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The Hiding Place - The Complete Movie

Corrie ten BoomPhoto: The Corrie Ten Boom House Foundation

The True story of Corrie ten Boom and her incredible family's faith in God against all evil.  Have plenty of Kleenex handy.

This is probably the most remarkable story of faith in the face of evil that I have ever known in the twentieth century.  This family not only lived their faith, they died by their faith, except for one incredible sister, who God spared to bring her story of Jesus to the world.  Whenever I start thinking I am a good Christian, I think of Corrie, and am ashamed. Cornelia Arnolda Johanna "Corrie" ten Boom  born and died on her birthday 91 years later on 15 April 1892 – 15 April 1983.  Corrie was a Dutch watchmaker and later a Christian writer and public speaker, who worked with her father, Casper ten Boom, her sister Betsie ten Boom and other family members to help many Jewish people escape from the Nazis during the Holocaust in World War II by hiding them in her home. They were caught, and she was arrested and sent to the Ravensbrück concentration camp. Her most famous book, The Hiding Place, which is here in full length is a biography that recounts the story of her family's efforts and how she found and shared hope in God while she was imprisoned at the concentration camp.

Her father was a watchmaker. Corrie trained to be a watchmaker herself, and in 1922, she became the first woman to be licensed as a watchmaker in the Netherlands.

Corrie ten Boom returned to the Netherlands after the war and set up a rehabilitation center for concentration camp survivors. In the Christian spirit to which she was so devoted, she also took in those who had cooperated with the Germans during the occupation. In 1946, she began a worldwide ministry that took her to more than 60 countries. She received many tributes, including being knighted by the queen of the Netherlands. In 1971, she wrote a best-selling book of her experiences during World War II, entitled The Hiding Place. In 1975, the book was made into a movie starring Jeannette Clift as Corrie and Julie Harris as her sister Betsie.

Death

In 1977, at age 85, Corrie ten Boom moved to Placentia, California. The next year, she suffered a series of strokes that left her paralyzed and unable to speak. She died on her 91st birthday, April 15, 1983. Her passing on this date evokes the Jewish traditional belief that states that only specially blessed people are granted the privilege of dying on the date they were born.

Watch the Trailer :

 

Here is the Complete Movie. Click to Watch it Streaming


SEX and GOD and the Bible

By Bob Barney 
image from gospelcentric.org 
It is very unfortunate that so many people have had their minds obfuscated with false religious dogma concerning sex and what God really wants us to know about the subject. You will see that God is no prude when it comes to sex and actually has given us a guideline on how to enjoy it without any guilt!    In Genesis, God creates man and woman after the GOD kind. Notice that all other created beings are created after their own kind, but man was created after God’s own kind. Note also that God says “Let US make man in OUR image”. At least two beings are talking together, and they claim to be God  (see the meaning of the word God here  ). What is the very first thing that God realized about man? “It is not good for the man to be alone.”  God does not want us to be alone. He wants us in a union with another human, just as God is one, he wants us to be one, with the helpmate that God gives us. Next notice the first command God gave to Adam and Eve. Gen 1:28   God blessed them and told them, "Multiply and fill the earth and subdue it. Be masters over the fish and birds and all the animals."  Then we read a little later this: Gen. 4:1   “Now Adam slept with his wife, Eve, and she became pregnant.” (NLT translation).    So sex was made for us to enjoy and to recreate after our own kind! We are meant to become part of the God Family. However, this command to have sex does not give us the license to have it with just anyone. Here are just SOME of the Biblical restrictions:

 

Continue reading "SEX and GOD and the Bible" »


Today's Podcast by Bob Barney talks about Christian Churches - "We have no god but CEASAR-- or Uncle Sam"

Screen Shot 2023-01-19 at 3.43.05 PM

Today, Bob Barney discusses Christ's warning about False Christianity and false ministers

Listen Below

We Have no God but CEASAR- or Uncle Sam

 

Today's Discussion Notes:

There are many doctrines taught in the mainstream Christian churches today that are fasel teachings, which are not supported by the Word of God in the Bible. But how can so many people around the world be wrong? Because they have been deceived by the "wine" (false doctrines) of Babylon the Great. The whore of Babylon has made the whole world drunk with her false teachings and as Revelation 13 confirms, she has made the "WHOLE world wonder after the beast."

