A Family Guide to the Biblical Holidays

[GeoBQn]

This book came up in one of the Lina threads as a common gateway to Christians becoming FakeJews.

 

heartofwisdom.com/biblicalholidays/2011/10/13/a-family-guide-to-the-biblical-holidays/

 

This is a 39 page sample.

 

heartofwisdom.com/Acrobat/BHPreview2.0.pdf

 

Has anybody encountered this book before? They claim that Jewish holidays that were around for thousands of years before Jesus are actually in place to "foreshadow" Jesus and are "G-d's way of teaching about Jesus." As a Jew, this makes about as much sense to me as if someone were to say that Jewish holidays are here to teach about L. Ron Hubbard. There is also this "parable":

 

 

Quote

Once upon a time there was a wonderful King that ruled a Kingdom. The King was always doing fine and wonderful things for His people. The people desired in their hearts to worship and glorify the King and His wonderful deeds. So the King planned appointed times each year: special times for celebrations to tell the stories of

His deeds to the people’s children and to glorify the King. The King wrote the instructions of how to observe the celebrations in a book called the Book of Wisdom. For many years the people enjoyed these celebrations. Each year they would learn more about their King and feel closer to Him. They realized the King’s celebrations were not only to tell stories of the things the King had done for His people in the past, but also foreshadows of more fine things the King was planning to do for them in the future.

There was another kingdom that did not worship the King. They worshiped objects such as statues, animals, trees, and the sun. In this other kingdom, the people prac- ticed several different annual parties that glorified the people and the objects instead of the King. Each party had a different theme. In some they dressed up like animals and other beings. In some they decorated their homes and gave gifts to each other.

 

Are they not aware that the things I bolded are also a part of Jewish celebrations? The holidays all have themes--freedom (Passover), atonement (Yom Kippur), trees are awesome (Tu B'shvat--oh wait, they leave this one out of the book.) Jews dress up in costumes for Purim, they decorate their homes for many holidays and give gifts at Purim. Do they write these things off as "unbiblical?" Are they completely oblivious to the fact that all holidays, religious and "pagan," involve rituals and customs?

[Evie Teale]

I'm bumping this because I was wondering if anyone else has had any experience with this book. It is (or was) rather popular with home schoolers that I have known, but I thought it presented, at best, a very distorted view of Jewish holy days.

(BTW, my auto correct just changed home schoolers to homes hookers :lol: )

[Brainsample]

Many Messianic Jews believe and teach that the feasts, particularly passover, spoke and pointed the Jew to Jesus and seem to have epiphanies about the significance of what those traditions mean. This goes hand in hand with the symbolism that is placed on the feast dates and events in Christ's life. He was said to actually be born on Rosh Hashanah, was crucified in close proximity to passover as the sacrificial lamb, and He ascended into heaven on the advent of the Feast of Pentecost. Jesus is seen as fulfilling much of the specific symbolism of the feasts and traditions also. I have an old book somewhere by a guy named Emil Olsen who used to come to our church in Eastern PA when I was kid to teach this stuff. He was delightful.

So the concept is not all that provocative, at least not among the string of Messianic Jews that trailed between NYC and Philadelphia 40 years ago. Emil was old and I suspect is no longer around, but I found an old copy of his testimony/autobiography on Amazon. There were lots of Christian Zionist types that preached this same kind of thing, back when Hal Lindsey was all the rage. I'm sure there are those who teach the same things.

I've talked to Jews, actually the rabbi who headed up the Reformed movement on the East Coast, round about 25 years ago, and he was unaware that Christians and Messianic Jews believed such things. He thought it was bit bizarre, but I guess that you would have to be a believer in Jesus to see the significance of it. Considering that he thought we Christians had hijacked his religion and turned God into a three headed monster, it didn't come as a shock to him. But then, he confided to me that he wasn't so sure himself that there was a God and was mostly into things for the social side of Jewish life.

[Boltingmadonna]

LOL--my nearsighted eyes originally read this as "A Fantasy Guide to the Biblical Holidays." From the once-upon-a-time style, maybe I wasn't wrong! :lol:

[emmiedahl]

The evidence for Jesus born on Rosh Hashanah seems sketchy. This is the best explanation I found. Warning: it's not that good

Another approach in determining the date of Jesus’ birth is from information about John the Baptist. Elisabeth, John’s mother, was a cousin of Mary and the wife of a priest named Zacharias who was of the “course†of Abijah (Priests were divided into 24 courses and each course officiated in the Temple for one week, from Sabbath to Sabbath). When the Temple was destroyed by Titus on August 5, 70 AD, the first course of priests had just taken office. Since the course of Abijah was the eighth course, we can track backwards and determine that Zacharias would have ended his duties on July 13, 3 BC. If the birth of John took place 280 days later, it would have been on April 19-20, 2 BC (precisely on Passover of that year). John began his ministry in the 15th year of Tiberius Caesar. The minimum age for the ministry was 30. As Augustus died on August 19, 14 AD, that was the accession year for Tiberius. If John was born on April 19-20, 2 BC, his 30th birthday would have been April 19-20, 29 AD, or the 15th year of Tiberius. This seems to confirm the 2 BC date and, since John was five months older, this also confirms the autumn birth date for Jesus.

[julie paradox]

Isn't it pretty much accepted that the time for Jesus's birth is either 4 or 6 BC? Something to do with Herod, I think. I know most things I come across use one of those two years.

[Well, except for the Really Annoying signs outside churches who should have known better: "The Millennium is Christ's 2000th birthday". Um, no. It's really not. For several different reasons.]

Anna Matrix had a big thing about John's father's duties being a clue - is it a reasonable assumption? Are the facts as given in that quoted paragraph likely to be correct? (I suppose I could backtrack myself to discover when he'd be there in previous years).

The weird thing about Anna's talking about it was that she seemed to think that Christians really think Jesus was born on 25 December. The woman has No Clue.