When was Jesus born? It's all in Daniel.

Or,  "How the Magi knew the Gospel "

But you do have to look for it! It helps to be a wise man (Magus) or to have some useful software, somebody else's basic research , a helpful website, and a firm belief in the truth of God's Word.

It also helps to avoid any form of Astrology. Looking for a star that exhibits unstarlike behaviour is illogical. Divination of any form, including astrology, is clearly forbidden in Deuteronomy 18:9 - 14 . All attempts to date  the birth using astrology are doomed to failure as they disobey the Word of God.

The useful software is  Mr Scott Lee's Calendar conversion software. It can be seen at http://www.rosettacalendar.com/ or a Mac version used to be available from Pandacorner.com but it doesn't seem to be anymore. This is a pity as it was very easy to use.

The research is Professor H.W. Hoehner's excellent book "Chronological aspects of the Life of Christ". He's done all the heavy lifting, as it were.

The helpful website is devoted to the Babylonian (360 day) Calendar and explains a great deal about the numbers in Daniel and other prophetic aspects of that calendar.

The belief in God's word was that John tells us the season of Christ's birth in the Prologue to the gospel. 

The Gospel of John says, "And the Word became flesh and pitched His tent (a literal translation of  he Greek word) among us..." which is to say 'Tabernacled' . John 1:14 

See also my previous post: http://thealmondrod.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/chag-sameach-and-merry-christmas.html

Daniel tells us when the Messiah will be cut off. You can read the prophecy here.

Let's be honest. Everyone comes up with slightly different answers for the date predicted.  They do all come down around 30 - 33 AD. Professor Hoehner has looked at all the arguments and settles on AD33. He apparently uses the Julian calendar rather than the later and modern Gregorian calendar. I have used the modern Gregorian equivalents for the sake of clarity.

He uses a start date of Nisan 444BC. He calculates the 69 weeks of years using the 360 day calendar and concludes that the entry into Jerusalem took place on Nisan 10 AD 33. By historical argument he chooses a birthdate of 5BC, but for some reason sticks with mid-December, even though all scholars in this field know that this was fixed by decree of the Emperor Augustus and not for scholastic or Biblical reasons

If we decide that Jesus was born at Tabernacles, then, using the software, we get a date of Tishri 15, Saturday September 14th 5BC.

 I also calculated the date of the Resurrection. It was then I made my discovery.

(What follows was cut and pasted from a Word document of mine. I don't know enough about HTML to correct the weirdness in the resultant formatting. It looks OK in Compose. Sorry)

 

The missing piece.

We are now able to discover a new prophetic and biblical insight.

33 AD	3793	Friday  April 1	Sunday    April 3	1733206
5 BC	3757	Saturday September 14		1719856

From Birth to Resurrection there are (1733206 – 1719856) days, which is a period of exactly

13,350 days!

I remember looking at my aging Mac and thinking," I know that number".

Back to Daniel.

Students of Biblical prophecy will realise at once the significance of that number. For any others unfamiliar with the prophetic scriptures, it is ten times the number found in Daniel 12:12. It is, perhaps, inevitable that the Birthday of the Messiah is hidden in the book of Daniel. It is Daniel who told us when to expect the rejection of the Messiah.

The significance of this number.

“Blessed is he who waits and comes to the thousand three hundred and thirty five days”. Daniel 12:12. R. S.V.

Although the obvious import of this verse is about those who survive the Tribulation, its link with what we have discovered leads to me to conclude that there is another message encoded in it. I do not mean some sort of Drosnin-style Bible code, but rather a coded phrase that means something else to the right reader. Rather like the sort of thing spies sometimes use.

The phrase “Blessed is he” is associated with the Messiah in many of its occurrences in Scripture. The most well known being “Baruch ha ba B’Shem Adonai - Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord.” (Matthew 23:39). Jesus here is tying the phrase to His return.

Currently, the Lord is waiting as He performs His High Priestly ministry and waits for Israel to call Him back. It is not stretching the point to observe that Jesus is also One who waits and comes. Other translations of this verse use the word “faithful” instead of “waits”. This can hardly be said to exclude Jesus!

If this is correct, why did the Magi multiply 1335 by 10? It could simply be that 1335 represents a blessed person, so a divinely blessed person would be 13350. However, there is another reason for them using this number.

The Babylonian calendar.

