The puzzle looked like confused confetti so I jumped right in to set things straight. No piece was totally benighted because each had a right side though some of them displayed their wrong sides up. I was grateful for those few that had edges.
With all pieces properly placed (except for those the dog ate) the puzzle displayed an image of white puzzle pieces scattered on a dark table waiting for someone to jump in and straighten them out.
And that’s all there is to this confused tale. I’m still wondering why I jumped into that mess of confetti.
After adding Jewish and Messianic Jewish parashah readings, I began studying the ancient biblical calendar assuming such a calendar even existed. This calendar would be different from the Christian calendars (Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox) with holidays like Christmas, Ash Wednesday, Good Friday and Easter (Pascha). It would also be different from the rabbinical calendar at Chabad.org with a time since Creation of only 5782 years that follows a mathematical 19-year (Metonic) cycle for leap years.
The appointed times of YeHoVaH are Passover, Unleavened Bread, First Fruits, Shavuot, Trumpets, Yom Kippur and Succoth from Leviticus 23 along with the weekly Shabbat. The biblical calendar needs to determine when to observe them so we can rehearse them as prophecies while remembering their fulfillments. There are also historical events which need to be dated, a year assigned to the Creation (or some other starting point), and an estimate when to expect the Messianic Kingdom.
I thought this would be an easy study, but I am still trying to make sense out of it. Here are three attempts to describe that biblical calendar that differ from both the modern Christian and Jewish calendars.
Navah’s The Reckoning of Time. He presents the evidence so clearly and in such great detail that I use this account as my baseline when reading others, keeping in mind that he might be in error.
World’s Last Chance: Yah’s Calendar. This calendar maintains that the biblical day extends from sunrise to sunrise, not sunset to sunset, that the Sabbath always occurs on the 8th, 15th, 22nd, and 29th day of the month, and that the first of the month is a special day of rest.
Miriam selected a white tulip for her mother. Later she wanted to treat her mother, father and younger brother to lunch at the botanic garden where many flowers were in bloom.
However, eighteen years ago her mother terminated that pregnancy and two years after that her younger brother would also be viewed as an inconvenience. None of the men in her mother’s life were good enough either.
Miriam and her brother still wait for their mother to find that narrow way even a thief on a cross could find and give her a white tulip to match her white robe.
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Rochelle Wisoff-Fields offers the photo by Na’ama Yehuda below as a prompt for this week’s Friday Fictioneers.
Who controls the whirlwind? All one can hope when the debris settles is to find something left of value.
When Benjamin saw the twister head straight for the farmhouse he yelled to his wife to get the children. While they were driving away she noticed that the tornado had changed direction as if it were chasing them. With the sound of the wind ripping trees apart Benjamin braked, turned into the entrance of a field, backed out to face the opposite direction, shifted into first, accelerated, shifted into second, accelerated, and shifted into third to accelerate out of the reach of the advancing wind.
If that twister really did want to get them it miscalculated since it left chickens, cows, sheds, tractor, cellar and the farmhouse, all of it, intact and untouched, but glowing with Benjamin’s and his family’s praise rising heavenwards sweetened with gratitude.
Denise offers the word “control” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories.
Proverbs 10:25, “As the whirlwind passeth, so is the wicked no more: but the righteous is an everlasting foundation.” (KJV)
Sometimes we use words that subtly undermine what we value without our realizing it. I am trying to identify these words so I can avoid using them.
For example, when we say parents are we undermining the differences between fathers and mothers by lumping them under one term? Is the word gender similarly undermining the differences between the sexes, men and women? According to Owen Strachan they do.
In this post I want to focus on (1) mutation, (2) evolution and (3) natural selection. With a biblical creationist worldview, should I be using or avoiding these words? If I choose to avoid them, what alternative words should I use to reinforce rather than undermine my values?
Mutation
Mutations in DNA is the only one of the three that has usefulness from an operational scientific perspective because it represents something that can be measured which could falsify an hypothesis. Random mutational changes in DNA allow us to look back into our past. Measured rates of mutations allow us to anticipate future mutational meltdown through genetic entropy.
Random mutations do not support evolutionary change from something simple to something more complicated. Like other mechanisms found to operate in the natural world it is a measure of decay or entropy. It can only reduce what is complicated to something simpler. Since this does not go against my values I have no need to look for an alternative.
Evolution
However, when I use the word evolution indiscriminately for any kind of observable change I reinforce the idea that alleged unobserved Darwinian evolution is possible when I would claim it is not. A safe alternative for observable changes is simply to say change.
There are no random mechanisms in the natural world that could account for the kinds of unobserved changes needed to go from non-life to life or from slime mold to mankind over any time period. We would not be here today without an act of creation if we relied only on random, natural processes.
Natural Selection
Is it safe to use natural selection to describe the changes that occur within kinds of creatures through random mutations? Charles Darwin created the term natural selection to try to project agency onto nature where no agency exists. The goal was to replace the Creator from Genesis with a mindless nature that somehow could make selections.
