Contents
What is Jesus original name?
Jesus’ name in Hebrew was ‘ Yeshua ‘ which translates to English as Joshua. So how did we get the name ‘Jesus’? And is ‘Christ’ a last name? Watch the episode to find out!
Why did God call Jesus Jesus?
In Luke 1, the archangel Gabriel tells Mary (or Miriam) to name her son Yeshua, meaning ‘salvation.’ An angel also tells Joseph, ‘you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.’ (Matt 1:21-22) Much like other Hebrew names, it was His calling and destiny from the beginning.
Does Jesus mean God saves?
Jesus sent by the Father for the salvation of the world JESUS SENT BY THE FATHER FOR THE SALVATION OF THE WORLD 1. Christ reveals himself throughout his earthly life as the Saviour sent by the Father for the salvation of the world. His very name, “Jesus”, expresses this mission.
- It actually means: “God saves”.
- It is a name he was given as a result of heavenly instruction: both Mary and Joseph (Lk 1:31; Mt 1:21) receive the order to call him by this name.
- In the message to Joseph the meaning of the name is explained: “for he will save his people from their sins”.2.
- Christ defines his saving mission as a service whose highest expression will be the sacrifice of his life for mankind: “For the Son of man also came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mk 10:45; Mt 20:28).
These words, spoken to counter the disciples’ tendency to seek the first place in the kingdom, are primarily meant to awaken in them a new mentality, which conforms more closely to that of the Teacher. In the Book of Daniel, the figure described as “one like a son of man” is shown surrounded by the glory due to leaders who receive universal veneration: “all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him” (Dn 7:14).
- Jesus contrasts this figure with the Son of man who puts himself at the service of all.
- As a divine person, he would be fully entitled to be served.
- But in saying he had “come to serve”, he shows a disturbing aspect of God’s behaviour: although he has the right and the power to make himself served, he puts himself “at the service” of his creatures.
Jesus is the only Saviour and MediatorJesus expresses this desire to serve in an eloquent and moving way at the Last Supper when he washes his disciples’ feet: a symbolic act which will be impressed as a rule of life on their memory for ever: “You also ought to wash one another’s feet” (Jn 13:14).3.
- In saying that the Son of man came to give his life as a ransom for many, Jesus is referring to the prophecy of the suffering Servant who “makes himself an offering for sin” (Is 53:10).
- It is a personal sacrifice, very different from the animal sacrifices used ancient worship.
- It is a life given “as a ransom for many”, that is, for the immense multitude of humanity, for “all”.
Jesus thus appears as the universal Saviour: all human beings, according to the divine plan, are ransomed, freed and saved by him. Paul says: “Since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, they arejustified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus” (Rom 3:24).
Salvation is a gift that can be received by each one to the extent of his free consent and voluntary co-operation.4. As universal Saviour, Christ is the only Saviour. Peter affirms this clearly: “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).
At the same time, he is also proclaimed the only mediator between God and men, as the First Letter to Timothy affirms: “For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all” (1 Tm 2: 56).
As the God-man, Jesus is the perfect mediator who unites men with God, obtaining for them the goods of salvation and divine life. This is a unique mediation which excludes any competing or parallel mediation, although it is compatible with participated forms of mediation (cf. Redemptoris inissio, n.5).
Consequently, any other autonomous sources or ways of salvation cannot be admitted apart from Christ. Thus in the great religions, which the Church considers with respect and esteem in the way indicated by the Second Vatican Council, Christians recognize the presence of saving elements, which nevertheless operate in dependence on the influence of Christ’s grace.
- Therefore these religions can contribute, by virtue of the mysterious action of the Holy Spirit who “blows where he wills” (Jn 3:8), to helping men on their way to eternal happiness, but this role is also the fruit of Christ’s redemptive activity.
- Thus with regard to other religions, Christ the Saviour is also mysteriously at work.
In this task he unites to himself the Church, which is in a way the “sacrament of communion with God and of unity among all men” (Lumen gentium, n.1).Christ alone can satisfy all our desires 5. I would like to conclude with a wonderful passage from the Treatise on True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, by St Louis de Montfort, which proclaims the Christological faith of the Church: “Jesus Christ is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end of everything.
He is the only teacher from whom we must learn; the only Lord on whom we should depend; the only Head to whom we should be united and the only model that we should imitate. He is the only Physician that can heal us; the only Shepherd that can feed us; the only Way that can lead us; the only Truth that we can believe; the only Life that can animate us.
He alone is everything to us and he alone can satisfy all our desires. Each one of the faithful who is not united to him is like a branch broken from the stem of the vine. It falls and withers and is fit only to be burnt. If we live in Jesus and Jesus lives in us, we need not fear damnation.
- Neither angels in heaven nor men on earth, nor devils in hell, no creature whatever can harm us, for no creature can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus.
- Through him, with him and in him we can do all things and render all honour and glory to the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit; we can become perfect and be for our neighbour a fragrance of eternal life” (n.6 1).
: Jesus sent by the Father for the salvation of the world
What language did Jesus speak?
Jesus Was Likely Multilingual – Most religious scholars and historians agree with Pope Francis that the historical Jesus principally spoke a Galilean dialect of Aramaic. Through trade, invasions and conquest, the Aramaic language had spread far afield by the 7th century B.C.
- And would become the lingua franca in much of the Middle East.
- In the first century A.D., it would have been the most commonly used language among ordinary Jewish people, as opposed to the religious elite, and the most likely to have been used among Jesus and his disciples in their daily lives.
- But Netanyahu was technically correct as well.
Hebrew, which is from the same linguistic family as Aramaic, was also in common use in Jesus’ day. Similar to Latin today, Hebrew was the chosen language for religious scholars and the holy scriptures, including the Bible (although some of the Old Testament was written in Aramaic).
Did Jesus ever call himself God?
Interview Highlights – On a major difference between the first three gospels — Matthew, Mark and Luke — and the last gospel, John During his lifetime, Jesus himself didn’t call himself God and didn’t consider himself God, and, none of his disciples had any inkling at all that he was God.