The Babylonians, and hence Daniel and the Magi, used a calendar of 360 days. This was not wildly inaccurate if used properly. It has a precise mathematical relationship to our solar (Gregorian) calendar of 356 days, based on a solar year of 365.24 days (see http://www.360calendar.com).

A generation of forty solar years has 40 x 365.24 days = 14,609.6 days. It has 13,350 + 1,260 days = 14,610 days. These facts would be known to the Babylonians, as they were accurate astrologers. Daniel’s verse would scream at them to use the multiple of 1335.

Also, Daniel 12:7 A time, two times and half a time = 3 1/2 years. A Babylonian year of 360 days x 3 1/2 = 1260 days

There are other ways of generating these numbers from the relationship between the calendars. There are also some interesting symbolic relationships to do with Biblical Numerics that are outside the scope of this paper. Amongst them, the fact that Jesus was thirty-seven years old (Babylonian) and in His thirty-seventh year (36 solar) when He was crucified.

And back to the Feasts…

Passover (Pesach) is the Feast of the Lord about deliverance. That is what an anointed one (Messiah/Christ) is supposed to do. The Magi did not make the mistake that the Jews were to make. The people welcomed Jesus as the Son of David, the coming King who would remain with them (Sukkot/Tabernacles). The palm branches declared that they saw it as Tabernacles.

Once the Magi had determined the year of Crucifixion by use of the sixty–nine weeks (see above) they would be led almost to Passover. Counting backwards, using the 13350 days, they would come almost to Sukkot, according to Hoehner and Nehemiah 2:1. The significance of that would not escape them. There were still Jews in Babylon at that time. Correcting the start date and counting forwards from Sukkot, using the 13350 days, they would come to the Feast of the First Fruits.

They knew these verses were about the end times and would tie them in with The Ancient of Days and the Son of Man in Daniel 7: 13 ff. They knew that this Person would wait and then come.  They knew the significance of the Feasts or could consult with Jewish sages to that effect. Interestingly, they did not think to ask where He would be born until they reached Jerusalem.  Nobody is perfect, and that assumption on their part led to the deaths of innocents. So often, it is what we think we know that causes the problems.

 At this point, they had the gospel in a nutshell.

The Messiah is born at the time of God’s dwelling with His people. He is cut off at the time of deliverance, but the numbers carry on to the day when there is a pledge of future harvest and the first-fruits are given to God. The story clearly is not finished. That which has been buried and harvested is now given to God. To the ancient mind, and especially the Persian mind, this would speak of Resurrection and the Messiah returning to God. There He would wait until the fulfilment of other prophecies and then return.

All this they knew without the New Testament and without much of the Old Testament. They had the Book of Daniel and the numbers, plus whatever else they gleaned from Jews in Babylon. They knew He was the Saviour and they came to worship Him because they believed the Word of God.

God gave them a sign to guide them. I still think the star was supernatural, but He led them, as He led Abraham, from Chaldea to the Promised Land, from Babylon to Jerusalem and from darkness to the One Eternal Light.

And so the Magi brought Gold for the King, Myrrh for His death and Frankincense to burn in His Temple. Frankincense declares the risen and Divine Lord.  Unlike any of His chosen disciples, they believed that He would rise again. If they had lived that long they would have been waiting outside the Tomb. However, they will rise to greet the King they knew would return.

They knew…and so would every sage, pagan or Jewish, who studied the book of Daniel. The lives of the Magi bore witness to their faith as they returned home another (and more dangerous) way.

The fact that this has been revealed in these latter days is in itself significant… (Daniel 12:4)

Some Greeks.

One thing was left puzzling me. Surely, if one knew all that I believe the Magi did know, why not turn up for the Resurrection as well as the Birth? I know that I would, or if I could not make the journey, I would send someone. Any seriously enquiring mind would be compelled to do something.

There are plenty of reasons why this might not happen. They could have been too old, they could have died, the next generation might not be interested; and, of course, the last time they turned up it led to a massacre. This time they would be dealing with an empire and not just Herod. If you were to turn up, discretion would be imperative. But what if they did...?

What follows is just speculation, but it might explain a rather abrupt tangent that Jesus seems to go off on.

In John 12, we learn of some Greeks who wished to see Jesus. It should be noted that virtually every Gentile is referred to as a Greek. The words are almost synonymous. They seek an introduction via Philip and Andrew. In verse 12, Jesus answers ‘them’. Is this just Philip and Andrew or does it include our Greeks?