The purpose of this page is to enlighten you with the TRUTH of God's Word regarding these teachings. And I would urge everyone to prayerfully study these things for themselves. Asking God to reveal the truth, because it is only through the truth that we will be able to stand against the deceptions of Satan during the last days before Christ Jesus returns.

 

The White Horse: FALSE RELIGION

What Must Happen BEFORE Christ Returns

Shock: Americans ditch biblical worldview for ‘fake Christianity’

Jesus warned us about A False Christ

Jesus Said MANY would come in HIS Name? Are you following a False Christ?

Understanding Matthew 24 and the Four Horsemen Prophecy

False Doctrines Exposed

“Satan’s secret society and true Christianity”


SatanCon announces 2023 plans for Boston

Premium tickets offered with access to 'marketplace' and 't-shirt'


Israeli scholar translates inscription 'proving Scripture's reliability.' Others disagree

'Right in front of the eyes of the Bible's authors stood monuments with royal inscriptions'

(Photo by Mick Haupt on Unsplash)

(Photo by Mick Haupt on Unsplash)


Leftists insist that Bible's morality actually is 'hate' speech

Demand school board ban it at meetings


When Christmas was illegal in America

Christmas in the post-War United StatesChristmas in the post-War United States (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Religion Today is contributed biweekly by the University of Wyoming's Religious Studies Program to examine and to promote discussion of religious issues.

Who Was Against Christmas?

By Paul V.M. Flesher


Picture the following scenario. Crowds of Americans rioting in the streets. Two opposing groups shout loudly, vying to have their messages heard and heeded. The groups meet. Confrontation ensues. Fistfights break out. Church windows are smashed. What are these rioters fighting about? Christmas. One group favors celebrating Christmas, the other opposes all Christmas observances. This isn't an imaginary event, it is history. It happened in Boston on Christmas day in 1706.

In America's increasing love-affair with Christmas (both the Christian and commercial versions), we have forgotten that there was a time when much of European and American Christianity thought that Christmas should not be celebrated. In the riot described previously, the anti-Christmas group consisted largely of Congregationalists (Puritan descendants), Baptists, and Presbyterians, while the pro-Christmas group comprised mostly Anglicans (Episcopalians). The notion that Christians of any stripe should not want to celebrate Christmas is so foreign to our present concept of the holiday, that we need to review some history to understand it.

Prior to the Protestant Reformation in the 1500s, Roman Catholicism celebrated the "Christ Mass." It was one of many special masses and feasts of the Catholic Church celebrating key events in Jesus' life or the birthdays of saints. The three main Protestant movements that ultimately came to America had three different reactions to this situation.

First, although the Anglican Church developed a Protestant theology, it kept much of Catholic liturgy, including festivals celebrating aspects of Christ's life and the feast days of many saints. It gave special emphasis to the celebration of Christmas.

Second, after Martin Luther nailed his "95 Theses" to the door of the Wittenberg Cathedral in 1517, special liturgical observances began to be frowned upon. The Lutherans thought that the celebrations of saints' days were too much and so cancelled them. But they still emphasized observing events in Jesus' life, and so continued with joyous Christmas festivities.

Third, the Calvinists in Switzerland banned all Christian holy days not mentioned in Scripture. That approach meant that the Sabbath was acceptable, but nothing else. Christmas, Easter, Pentecost and other celebrations were to be treated as normal days with nothing special about them.

The Calvinist position came to be quite influential in Great Britain, even though it never altered the position of the Anglican Church. John Knox brought Calvinism to Scotland as Presbyterianism where Christmas was banned in 1583, while the Puritans brought Calvinism into England, where it became influential in circles both within and outside of the Anglican Church. During the Civil War in 1647, Oliver Cromwell and his Puritan followers outlawed Christmas observance. It was brought back in 1660 at the restoration of the monarchy under Charles II.

From England, both sides brought their Christmas beliefs to America. The Puritans (later becoming the Congregationalists) were joined by Presbyterians, Quakers, Methodists (despite their founders' pro-Christmas predilections), and Baptists on the anti-Christmas side, while the Anglicans dominated the pro-Christmas side, and were later joined by the Lutherans and the Dutch Reformed.

In Boston, the Puritans outlawed Christmas in 1659. Although the ban was lifted in 1681 when the British government took control of the colony, an armed guard had to protect the governor on his way to church on Christmas of 1686. When the colony reverted to local control in 1689, Christmas again fell out of favor.

