Weekly Bracha 42

Attention, fine Messiah-loving people of the Messianic blogosphere! This bracha is the answer to life, the universe and everything. I hope you enjoy this week in the Messianic blogosphere.

• Did the church really try to change the sabbath? – Yahnatan asks with skepticism:

  I wonder about the accuracy of that statement I hear: "the Catholic Church changed the Sabbath" or "the Constantinian Church tried to change the Sabbath."  I think these statements are inaccurate or misleading.  I'd like to know whether I'm right!

  Follow along in the comments where several folks cite evidence suggesting that yes, the church did change it.
• Is Anything Wrong With Sunday Church? – Derek argues no, noting that sabbath is about rest, not fellowship. This post spurred response posts from Yahnatan (above) and Cliff (below). 
  

  If you are a Judaically informed Christian or a Messianic Jew and you wish to use language indicating your frustration with churches where replacement theology is routinely expressed, or where the teaching is light on the Bible and uninformed about God’s covenants and the origins of Christian faith, please don’t call them “Sunday churches.” Call them Supersessionist churches, if that is the main thing that bothers you.

• Little Meaning For Gentiles? – Having read the above post, Cliff writes a reactionary blog post arguing in favor of gentile Sabbath keeping.
• Cataloging the New Testament’s Hebraisms, Part 3 – David Bivin continues his scholarly study of bits of the gospels that suggest a possible Hebrew original. In this post, Bivin points out Hebrew grammatical structures, looking at “3rd-person plural active forms of verbs that have no apparent preceding subject” [whew], complete with examples from the Tenakh, rabbinic writings, and the New Testament.
• One Down, One To Go – Ovadia declares, “After a long and interesting weekend spent immersed in a Jewish setting, I can declare with confidence that I have no idea why I believe that Yeshua is the Messiah as a Jew, and that I’m highly skeptical that such a thing is possible”, then asks commenters to explain why they believe Yeshua is the Messiah. I add my thoughts in the comments.
• Hebrew Gospels Update – Messianic organization First Fruits of Zion gives an update on their project of publishing a new English translation of the gospels, based on a translation from Christian talmudist Franz Delitzsch. The Delitzsch translation is unique in that it attempts capture the original language of Yeshua by paraphrasing the Greek text with Hebrew idioms.
• Yeshua’s Attitude Towards the Pharisee’s Law-keeping – Modern Christianity tends to picture Jesus in opposition to the Pharisees due to their rigid law-keeping. However, Yeshua has more to say about Pharisees being lax in law-keeping than rigid.

Here's to hoping you found all the answers you were looking for, fine Kineti readers. Cheers.