Lightfoot on the Problem Tongues of Corinth

John Lightfoot

A digitization of John Lightfoot’s Commentary on the tongues of Corinth.

John Lightfoot was a seventeenth-century English Churchman and Rabbinic scholar whose exegetical system was significantly advanced for that time period.

A small but brief window had opened in England during the Reformation for Hebrew studies, but the roadblocks to full public acceptance were great. England had long banished Jews from living in England1 during Lightfoot’s era. Later novels like Ivanhoe by Walter Scott, and Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens indicate negative perceptions concerning the Jewish race was strong. In light of these obstacles, Lightfoot began a very scholarly journey into the connection between Judaism and Christianity. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time doing a great job. He was a time anomaly. He should not have succeeded in this field of studies, but he did, and his work, though with some defects, has withstood the test of time.

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Hebrew and the First Language of Mankind

The Feast of the Rejoicing of the Law at the Synagogue in Leghorn, by Solomon Hart. Italy. 1850.
The Feast of the Rejoicing of the Law at the Synagogue in Leghorn, by Solomon Hart. Italy. 1850.

The history of Hebrew as the first language is a fascinating story that travels through Patristic, Rabbinic, and the Greek worlds. The sacredness of this language has cycled through over 2,000 years of Jewish and Christian literature.

The perception of the Hebrew language in Western literature, especially by the ecclesiastical writers is an interesting theological exploration that seldom is talked or written about. Since it is the language of the Old Testament Bible, it obviously has some kind of reverent status among Judaism and Christianity. How this sacred language is viewed and applied varies. One of them forwards Hebrew as the first language of mankind, another promotes Hebrew as the language which God personally used, and there is an allusion by some to the use of Hebrew with the first Pentecostal tongues outburst recorded in the Book of Acts. It then begs the question, was Hebrew the first language of mankind?

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The Purpose of Prayer

ArtScrollSiddur

A detailed look at the nature and purpose of prayer from a Jewish prayerbook. A definition that sheds any superficiality and uncovers a deep and introspective rite that transforms the soul.

The ArtScroll Siddur contains one of the best definitions of prayer found anywhere. A siddur is a Jewish prayer book that outlines personal and communal prayers for almost any occasion; life, death, loss, birth, success, and everything in-between. It is written from an Orthodox Jewish perspective. The following is an excerpt.

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Bede on the Problem of 1 AD

“The Venerable Bede Translates John” by James Doyle Penrose (1862-1932)

The Venerable Bede on reconciling ancient calendars and how he thought our 2 B.C. should really be 1 A.D.

Bede convincingly argued that our present 1 A.D. was incorrect by three years. What we understand as 2 B.C. is the correct year for Christ’s birth. He uncovered the fuzzy Church logic that created this problem. He cited a miscalculation that happened between 550 and 650 A.D. This error has caused calendar headaches ever since.

The Venerable Bede was an eighth-century monk who made a strong effort to collect all the calendar systems he knew about, whether historical or contemporary to his time, and reconcile them into one dating system. This endeavor sounds easy by today’s standards, but it was a massive undertaking.

If any discussion revolves around developing the yearly calendar system, his writings should be consulted. This study focuses on his works as it relates to Christ’s birth, but other pertinent dates fall in as well.

How did he arrive at this conclusion? He did it by comparing different calendar systems and then developing two new time systems – one of them closely parallels the A.D. system in use today.

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