Jesus begins by saying that hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. If our Greeks were the Magi or their successors, this statement would pregnant with meaning. They are familiar with the book of Daniel and ‘Son of Man’ originates there, they have come because of the timings revealed in Daniel; the sub-text is ‘I am the One you seek and you are on time’.

Then Jesus says something rather odd. He is going to be raised at the Feast of First-Fruits, but that is the barley harvest. Jesus starts talking about wheat. The first-fruits of the wheat harvest belong at Shavuot/Pentecost. He appears to be confirming the Resurrection but He is also turning the spotlight onto His disciples. He opens the possibility of resurrection, and its attendant cost, to all His disciples. He is also looking to the fruit of his sacrifice.

The message to our putative Magi is that the story does not end when the numbers run out. There is a much bigger picture, there are other prophecies to be fulfilled and you, too, can be a part of it. He then prays and God answers Him from Heaven. Jesus then talks of the manner of His death and urges all who are listening to believe in the light that they may become sons of light. We have gone full circle and are right back at Chanukah. It is not Jesus who is to be born. His Work is nearly done. Their work, and ours, was about to begin.

Were they the Magi – or just some Greeks? Other Gentiles had approached Jesus without this manner of reaction. Was Jesus using them to make a point – or did He know whom they were? I would have wanted to be there if had been one of the Magi. It seems to me fitting that when their journey finally reaches its end, they discover that they are about to start on a much greater one; a journey whose destination is Eternal.

Objections 

You can attack every part individually, but I have put them together like a jig-saw puzzle  and discovered a new piece that fits the facts. It's the number you have to explain. Any other attack is a waste of time.

‘Coincidence is the last refuge of the uninspired’, Numb3rs Series 2.

 

Some of the good news about Israel all in one place

A lot of the good news about anywhere never gets told. The media seems fixated on making us miserable, negative and hostile, especially towards its favourite targets such as the Church, Christianity, Jews, Israel, the West etc. etc.

Trying to redress the balance is an uphill struggle. Here's a website and a book that contributes to the struggle

“Tiny Dynamo: How One of the World’s Smallest Countries Is Producing Some of Our Most Important Inventions,”  by Marcella Rosen, chronicles 21 Israeli inventions that improve our lives. Close behind the USA, Canada, and China in number of startups, Israel is a true incubator of innovation. Also included in the book is a timeline (reprinted here) of major Israeli inventions since 1948. Available on Amazon.

 

A little bit of the preface to the book reads as follows:

While everyone has been focused on the country’s decades of military conflicts, Israel has quietly become the most energetic, ambitious, go-go incubator of entrepreneurialism and invention the planet has ever seen.

It’s true: Israel is a barrier-breaking dynamo of a kind never before witnessed in history. Acre-for-acre, citizen-for-citizen, no place is churning out more ideas, more products, more procedures and devices and technologies than this tiny strip of land along the Mediterranean.

And the work that Israel is turning out is saving and improving lives around the world, every day.

Read the rest here.

Palliwood in Syria. More lies, more lies.

The excellent blogger Cranmer has a long piece today on the lies of the Jihadists and the Catholic Nun who is exposing the truth.

Mother Agnes Mariam el-Salib is a Roman Catholic nun who has lived and worked in Syria for 20 years. She is Mother Superior of St James' Monastery in Qara, and has compiled a comprehensive, compelling and persuasive report (download HERE) into the photographs and videos coming out of Syria being used by President Obama, David Cameron and François Hollande to justify punitive action against President Assad and his forces for the alleged use of chemical weapons. 

Quote and link from Cranmer. The report takes a little while to download but serious reporters need to read it. If you are having problems downloading the .pdf file in Adobe, I suggest opening it with Sumatra . I don't make any money on this, it just worked better for this file. Or you can view it below:

Try ignoring any warning by Microsoft and viewing the document full screen.

 These are real bodies that are being used to fake different scenes. The lack of respect suggests that these children are victims of the propagandists.

