keep shabbat and kosher and the feasts, but…we’re pretty shallow. Gene Shlomovich gives reasons and responds in the comments.
- Yeshua and His Jewish Disciples – Gev writes the inherent Jewishness of Yeshua-faith and the gentile takeover of the early church.
- The Difference Yeshua Makes – Do Messianics celebrate the Torah more than the Messiah?
- Not So Fast, Luke – Yom Kippur in the New Testament.
- Yisroel Blumenthal and the Book of James – Yeshua faith is not a works-free religion, as some anti-missionaries claim.
- Charismatic Man – Sacred Sandwich reveals a long lost DaVinci diagram. +1 for the modesty leaf.
- Historically-conditioned Scriptures – Rabbi Kinbar writes a deep post exploring whether God acts within history or apart from it. Also, a gem from critical New Testament scholar Larry Hurtado:
Extreme ‘liberals’ and at the other end extreme ‘fundamentalists’ . . . each regards the other as its polar opposite, [but] I suggest that actually both extremes tacitly share the same premise: If the biblical writings are really historically conditioned they cannot be Word of God.
- God, Air, and Dragon Con – Derek spends a weekend at a comics and sci-fi convention, and ponders the relevance of our message to the video game-playing, movie-watching, fantasy novels-reading regular people of the world.
- Mashiach meets Hare Krishnas and Chabad! – A man with the appearance of Jesus-from-the-European-paintings, albeit a smoking, foul-mouthed version, is in Tel Aviv mingling with Hare Krishnas and Chabad, and is claiming to be the returned Messiah. Ah, Israel. Amusing! Arkedey the smoking Messiah
- Kill The Most Radical Evangelist – New judicial news from the case of Jack Teitel, the Jewish anti-missionary who attempted the murder of an Israeli Messianic family.
- Rosh Pina Project in the Messianic Times! – Congrats to Gev and Joseph for making it into the public Messianic eye.
- Orbiter – Popular geek comic XKCD comments on Israel, political correctness, and the Fourth Principle of Nerd Dominance. Yes, I will find any excuse to link to XKCD in the weekly bracha.
News Items
- Why Israelis Don’t Care About Peace With Palestinians – Whoa boy, the headline article on the latest Time Magazine is a provocative piece critical of Israel:
- Benjamin Netanyahu Rosh HaShana greeting – In addition to the standard politician greeting, there may be some political undertones here as the peace talks continue, with Netanyahu making a point to describe Jerusalem as “the united capital of Israel”:
- Innocent Lives Lost – Palestinian terrorists have attempted to thwart the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks by killing random civilians. They succeeded in killing both parents of this family:
- Free Palestine Movement plans to send plane to Gaza – The group responsible for the recent flotilla incident is planning a, erhm, flytilla.
- Ten Years On – Remember this photo?
The above photo, published 10 years ago in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and other large media outlets, swayed world opinion against Israel, depicting an angry Israeli police officer standing over a bloodied Palestinian. Well, it turns out the bloodied Palestinian was really Tuvia Grossman, a Jewish student beaten and stabbed by a Palestinian mob, and the angry Israeli officer was in fact trying to stave off the mob from killing the young student. 10 years later, Grossman meets the Israeli officer who saved his life:
Grossman meets officer who saved his life
J-BOM (Jewish Book of the Month Club)
Podcasts
- Dr. Michael Brown on the Greek-to-Hebrew translation that is the Franz Delitzsch New Testament, and First Fruits of Zion’s project to translate it into English.
Enjoy the extra helpings of bracha, fine blog readers.