The objection to Christmas by Americans was two-fold. First, for Calvinist theology, it reflected the pagan character of Catholic worship. Christmas was not a biblical holiday and had not even become a Christian festival before the late 300s; it was a creation of the church, not of Christ. Second, the holiday was accompanied by extensive reveling. Celebrations were not primarily worshipful, but involved feasting, game playing, heavy drinking, shooting, and gambling. For the over-indulgers, it brought out the worst of their excesses. Since the holiday celebrated the Savior's birth, such immoral behavior was seen as sacrilegious.

During the 18th century, Christmas observance began to be more accepted. Church-goers turned their attention to purifying the holiday of its excesses, rather than rejecting it altogether. By the 1750s, even New England hymn books contained Christmas carols. By the early 1800s, Christmas was observed with an emphasis on family and children.

In 1836, Alabama became the first state to make Christmas a legal holiday. Other states followed suit; even Massachusetts legalized Christmas in 1856, almost 200 years after its ban. But the last state, Oklahoma, did not join in until 1907. So next Christmas, 2007, will be the centenary of Christmas being the first religious holiday whose celebration across the United States is sanctioned by law.

Flesher is director of UW's Religious Studies Program. Past columns and more information about the program can be found on the Web at www.uwyo.edu/relstds. To comment on this column, visit http://religion-today.blogspot.com.

Excerpts from Fox News John Gibson's Book "The War on Christmas...."

As a matter of American history, however, some of the strongest complaints about the public celebration of Christmas have been lodged from within the Christian tradition—by devout Christians who had little use for the holiday. For a surprising number of American believers, the chief concern wasn't putting Christ back into Christmas. It was taking Christmas out of Christianity.

Liberal plots notwithstanding, the Americans who succeeded in banning the holiday were the Puritans of 17th-century Massachusetts. Between 1659 and 1681, Christmas celebrations were outlawed in the colony, and the law declared that anyone caught "observing, by abstinence from labor, feasting or any other way any such days as Christmas day, shall pay for every such offense five shillings." Finding no biblical authority for celebrating Jesus' birth on Dec. 25, the theocrats who ran Massachusetts regarded the holiday as a mere human invention, a remnant of a heathen past. They also disapproved of the rowdy celebrations that went along with it. "How few there are comparatively that spend those holidays … after an holy manner," the Rev. Increase Mather lamented in 1687. "But they are consumed in Compotations, in Interludes, in playing at Cards, in Revellings, in excess of Wine, in Mad Mirth."

After the English Restoration government reclaimed control of Massachusetts from the Puritans in the 1680s, one of the first acts of the newly appointed royal governor of the colony was to sponsor and attend Christmas religious services. Perhaps fearing a militant Puritan backlash, for the 1686 services he was flanked by redcoats. The Puritan disdain for the holiday endured: As late as 1869, public-school kids in Boston could be expelled for skipping class on Christmas Day.

The Puritans are the most cited example of anti-Christmas spirit, but not the only one. Quakers, too, took a pass, reasoning that, in the words of 17th-century Quaker apologist Robert Barclay, "All days are alike holy in the sight of God." The Quakers never translated their dismissal of Christmas into legislation in their stronghold in Colonial Pennsylvania. But local meetings, as the Quakers call their assemblies, urged their members to disdain Christmas and to be "zealous in their testimony against the holding up of such days." As late as 1810, the Philadelphia Democratic Press reported that few Pennsylvanians celebrated the holiday.

Observance of Christmas, or the lack thereof, was one way to differentiate among the Christian sects of Colonial and 19th-century America. Anglicans, Moravians, Dutch Reformed, and Lutherans, to name just a few, did; Quakers, Puritans, Separatists, Baptists, and some Presbyterians did not. An 1855 New York Times report on Christmas services in the city noted that Baptist and Methodist churches were closed because they "do not accept the day as a holy one," while Episcopal and Catholic churches were open and "decked with evergreens." New England Congregationalist preacher Henry Ward Beecher remembered decorative greenery as an exotic touch that one could see only in Episcopal churches, "a Romish institution kept up by the Romish church."