Barnabas Fund reports on the work it is doing in Maaloula here

A quote from Barnabas Fund:

Systematically terrorised
The stories they told about what has been happening to our Syrian brothers and sisters are in many cases too disturbing to share. Kidnapping, rape and murder have become the norm.
The Christians feel that they are being deliberately terrorised; that the horrific methods used to kill Christians are intended to frighten them into fleeing the country with their families, thus ridding Syria of Christians.
One Christian leader said:

This is a collective threat against the Christians through attacking their regions in Maaloula, Aleppo, Homs, anywhere, everywhere; an attempt to destroy the very first Christian memory, the oldest Christian heritage.

Yet while the rebels ruthlessly attack Christian buildings and communities, taking their possessions, dignity and even their very lives in some cases, they cannot destroy their faith, which church leaders report is stronger than ever before. I was told of how Christians are meeting daily to pray, clinging to the hope they have in the Lord, and that many people are attending church services and Bible studies in Aleppo, eager to hear the Word of God. 

Chag Sameach and Merry Christmas!

Oh yes. Finally, I've got to Succoth, and have I got some treats for you? You'd better believe it.

First off, there is £20.00 for anyone who can prove, from the New Testament, that Jesus was born in a stable. Bear in mind that the 'inn' was a guest-room and the manger was, until recently, standard kitchen equipment across the Mediterranean and before then just about everywhere. You can email me, where it says 'Email me' on the right. I used to do this when I was teaching. I have never paid out yet.

People can live with that challenge, but what upsets everyone is the following: prove to me that Mary rode anywhere on a donkey. There is no donkey in the Birth stories of Jesus (The Christmas Story). That really gets people upset. Teachers don't like it because it messes up their unbiblical Nativity stories and the kids because they want a donkey. Sorry, no deal until Passover.

So where did that stable come from?

You can view the second, by Edward Burne-Jones in Birmingham Art Gallery. Make the trip. It's worth it.

Now take a look at a  couple of Succoth booths

Notice the similarity between the pictures of the "stable" and the pictures of the booth. 

Take the Stable out of December, take it out of Mid-winter, take it out of Middle Europe and the Middle Ages. The cut-away is not to see the Nativity. It is how you build a Sukkah!

copyright Ori 229

The Gospel of John says, "And the Word became flesh and pitched His tent (a literal translation of  he Greek word) among us..." which is to say 'Tabernacled' . John 1:14

Put it another way. Take a sukkah, remove it from Israel and move the celebration to December 25th. In no time flat, you will get a strong tradition of a Stable that has no basis in scripture. Mistranslate 'guest-room' to inn and you have 'No room in the inn'.

What is worth noticing is that the Burne-Jones picture is more of a sukkah than a stable. He was part of the same artistic circle as Holman Hunt. You can see an axe in the bottom right. The small white flowers are 'Star of Bethlehem' You will note that the Star is being held by an angel. It is not meant to be a literal star.They knew more of the gospel in those days than many a Christian now. 

Matthew, from whose gospel the story of the Magi comes, was a Levite. He is paralleling their journey with  the journeys of Abraham and then the Israelites to the Promised Land. They are from the same area as Abram and they are led by a Light as were the Israelites.

More on Isaac's family and Yom Kippur.

This is to outline some of the motif's seen in the previous post and make some links for Christians.

Two goats are killed.

One son takes the blame and is sent away.

One son loses everything  - is 'sacrificed ' for the sake of the Promise.

There is a judgement which is final.

At Yom Kippur, one goat bears the sins of the nation and is sent into the desert. In later years over a high cliff so the sins cannot return. The other goat is sacrificed. 

Is the sacrifice acceptable? What judgement falls on the nation and on individuals? It is a time of repentance.

Jesus fulfills both goats. He is the one sent away bearing the sins of the world. He is the acceptable sacrifice. But this has already been done at Passover. Therefore, Yom Kippur becomes a recognition of what has already been accomplished. The Jewish Nation has yet to do this, as a whole. 

The Fulfillment of this appointment, by Jesus, will be at the end of the seven last years when Israel calls upon Jesus as Messiah to save the nation, and the world, from the depredations of the Anti-Christ and the Wrath of God.

But what of those Jews and Christians who do believe in Jesus as the Christ? They have been saved from the wrath of God at Trumpets.

This is just a guess on my part, but I wonder if, for believers in Jesus as Messiah, this might be the Judgement Throne of Christ. The place where our rewards and responsibilities are handed out and some are saved 'as through fire'.

Eventually, after the millennium, the Last Judgement will take place at Yom Kippur.

 

Finally, we can go to Succoth, where the fulfillments are, for the most part,  much happier events.