You do find Jesus calling himself God in the Gospel of John, or the last Gospel. Jesus says things like, “Before Abraham was, I am.” And, “I and the Father are one,” and, “If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father.” These are all statements you find only in the Gospel of John, and that’s striking because we have earlier gospels and we have the writings of Paul, and in none of them is there any indication that Jesus said such things.
I think it’s completely implausible that Matthew, Mark and Luke would not mention that Jesus called himself God if that’s what he was declaring about himself. That would be a rather important point to make. This is not an unusual view amongst scholars; it’s simply the view that the Gospel of John is providing a theological understanding of Jesus that is not what was historically accurate.
Is Yahweh and Allah the same?
Though Muslims and Christians can describe Allah and Yahweh in similar ways at times, they are not the same god.
Who is the son of Jesus?
Modern works – Produced during the late 19th-century were the first of several expansions of this theme of marriage between Jesus and Mary Magdalene, providing the couple with a named child. The French socialist politician, Louis Martin (pseudonym of Léon Aubry, died 1900), in his 1886 book Les Evangiles sans Dieu ( The Gospels without God ), republished the next year in his Essai sur la vie de Jésus ( Essay on the life of Jesus ), described the historical Jesus as a socialist and atheist,
- He related that after his crucifixion, Mary Magdalene, along with the family of Lazarus of Bethany, brought the body of Jesus to Provence, and there Mary had a child, Maximin, the fruit of her love for Jesus.
- The scenario was dismissed as ‘certainly strange’ by a contemporary reviewer.
- During the late 20th century there was a flourishing of a genre of popular books claiming that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and had a family.
Donovan Joyce ‘s 1972 best-seller, The Jesus Scroll, presented an alternative timeline for Jesus that purportedly originated from a mysterious document. He claimed that, after being denied access to the Masada archaeological site, he was met at the Tel Aviv airport by an American University professor using the pseudonym “Max Grosset”, who held a large scroll he claimed to have smuggled from the site.
- Relating its contents to Joyce, Grosset offered to pay him to smuggle it out of the country, but then became spooked when his flight was delayed and snuck away; he was never identified and the scroll was not known of again.
- According to Joyce, the ‘Jesus Scroll’ was a personal letter by 80-year-old Yeshua ben Ya’akob ben Gennesareth, heir of the Hasmonean dynasty and hence rightful King of Israel, written on the eve of the capture of the city by the Romans after a suicide pact ended Masada’s resistance.
It was said to have described the man as married, and that he had a son whose crucifixion the letter’s author had witnessed. Joyce identified the writer with Jesus of Nazareth, who, he claimed, had survived his own crucifixion to marry and settle at Masada, and suggested a conspiracy to hide the contents of the Dead Sea Scrolls in order to suppress this counter-narrative to Christian orthodoxy.
Barbara Thiering, in her 1992 book Jesus and the Riddle of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Unlocking the Secrets of His Life Story, republished as Jesus the Man, and made into a documentary, The Riddle of the Dead Sea Scrolls, by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, also developed a Jesus and Mary Magdalene familial scenario.
Thiering based her historical conclusions on her application of the so-called Pesher technique (interpretation based on ancient commentaries) to the New Testament, In this work of pseudo-scholarship, Thiering would even date the betrothal of Jesus and Mary Magdalene precisely to 30 June, AD 30, at 10:00 p.m.
She relocated the events in the life of Jesus from Bethlehem, Nazareth and Jerusalem to Qumran, and related that Jesus was revived after an incomplete crucifixion and married Mary Magdalene, who was already pregnant by him, that they had a daughter Tamar and a son Jesus Justus born in AD 41, and Jesus then divorced Mary to wed a Jewess named Lydia, going to Rome where he died.
The account was dismissed as fanciful by scholar Michael J. McClymond. Ossuary of ‘Yehuda bar Yeshua’ (Judah son of Jesus), from the Talpiot Tomb, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem. In the television documentary, The Lost Tomb of Jesus, and book The Jesus Family Tomb, both from 2007, fringe investigative journalist Simcha Jacobovici and Charles R.
Pellegrino proposed that ossuaries in the Talpiot Tomb, discovered in Jerusalem in 1980, belonged to Jesus and his family. Jacobovici and Pellegrino argue that Aramaic inscriptions reading “Judah, son of Jesus”, “Jesus, son of Joseph”, and “Mariamne”, a name they associate with Mary Magdalene, together preserve the record of a family group consisting of Jesus, his wife Mary Magdalene and son Judah.
Such theory has been rejected by the overwhelming majority of biblical scholars, archaeologists and theologians, including the archaeologist Amos Kloner, who managed the archeological excavation of the tomb itself. During the same year a book was published with a similar theme that Jesus and Mary Magdalene produced a family, authored by psychic medium and best-selling author Sylvia Browne, The Two Marys: The Hidden History of the Mother and Wife of Jesus,
The Jesus Seminar, a group of scholars involved in the quest for the historical Jesus from a liberal Christian perspective, were unable to determine whether Jesus and Mary Magdalene had a matrimonial relationship due to the dearth of historical evidence, They concluded that the historical Mary Magdalene was not a repentant prostitute but a prominent disciple of Jesus and authority in the early Christian community.
The claims that Jesus and Mary Magdalene fled to France parallel other legends about the flight of disciples to distant lands, such as the one depicting Joseph of Arimathea traveling to England after the death of Jesus, taking with him a piece of thorn from the Crown of Thorns, which he later planted in Glastonbury, Joseph meets Asenath (1490/1500).
Does Yahweh mean Jesus?
Worship Jesus, Because He Is Yahweh Orthodox Christians believe that God is a Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. These three persons in the Trinity are one, but yet distinct. However, the authors of the New Testament identify Jesus as the Son of God (Matthew 3-4), while also ascribing to him the status of Yahweh (Rom.10:8-13).
- By doing this, the New Testament authors do not confuse Jesus, the Son, with God, the Father.
- Rather, they include Jesus within the divine identity of Yahweh by ascribing to him actions, words, and Jewish Scriptures that refer to Yahweh.
- In this piece, I want to display this truth from the first few verses of Mark’s prologue.