Naturally, some celebrants of the holiday complained about the abstainers. In 1867, Reformed Church minister Henry Harbaugh protested that Presbyterians in his Pennsylvania neighborhood "spend the day working as on any other day. Their children grow up knowing nothing of brightly lit Christmas trees, nor Christmas presents. God have mercy on these Presbyterians, these pagans." You can hear the echo of that sentiment today, in the criticism of the megachurches that have announced that they will be closed on Christmas, because their leaders think congregations and church staff would rather remain home with their families. "Our culture does not need any encouragement to be more self-centered or narcissistic, or to stay at home on Sunday," Bible scholar Ben Witherington III wrote on Beliefnet last week. "Shame on you, megachurches."

Gibson briefly refers to the Puritan ban on the holiday but otherwise avoids any mention of division within the Christian tradition over how to celebrate it. His "war on Christmas" is purely a clash between secularists and believers. It's worth remembering, however, that in past American battles over Christmas, the combatants on both sides were Christian soldiers.


This Ancient Roman Holiday Is the Real ‘Gay Christmas’

Christmas is really Saturnalia, and yes, it was a QUEER holiday then, too! Satan is just reclaiming it!
 
 
This Ancient Roman Holiday Is the Real ‘Gay Christmas’

Written by Zeynep Sasmazel 

The gays have long referred to Halloween as “gay Christmas,” but did you know there’s actually a different holiday that more perfectly matches that description? So gather ‘round the rainbow Yule, join the queer chorus, and follow me in merry measure as I tell you about what is about to become your new favorite holiday, Saturnalia.

Gay Christmas, otherwise known as Saturnalia, was an ancient Roman festival held in mid-December to honor Saturn, the god of sowing, plenty, and agriculture. Though Saturnalia initially started as a one-day affair, it quickly grew into a three-day — and then a week-long — festivity. Because if you’re going to do Gay Christmas, you’re going to do it right.

saturnalia gay christmas mosaic

Many present-day Christmas traditions can be traced back to Saturnalia. Customs like decorating our homes with wreaths, singing, feasting, and gift giving all originated during this holiday. Schools were closed, business was halted, and the courts were out of session. Strict dress codes were loosened, with participants exchanging their togas for more colorful clothing, and even gambling was allowed. So basically all the most gay Christmas traditions come from Saturnalia.

Of course, this was still a particularly holy day for the Romans. Official rituals were observed, sacrifices were made, and the statue of Saturn — whose feet were normally bound with wool — was unbound to symbolize liberation.

saturnalia gay christmas hat

A hat known as a “pileus” was the traditional headwear of gay Christmas, Saturnalia.

Some ways Saturnalia participants celebrated were … less than traditional. The holiday is rumored to have featured “lads running naked about the place, cross-dressing for dinner, tops becoming bottoms, masters waiting on their servants … sausages, wine, cunnilingus and fruitcake.”

I MEAN.

So, depending on how you live your life, maybe these are regular Christmas traditions for you, too. We don’t judge!

Poets wrote of Saturnalia that it was “the best of days” and a time “when the whole mob has let itself go in pleasures.”

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Christmas history in America

Nederlands: Sinterklaas tijdens het Het Feest ...Nederlands: Sinterklaas tijdens het Het Feest van Sinterklaas (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

 

Christmas history in America: see also Santa Claus in America

 

In the early 17th century, a wave of religious reform changed the way Christmas was celebrated in Europe. When Oliver Cromwell and his Puritan forces took over England in 1645, they vowed to rid England of decadence and, as part of their effort, cancelled Christmas. By popular demand, Charles II was restored to the throne and, with him, came the return of the popular holiday. 

The pilgrims, English separatists that came to America in 1620, were even more orthodox in their Puritan beliefs than Cromwell. As a result, Christmas was not a holiday in early America. From 1659 to 1681, the celebration of Christmas was actually outlawed in Boston. Anyone exhibiting the Christmas spirit was fined five shillings. By contrast, in the Jamestown settlement, Captain John Smith reported that Christmas was enjoyed by all and passed without incident.

After the American Revolution, English customs fell out of favor, including Christmas. In fact, Congress was in session on December 25, 1789, the first Christmas under America’s new constitution. Christmas wasn’t declared a federal holiday until June 26, 1870.

Washington Irving reinvents Christmas

 

 

Continue reading "Christmas history in America " »


Burial cave dedicated to Jesus' 'midwife' Salome reveals treasures

'She could not believe that she was asked to deliver a virgin's baby'

By WND News Services

(TIMES OF ISRAEL) -- Ahead of opening a burial cave dedicated to Salome, the midwife of Jesus, to the public, archaeologists have recently uncovered a number of priceless artifacts from its courtyard, the Israeli Antiquities Authority announced on Tuesday. The tomb is a centuries-old Christian pilgrimage site, located in the Lachish region in central Israel.

