The Weekly Bracha: highlighting this past week’s gems from the Messianic blogosphere, plus relevant news items from the Jewish and Christian worlds.
- Christian murdered, Messianic Jew injured in Israel – A female Christian missionary, and her Messianic Jewish friend, were attacked and stabbed in the hills west of Jerusalem this past week. It’s believed their attackers were politically motivated Arabs.
- Church’s Ministry To Jews worker murdered in Israel – More first-hand information about the attack.
- Prayers in British shul said for Messianic Jew – Maidenhead Synagogue, a Reform synagogue, offers prayers for the attacked Messianic Jew.
- Dead Sea Scrolls to be made available online – This is very cool: Google is going to digitize the Dead Sea Scrolls and make the entire collection available to the public online. Go Google! Hat tip: Leman
- Fox News Accidentally Labels Elie Wiesel 'Holocaust Winner' – Fail:
- World's Jews Celebrate Christmas With Ceremonial Re-Murdering Of Christ – The Onion has the true story:
I love the Onion."I love devouring Christians' young almost as much as corrupting maidens," said Benjamin Levy, 89. "It's a magical time for all."
- Separation and Connection – Rabbi Resnik on separating one’s self from the world in this perverted culture:
Can we deny that today’s visual bombardment of sexual imagery fuels adultery of the heart? Tearing out the eye today means turning off the TV, blocking the website, closing the book or magazine, ruthlessly if necessary. Film, in particular, often employs explicit sexual images within a compelling art form that draws us into it. But Messiah’s standards require us to forgo experiences that may have a positive side for the sake of wholeness before God.
- Simple Gnosticism – Analyzing the Christian tendency to create a dichotomy between spiritual and physical, flesh and spirit, particularly with commandments. He then counters the notion that a gentile believer in Yeshua has no relationship with Israel:
Most people confuse “living by the Spirit” as being somehow at odds with “living according to God’s instructions”. This reflects a Gnostic influence. They think that something is “spiritual” only if there is no physical evidence of it. “Prayer” is good. “Bible study” is good (as long as there is no set section of Scripture to study each week).
At the same time, commandments that are part of daily living—kosher diet, trimming of the beard, agricultural mandates—are relegated to the “not moral, and therefore not necessary” category.
- Not Jewish Yet Drawn To Torah, Part 5 – Derek Leman, who is involved in the part of Messianic Judaism that does not care much for gentile participation, does not wish to have non-Jewish Messianic congregations be named “Messianic”. He hopes to call such groups “Judeo-Christian”.
- Summary On Part 5 – Scratch that. Derek no longer thinks “Judeo-Christian” is a good name. But he still doesn’t want gentiles using the term “Messianic”. Sigh.
- Cataloging the New Testament's Hebraisms, Part 6 – Offering evidence of a possible Hebrew or Aramaic original of the New Testament, the author looks at antithetical parallelisms: balancing couplets, each of which is the antithesis of the other. He gives examples from the Tenakh and New Testament.
- Lying About Prayer – In this amusing post, Dr. Schiffman ponders,
I wonder how many people lie about praying for other people or about situations they hear about. I’ve known many people over the years, who upon hearing about someone who was sick, dying, or had an accident, or were losing their house or a loved one, or their job, or spouse, or there was some other serious need, responded by saying they will pray for whatever it was that was needed, only to not pray about it, forgetting it completely.
- New Blog: Paul Wilbur – Famed Messianic music pioneer Paul Wilbur has started a blog.
Shavua Tov, fine blog readers!