Old Testament Texts about Yahweh Applied to Jesus In Mark 1:2-3, Mark brings together three Old Testament texts: Mal.3:1, Exod.23:30, and Isa.40:3. Mark probably cites Isaiah alone as the author of the citation instead of Malachi, Exodus, and Isaiah because more of the quoted material comes from Isaiah.
In the Greek version of Mal.3:1 (the version Mark cites), the Lord is speaking and says he will send his messenger “before me” (i.e., before Yahweh), who will “look attentively at the way before me” (i.e., before Yahweh) (emphasis mine). In Exod.23:20, Yahweh tells Moses he will send an angel before him (Moses) to bring him to the place that he (Yahweh) prepared and that Moses should listen to the angel, but Mark’s citation states that “I” (i.e., Yahweh) will send my messenger “before you.” Mal.3:1 states Yahweh would send his messenger and that the messenger would prepare a way “for me” (for Yahweh).
Mark conflates Exod.23:20 along with Isa.40:3 and Mal.3:1, but his use of these texts do not perfectly correlate with either one of these texts in their original context. It’s very likely that Mark’s use of these texts represent his Christological interpretation of the Old Testament in light of the coming of Jesus Christ.
Mark endeavors to demonstrate that Jesus is in fact this Yahweh who brings salvation and whose way is being prepared by his messenger, John the Baptist (Mark 1:4). Isa.40:3 originally referred to the announcement that Yahweh’s judgment and salvation are near (Isa 40:3-41:19). In Mal,3:1 and Isa.40:3, Yahweh himself promises to bring salvation to his people, and he sends a prophetic messenger to make this announcement.
This prophetic element is absent from Exod.23:20. Instead, a messenger goes before Israel in the wilderness. Mark’s citation suggests that John the Baptist is the one crying out in the wilderness and that Jesus is the Lord about whom John is crying out.
- Mark, thus, seems especially to bring together these two Old Testament texts, both of which speak of Yahweh’s salvation for his people at a time when salvation seemed far away because of sin (Isa.40:1).
- Hence, Mark’s emphasis is on Jesus, for the Lord’s coming in these Old Testament prophecies is seen by Mark as the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God (see Mark 1:1).
Jesus and Yahweh’s Divine Identity To clarify, I don’t mean that Jesus is the Father or that the Father is Jesus. I mean that Jesus is Yahweh. In other words, Mark’s interpretation of these Old Testament texts suggests that Mark includes Jesus into the divine identity of Yahweh.
Jesus is the Son, but he is Yahweh in the flesh, while simultaneously remaining God’s Son (compare Mark 1:2-3 with 1:11 and 2:7-12). The Preaching of John the Baptist (Mark 1:4-8) John’s baptism confirms my interpretation of Jesus’ identity. In v.4, John baptizes in the wilderness (a clear connection with the citation from Isa.40:3), and he preaches a baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
Scholars debate the origin of John’s baptism (e.g., Jewish Proselyte baptism or the Qumran Community responsible for the Dead Sea Scrolls or Jewish ritual washings ) to which there is not a conclusive answer. But Mark states that John’s baptism was Christological in nature.
Mark records in chapter 1, verses 4-5 that many Jews came out to John to be baptized and that they were confessing their sins. In vv.7-8, Mark states that John’s preaching and baptism consisted of the announcement that Israel’s God (i.e., Jesus) is coming after him to bring salvation (again a clear connection with the above Old Testament citations).
The salvation aspect of his coming is represented by John’s reference to the Spirit. Mark leaves out fire in his narrative, but Matthew includes fire with Spirit. Many texts in extra-biblical Jewish literature speak of God’s judgment with the imagery of fire (Jubilees 9:15; 36:10; 1 Enoch 10:6; 54: 6; 60:24-27; 4 Ezra 7:36-38; 13:4; Pss Sol 15:4-7; 1 QH 3:28-31 ).
- Mark emphasizes Jesus’ superiority over John in that he states that “John baptizes by means of water,” but Jesus “will baptize by means of the Holy Spirit,” which means that Jesus brings salvation and ushers in the age of the Spirit by his coming (Ezekiel 36-37; Joel 2; Acts 2; 10:45; 1 Cor.12:13).
- This salvation is what Yahweh promised to bring to Israel.
John’s baptism, says Mark, is a “baptism of repentance” (see also Luke 3:3; Acts 13:24; 19:4). John’s baptism was characterized by the recipients of it repenting of their sins. As John preached, he called his readers to repent, and they demonstrate such repentance by embracing his baptism.
This act of repentance-baptism would affirm they embraced his message about the coming Messiah, because Mark 1:7 states he “preached saying the greater one than me is coming after me.” This implies that his hearers should yield their allegiance to Jesus, this coming one (see also Acts 13:24; 19:4). Why Does Mark Describe John’s Clothing and Diet? Mark’s description of John’s apparel in 1:6 (“hair of a camel,” “leather belt around his waist”) probably invoked in Mark’s original hearers the imagery of Elijah.2 Kings 1:8 states Elijah wore a garment of “hair with a leather belt around his waist.” In light of Mark’s appeal to Mal.3:1 and in light of Malachi’s discussion regarding the future of Elijah (Mal.4:5; see also Zech.13:4), Mark’s readers/hearers could have seen a connection between John’s prophetic ministry and the coming of Elijah by virtue of Mark describing John’s clothing similarly as the Old Testament described Elijah’s.
John’s choice of food (“eating locusts and wild honey”) makes sense in light of his Jewish and wilderness context. Locusts were the only insects permitted as food according to the Mosaic Law (Lev.11:20-23; Dead Sea Scroll, The Damascus Document 12.14-15; see also Josephus, Life 11).
- Wild honey from wild bees was typical of the food that one would find in the wilderness too (Lev.11:21-23).
- But why else would Mark mention John’s eating habits in chapter 1? He does so because this further emphasizes that Mark understood the Old Testament texts to be fulfilled in the coming of Jesus and his messenger John.
Mark’s description of John’s clothing and eating habits further support that he ministered in the wilderness, from where the announcement about the coming of Yahweh would come, and Jesus is the coming one about whom John makes the announcement. Because Jesus is Yahweh coming to save his people, John says he’s unworthy to take off Jesus’ sandals (Mark 1:7).
- Conclusion Christians worship the one and true living God.