In the video below Lauren Pennington interviews Dr. Randy Guliuzza to first show the problem with the term natural selection and then to propose an alternate way of describing change in living creatures.
If you know of other words that we should think twice about using, let me know in the comments.
The coffee shop at the corner under the trains was open. The owner was protected and so were they. The neighborhood still looked civilized, but the troubles had begun.
One year later a quarter of the world’s population died, but it could have been more. No one knew for sure. Official truth was passed on by word of mouth and doubted as soon as it was heard. No one doubted the bodies in the streets.
An unexpected smartening raced through the population like the cleansing fire of revival as the war, the big one this time, began.
Rochelle Wisoff-Fields offers the photo below by Ted Strutz for this week’s prompt for Friday Fictioneers.
Whispers and Echoes recently published a 100-word story of mine called Spotting the Heretic. I am grateful to the editor, Sammi Cox, for selecting it. Submissions to this online journal are currently open.
People faulted Blake as someone who liked to run around, a term that usually meant he couldn’t stop starting and stopping stuff, popping in here and then suddenly there, or jabbering about this and then that longer than most listeners, they in particular, could tolerate. He wouldn’t dream of denying their charges since he viewed his defects as features except when others exhibited them.
All this running around focused his waking hours on optimizing the quantity of funds he could turn over to questionable, but good enough, causes with little time left over to deal with his own problems. As his future turned into his past and the measurable score of his good deeds exploded, he anticipated that there would be an endless supply of more of the same in spite of knowing that entropy makes a mess of most things.
Reality intervened one day like a waiter bringing a tab he didn’t know he started. Trying to find something of value with which to pay the bill he was surprised to learn that the busyness of his effective altruism provided little, if any, positive value in his present situation to keep the demonic darkness from coming in and taking him out.
Whispers and Echoes recently published a 100-word story of mine called Spotting the Heretic. I am grateful to the editor, Sammi Cox, for selecting it. Submissions to this online journal are currently open.
Armed agents secured the area. The recovery team searched the abandoned store on the old road up the mountain range both inside and out.
Someone noticed the large, white graffiti-painted letters PHERE above the entrance, threw out the P, and asked for a ladder. What they were looking for was spread thinly beneath the paint. They carefully replaced the items with fakes.
I’d like to say these were the good guys, but if they were, why were they up there? Anyway I doubt they realized that they weren’t the first to find the stuff I hid there.
Barry had a handful of chickens on his tiny homestead in the woods which were a handful too many for his dog, Fred. Things might have turned out differently for the birds if they had not taunted Fred while he was chained to his dog house. They knew just how far his chain would reach and teased him until he lunged at them only to be snapped back by the chain.
Things also might have turned out differently, or at least gone on precariously, were it not for Barry taking Fred on walks far down the forest trail and then letting him off his chain to freely romp about in the trees.
Early one morning before the sparkling dewdrops vanished Fred dragged Barry further down the forest trail than usual. Barry’s hypnotic dreaming of what he would do if only he had a homestead as big as this beautiful woodland area popped like a forest faery fantasy when he watched Fred run back to take care of those pesky chickens.
This is a long post. It is more a set of notes to myself. You might want to skip it. If not, let’s go down the rabbit hole.
This is how I currently see the chronology of events represented by the traditions of Good Friday and Easter Sunday. You are welcome to set me straight in the comment section.
Yeshua (Jesus) fulfilled the sign of Jonah. He was in the tomb three days and three nights. (Matthew 12:38-41) That was the length of time Jonah was in the great fish. (Jonah 1:17) Hence we have a length of 72 hours, no more, no less. Clearly one cannot fit three days and three nights between Friday afternoon and Sunday morning. What we have are two full nights, one full day and two partial days.
Yeshua died on an afternoon and He was in the tomb before sunset on the Day of Preparation before the first day of Unleavened Bread, a special Sabbath. (Matthew 27:45-65, Mark 15:33-44, Luke: 23:50-56)
The women went to the tomb on the first day of the week, Sunday, and an angel rolled back the stone showing them that the tomb was empty. (Matthew 28:1-8) I used to think Yeshua rose with the rising sun on Easter Sunday. What I understand now is Yeshua rose on the late Sabbath before sunset, 72 hours after His burial, prior to the morning of the first day of the week when the women looked for him but found the tomb empty.
In summary, Yeshua could not have been crucified on a Friday. He was crucified on the fourth day of the week (Wednesday) in the afternoon as the Passover lambs were being sacrificed. His Resurrection occurred three days and three nights later on the Shabbat (Saturday) afternoon before sunset. Celebrations of Resurrection Day should focus on the setting sun, not the morning sunrise.
The Church of God, one Christian group that seems willing to give the Bible priority over Church tradition, produced a detailed Timeline from Passover (the 14th of Abib (Nisan)) to the Wave Sheaf Offering on the first day after the weekly Shabbat. The chart shows the parallel between what happened in Exodus with what happened in the Gospels. The only part of their timeline I suspect may not be correct is the year of the Crucifixion and Resurrection. They claimed it occurred in 31 AD. I am more convinced by Navah’s view that it occurred in 28 AD.
