Israel

9 Points on the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict

Graphic displaying Christian Zionist slogans

Nine points Pentecostals and Charismatic families of churches must do to build healthy relationships with the nation of Israel, Jews, and Palestinians.

Pentecostals, traditional Charismatics, and third-wave Charismatics are collectively called Renewalists. They staunchly support the nation of Israel regardless of whatever behavior this nation exhibits. Is this a good thing?

No. It is not.

There is a great need within the Renewalist movement to build a fair and balanced relationship with the nation of Israel, Jews, and Palestinians. The current oral tradition is sorely lacking equality towards Palestinians in general and Palestinian Christians in particular.

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The role of Hebrew in the Jewish-Aramaic World

The influence of Aramaic and Hebrew on Jewish life around the first-century.

The goal of any information gleaned from this inquiry is to find a possible connection with Hebrew being a part of the first-century Corinthian liturgy. A subsequent purpose is to confirm or deny an assertion by the fourth-century Bishop of Salamis, Epiphanius, that the mystery tongues of Corinth had its roots in the Hebrew language.

We cannot assume any synagogue outside of Israel, let alone Corinth, used the Hebrew language as part of their religious service. So, it requires digging deeper into the relationship between Hebrew and Aramaic to find answers.

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Book Review: The Great War for Civilisation

A picture of the front cover of the book, The Great War for Civilisation

The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East by the seasoned author and journalist, Robert Fisk is a compilation of his over 30 years of on-field experiences in the various war zones around the Mediterranean and Middle East. The result is comprehensive portrait from a litany of primary sources that makes this book a definitive work.

This work is difficult, challenging and long, but worth every word. One cannot read this in one, or even two sittings. Nor can it be read for great lengths of time because the dark corners of humanity are ever present in this book. Such imagery requires one to pause repeatedly and escape from such realities.

Fisk purposely over-documented The Great War for Civilisation. There is no other choice for the author to do this as detractors, especially those of government, military and enforcement institutions, would like to refute such findings and discredit him personally. The greatest strength of his book is the documentation that takes it out of the realm of his personal opinion and into the place of factual history. It is a work that has been sorely lacking in this genre.

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The Jews In Their Land During the Talmudic Age

Book Review: The Jews in their Land in the Talmudic Age by Gadaliah Alon.

A magnificent piece of scholarly work that touches on life in Israel from 70 to 640 A.D.

His retelling of the story of Middle-East mankind during this period draws from classical Greek, Roman, Patristic, and Rabbinic sources that is simply astounding. He combines religion, culture, language, economic systems, leadership structures both in the Jewish community and in context of Roman occupation, historical analysis, and social perspectives into an intelligent and cohesive narrative. He especially excels covering the change in religious, social and leadership structures after the destruction of the Temple, and the traditions that underlies the development and establishment of the Mishnah and Talmud.

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Book Review: My Promised Land

My Promised Land Cover

My Promised Land is a controversial, thought provoking and important read for those wanting to understand the Middle East from an Israeli perspective.

The well known Israeli journalist, Ari Shavit, weaves a delicate story of the ever changing doctrine of Zionism from its utopian non-sectarian, communist vision of the early 1900s to its current identity of self-preservation. He shows a modern Israel stripped of its stereotypes and what it really is — a country mired in an identity crisis. A place that is part-libertarian, hedonist, Orthodox, Western European, Middle Eastern, and everything inbetween. These competing forces along with the ominous threat of a much larger Arab community around them leads Shavit to be cynical of Israel’s future.

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The Journey out of Christian Zionism

Picture of soldiers, Bedouin girls, military truck, and Judaen desert

Why I am no longer pro-Israel, nor pro-Arab, but pro-human.

The story about a Canadian Evangelical and apocalyptic Christian studying in Israel. How reality confronted imagination and stereotypes and won.

As my wife and I unbuckled our seatbelts on El-Al airliner and looked out the window, our imaginations ran wild. Little did we know the emotional and intellectual challenges that lay ahead.

We were on a one-year scholarship to attend the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1984. The stay in Israel was after three years of Bible College training. It was exciting to live and study in the actual place where most of the Biblical writings took place.

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Pentecostals and Israel

The connection between Pentecostals, Christian Zionism, Judaism and the State of Israel.

Is Middle East News Coverage Balanced?

Western readers should put their critical thinking hats on and be very careful when reading or viewing Middle East affairs — looks can be deceiving.
For example, take the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict that happened in the summer of 2006. Three different Hebrew editions of the same article on Haaretz’s website appeared over 48 hours, with each subsequent one including less definitive information.
This is exactly what happened with Joav Stern’s article published on Haaretz’s Hebrew online website on July 29, 2006.
In the original version Stern included Hassan Nasrallah’s speech made on the Lebanese Television station, Al-Manar as the lead-off paragraph. He cited Nasrallah’s conditions for a ceasefire, the return of prisoners, restoration of the geographical area of the Shebat Farms from Israel and more… This can’t be verified any longer because within 12 hours this statement was removed from Stern’s article.

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