- This God is Father, Son, and Spirit.
- But this one God has chosen to reveal himself to sinful humans by means of the incarnation of the Son, Jesus Christ.
- When Jesus became a man, he did not become a god, but God, the Son, became Jesus a Jewish man.
When Christians worship Jesus, we worship Yahweh. When Christians serve Jesus, we serve Yahweh. When Christians wholly devote their lives to Jesus, we wholly devote our lives to Yahweh. May God help Christians to worship Jesus with urgency, joy, and passion, because he is Yahweh.
Who is the Holy Spirit?
God the Holy Spirit – A depiction of the Trinity consisting of God the Holy Spirit along with God the Father and God the Son ( Jesus ). The Christian doctrine of the Trinity includes the concept of God the Holy Spirit, along with God the Son and God the Father, Theologian Vladimir Lossky has argued that while, in the act of the Incarnation, God the Son became manifest as the Son of God, the same did not take place for God the Holy Spirit which remained unrevealed.
- Yet, as in 1 Corinthians 6:19, God the Spirit continues to dwell in the faithful.
- In a similar way, the Latin treatise De Trinitate ( On the Trinity ) of Augustine of Hippo affirms: “For as the Father is God, and the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, which no one doubts to be said in respect to substance, yet we do not say that the very Supreme Trinity itself is three Gods, but one God.But position, and condition, and places, and times, are not said to be in God properly, but metaphorically and through similitudes,And as respects action (or making), perhaps it may be said most truly of God alone, for God alone makes and Himself is not made.
Nor is He liable to passions as far as belongs to that substance whereby He is God.So the Father is omnipotent, the Son omnipotent, and the Holy Spirit is omnipotent; yet not three omnipotents, but one omnipotent,Whatever, therefore, is spoken of God in respect to Himself, is both spoken singly of each Person, that is, of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit; and together of the Trinity itself, not plurally but in the singular.” In Christian theology the Holy Spirit is believed to perform specific divine functions in the life of the Christian or the church.
- The action of the Holy Spirit is seen as an essential part of the bringing of the person to the Christian faith.
- The new believer is “born again of the Spirit”.
- The Holy Spirit enables Christian life by dwelling in the individual believers and enables them to live a righteous and faithful life.
- The Holy Spirit also acts as comforter or Paraclete, one who intercedes, or supports or acts as an advocate, particularly in times of trial.
And he acts to convince the unredeemed person both of the sinfulness of their actions and of their moral standing as sinners before God. Another faculty of the Holy Spirit is the inspiration and interpretation of scripture. The Holy Spirit both inspires the writing of the scriptures and interprets them to the Christian and the church.
What is the powerful name of God?
Old Testament – YHWH, the Hebrew Name for God The simplest form by which God is referred to in the Old Testament is El (see proper names of earlier Canaanite gods ). Elohim (singular Eloah) is likely derived from the same root and points to God as being strong and mighty, able to judge and to strike fear.
- Elyon refers to elevation and being exalted.
- These are, however, not proper names for God, but epithets also used for rulers and judges.
- Adonai has a similar context and refers to God as a powerful ruler.
- Similarly, El Shaddai, derived from “shad” i.e.
- Lord, also points to the power of God.
- Yahweh is the principal name in the Old Testament by which God reveals himself and is the most sacred, distinctive and incommunicable name of God.
Based on Lev, 24:16: “He that blasphemes the name of Yahweh shall surely be put to death”, Jews generally avoided the use of Yahweh and substituted Adonai or Elohim for it when reading Scripture. The name “Jehovah” on the dome of the Roman Catholic Saint Martin’s Church in Olten, Switzerland, 1521 The pronunciation of YHWH in the Old Testament can never be certain, given that the original Hebrew text only used consonants, The English form Jehovah ( יְהֹוָה , Yəhōwā ) was formed during the Middle Ages by combining the Latinization of the four consonants YHWH with the vowel points that Masoretes used to indicate that the reader should say Adonai when YHWH was encountered.
Thus Jehovah was obtained by adding the vowels of Adonai to the consonants of YHWH. Jehovah appears in Tyndale’s Bible, the King James Version, and other translations from that time period and later. In Christianity, certain hymns dedicated to God invoke the divine name using the vocalization Jehovah, such as Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah,
The Jehovah’s Witnesses, a Restorationist denomination, make consistent use of Jehovah, Jah or Yah is an abbreviation of Jahweh/Yahweh/Jehovah, and often sees usage by Christians in the interjection Hallelujah, meaning “Praise Jah”, which is used to give God glory.
Many English translations of the Bible translate the Tetragrammaton as L ORD, following the Jewish practice of substituting Adonai for it. In the same sense as the substitution of Adonai, the Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Bible to Greek mainly used the word Kyrios ( Greek : Κύριος, meaning ‘lord’) for YHWH.
Apostle Paul was likely familiar with the use of the term Kyrios in the Septuagint and used it in his letters to refer to Jesus, thus signifying his divinity. The pronouncement ” I Am that I Am ” in Exodus 3:14, in rabbinical scholarship taken as a gloss on the meaning of the Tetragrammaton, was in Hellenistic Judaism rendered as ἐγώ εἰμί ὁ ὢν,
What does Yahweh mean?
‘Yahweh’ is the Hebrew word for the self-revealed name of the God of the Old Testament. It comes from the Hebrew verb ‘To be.’ At its core, ‘Yahweh’ means ‘To be.’ The English Bible translates it as ‘LORD,’ which distinguishes it from ‘Lord’ (which is translated as ‘master’).
How tall was Jesus?
What Research and Science Can Tell Us About Jesus – In 2001, the retired medical artist Richard Neave led a team of Israeli and British forensic anthropologists and computer programmers in creating a new image of Jesus, based on an Israeli skull dating to the first century A.D., computer modeling and their knowledge of what Jewish people looked like at the time.
- Though no one claims it’s an exact reconstruction of what Jesus himself actually looked like, scholars consider this image—around five feet tall, with darker skin, dark eyes, and shorter, curlier hair—to be more accurate than many artistic depictions of the son of God.