Why does this matter?
The neglect of biblical feasts and the rejection of the Shabbat suggests a cultural anti-Judaism that goes back before the time of Constantine when it became institutionalized Church tradition justified by attacking Judaizers.
However, the use of an alternate pagan calendar also suggests a drift into idolatry through compromise. People attacking this compromise sometimes point out that there is no need to rename Yeshua to something that sounds like JeZeus except to indirectly focus on the Greek deity Zeus.
To see the idolatry connection, Michael Rood gave an account of where Easter came from in his teaching on the Book of Esther (“Easter”, as he called her) (about 34:00 to 38:00). He talked about the tale of Nimrod who became the sun god upon death and Semiramis, his wife, who was impregnated by that sun god to give birth to Tammuz on December 25th where the Julian calendar put the winter solstice. He included the reincarnation of Semiramis as Easter from an egg landing in the Euphrates along with rabbits and a reference to Playboy since this is all about pagan fertility worship.
For more details on this, mostly in agreement with Rood but from a Church of God perspective, see Christopher Eames’ article, Easter – In the Hebrew Bible?
When I wonder how the Israelites could have fallen into idolatry, I think about the deviation of the Christian liturgical calendar from the agricultural calendar presented in the Torah. I am equally puzzled how that could have happened. The Israelites had to obey their judges or kings, but when prophets came to correct them, I suspect many figured what they were doing was close enough in their own eyes to be acceptable to YeHoVaH (God). That’s probably what I would have thought were I one of them.
Today I ask myself something similar: Are Easter and Good Friday close enough to the Passover, the sign of Jonah and the Wave Sheaf Offering to be acceptable to Yeshua even though we lose the significance of the events evident to early Messianic believers and risk participating witlessly in pagan ritual practices?
Not everyone agrees with the above. For example, Jonathan Sarfati of Creation Ministries International presented a detailed opposing view. He asserted that Easter is not of pagan origin and tried to fit three days and three nights between Friday afternoon and Sunday morning by counting partial days as full days.
Some want to promote an even further compromise of Christianity with paganism. For example, Rudolf Steiner, an Austrian occultist, presented a description of Good Friday and Easter from a pagan perspective. Here Christianity is just another religion in a cyclic calendar going from springtime rebirth at Easter to autumn anticipation of death on All Saints Day (after Halloween). This sentiment seems typical of what C.S. Lewis called Pantheism in the “Christianity and ‘Religion’” chapter of Miracles.
The reason to present the occult views of Steiner is to see how the pagan cyclic calendar contrasts with the biblical calendar of Leviticus 23 that reveals a direction to history. The biblical calendar identifies the appointed times of YeHoVaH (מוֹעֲדֵ֣י יְהוָ֔ה). These appointed times are more than annual holidays. YeHoVaH gave them to us to remember what He had already done to move history according to His will. For example, on Passover we remember the Exodus and now also Yeshua’s redemptive sacrifice in the Crucifixion. YeHoVaH also gave them to us to prepare for future events such as the Second Coming and the Messianic Kingdom with the Feast of Trumpets, Yom Kippur and Succoth.
Having an annual calendar with a divinely revealed direction through the years and not just a birth-death-rebirth annual cycle of nature makes the Messianic story unique and something far beyond the imagination of pagan religions.
What about the Passover Seder?
I am grateful to Geri Ungurean, a Jewish Christian, for mentioning the video below on her blog. The Last Supper as recorded in the Gospels and reenacted by the early Messianic believers may be the origin for the Passover Seder. Such a ritual would be needed after the destruction of the temple. Those at the table in the video were discussing such a view from Israel Jacob Yuval in his paper, “The Haggadah of Passover and Easter“. For those who want to know more about Haggadah see chabad.org, a Jewish site.
As I see it the Last Supper occurred at the beginning of the 14th of Abib, the day of Passover after sunset. After the meal they went to the garden where Yeshua was arrested. Before the end of the day with the coming sunset, Yeshua died and was buried. Yeshua fulfilled the Passover by becoming the sacrificial lamb.
At the moment I am concerned with reconciling Matthew 26:17 withJohn 13:1. Did the Last Supper occur after Passover on the first day of Unleavened Bread (Matthew) or at the beginning of Passover (John), the day before that? Justin J. van Rensburg translates Matthew 26:17 asAnd a former day of Pesach[Passover], the talmidim came and said to him, “In what place do you want that we prepare the Pesach?” which would resolve my concern if the Hebrew manuscript he was using from the Vatican Library is an authentic copy of the original Hebrew autograph.
Weekly Parashah Readings Parashah: Passover Day 8, 22 Nissan, 5782 – April 23, 2022 Torah:Exodus 12:21-51; Numbers 28:16-25 Haftarah:Joshua 3:5-7; Joshua 5:2 – 6:1; Joshua 6:27 Brit Chadashah:Luke 22:7-20; John 1:29-31; 1 Cor 15:20-28 Resources:Chabad, Hebrew4Christians,Weekly Torah Readings, Calendar
