Rosh Chodesh Kislev

November 11, 2007 or according to the Hebrew calendar 1st Kislev, the year 5768, is the New Moon, Rosh Chodesh. According to the Bible, days begin in the evening (repeated 6 times in Genesis 1 for instance: "So the evening and the morning were the first day" NKJV). And so the New Moon Festival begins at sunset November 10. There will be no moon visible until the moonrise of November 11 or 12 and that will be a tiny crescent.

New Moon in the Bible
Numbers 10:10 "Also at your times of rejoicing—your appointed feasts and New Moon festivals—you are to sound the trumpets over your burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, ^[a] and they will be a memorial for you before your God. I am the LORD your God"(NIV).

Isaiah 66:22 "'As the new heavens and the new earth that I make will endure before me,' declares the LORD, "so will your name and descendants endure" (NIV).

Psalm 81:3-5 "'Blow the trumpet at the time of the New Moon, At the full moon, on our solemn feast day. For this is a statute for Israel, A law of the God of Jacob. This He established in Joseph as a testimony, When He went throughout the land of Egypt, Where I heard a language I did not understand'" (NKJV).

Psalm 104:19 "He appointed the moon for seasons; The sun knows its going down"(NKJV).

And it all began here:
Genesis 1:14-15 "Then God said, 'Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years; 15 and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth'; and it was so" (NKJV).

Rosh Chodesh Blessing

Shabbat Shalom and Chodesh Tov!
Sabbath Peace and Good Month!

water, water everywhere

I was thinking about the importance of water: the earth and our bodies are composed of 50-80% of water; a baby in a womb is surrounded by water; we can live for over 40 days without food--but less than a week without water. With water, we are baptized, cleansed, cooled, quenched, hydrated. Dehydration can kill you--obvious, I know, but still profound when you think of water Biblically-speaking.

Yeshua calls Himself the "living water" when He spoke to the woman at the well:

John 4: 10-14 - Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” 11 The woman said to Him, “Sir, You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do You get that living water? 12 Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, as well as his sons and his livestock?” 13 Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.” (NKJV)

and in the Tanakh Isaiah 55 from the (Jewish Publication Society Tanakh 1917)
1 Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye for water, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.

2 Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your gain for that which satisfieth not? Hearken diligently unto Me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.

3 Incline your ear, and come unto Me; hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David.

There are many more "water" references throughout the Bible. Here are a few others: Yeshua turns water into wine at a wedding; tells blind man to wash in Pool of Siloam after making mud and applying it to his eyes; water and blood flow from His side on the cross.

And of course water can damage and even kill--previous posts about Noah & the flood.

How many times is water mentioned in the Bible? According to this article: 722.

Interesting to note that water in Israel is precious because there is so little of it as Israel is largely desert.

Water Bible Study

So when Yeshua says He is the Living Water, what is He saying to His followers? Simply put, He seems to be saying "Drink Me," perhaps meaning drink in His character, His direction, His example, His Word--as He is the Word. I guess this question follows: What percentage of our spirit is Living Water?

Where did that New Testament come from?

Answer: the Old Testament, which as mentioned in the previous post, was preserved by the Jewish people. If we cross out every direct quote and allusion to books of the Old Testament in the New Testament, we wouldn't have much of a New Testament left.

image: Khaburis Manuscript, copy of a 2nd century New Testament (source)

The following findings and quote are from New Testament use of the Old Testament by Roger Nicole

Researchers' findings in New Testament
C. H. Toy lists 613 O.T. references.
Wilhelm Dittmar lists O.T. 1640 reference.
Eugen Huehn indicates 4105 passages in New Testament reminiscent of Old Testament Scripture.

"If we limit ourselves to the specific quotations and direct allusions which form the basis of our previous reckoning, we shall note that 278 different Old Testament verses are cited in the New Testament: 94 from the Pentateuch, 99 from the Prophets, and 85 from the Writings. Out of the 22 books in the Hebrew reckoning of the Canon only six (Judges-Ruth, Song of Solomon, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Ezra-Nehemlah, Chronicles) are not explicitly referred to. The more extensive lists of Dittmar and Huehn show passages reminiscent of all Old Testament books without exception." << source

Table of Old Testament Quotes in the New Testament
The Importance of the Old Testament to New Testament Christians
Old Testament God vs. New Testament God

Toldot - Generations

Torah Portion for Nov 10, 2007
Cheshvan 29, 5768

Toldot


Gen 25:19-28:9
Malachi 1:1-2:7
Rom 9:1-31


image called: "Isaac blesses Jacob" from Congregation B’nai Jeshurun

who preserved the "Christian" Bible?

