Archive for the ‘Personal Reflections’ Category

Tonight marks the beginning of the Muslim feast of Eid al Adha (lit. “feast of the sacrifice”) with an estimated 3 million people gathering in Saudia Arabia for the Hajj. This is the major festival on the Islamic calendar, commemorating Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son Ishmael (sic. Isaac) and choosing a ram instead. In memory of that sacrifice every Muslim on the planet, not just those who have gathered for the Hajj, will participate in the sacrifice of a cow, camel, or sheep tonight. The slaughters are done directly by the families, not in slaughter houses. An estimated 100 million animals will die worldwide. There is so much excess meat in Saudia Arabia that meat canning factories have been built right in the area. The meat is consumed in a feast for the next two days, with excess given away to the poor or to relatives but there is so much meat it can not be all disposed of

This is all quite visible of course but it pales in significance to the slaughter of the hundreds of millions of captive animals slaughtered daily, but behind closed doors, in our worldwide industrial animal killing operations, along with the daily direct slaughter that goes on in the second and third world societies on the planet.

The words of the Prophets come to mind, Hosea 6 of course but especially Amos 5:21-24–the last verse of which, along with Jeremiah 7:21-22, makes clear that Israel in the wilderness did not sacrifice at YHVH’s command for those 40 years of Sukkah living which was meat free–even though they at one point begged for meat and got it aplenty–till it nauseated them when they ate so much it came out their noses (see Numbers 11). Another ideal, worldwide, slaughter free time is coming according to Isaiah 11 & 65 for all humanity–and the covenant will be with the birds of the air, the fish of the sea, and the land creatures of the earth (Hosea 2)–back to Eden it seems:

Before they call I will answer; while they are yet speaking I will hear.
The wolf and the lamb shall graze together;
the lion shall eat straw like the ox,
and dust shall be the serpent’s food.
They shall not hurt or destroy (slaughter)
in all my holy mountain,” says YHVH.
For the earth be filled with the knowledge
of YHVH as the waters cover the sea…

As I have written before to this group I believe it can be shown that the “Millennium” of ancient Jewish and Christian hope has already arrived, strictly speaking, sometime around the Gregorian year 2000 as is obvious to all who have tallied up the Masoretic chronological tradition. Accordingly, now more than ever “Let us do the Millennial thing.” (see attached article) We can begin to model right now the peaceful kingdom of the Prophets in this small but significant way by living by the ideals of Eden, where every green seeing bearing plant and tree was given for food.

Peace upon all creatures great and small…

One of the most fascinating blogs dealing with the Land of Israel is that of John Carlson, formerly of the St. Francisville, LA Temple Sinai, where Ross Nichols is the teacher. John and his wife Carin, who is an artist, now live in Israel. John is an amazingly talented musician, singer, and songwriter as well as a deeply immersed student of the Bible and history. John speaks live every Shabbat on Ross Nichol’s weekly Torah study broadcast live from historic Temple Sinai (http://shma.tv). He regularly writes of his insights and experiences in Israel from his “watchpost” at Kibbutz Merchavia the Galilee. The blog is well worth browsing but we wanted to mention in particular his latest long and highly informative post: Who is the Enemy? It is an invaluable discussion and reference for all the current players in the Middle East scene and the conflicts between the Palestinians/Arabs/Muslim and the Israelis.

Back in 1993 I self-published a 100 page book called Restoring Abrahamic Faith. It was distributed to a few thousand people, given away free, funded by a non-profit I had formed called Genesis 2000. Over the years I have gotten an amazingly positive response to that little book and many thousands of copies were made by others and further distributed.

The book was a kind of “manifesto” of my own personal faith, but subject wise I would say it was an exposition of what I would call the ancient “Hebrew faith” based on the texts of the Hebrew Bible. It covered most of the great Questions of Biblical Faith: Who is God? What are the Holy Scriptures? How does one know the will of God? What does salvation mean? What about the so-called “Lost Tribes” of Israel? Is the present return of Jews to the Land of Israel significant? What about the coming of the Messiah? Who was Jesus and what was his message?

I have decided to republish a new edition of Restoring Abrahamic Faith. It is a thoroughly revised version, 180 pages, professionally designed and attractively printed as a self-published trade book through Genesis 2000. It is now available for immediate shipping. You can go to genesis2000.org for full information on how to order either on-line or by check. I wanted here to offer a prepublication peek at the Preface. I think it gives a good sense of what this book is about:

Preface

I began thinking seriously about the contents of this book back in the late 1960s. I had graduated from college with majors in Greek and Bible, fired by a passion for discovering the historical Jesus. It was that Quest that led me to the insights and concepts represented herein. The more I learned about Jesus the more I realized how vital it was to see him as a Jew who put his faith in the God of Abraham, who upheld the Torah, and who lived and died for his ancestral faith.