“According to a Christian tradition, Salome was the midwife from Bethlehem, who was called to participate in the birth of Jesus,” said IAA archaeologist Zvi Firer. “She could not believe that she was asked to deliver a virgin’s baby, and her hand became dry and was only healed when she held the baby’s cradle.”

The burial cave was discovered in 1982 by antiquities looters and subsequently excavated in 1984 by Prof. Amos Kloner of the IAA. But, despite ample proof of its use as a sacred Christian site, it was never opened to the public.

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The Meaning of Christmas

Forward by Bob Barney:  The following is an article that was published around 1900!  I think those who still think Christmas has something to do with the birth of Jesus (which it doesn't) will be surprised that even over a 100 years ago, when WE THINK people knew the so-called "true meaning of Christmas," THEY DIDN'T!

Frank Leslie’s Weekly, published from 1855 to 1922, was an American illustrated news publication started by publisher and illustrator Frank Leslie. While only 30 copies of the first edition were printed, by 1897 its circulation had grown to an estimated 65,000 copies.
Frank Leslie's Weekly - The Meaning of Christmas

Frank Leslie’s Weekly – The Meaning of Christmas

The Meaning of Christmas

By SIGMUND SPAETH

THE FIRST man I addressed was of the brisk business type. He had the gruff air of complete absorption which most business men consider it necessary to assume.

“What does Christmas mean to you?” I asked.

He looked at me sharply and answered, “I have no time for either reporters or lunatics.”

“But this is a serious question,” I insisted. “I desire information. How can I discover the meaning of the whole thing if nobody will answer me?”

He relented a little and replied, in a more friendly tone, “To me Christmas means prosperity. It means the busiest time of the year. It means big sales and big profits. That’s all I know about it.” And he hurried off.

I next accosted a well-known lawyer. He was a big, kindly man, and he listened to my question with interest. But his face clouded as he answered, “Christmas is to me an annual reminder of all the crime and misery in the world. The peace and good-will of the rich only serve to accentuate the wretchedness of the poor. The criminal courts are filled each year with those who would be honorable men if they possessed only a very small share of the Christmas gifts which are a natural part of our own care-free lives. It is a sad thought.”

I pondered over these words, but soon hastened on to find a new victim for my questioning. It happened to be a clerk, a small, nervous man, obviously over-worked.

“What does Christmas mean to me?” he asked. “Well, for one thing it means a holiday—and that is always a relief. I get a chance to see something of my family, to spend a day with the children. But it’s embarrassing, too. It has its unpleasant side. I can’t afford to do what I would like in the way of gifts, and I’m always afraid that the fact is noticeable. My wife and I decided several years ago to omit all presents to each other and concentrate on the children. But even at that our celebration is a very modest affair. I wish the cost of living were not so high.” And he also hurried off, with a feeble imitation of the absorbed air of the business man.

My next question was addressed to a successful physician. He laughed as he answered, “It’s pretty hard for me to get away from my profession. I suppose Christmas means no more to me than so many extra cases of indigestion to be cured and so many more colds to be attended to. It merely adds one more to the many occasions on which the power of medicine can be proved.”

I turned to an actor of world-wide reputation. “Does Christmas mean anything to you?” I asked.

“It means my busy day,” he answered gruffly. “We stage people have no real Christmas. There is always an evening performance and usually a matinee as well. We are worked harder on Christmas Day than at any other time in the year.”

I was disappointed, but hastened to take up the subject with a singer, one who was chiefly noted for church work.

“Oh,” he answered enthusiastically, “Christmas means much to me! There are so many services and the Christmas music is so wonderful. I always look forward to it. There is nothing that brings out the beauties of my voice so well as the Christmas carols, and the more elaborate things give me an opportunity for a really fine display of technique.”

Again I was disappointed, but again I turned hopefully, this time to a teacher. Here at least, I thought, I shall find a deeply spiritual reply, full of a mystic meaning. So I asked my question confidently, and I listened with hopeful attention as I saw the gleam of pleasure in his eyes.

“The meaning of Christmas?” he fairly shouted. “It means joy! Joy! Joy! Two full weeks of vacation! No classes to teach! No papers to correct! No unruly boys to reprimand! Could anything be pleasanter? Sleigh rides, theaters, books, dinners! Oh, the joys of Christmas are countless!”