- In her 2018 book What Did Jesus Look Like?, Taylor used archaeological remains, historical texts and ancient Egyptian funerary art to conclude that, like most people in Judea and Egypt around the time, Jesus most likely had brown eyes, dark brown to black hair and olive-brown skin.
He may have stood about 5-ft.-5-in. (166 cm) tall, the average man’s height at the time. While Cargill agrees that these more recent images of Jesus—including darker, perhaps curlier hair, darker skin and dark eyes—probably come closer to the truth, he stresses that we can never really know exactly what Jesus looked like.
What was Jesus religion?
Jesus’ identity cannot be understood apart from his Jewishness. Harold W. Attridge: The Lillian Claus Professor of New Testament Yale Divinity School What was the dominant religious influence on ? Jesus was certainly subject to the influence of the traditions of Israel, there’s no doubt about that. But in what form those traditions came to him in Galilee at the beginning of the first century is somewhat unclear.
- He certainly would have known of the Temple in Jerusalem, and probably, as traditions report., would have gone up to Jerusalem for the major pilgrimage festivals.
- He would have known of the rituals of the Temple, their atoning ignificance.
- He would have celebrated Passover, I suspect, with his family, and would have known of the hopes embedded in Passover for divine deliverance.
He probably was aware of the growing Pharisaic movement which preached a notion of purity that was available to all Jews, not simply those who were officiating at the Temple cult. He certainly would have known Jewish scripture, And we can see in some of his parables how he plays on images from scripture.
For instance, the great Cedar of Lebanon from Ezekial probably plays a role in his description of the mustard seed, which becomes a tree, and there’s probably an element of parody there. So his relationship with the scriptural heritage is a complex one, but it certainly is an important one in his formation.
Shaye I.D. Cohen: Samuel Ungerleider Professor of Judaic Studies and Professor of Religious Studies Brown University Was Jesus Jewish and, if he was, how would that have influenced his experiences as a young man growing up in Galilee? Was Jesus a Jew? Of course, Jesus was a Jew. He was born of a Jewish mother, in Galilee, a Jewish part of the world. All of his friends, associates, colleagues, disciples, all of them were Jews.
- He regularly worshipped in Jewish communal worship, what we call synagogues.
- He preached from Jewish text, from the Bible.
- He celebrated the Jewish festivals.
- He went on pilgrimage to the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem where he was under the authority of priests.
- He lived, was born, lived, died, taught as a Jew.
This is obvious to any casual reader of the gospel text. What’s striking is not so much that he was a Jew but that the gospels make no pretense that he wasn’t. The gospels have no sense yet that Jesus was anything other than a Jew. The gospels don’t even have a sense that he came to found a new religion, an idea completely foreign to all the gospel text, and completely foreign to Paul.
- That is an idea which comes about only later.
- So, to say that he was a Jew is saying a truism, is simply stating an idea that is so obvious on the face of it, one wonders it even needs to be said.
- But, of course, it does need to be said because we all know what happens later in the story, where it turns out that Christianity becomes something other than Judaism and as a result, Jesus in retrospect is seen not as a Jew, but as something else, as a founder of Christianity.
But, of course, he was a Jew. Paula Fredriksen: William Goodwin Aurelio Professor of the Appreciation of Scripture, Boston University Was Jesus Jewish? Why is it so important to us and why would it have colored his perceptions? What astonishes me when I read the stories about Jesus in the New Testament, is how completely embedded he is in this first century.
Jewish world of religious practice and piety. We tend to get distracted by the major plot line of the gospels, because we’re waiting for the story to develop up to the crucifixion. But, within that story, and the stories that are told by the evangelists that fills in the gap between the Galilee and Jerusalem, Jesus presented continuously as going into the synagogue on the Sabbath.
He is presented as going up to Jerusalem for the pilgrimage holidays, specifically in John, for any number of pilgrimage holidays, and in the synoptic gospels, most importantly, for Passover. Jerusalem at Passover is not the sort of place you’d want to be in unless you were really committed to doing an awful lot of ritual activity with tremendous historical resonance.
- Hat we’ve learned from the gospel stories is not that Jesus was not Jewish.
- Quite the opposite.
- He’s completely embedded in the Judaism of his time.
- What we learn from the gospels is that he’s not a member of one of the groups whose identifying characteristics Josephus gave to us.
- He’s not a Sadducee.
- He’s not a Pharisee.
He’s always arguing with the Pharisees. He’s not an Essene. He’s not an insurrectionist. And the fact that he’s arguing with other people who may be members of these other groups just simply signifies that he’s a Jew, because that’s what these Jews all did with each other – argue with each other all the time.
When was Jesus officially named?
Ancient Words — God in Control: On the Eighth Day Luke 2:21: “And when eight days were accomplished for the circumcising of the child, his name was called Jesus, which was so named of the angel before he was conceived in the womb.” (KJV-BRG). At first glance, this scripture reads as ordinary, commonplace and without particular significance.
Circumcision has been going on for Israel born boys since God gave the command to Abraham over 2,000 years earlier. Gen.17:10-14: “This is my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee; Every man child among you shall be circumcised. And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you.
And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every man child in your generations, he that is born in the house, or bought with money of any stranger, which is not of thy seed. He that is born in thy house, and he that is bought with thy money, must needs be circumcised: and my covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant.
And the uncircumcised man child whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his people; he hath broken my covenant.” Jesus had to be circumcised to become an “official Jew.” In terms of the Jewish law, he was not officially declared Jewish until this practice of removing the foreskin was accomplished.
Joseph and Mary saw to it that on the eighth day, according to scripture, Jesus was circumcised and “his name was called Jesus.” Remember they were in Bethlehem to register for Roman tax purposes. It is very likely that these new parents waited the week required in Genesis 17 and registered on the census all three names — Joseph, Mary, and their 8-day-old son, Jesus.
- Please note that Luke uses the word “child” in Luke 2 for an 8-day-old baby, the very same word used by Matthew in Matthew 2.
- Christmas skeptics use the word “child” in Matthew to try and prove Jesus was older as much as 2 years old in Matthew’s account).
- Because of the name of “Jesus” entry into Jewish record, about 500 years later a devout Christian monk Dionysius Exiguus, changed the world dating system, in both Julian and Gregorian calendars, to reflect BC and AD with Jesus at the exact center of the division.