As a Christian I had grown up with a strong emphasis on the New Testament. The “Old Testament,” as we called it, was looked on as mere “background” to the superseding revelation brought by Jesus and the apostle Paul. I had never taken the “Jewishness” of Jesus very seriously—at least not in terms of its implications.

I presented the results of my forty years of academic work on the historical Jesus in a previous book, The Jesus Dynasty (Simon & Schuster, 2006). This book goes quite a few steps beyond. It is a personal manifesto of my own biblical faith, informed by my historical work, while at the same time moving outside its strict academic parameters.

I am enamored with the Hebrew Bible—Torah, Prophets, and Writings—and it has riveted me like nothing else over these many years. In its pages I find compelling testimony to the experiences of those who have sought to “walk with God,” and a program of hope for our troubled planet. The idea and the ideal of the Kingdom of God—that is, God’s will being done on earth as in heaven, is one that beckons us across the ages. This book is about that ancient Hebrew faith and what it might mean to us in the 21st century.

Pentecost, June 15, 2008
Mevasseret Zion, Israel
James D. Tabor

Visit genesis2000.org for more information.

It is our essential nature to question and seek information concerning our ancestral lines. If one subscribes to the theory, as did UIWU founder and president, David Horowitz, and an increasing number of proponents, that there are many of us who could be descendants of the Ten Lost Tribes or Israelites, then the questioning and seeking becomes compelling.

Armed with very limited information, my husband, Ralph, and I traveled to Wales, the land of my maternal forefathers and England, my paternal forefathers in September, 1996 to trace my genealogy. We knew the name of the village in Wales which was the birthplace of my Great Grandfather and Great Grandmother, but little else.

Our arrival in Llandudno, Wales was on Friday, September 13 and we attended the Llandudno Hebrew Congregation for Rosh Hashanah and Shabbat services. This is the oldest Orthodox synagogue in Wales, dating to the 16th century. We were greeted with surprise and curiosity by the congregants. It seems they are unaccustomed to visitors-especially from “across the pond”.

One of the nights spent in Wales was at a resort high in the mountains with a view of the Irish Sea. The bucolic setting was breathtaking!

Equipped with maps and the meager information we brought with us we located the township of Corris, Wales and began exploring the valley of so many of my ancestors. The cemetery was situated on the grounds of the Carmell Corris, Talyllin, Wesleyan Methodist Church erected in 1810. The Welch inscriptions on the gravestones were startlingly close to Hebrew and as David Horowitz often told us, the Welch and Hebrew languages are strikingly similar. I was not prepared for the impact that discovering the tombstones of my Great, Great, Great Grandparents and relatives, whom I was unaware even had existed, would have on me. It was a strange, unnatural and unnerving experience and one which would subsequently take me months to reconcile and resolve.

The process of researching information which we acquired during the trip has revealed astonishing points of history for me. I’d like to summarize some conclusions by quoting a few excerpts from Seventh Day Adventist Leslie Hardinge’s work, The Celtic Church in Britain. “Before the coming of Augustine to England in A.D.597, the Christian church in the British Isles was profoundly Celtic, rather than Roman. The beliefs and practices of the Celtic Christian Church were much closer to the first century church than the Church of Rome. Foremost in the Celtic belief was an insistence on a literal interpretation of the Bible, with a tendency to reject the writings of the ‘Church Fathers’, and a disdain for the authority of Church Councils (Council of Elders). The Celtic theologian was keenly interested in the whole of the scriptures, but his preoccupation with the Ten Commandments was even deeper.”

“Many Celtic believers were Arians (anti-trinitarian). They kept the Sabbath, believing that the day begins at sundown. They were known to be Quartodecimans, observers of the Christian Passover, on the fourteenth day of the first month in Spring. They eschewed unclean meats.”

“The legendary Patrick (ca. 387-463) was born a Briton, and evangelized Ireland. He was said to have founded over 300 churches and baptized more than 120,000 converts, earning him the title of patron saint of Ireland. However, Christianity existed in Ireland long before his time.”

Wherever Patrick went and established a church, he left an old Celtic law book, Liber ex Lege Moisi (Book of the Law of Moses), along with the books of the Gospel. The Liber begins with the Decalogue and continues with selections from Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, totaling 35 in all.

“It is most significant that the Liber should commence with the Decalogue, which certainly points to the interest of the Celtic Christian in keeping the Ten Commandments. This passage also includes prohibitions against the forming of idols of silver or gold, and directions for making an altar of earth without steps, underlying the early stress in the Celtic Church of ‘altars of stone’”

While ‘St. Patrick’ is revered as a Roman Catholic Saint, his writings appear to place him squarely in the “Sabbath-keeping Messianic tradition”.