I left him to his ecstatic ravings and sought out a social worker of long experience. This man, at least, must have some truth to impart. “Christmas,” he said slowly, “to me means simply hard labor. It means days of unpleasant begging, sometimes on the street corners, sometimes at the homes of the rich. It means the stupendous task of feeding and clothing thousands of the poor. And it means that when our work is done we get very little gratitude, very little appreciation. It is expected of us. Some keep their cheerful faces year after year and imagine that they really enjoy their work. To me it has become mere drudgery.” Even after this rebuff I did not give up hope altogether. But I said to myself, “I must find a real interpreter of Christianity. I shall ask a minister of the Gospel.” The reply which I received proved most disappointing of all.

“Yes, I like Christmas,” said the clergyman pleasantly. “It is what I may call my easy day. The sermon requires almost no preparation. The congregation enters into the spirit of the day and helps me in every way possible. I receive many substantial evidences of the generosity of my parishioners, so that, on the whole, I am always happy, contented and possibly a little lazy on Christmas Day.”

The unexpectedness of this answer so upset my calculations that I jumped at once to the opposite extreme. I picked out a miserable tramp, the very type of neglected humanity, arguing that all my attempts so far had been directed too much toward the higher and more prosperous classes. The tramp grinned cheerfully as he answered my question.

“Christmas? That’s somethin’ like Thanksgivin’, ain’t it? Them’s my two big feed days for the year. You can work a graft so as to eat three full charity dinners in the same afternoon, if you can hold ‘em. I generally fills up fer about a week, countin’ what I stows in my clothes. But it makes the rest of the year all the worse. Rich people seem to think that us poor guys don’t have to eat no more than once or twice in twelve months. If it wasn’t for the cold weather, I’d want Christmas every day.”

I might have foreseen this. My first track was the right one, after all; yet I seemed to have exhausted all the possible sources of information. No; there was one left. “Out of the mouth of babes,” I said to myself, and hunted up a child.

“Christmas? Don’t you know what Christmas means?” the child asked, in wide-eyed wonder. “I guess you haven’t been educated very well. But I’ll tell you all about it. Christmas is the day when Santa Claus was born and all the angels sang a song for the shepherds to listen to. And they told them to go around and give presents to each other forever after, world without end, amen. That’s why I always go to two Sunday schools a whole month before Christmas. They have trees and lights and candy and oranges in pink tissue paper, and Santa Claus is there himself and gives the things out, and the superintendent tells us what good children we are, and everybody eats a lot, and we get presents at home and turkey and hang our stockings up and everything. Didn’t you know that?”

“Well, not quite in that way,” I answered, catching feebly at a straw. “Isn’t there anything else?”

“Oh, parties and ice cream and candy canes and dolls and holly berries and mince pie and— —”

“And the people are just the same as any other day?” I interrupted.

“Well, no,” the child answered reflectively. “I think everybody tries to be a little extra nice. Papa doesn’t say a cross word to mamma all day, and I let my little brother play with my toys if he wants to, and the cook doesn’t chase us out of the kitchen when we come to smell the turkey roasting. She gives us little heart-shaped ginger cakes instead. I guess everybody loves everybody else on Christmas Day.”

“At last!” I breathed, with a sigh of relief.

Frank Leslie's Weekly - The Meaning of Christmas

Frank Leslie’s Weekly – The Meaning of Christmas

Source: Frank Leslies Weekly, December 5, 1912
Top image: Frank Leslies Weekly, December 10, 1913
Middle image: Frank Leslies Weekly, December 10, 1908
Bottom image: Frank Leslies Weekly, December 13, 1906

 


Where are the Levites today? Part 4 FUTURE OF THE LEVITES

Read Part 1 Here. ----- Part 2 Here. and Part 3 Here
 
FUTURE OF THE LEVITES
There are a number of Scriptures which clearly show us that the Levitical Priesthood will be restored during the time of the Messiah – His Millennial reign on earth. Many of the Psalms double up as prophecies. For example, the following is clearly Millennial: “O house of Israel, bless the LORD! O house of Aaron, bless the LORD!  O house of Levi, bless the LORD! You who fear the LORD, bless the LORD! Blessed be the LORD from Zion, he who dwells in Jerusalem! Praise the LORD!” (Ps 135:19-21) 
Look at the chapters in Ezekiel on the Millennial temple and the role of the Priests and Levites: “And he said to me, “This chamber that faces south is for the priests who have charge of the temple,
and the chamber that faces north is for the priests who have charge of the altar. These are the sons of Zadok, who alone among the sons of Levi may come near to the LORD to minister to him.” (Ezek 40:45-46. See also 48:31) 
 
