Posted by Navah on Apr 20, 2025 in Bible Study
If one puts a bookmark at the page called “The New Testament” and then compares the volume of “The New Testament” vs. “The Old Testament”, he/she will find the mere disproportionate “new” of “The New Testament”. “The New Testament” writings present about a quarter of the entire Bible, and if we consider the parallel accounts in the synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) this percentage drops down significantly. Therefore, it seems like the average Christian reads a...
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Posted by Navah on Apr 17, 2025 in Bible Study
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. In the Gospel of Matthew, it appears that the author made a mistake in his account of the betrayal of Yeshua by falsely quoting the prophet Yirmiyahu (Jeremiah). But if Matthew had mistakenly quoted Yirmiyahu, who was the prophet who should have been quoted? And besides, it is quite impossible to suppose that a Levite trained to serve in the Temple would have made such a blunder in the first place. The irony is that the New...
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Posted by Navah on Apr 15, 2025 in Bible Study
Did God allow us in Gen 9:3 to eat any animal flesh, as we desire? Man has absolute freedom of choice, which is not interfered with, and for this reason he can choose what he desires and can direct his activities to a given purpose. A man is free to choose, but he is not free of the consequences. In the issue of clean vs unclean food, there is a common mistake made when it is asserted that the Creator had changed His mind when in one place, He allows something and in...
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Posted by Navah on Mar 14, 2025 in Bible Study
A careful reading of the Hebrew Scripture shows that the Hebrew language has no particular words for matters private in nature. Instead, Hebrew uses euphemisms to only describe them in a figurative language, or to hint at, but never explicitly stated, in order that such things should be avoided when reading. In other words, Hebrew language being set-apart from all other languages has no particular names for the terms of intimate relation between a man and a woman. The use...
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Posted by Navah on Mar 5, 2025 in Bible Study
Idolatry undoubtedly is the most serious violation against the Creator of the universe. To Him and to Him alone, and to the exclusion of everyone else, honor is due. The most pronounced example of the prohibition of idolatry is what is spoken in the Covenant. The Eternal prohibited the making of images of any idol, of what is in heaven, what is in the earth, and what is in the water. Five chapters later, however, He told Mosheh to make two images of pure gold of what is in...
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Posted by Navah on Feb 22, 2025 in Bible Study
The whole subject of observing the laws of the Torah can become difficult to understand in detail, when we look only at what has been revealed to us in the Scriptural text. For instance, Torah says to cease labor on Shabbat and rest on the seventh day of the Creator but does not explicitly define what labor and rest are. Likewise with other commands. Mosheh in his last address to the nation asks us to love the Eternal with all we have and do His commands and statues, but...
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Posted by Navah on Feb 9, 2025 in Bible Study
The historical events surrounding the festival of Chanukkah are described in two historical works called Maccabees I and Maccabees II. Both books tell the story of the liberation from the Greek rule of the Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes over the land of Judea and of the purification of the second Temple from the abominations the Greeks committed in the Temple. Vastly outnumbered, the Jews placed their trust in the Elohim of their fathers, and He gave them a miraculous...
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Posted by Navah on Jan 22, 2025 in Bible Study
There is a passage in Matthew 8 that always perplexes a sensitive reader who tends to read the Scripture carefully. Moreover, it is extremely confusing, when we look only at what has been revealed to us in the narration. We need to resort to the Torah to make better sense of this short episode in the Apostolic Writings. It is the object of this work, therefore, to explain what is not satisfactorily explained by the commentators and expose certain misconceptions that still...
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Posted by Navah on Sep 29, 2024 in Bible Study
According to Rabbi Mosheh ben Maimon, aka Maimonides, the sacrifices have no intrinsic value in the Temple service. They are part of a legal procedures, which do not benefit the Eternal but humans, for nothing that men do has an effect on Him. But what men do can affect others. And the Eternal does not look at what is offered but rather who offers it. Thus, the Torah concept of charity differs greatly from the world notion of it. When gentiles give, they see charity as a...
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Posted by Navah on Mar 10, 2024 in Bible Study
It seems that what we call natural disasters, such as wildfires, floods, etc., are not “acts of God” in tests and trials but are simply unavoidable consequences of the physical world which are vital for the regeneration of the nature. These events are seen as the way the physical world continues its existence as a whole by cleansing and repairing itself. Yet, it is said, “The Eternal has done whatever pleased Him” (Psa 135:6). Everything He does, He...
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Posted by Navah on Mar 8, 2024 in Bible Study
If the Second Commandment of the Covenant has explicitly forbidden the making of anything that is like a creature on earth or in heaven, why is the making of the keruvim that are on the lid of the Ark of the Covenant exempt from this? This question becomes even stronger when we bear in mind that King Shlomoh made huge keruvim in the Temple he built for the Eternal. These issues call aloud for an explanation, for it is incomprehensible that the Eternal has forbidden the...
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Posted by Navah on Jan 31, 2024 in Bible Study
The rabbis teach that the Eternal gave Mosheh other teachings and revelations aka the Oral Law, which he did not write down but transmitted orally to the children of Israel. These orally transmitted laws were eventually written down in the Mishnah and interpreted in the Gemara. The Mishnah and Gemara constitute the Talmud. According to the rabbis, “the Oral Law” had been given to Mosheh orally at Mount Sinai (hence, “Oral Law”), which he did not...
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