Jesus versus Paul: My Reaction to Dr Bart Ehrman’s First 2 lectures
General Introduction This will be the first in my series of ‘reaction articles’ to the recent lectures given on 27-28 May 2023, by Dr Bart Ehrman, on the topic of ‘Jesus & Paul: The Great Divide’. In those lectures, my overall view is that he successfully managed...
Where was the Location of the City of Sodom?
Shalom everyone, I have recently been watching various documentaries on YouTube about the supposed location of the biblical city of Sodom, and they all came up with different locations. Some of them even tried using the text of the Torah to pinpoint the location, and...
Rediscovering One’s perfect Heavenly Self, to better connect with the Presence of God
Shalom my brothers and sisters, In my last blogpost, I tried to get across to you the ancient Israelite understanding of the very nature of God – of Yahveh. Not just some impersonal, obscure or vague theological definition of God, but the real, living Yahveh of Moses...
Israelite Mysticism: The Anatomy of the Human Soul
Shalom everyone, Becoming aware of the anatomy of your soul is analogous to suddenly becoming aware of the complex biome of tiny creatures, bacteria and fungi that live on the outside of your body, as well as the bacteria and fungi that live inside...
Returning to Eden: Theophany Day & the Meaning of Salvation
Shalom my dearest sisters and brothers, We will soon be coming up to Theophany Day, when we celebrate nothing less than the manifestation of the Glory of God on Mt Horeb (‘the Theophany’), and the giving of the Torah. This year, it is due to fall on the 9th to...
What’s bigger than ‘Jesus’?
Shabbat shalom everyone, Did any of you see the 1998 film ‘Godzilla’, with Matthew Broderick? There is one scene near the beginning, where he is told that he is standing in the sample he is supposed to examine. His reaction is, “I don’t see it! Where is it? I don’t...
Shavuot as a Celebration of the Blessings of the Covenant
My dearest sisters and brothers, This coming Sunday is when Talmidis, Karaites and Samaritans all celebrate Shavuot. So in the run-up to Shavuot, why have we been remembering the 7 parts of God's Covenant over the last few weeks? When I was going through my...
Why did God create the Universe?
Shalom everyone, This blog post is about the question, “Why did God create the Universe and the Earth”? Or put another way, “Why is there something as opposed to nothing, other than God?” My gut-feeling is that the answer to this question is ultimately known...
The Passover Seder: Participating in Israel’s Birth
(message put out to the group Thurs 6th Apr 2023) Shalom everyone, This evening, we hold our Seders, when we remember the story of the Exodus. One of the purposes of retelling the story, is to enable us to feel as if we came out of Egypt ourselves. This aspect of the...
The oft-forgotten purpose of remembering the Exodus
Shalom everyone, We all know that each religious festival has themes, and that there is a purpose to having those festival themes: that by celebrating these festivals together, God has the opportunity to shape and mould us into the kind of people that God intended us...