Dale offers the prompt “nature in black and white” for this week’s Cosmic Photo Challenge.
I forgot how to take a colored photo and completely drain all the color from it, but then I realized I had pictures that naturally looked black and white without any modification.
So here are two photos of sand on beaches around Miami Beach. Hopefully they look black and white enough and the man-made beaches look natural enough to count.
To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn;
Isaiah 61:2 King James Version
Michael Rood created video presentations featuring his book The Chronological Gospels. He made a claim that the ministry of Yeshua (Jesus) lasted only 70 weeks which is a little over a year rather than the three and a half years often quoted. The motivation behind both of these time periods is for Yeshua to fulfill Daniel’s 70 week prophecy (Daniel 9:24-27) in one way or another. When Yeshua read Isaiah 61:2 he stopped at “To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord” (Luke 4:17-19) rather than read the whole verse.
In Season 1 Yeshua comes as the Suffering Servant and fulfills the Spring festivals of Passover, Unleavened Bread and Shavuot. This series presents the four gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
Season 2 is on the “fifth gospel”, Revelation. Here Yeshua comes to fulfill the Fall feasts of Trumpets, Yom Kippur and Succoth. I like how Rood paraphrases Yeshua’s overall message to the seven assemblies:
“We either do it my way or we do it my way, but it will be done my way.” This was the message for the churches in Asia Minor and this is the message for the church today.
Michael Rood, Purging the Doctrine, Season 2 of the Chronological Gospels (about 1:00)
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Weekly Parashah Readings
Parashah: Shlach, 26 Sivan, 5782 – June 25, 2022
Torah: Numbers 13:1-15:41
Haftarah: Joshua 2:1-2:24
Brit Chadashah: Hebrews 3:7-4:1
Resources: Chabad, Hebrew4Christians, Weekly Torah Readings, Calendar
Gerald caught up with Snaky, the dragon who kidnapped his wife, Miriam, and told him to gently, very gently, open his mouth and set her down. After Snaky did she went to Gerald’s side putting her hands to her hair to stroke it back in place and then wiping off the dragon slime so they could both pay full attention when giving Snaky a piece of their minds, such as, What has gotten into you?
Raising his chest with snorts of pride and showing grotesque teeth and dragon boogers dripping through his nostrils’ steam, Snaky bellowed that he wanted to rip their hearts out squishing them slowly, very slowly, as sacrifices to his lord and master of the 33rd degree, Illuminatus Illuminati, Satánus Luciferus, marked with the 666 seal, the Supreme Serpent for whom he’d gladly lay down his dragon bones and die.
After pausing to permit this to sink in Gerald and Miriam looked at each other and laughed leaving even Snaky erupting in spooky grunts at his own expense. Pointing out to him that he had unintentionally rubbed his bottom in what looked like dragon-itch poison ivy Gerald and Miriam figured it was time to leave before they started itching as well.
As they turned from the deluded rainbow kingdom of mischievous enchantment, ever troubling the visions of misguided youth and the dreams of the witless old, it faded exposing an underbelly of demented fantasies and wormy delights.
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Denise offers the prompt word stroke to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories. This is a continuation (and hopefully the conclusion) of Key – Six Sentence Story.
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I am grateful to Sammi Cox, the editor of Whispers and Echoes, for publishing one of my very short stories, Ever Simmering Fluid.
Dale offers the theme “night and day” for this week’s Cosmic Photo Challenge.
The first photo is of a full moon, a sign of nighttime in Florida.
The second photo is a sunrise over the Atlantic ocean, a sign that the day is upon us.
For those celebrating Shavuot this Sunday rather than last Sunday, Chag Shavuot Sameach!
There is evidence that Revelation was originally written in Hebrew. However, the original is unavailable and the manuscripts one has are rare and suffer from corruption. That means the surviving Greek texts, also not original, are still valuable as sources, but it raises interest in these surviving Hebrew manuscripts.
The following three videos by Justin J. van Rensburg provide some of this evidence and some of the insights one can learn from considering these sources. See Hebrew Gospels for more information.
In the first video he shows how to obtain photos of the manuscript of Revelation, a transcription and a translation. Then he provides an argument that this manuscript is an authentic copy of a chain of copies leading back to the original manuscript that was written in Hebrew. Finally, he uses this manuscript to resolve a puzzle in Revelation 22:2 that mentions that the Tree of Life was on both sides of the river having twelve different fruits.
He continues in the second video to resolve another puzzle: Is Yeshua or Satan the “morning star” referred to in Isaiah 14:12-14 especially considering that translations from the Greek of Revelation 22:16 also refer to Yeshua as the “morning star”. Given evidence from the Hebrew manuscript, Satan is the “morning star”, but Yeshua is the “morning light”.