Hardinge indicates that the Celtic British Isles had a long history of Sabbath-keeping. Professor James Moffatt, D.D. in his 1882 book, The Church in Scotland, p.140 states: “It seems to have been customary in Celtic Churches of early times, in Ireland as well as Scotland, to keep Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, as a day of rest from labour.” They obeyed the fourth commandment, literally, upon the seventh day of the week.

A surprising conclusion has much relevance for us today. To it’s detriment, the Celtic Church was not unified. Each group seems to have been dependent upon the founder and it’s tribe, but independent of all others. No church leader among the Celts was held to be the spokesman of all. There was little unity of purpose thus they were unable to present a unified front and were absorbed into Roman Christianity piece by piece and finally disappeared.

Assimilating this information intellectually and emotionally has given me much to ponder and has imparted a strong sense of pride in my Welch-Celtic-Hebrew influenced heritage.

Don Feder, a writer for the New York Post wrote recently, “Torah came into the world to change the world and not to reconcile itself to it”. This profound truth applies to Jews and non-Jews alike. It is, however, incumbent on both groups to seek those truths which apply to each in order to fulfill a destiny which was ordained at the Creation for those of us who are either practicing Jews or are members of the Ten Lost Tribes and are joined with those faithful Jews in a literal sense who are studying, searching, and beseeching HaShem to show His Face.

Rebecca Buntyn

Works cited: Hardinge, Leslie. The Celtic Church in Britain. Teach Services, Inc.,

Brushton, NY, 1973

Moffatt, James C., D.D. The Church in Scotland. 1882

The command to live in booths for seven days is declared to be so that future generations know that God made the ancient Israelites live in booths when He brought them out of the land of Egypt (Leviticus 23:39-44).

This past week, Roots of Faith hosted its first annual Succoth Conference.

Several UIWU members were also in attendance. We had people from Texas, Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia as well as the locals of course. Many of us camped out for a full week under the stars. The weekend was packed with exciting and informative lectures and tours.

I am so pleased and thankful for the wonderful time with all who were able to attend the week’s events. This is to be an annual event here in the Felicianas. The speakers were fantastic, the food was very good and the music was stirring! In the coming days I hope to post some reports on my blog about the conference. If you have something that you would like to share about the conference, please send it to me in an email and I will post it. A short note that captures in a few words what the time meant to you will be fine.

This is my favorite time of year now. I have camped out under the stars for the past two Festivals of Succoth. Many of you have done this for years. I would encourage any of you that have not kept this feast, to do so and to consider joining us in Saint Francisville for the Festival next year. Plans will be posted on my site soon so that you can begin to plan early.

Yesterday, from inside my home I watched the rain pouring down. Give God the glory for this miracle! It literally rained up until the day before we went into the campsite, the heavens held back the rain for seven days and then the rain fell once again the day after we had cleared the campsite! Rain is a significant part of this ancient festival. In fact, in the future, those who do not go up to Jerusalem to worship the LORD during the Feast of Succoth (Tabernacles) will not get rain in their land! (Zechariah 14:16-19)

Start thinking now about joining us next year for the Annual Succoth Conference here in the Felicianas. We experienced such an incredible level of harmony this weekend – Jew, Christians and Gentile God Fearers together, united around the one thing that we all share – a love for the Bible! We learned a great deal from the conference this year in terms of organization. Next year we will be even better and you can play a part in that as well. You can send me comments (rndavar@aol.com) – constructive feedback on what we can do to make this Conference better. I look forward to reading them and promise to consider your points when planning our next gathering.

My good friend Tammy Michael was the “official” camp / festival photographer. She informs me that she took over 500 pictures. Some of these are up on the Roots of Faith website. The group at the camp site also took turns reading from the Torah (Genesis – Deuteronomy) and completed the entire Torah! This event was based upon a literal interpretation of Deuteronomy 31:10. I want to do this again and next time I want to be more organized with it so that everyone will be able to participate. It was quite a blessing.

Several members of Roots of Faith put together a CD with original music that was a smash hit! I have been getting compliments and requests about this CD. You can contact John Carlson for more information about how you can obtain a copy of this excellent CD (carlson_john@bellsouth.net). We also hope to put an entry on the blog about the music and the artists featured on this CD, titled – Hac! V’Shema / Shut Up! and Listen. There is a story behind the title as well:)

Thanks for all the help in making this Feast of Tabernacles a time of refreshing and revival. Don’t forget to check out the photos on my site.

Shalom, and may your names be inscribed in the Book of Life

Ross Nichols