The term BC means “Before Christ” (before the baby was officially a Jew) and AD is a Latin word, Anno Domini, meaning “In the year of our Lord” (the day he was named “Jesus”). He bridged 1 BC to AD 1 without a “0.” This identity of time would place Jesus’ day of circumcision on the first day of the first month of AD 1.
Backing up eight days would place Jesus’ birth on the 25th day of the 12th month of 1 BC. In fact, Jesus was physically born on a Sunday (the last Sunday of the BC era, 12/25/1 BC), was registered into his nation’s records on a Sunday (the first Sunday of the AD era, AD 1/1/1) and then Jesus rose from the dead in AD 33 on a Sunday.
Please recall the first day of creation was a Sunday as well — and God said “Let there be Light,” and the evening and the morning were the first day (Sunday)! God began the creation of the world on a Sunday, he sent his Son to be born of woman on a Sunday, he named him with official registration as “Jesus” on a Sunday and he resurrected him from the grave on a Sunday.
- And some folks don’t think Sunday is important)! Praise be to the Lord God and Father of all who controls and orders all existence in perfect harmony and symmetry to the Praise of his Glory! The history and intention of Mr.
- Exiguus cannot be argued.
- His work has set the order of time for 2016 years in AD and 4000 years in BC.
Unfortunately, “modern scholars” began focusing on Herod’s date of death (with much conjecture – 4 BC) as a benchmark for early BC/AD and the work of Exiguus relating to the transition of BC to AD (and the exact birth of Jesus) has been ignored and discarded.
Nonetheless, God’s celebration of divine Sundays happened for the 288th time this past Dec.25 with Immanuel’s birth and it will happen again Jan.1, 2017, with Immanuel’s name. Most of the whole world will celebrate the New Year of 2017 this Sunday yet will fail to see the very reason for AD celebration came 2016 years before when a child, a baby boy, was brought to Jerusalem’s temple on the eighth day and named Jesus!!! (Do you think Jesus might just return on a Sunday)? (Scott Johnson is pastor at East Faulkner Church of Christ and author of the BRG Bible).
: Ancient Words — God in Control: On the Eighth Day
How old was Jesus when he died?
However, Bond makes the case Jesus died around Passover, between A.D.29 and 34. Considering Jesus’ varying chronology, he was 33 to 40 years old at his time of death.
When was Jesus born?
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Nativity by Robert Campin ( c. 1420 ), depicting the birth of Jesus Christ during Spring | |
Date | 8/8/8 BC |
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The date of birth of Jesus is not stated in the gospels or in any historical sources, but most biblical scholars generally accept a date of birth between 6 BC and 4 BC, the year in which King Herod died. The historical evidence is too incomplete to allow a definitive dating, but the year is estimated through three different approaches:
- analysing references to known historical events mentioned in the nativity accounts in the Gospels of Luke and Matthew,
- working backward from the estimation of the start of the ministry of Jesus, and
- astrological or astronomical alignments.
The common Christian traditional dating of the birthdate of Jesus was 25 December, a date first asserted officially by Pope Julius I in 350 AD, although this claim is dubious or otherwise unfounded. The day or season has been estimated by various methods, including the description of shepherds watching over their sheep.
Why did Jesus call the 12?
Biblical accounts – According to : One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God. When morning came, he called his disciples to him and chose twelve of them, whom he also designated apostles: Simon (whom he named Peter), his brother Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Simon who was called the Zealot, Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.
- According to Matthew: Jesus called his twelve disciples to him and gave them authority to drive out impure spirits and to heal every disease and sickness.
- These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon (who is called Peter) and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.
According to Mark: Jesus went up on a mountainside and called to him those he wanted, and they came to him. He appointed twelve that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach and to have authority to drive out demons. These are the twelve he appointed: Simon (to whom he gave the name Peter), James son of Zebedee and his brother John (to them he gave the name Boanerges, which means “sons of thunder”), Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Thaddaeus, Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, who eventually betrayed him.
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Is it Yahshua or Yahusha?
Usage – The pronunciation of the older, longer name as Yehoshua is attested to since ancient times. In the 19th century, the Second Great Awakening lead to a religious revival of Protestantism in America which spawned several divergent movements. Among these newfound movements was Adventism, which, among other things, mandated a return to the recognition of the Jewish Sabbath as the Christian Sabbath.
Part of a larger attitude to reorient Christianity to what was considered its Jewish roots, Adventism eventually gave rise to groups such as the Assemblies of Yahweh, which taught that the Tetragrammaton should be directly translated as Yahweh as opposed to the traditional translation of simply “L ORD “.
As a part of this, attempts were made to more directly correlate Jesus to the Israelite god. In Hebrew (which normally writes only consonants), Yehoshua starts with the same two letters as Yahweh, The new pronunciation was produced by incorporating the pronunciation of the first syllable of Yahweh into Yehoshua, producing Yah-shua,
Does Yahweh mean Jesus?
Worship Jesus, Because He Is Yahweh Orthodox Christians believe that God is a Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. These three persons in the Trinity are one, but yet distinct. However, the authors of the New Testament identify Jesus as the Son of God (Matthew 3-4), while also ascribing to him the status of Yahweh (Rom.10:8-13).
By doing this, the New Testament authors do not confuse Jesus, the Son, with God, the Father. Rather, they include Jesus within the divine identity of Yahweh by ascribing to him actions, words, and Jewish Scriptures that refer to Yahweh. In this piece, I want to display this truth from the first few verses of Mark’s prologue.
Old Testament Texts about Yahweh Applied to Jesus In Mark 1:2-3, Mark brings together three Old Testament texts: Mal.3:1, Exod.23:30, and Isa.40:3. Mark probably cites Isaiah alone as the author of the citation instead of Malachi, Exodus, and Isaiah because more of the quoted material comes from Isaiah.
In the Greek version of Mal.3:1 (the version Mark cites), the Lord is speaking and says he will send his messenger “before me” (i.e., before Yahweh), who will “look attentively at the way before me” (i.e., before Yahweh) (emphasis mine). In Exod.23:20, Yahweh tells Moses he will send an angel before him (Moses) to bring him to the place that he (Yahweh) prepared and that Moses should listen to the angel, but Mark’s citation states that “I” (i.e., Yahweh) will send my messenger “before you.” Mal.3:1 states Yahweh would send his messenger and that the messenger would prepare a way “for me” (for Yahweh).