Isaac, Jacob, Esau and Yom Kippur.

For some months recently, I have been leading a Bible Study class in Genesis. Torah studies, without the Hebrew, for Christians! I have learned a great deal in the process of preparing the studies. A simple summation would be that Genesis is the DNA of the Bible. It is amazing how much is in Genesis. Some of it is hidden away in the genealogies, some is explicit in prophecy, some implied  by repeated patterns of events. When I say that Genesis is the DNA of the Bible, I don't just mean the Torah or the Tenach. I mean the New Testament as well.

It's a bit late for The Day of Atonement, but before I look at Succoth, I want to look at the Divine appointment that precedes it. We've already considered Yom Teruah here.

I am indebted to David J. Zucker's fascinating article in the Jewish Quarterly for a radical insight that opens the eyes to what was really happening when Jacob apparently deceived Isaac. That's right - apparently.

From his work and my studies, I constructed a series of questions to help someone new to this understanding and this depth of study to understand the complexity of the deceit that was being practiced - on Jacob!

This is copied from the Bible Study. For the sake of the lazy - and my argument, I have put in some of the answers.

The Christian interpretation is mine and not David Zucker's.

 

Genesis 27

It is generally thought that Jacob and Rebekah wickedly deceived a blind, old man. This is because people do not read the Bible carefully.

1. Genesis 25:23. Whom does the LORD choose? Do think that Isaac would be ignorant of the LORD’s words to Rebekah?

 Jacob.  No.

2. In Genesis 25:27 what do we learn about Jacob’s character? Translations may vary.

 Quiet man.

Isaac and Rebekah have a problem. How do they give the birthright of the firstborn son to the second-born? Jacob has already established that it was his by a trade-off but that has not been confirmed by Isaac.

3. Whose life is made bitter by the actions of Esau? Gen 26:35

 Rebekah's

4. Compare what Isaac says to Esau 27:2 – 4 with what Rebekah reports to Jacob 27:7. What is, the very important, difference? Who is being deceived here?

 The use of the NAME of the LORD. Jacob

At this stage we have to wonder, is Isaac disobeying God by seeking to bless Esau or is something else going on? We know that Isaac and Rebekah loved each other. Gen. 25:67 and 26:8.

5. Esau is dispatched to hunt game (27:3). Rebekah prepares goat kids (27:9). Since when does venison taste like goat? The word venison used to mean ‘anything hunted’. The Hebrew word in the account means ‘anything hunted’. Is Rebekah’s cooking clever enough to make fresh kid goat taste like game? Can this be done? How many goats? This will be important.

She'd be an amazing cook.  Several of my Bible Study group are used to cooking goat. They didn't think it could be done.   Two.

6. Jacob doesn’t protest at his mother’s plan. He thinks that the blessing is about to go astray. He sees a flaw in the plan and fears a curse. He does not want to be seen as mocking his father. What does Rebekah use to simulate Esau’s hairy arms and neck? 27:16  The kidskins.

Really? Do you believe that would work? Do you know any man whose arms are hairy as a goat. Be serious.

7. Gen 27:13. Rebekah is not afraid of the curse. Why not? There is more than one possible answer. She knows God has chosen Jacob. Isaac is in on the deception

8. Gen 27:18 Isaac asks for identification when he hears a voice. But in Gen 27:22 he clearly is able to identify the voice. It’s not Alzheimer’s. Why does he want Jacob to identify himself? To implicate himself in the deceit.

9. Six times Isaac challenges Jacob. (vs. 18, 20, 21, 22, 24, 26). Is he really that unsure and is he really that gullible? If Isaac is party to a ruse, what is he trying to do?

He's seeing if Jacob is strong enough to go on and also he is getting him deeper into the deception

10. vs. 20. Jacob reflects what he thinks Isaac said to Esau. It also shows that Jacob knows where the blessing originates. What does the phrasing tell us about Jacob’s relationship with God? Your God ( and not yet my God). No real relationship.

11. 27:27 The smell of Esau’s garments appear to do the trick, but look at what Isaac says and what he does not say. What’s missing? He says 'my son' and not 'Esau'.

12. Vs. 23 states that Isaac did not recognise Joseph on the basis of his ‘hairy hands’. This seems to rule out a ruse by Isaac. However, see Exodus 36: 14 – 28 and Leviticus 16:3 – 10. What do the goats signify?  The tabernacle and the goats for Yom Kippur. Atonement. Covenant.