Justin van Rensburg brings out the significance of this confusion (starting about 12:00) by referring back to Isaiah 14:12-14 where Satan (the “morning star”) claims he will make himself like the Most High. One of the ways Satan did this was by giving Yeshua the same title in the Greek version of Revelation that he himself had from Isaiah.
The third video provides evidence through Hebrew puns and direct quotes from the Old Testament that the original autograph was written in Hebrew.
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Weekly Parashah Readings
Parashah: Behaalotecha, 19 Sivan, 5782 – June 18, 2022
Torah: Numbers 8:1-12:16
Haftarah: Zechariah 2:14-4:7
Brit Chadashah: 1 Corinthians 10:6-13; Revelation 11:1-19
Resources: Chabad, Hebrew4Christians, Weekly Torah Readings, Calendar
It was a long, double waterfall. Two geologists were arguing. One said it was over a hundred million years old. The other said with all that rushing water the entire formation would erode to sea level in less than ten million years.
Some bet their worldviews one way; some, the other.
I’ll admit I had an opinion, but so what, they might ask. I just hoped the waterfall would stick around until our vacation was over knowing eventually it, and quite a bit of everything else, would all wash away.
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Rochelle Wisoff-Fields offers the photo by David Stewart below as the prompt for this week’s Friday Fictioneers.
The only thing Gerald wanted was that key dangling from the neck of the sorceress who said as she offered him an apple squishing the worm popping its head from the core: Take another bite.
He tried to recall what he was doing there as she charmed him explaining, But, Gerald, you know you’re addicted and it’s time for your medication. To prove her point she unlocked his chains with the key to show him just how pathetically weak he had become. Besides, she loved watching her victims go through the agony of deciding what they really wanted: freedom or wormy delights?
Thankfully for Gerald the fog cleared in time for him to remember why he entered this godforsaken kingdom of enchantment in the first place. Unchained he rushed off to resume rescuing his wife kidnapped by Snakindegras, a particularly ornery dragon he couldn’t wait to get his hands on, while the witch with the apple screamed in the distance: Run, Snaky, run!
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Denise offers the prompt word “key” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories.
Dale offers the theme “close up on nature” for this week’s Cosmic Photo Challenge.
These photos are about as close as I wanted to get to these guys.
The last photo was a close up and focusing on rain drops against a window.
And thou shalt keep the feast of weeks unto the Lord thy God with a tribute of a freewill offering of thine hand, which thou shalt give unto the Lord thy God, according as the Lord thy God hath blessed thee:
Deuteronomy 16:10 King James Version
Last year I paid no attention to Shavuot. It didn’t even dawn on me that shavuot is the plural of shavua (week). This year I hope the roots have gone deeper.
After signing up for Michael Rood’s newsletter I began observing the crescent moon after sunset which marked the beginning of a lunar month. It is amazing how different these crescent moons look. The one last Tuesday evening marking the beginning of the third month was very slender and close to the horizon. I almost missed it before it set behind the trees.
Shavuot is 50 days after the First Fruits offering. Pentecost is 50 days after the first appearance of Yeshua (Jesus) to his disciples after His resurrection. After 50 days seven Shabbats would have passed and we would again be on the same day of the week. On Pentecost we remember the baptism of the Holy Spirit in Jerusalem mentioned in Acts 2. Shavuot recalls the giving and receiving of the Torah and making the covenant at Mount Sinai (Exodus 19 – 24:11).
Nehemia Gordon reports that during the first century there were three different calculations for when the First Fruits offering was to be made relative to the seven days of Unleavened Bread. The Pharisees said it was to occur on the second day of Unleavened Bread, or 16 Aviv, every year. The Essenes said it was to occur on the first day of the week after those seven days. The Sadducees said it was to occur on the day after the weekly Shabbat within the seven days of Unleavened Bread. After the fall of Jerusalem, the view of the Pharisees prevailed. Their calendar is what one sees on sites such as Chabad.org.
By next Shavuot, God willing, more of this story will make sense to me.
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Weekly Parashah Readings
Parashah: Naso, 12 Sivan, 5782 – June 11, 2022
Torah: Numbers 4:21-7:89
Haftarah: Judges 13:2-13:25
Brit Chadashah: Acts 21:17-26
Resources: Chabad, Hebrew4Christians, Weekly Torah Readings, Calendar
On one side of the path there was a perilous, downward sloping edge. He walked this mountain trail to reach home.
He crawled when winds blew to avoid being thrown into the abyss. When rainstorms poured he rested knowing those dark clouds would soon move on.
When grisly goats, demonic dragons or other ugly forms of monstrous nonsense blocked his way he told them where to go. Only the foolish hesitated to obey.
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Denise offers the word “edge” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories.
Proverbs 16:7 – “When a man’s ways please the Lord, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him.” (KJV)
Poetry, Short Prose and Walking 