Mark conflates Exod.23:20 along with Isa.40:3 and Mal.3:1, but his use of these texts do not perfectly correlate with either one of these texts in their original context. It’s very likely that Mark’s use of these texts represent his Christological interpretation of the Old Testament in light of the coming of Jesus Christ.
- Mark endeavors to demonstrate that Jesus is in fact this Yahweh who brings salvation and whose way is being prepared by his messenger, John the Baptist (Mark 1:4).
- Isa.40:3 originally referred to the announcement that Yahweh’s judgment and salvation are near (Isa 40:3-41:19).
- In Mal,3:1 and Isa.40:3, Yahweh himself promises to bring salvation to his people, and he sends a prophetic messenger to make this announcement.
This prophetic element is absent from Exod.23:20. Instead, a messenger goes before Israel in the wilderness. Mark’s citation suggests that John the Baptist is the one crying out in the wilderness and that Jesus is the Lord about whom John is crying out.
Mark, thus, seems especially to bring together these two Old Testament texts, both of which speak of Yahweh’s salvation for his people at a time when salvation seemed far away because of sin (Isa.40:1). Hence, Mark’s emphasis is on Jesus, for the Lord’s coming in these Old Testament prophecies is seen by Mark as the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God (see Mark 1:1).
Jesus and Yahweh’s Divine Identity To clarify, I don’t mean that Jesus is the Father or that the Father is Jesus. I mean that Jesus is Yahweh. In other words, Mark’s interpretation of these Old Testament texts suggests that Mark includes Jesus into the divine identity of Yahweh.
- Jesus is the Son, but he is Yahweh in the flesh, while simultaneously remaining God’s Son (compare Mark 1:2-3 with 1:11 and 2:7-12).
- The Preaching of John the Baptist (Mark 1:4-8) John’s baptism confirms my interpretation of Jesus’ identity.
- In v.4, John baptizes in the wilderness (a clear connection with the citation from Isa.40:3), and he preaches a baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
Scholars debate the origin of John’s baptism (e.g., Jewish Proselyte baptism or the Qumran Community responsible for the Dead Sea Scrolls or Jewish ritual washings ) to which there is not a conclusive answer. But Mark states that John’s baptism was Christological in nature.
Mark records in chapter 1, verses 4-5 that many Jews came out to John to be baptized and that they were confessing their sins. In vv.7-8, Mark states that John’s preaching and baptism consisted of the announcement that Israel’s God (i.e., Jesus) is coming after him to bring salvation (again a clear connection with the above Old Testament citations).
The salvation aspect of his coming is represented by John’s reference to the Spirit. Mark leaves out fire in his narrative, but Matthew includes fire with Spirit. Many texts in extra-biblical Jewish literature speak of God’s judgment with the imagery of fire (Jubilees 9:15; 36:10; 1 Enoch 10:6; 54: 6; 60:24-27; 4 Ezra 7:36-38; 13:4; Pss Sol 15:4-7; 1 QH 3:28-31 ).
- Mark emphasizes Jesus’ superiority over John in that he states that “John baptizes by means of water,” but Jesus “will baptize by means of the Holy Spirit,” which means that Jesus brings salvation and ushers in the age of the Spirit by his coming (Ezekiel 36-37; Joel 2; Acts 2; 10:45; 1 Cor.12:13).
- This salvation is what Yahweh promised to bring to Israel.
John’s baptism, says Mark, is a “baptism of repentance” (see also Luke 3:3; Acts 13:24; 19:4). John’s baptism was characterized by the recipients of it repenting of their sins. As John preached, he called his readers to repent, and they demonstrate such repentance by embracing his baptism.
- This act of repentance-baptism would affirm they embraced his message about the coming Messiah, because Mark 1:7 states he “preached saying the greater one than me is coming after me.” This implies that his hearers should yield their allegiance to Jesus, this coming one (see also Acts 13:24; 19:4).
- Why Does Mark Describe John’s Clothing and Diet? Mark’s description of John’s apparel in 1:6 (“hair of a camel,” “leather belt around his waist”) probably invoked in Mark’s original hearers the imagery of Elijah.2 Kings 1:8 states Elijah wore a garment of “hair with a leather belt around his waist.” In light of Mark’s appeal to Mal.3:1 and in light of Malachi’s discussion regarding the future of Elijah (Mal.4:5; see also Zech.13:4), Mark’s readers/hearers could have seen a connection between John’s prophetic ministry and the coming of Elijah by virtue of Mark describing John’s clothing similarly as the Old Testament described Elijah’s.
John’s choice of food (“eating locusts and wild honey”) makes sense in light of his Jewish and wilderness context. Locusts were the only insects permitted as food according to the Mosaic Law (Lev.11:20-23; Dead Sea Scroll, The Damascus Document 12.14-15; see also Josephus, Life 11).
Wild honey from wild bees was typical of the food that one would find in the wilderness too (Lev.11:21-23). But why else would Mark mention John’s eating habits in chapter 1? He does so because this further emphasizes that Mark understood the Old Testament texts to be fulfilled in the coming of Jesus and his messenger John.
Mark’s description of John’s clothing and eating habits further support that he ministered in the wilderness, from where the announcement about the coming of Yahweh would come, and Jesus is the coming one about whom John makes the announcement. Because Jesus is Yahweh coming to save his people, John says he’s unworthy to take off Jesus’ sandals (Mark 1:7).
- Conclusion Christians worship the one and true living God.
- This God is Father, Son, and Spirit.
- But this one God has chosen to reveal himself to sinful humans by means of the incarnation of the Son, Jesus Christ.
- When Jesus became a man, he did not become a god, but God, the Son, became Jesus a Jewish man.
When Christians worship Jesus, we worship Yahweh. When Christians serve Jesus, we serve Yahweh. When Christians wholly devote their lives to Jesus, we wholly devote our lives to Yahweh. May God help Christians to worship Jesus with urgency, joy, and passion, because he is Yahweh.