Answer: the Jewish people.

Roughly 2/3 of the Bible is the Hebrew Scriptures (aka Old Testament or in Hebrew: TANAKH) which was meticulously maintained by the Jewish people, namely the scribes. Plus the people who protected it by hiding it, burying, and in so doing, often risking their lives. Read more below.

Photo: torah scroll saved in nazi germany | more information


Links
Process of copying the Old Testament by Jewish Scribes
How was the Old Testament Preserved

The Truth's Out: I killed Jesus

Anti-semitism is active all over the world and there are many ignorant, and frankly, evil reasons for it. Here is one ignorance that should be easy to clear up: Apparently, 27 percent of Americans believe Jews were responsible for the death of Jesus (source). Consider these verses.

Jesus died for the sins of ALL.
II Corinthians 5:14-15 - "For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died; and He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf" (NASB).

Jesus' blood had to be shed.
Hebrews 9:22 - "In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness" (NIV)

Believers in Christ are cleansed by that blood, by His death, and will receive eternal life.
Romans 5:8-9 - "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him!" (NIV)

So if the Jews killed Jesus, thank God for that! If His crucifixion had been prevented, we would not have a Savior, we would not be redeemed, we would be in the palm of Satan's hand instead of God's.

And so yes, Jews are responsible for Yeshua's death. And so are His followers who allowed it to happen. But more importantly, so are we. He died for my sins. He died for yours. And those sins are past, present, and future. He saw the sins I would commit before I was born and yet around 2000 years ago He willingly, sacrificially, lovingly offered His body to save mine. And each time I, as a believer, sin, it's like I am inflicting more wounds on His beaten, tattered, bloody body. Those wounds should not seem foreign to me, as if someone else is responsible.

Isaiah 53:5-6 - "But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all" (NIV).

So Praise God that Satan did not prevent Yeshua's crucifixion. Praise God for those that allowed it to happen: Jews and others. And Praise God that He died for the sins of us all.

Torah semantics: Let's get rid of the word and just do it!

Maybe it's the word Law or Torah that is keeping people from following God's instructions. Or maybe it's those capital letters. Maybe we need a new word so that God's Word is palatable--not "passed away," "current," new." No, make it splashy, window-dress it. Call it something snappy, maybe then people will embrace it, something like . . . "God's loving manual for a blessed, holy, pleasing life." Ok not snappy but accurate. I have decided to forget about the word choice and embrace Him and do as He did because I love Him.

Who are people trying to impress with "the law has been done away with" declaration? God? Because He is the only person we are here to impress and sadly or on second thought, thankfully, we can never impress Him (who knows what we'd be like if we could, worse than we are I am sure). And even if we could impress him, renouncing His very Word would infuriate Him, not impress.

And so . . . consider these verses from the Bible:

Hebrew Scriptures
Leviticus 18:5 - 'So you shall keep My statutes and My judgments, by which a man may live if he does them; I am the LORD.' (NASB)

Jeremiah 31:33 - "This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time," declares the LORD. "I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people."(NIV).

Apostolic Writings (New Testament)
Hebrews 8:10 "This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people" (NIV).

It's amazing to realize that God has written His "loving manual for a blessed, holy, pleasing life" on OUR HEARTS. WOW! And that is not only found in the Tanakh, but it's also in the Apostolic Scriptures.

And in Ecclesiastes 3:11 we have: "He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end" (NKJV).

Eternity and His instructions are both on our hearts. Could that be the stirring that we have inside when we look at a sunset, read His Word, struggle to make a decision, contemplate our purpose? Could it be the anger we feel when we do any of these things as well because we are in rebellion of He who breathed life into our lungs, sustains our bodies, and wrote on our hearts?