In addition to its use for tents, this cloth of goats' hair was also, probably, what is called sackcloth: "The sun became black as sackcloth of hair" (Rev. 6: 12). This was used in mourning and afflicting the soul, as in repentance: "They would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes" (Matt. 11: 21). But Jacob was still wrong to do what he did. Zech. 13:4.

13. What does the garment signify? What should it NOT be used for?

 A prophet's garment of hair. Deception.

14. Esau arrives, prepares savoury food and presents himself before Isaac vss. 32 – 33. What is different between this account and vss.18 ff? Note particularly the behaviour of Isaac. One question only.

15. Why does Isaac tremble?

Is he afraid of Esau?

Is he afraid of God? (Seeking to bless Esau instead of Jacob)

Is he acting in order to fool Esau?                                                                                              

Is he angry at being deceived?

Is he full of conflicting emotions?

Is the Holy Spirit causing him to say, “Yes and he shall be blessed”?

All of the above?

And your reasons are...?

Work this one out for yourselves.

The Hebrew for ‘did not recognise’ is complex – as far as I can tell. Sometimes it can mean almost the exact opposite e.g. pretending you are someone else. It also sounds like the Hebrew word for being made lame; see Gen 32:25. This is where I need a rabbi! (To help with the Hebrew)

16. Esau’s reaction. Look at Hebrews 12 and especially vs 17. Sometimes we can go too far.

First he cries, then he begs and finally he accepts Isaac’s explanation and puts all the blame on Jacob. What is the one thing he never does? Blame himself.

17. Isaac’s blessing for Esau is more of a prophecy and translation is important here. It is worth looking at vs.39 in the KJV (AV). Isaac is deliberately ambiguous, but what understanding did Esau have of it? How do we know? He doesn't like it and he plans to break the yoke sooner rather than later. Murder.

Esau has gone from blame to hate to planning murder. However, Rebekah intends to defuse the situation. She will send Jacob to her brother. She never sees Jacob again but she does succeed in her aim of, eventually, reconciling the brothers. She also has a plan for Jacob vs. 46.

18. Does anyone come out of this whole affair without reproach?

If you need the answer for this, you haven't been paying attention. 

 © G. I. Goodson 09.12.2012

 

Rosh Hashshana, Yom Kippur and Israeli victory.

Israel Today has published a commentary which argues that the Jews are not properly observing the Law over the High Holidays. As a result, Israel is not enjoying God's blessing as it should. Israel Today is published by Jewish believers in Jesus/Yeshua as The Christ/Ha Moshiach. In essence, it argues that it is the sighting of the New Moon in Jerusalem that governs the start of Yom Teruah and not the astronomical calculation of when it should be. It also argues that the rules that applied when Israel was not in the Land no longer apply today and should be abandoned. The also argue that failure to obey the Law has resulted in a lack of complete and swift victory over all Israel's enemies.

Are they right? I did some simple research. Make of it what you will.

According to this website the New Moon was 2.37 PM on the 5th of September. It would have been almost impossible to see it. It is this sort of calculation that was used to set the date.

However, TorahCalendar.com has a different calculation. They reckon it was Saturday Sept 7th. If you look at the data below then prophecy students will gasp at the year that they claim has just started.

Saturday, 7 Sep 2013 C.E.
15:55:25.33 UT
5:55 PM IST Local Time

Sunset ending Shabbat
& beginning Yom Rishon
Starting Day 1 of Month 7
Creation Year 5999   (my emphasis).
Creation Day 2,190,728

Torah Calendar also publish a date for the Birth of the Messiah, but it is based on an astrological reading of verses in Revelation and, in my opinion, they are completely wrong. Daniel is where they need to go for their data and  I believe that the Torah forbids all forms of divination which would include astrology (but not astronomy). 

They argue for Wednesday 7th Sept 3BC which would have been Yom Teruah. I think it was Friday/Saturday 14th Sept. 5BC, which was Tabernacles. I will post more on this in the near future.

See also here for Yom Teruah as Sept 8. 2013  also this:

 http://whenisthenewmoon.com/feast-date-calendar/

Truly, no man knows the day or the hour.  

New Moon 6/10/2013

New moon sighted from Jerusalem by Yoel Halevi at 7:43pm

 

Picture from Hebrew in Israel on Facebook.