How was Jesus name originally written?
How Jesus got his name Q: In preparation for an upcoming lecture, I would be interested in knowing if you have any details about how the name of Jesus came into English. Specifically, how did it come to be pronounced so differently from the original Greek/Latin? A: Jesus was first referred to in Old English as hǽlend, or ” savior” (the word wasn’t capitalized).
- Before getting any further into how the spelling developed in English, let’s take a little detour into the etymology of “Jesus.”
- The name came into English from the Latin Iesus, a Roman transliteration of the Greek Iesous,
- It had come into Greek from the late Hebrew or Aramaic Yeshua, which was a common name for Jewish boys at the time of Jesus’s birth.
- (We’ve capitalized the names here, though proper nouns were treated the same as common nouns in classical Latin and Greek, as well as in ancient Hebrew and Aramaic.)
Yeshua, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, came from the earlier y’hoshua, which can be translated as “God ( Yahweh ) is salvation” or “God saves.” (Other forms of this name include Yehoshua, Jehoshua, and Joshua,) The name was first recorded in English as “iesu” around 1175, as part of “iesu cristes” in a book of homilies.
- The name was written in lowercase letters then, but we’ll follow the modern convention and capitalize it from now on.
- The absence of a final “s” was an influence of Old French, the OED says.
- Iesu” represented the Old French objective form of the Latin Iesus, and that was the form that came into Middle English and was used for some 400 years.
The spelling “Iesus,” representing the Latin nominative form, was rarely used in Middle English but became the regular English spelling in the 16th century, according to Oxford, As we mentioned above, “Jesus” wasn’t originally spelled with a “j” because the letter didn’t exist at the time.
- In the ancient Roman alphabet, the letter “i” had two sounds—it was a vowel, but also a consonant sounding like “y.”
- Sometime before the sixth century, as the OED explains, this “y” sound in Latin and other languages using the Roman alphabet began changing into a “consonantal diphthong.”
- This blend of the consonant sounds “d” and “y” (similar to the sound heard in the English words “odious” and “hideous”) gradually passed into what we now know as the “j” sound.
- The result, Oxford says, was that from the 11th to the 17th centuries the letter “i” had two extremely different sounds—it was both a vowel and a consonant sounding like “j.”
- Meanwhile, according to the OED, the guttural letter “g” was undergoing its own evolution, and began to develop a “softer” sound, similar to that of the modern “j.”
Clearly, European printers needed a new letter for a sound hitherto represented by both “i” and “g.” Thus “j,” looking in its lowercase form like an “i” with a tail, appeared—first in 15th-century Spanish and later in other languages using the Roman alphabet.
- The new letter became established in English in the mid-1600s, too late for the 1611 King James Version of the Bible.
- The earliest example in the OED of the “Jesus” spelling is from a 1632 case in the Court of High Commission, the supreme ecclesiastic court in England at that time:
- “That we are as carefull in printeing the Bible as they are of their Jesus’ psalter.”
- We couldn’t find any earlier examples in a search of Google Books, but we did find several others from the 1600s.
- Although the “differentiation of I and J, in form and value” was completed by 1640, the OED notes, “the feeling that they were, notwithstanding, merely forms of the same letter continued for many generations.”
By the way, “Christ” is not Jesus’s last name. Jews in his time had only one name. As we’ve written before on the, “Christ” is a title meaning “anointed one,” an Anglicized version of the Greek Kristos and the Latin Christus, Originally the first vowel had a short “i” sound, as in “mist.” In another, we’ve pointed out that the term “Xmas” has been around for hundreds of years.
No, it’s not a modern creation that represents the secularization and/or commercialization of Christmas. In fact, the use of “X” for “Christ” began nearly a thousand years ago. But you can’t blame secularists. Blame the monks in Great Britain who used “X” for “Christ” while transcribing manuscripts in Old English.
Why “X”? Because the Greek word for Christ, ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ, begins with the letters “chi” (or “X”) and “rho” (or “P”). And the monks used either “X” or “XP” in writing as an abbreviation for “Christ.” Help support the Grammarphobia Blog with your, And check out about the English language.
Who is Yeshua Ben Yosef?
Brief content visible, double tap to read full content. Full content visible, double tap to read brief content. Elder Moses Farrar, who turned eighty years young on Monday, December 28, 2009, recently retired as Elder-in-Charge of Fifth Tabernacle in Atlantic City, NJ.
Farrar is a member of Temple Beth El, the oldest and largest Hebrew Israelite congregation in the United States. Elder Farrar has been a faithful and loyal Elder-in-Charge for almost 38 years having served in Brooklyn, New Haven, Rochester, Philadelphia and most recently, Atlantic City. Moses Farrar was born in Richmond, Virginia, and is the youngest of eight children.
At age seven he went to live in the Hampton Roads area, 90 miles southeast of Richmond. Shortly after his arrival there he was selected from among many others in his age group to be trained in printing, where he learned to set type by hand – one letter at a time.
In the “old days” a beginner was called a “printer’s devil.” In 1941 his mother took him to Philadelphia to live. When old enough to enter high school he chose to attend Dobbins Vocational Technical High School where he continued studies in printing. He has worked on the staff of several newspapers and book-making plants in Philadelphia and Virginia.
In 1969 he opened his own printing business in Philadelphia, operating it for eight years. Ordained an Elder of an international Israelite congregation in 1971 (of which he is virtually a life-long member), he has headed congregations in Atlantic City, Brooklyn, New Haven, Rochester and Philadelphia, After moving to Brooklyn in 1976, he again established his printing business there for 15 years.
He is considered by many to be among the leading Biblicists, biblical historians and lecturers, having presented lectures and historical and spiritual seminars since 1980 at colleges and houses of worship of various persuasions. In 1991 Elder Farrar lectured from the stage of the world-famous Apollo Theater in Harlem.
The Author was chosen by the Chief Rabbi of his congregation to visit South Africa in 1991, 1992 and 1994 to assist in strengthening the spiritual work of our many associated congregations there. For 15 years he was a member of the religious panel for the training course, “Facilitating African-American Adoption,” sponsored by the New York Chapter Association of Black Social Workers’ Adoption Service.