Who surrounds Israel? Melanie Phillips gets it.

As I said to the vicar after church this evening, "If you were a Middle-East dictator trying to fight off the Muslim Brotherhood/Al Qaeda and hold on to a modicum of liberty and stability to whom would you look?"

Obama has failed in his bid to get the Brotherhood encircling Israel, but has succeeded in getting Russian influence to do exactly that. 

In her latest blog post , Melanie Phillips analyses Obama's failure and achievements. She also sees Putin as the victor in this débacle. However, she can see that Obama is not a complete failure. In fact, he may not be a failure at all...

And why shouldn’t the First Narcissist preen? For he has achieved precisely what he wanted, his true goal that I described in this blog when Obama first ran for President: to extend the reach of the state over peoples’ lives at home, to emasculate the power of America abroad, and to make the free white world the slave of those he falsely characterised as the victims of that white world’s oppression.

He has achieved it, to the letter. Iran’s putative victims of its imminent nuclear arsenal of holy war against the non-Islamic world are now, terrifyingly, on their own.

Melanie Phillips gets it. So does Putin, and maybe even Obama, but do you...?

                                                                   Lies, all lies.

Barnabas Fund launch urgent Syria petition.

Barnabas fund launch urgent Syria petition.

Sign here and you can download and get your Church to sign up.

Copied wholesale from Barnabas Fund:

Syria’s destructive civil war has now been raging for more than two years, and millions of helpless Christians are caught in its crossfire with no-one to defend them.

Syria used to be one of the easiest places in the Arab world to be a Christian. The Church has existed there since Biblical times. In the book of Acts it was on the road to Damascus, capital of today’s Syria, that Saul was stopped short in his mission to destroy the early Church. The risen Christ asked him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” (Acts 9:4). It was in Damascus that Saul regained his sight after being struck blind, and it was here that he was filled with the Holy Spirit, was baptised and began his ministry as an apostle.

Until early 2011, Syria’s churches were large (about 10% of the population), and Christians were respected by the Muslim majority. They were allowed to worship and practise their faith without much official interference. But all this has changed dramatically for the worse since hostilities between the government and opposition forces broke out.

Tens of thousands of Christians have been displaced from their homes by threats and violence, as mainly Christian areas have been invaded or attacked. The city of Homs was almost completely cleared of its population of 50-60,000 Christians. Houses have been ransacked, and believers kidnapped for ransom or gruesomely murdered. Some Christians have even asked the kidnappers to kill their loved ones outright rather than have them hideously tortured. Many churches and other Christian buildings have been bombed.

Some desperate Christians are now fleeing to Lebanon or are attempting to cross over to Europe to escape the dangers. Syrian Christian leaders are concerned that the Church in their country may be wiped out altogether, despite its long history. “I am not very optimistic that our Christian community will survive,” said one.

Barnabas was a member of the first church in Damascus.

 

Conflicting Claims: You decide.

A couple of videos just in:

If this is the aftermath of a gas attack, where are the gas masks, the Chemical Weapons suits, the showers etc. etc?

Western Journalism really doesn't like Obama, I mean really doesn't like him. So take this with a pinch of salt, which is not to say that it is a lie. By their fruits ye shall know them.

The only things that we can be certain of are that we are being lied to - and Christians are dying. Sorry to be so cynical.

And Israel is still the only Middle Eastern country where Christians are safe.

Ending the Silence - more on Islamic persecution of Christians.

Regular readers will know that this blog counts Daphne Anson as a friend. Recently, she posted two links on my post Eretz Zen etc. I have now followed up those links.

The first is German from Spiegel Online . It suggests that both sides are exploiting Christians for their own purposes. The second is from an organisation called the Gatestone Institute. This is a secular body that includes people of Islamic origin. Consequently, their article has to be taken seriously.

 

Daphne called it heartbreaking. The stories are heartbreaking. The silence is heart-shattering.

 

A church in the Syrian village of al-Duwayr, after an attack by Islamist militiamen. 

(Image credit: Syria Report)

 It is time for Christians in the West to stand up on behalf of their Middle-Eastern brothers and sisters.

 It is time for U.S. American Christians to stand up to their President.

Please forward this to every Christian Leader, religious or political, that you know.

It is time to end the silence.

And Israel is still the safest middle-Eastern country in which to be a Christian.

See also my post Stop the Silence!