The Levites are mentioned in another Millennial prophecy in Zech 12:12-13. As we can see, during the Millennial reign of the Messiah, the Levites will function once again (Is 66:20-21) even though they, as a tribe, have always been around (Jer 33:18). Currently their physical role is on hold while there is no Temple in Jerusalem and Israel has not yet been fully regathered into the Holy Land (this will be fulfilled at the Second Exodus). Like all the tribes of Israel, they have gone into apostasy (Jer 33:20-22; Ezek 43:19; 44:10) but it is prophesied that they will repent (Mal 3:3; Ezek 48:11-31; 45:5; Ps 135:19-20; Rev 7:7).
 
You can read more about the revival of the Levites and the sacrificial system during the Millennium in the articles by this author listed at the rear of this section. In the meantime, are there Levites among today’s Christian clergy (and Jewish community)? “Since many of the Levites undoubtedly remained among the Ten Tribes -- although we know many continued among the Jews -- and since those remaining among the Ten Tribes have lost their identity along with all Ten Tribes, it is entirely possible that many if not most, of the called true ministry of Jesus Christ through the centuries have been of the tribe of Levi.” (Herbert W. Armstrong, United States and Britain in Prophecy, p. 56)30 
30 Even some Mormon (Latter-day Saints) believe that their ministry is the restored or continuation of the Levitical Priesthood. One such group is Aaronic Order which published a book The True Church of God (With His Levites). See pp. 19-23, 64, 83, 85-87, 90-91, 95, 112, 118-119.
 
Given the multi-racial and multi-national component of the ministry (one can easily discern their physical differences), it is more likely that the word “some” would be better that “many if not most”. One issue that can arise due to this belief by certain ones is that some place themselves above the brethren claiming to be priests or sort of priests instead of elders that guide the flock.
 
Sometimes this belief is probably generated by the belief that they arise from genetic Levitical stock, and this somehow justifies their cruel and oppressive behaviours toward the brethren. Shouting, setting people up, slander, wrongful excommunications and such like. However, it is possible that some elders descend from Levitical stock, but that does not make them priests today nor should they act in that fashion. “Enoch David and William Davis, two leading Sabbatarian ministers, were of Welsh descent. Welsh influence among Sabbatarian Baptists may parallel that among the first-day Baptists, in replacing Arminian philosophy with Calvinism. Davis played a powerful role in shaping the future of Sabbatarian Baptists. It has been stated that William Davis has never lacked a direct descendant as a Seventh Day Baptist minister, and the denomination today is studded with his descendants. Corliss Fitz Randolph, the late "official" historian, was a descendant of Davis and colored his view of history in favor of his ancestor.” (Richard Nickels, Sabbatarian Baptists in America, ch. 5) 
 
“Welsh Sabbath-keepers were prevalent until 1115, when the first Roman bishop was seated at St. David’s. Vavasor Powell (1617-1671), a Welsh preacher with quite a following, had “the sentiments of a Sabbatarian Baptist” (Neal’s History of the Puritans, pages 2, 274).”” (Richard Nickels, Sabbatarian Baptists in America, ch. 1).
 
Did the Levites really continue into the Churches in both true and apostate form? Jer 33:18; Mal 2:7-8; 3:3 may indicate such. Notice that some of the Levites entered the ministry in New Testament times (Acts 4:5-6). And in Acts 6:6-7 many of the priests joined the ministry, but now as elders and no longer as priests. This came about as the natural efforts of the Apostles in Acts 2:46; 3:1; 5:42. Notice also that in Acts 15:4-5; 20:17, 28 many of these priests assisted the Apostles and would have served as elders only. One British-Israel author made some interesting comments about the descendants of Levi and that many of them might be within the clergy (and one might add, also the Church of God): “It is true that the Levites were scattered among Israel--not only among the Jews but among the Western nations. Both the Jewish and the Christian clergy Jews but among the Western nations. Both the Jewish and the Christian clergy have their share of Levites. Their names vary somewhat, according to their esidence: Levi, Levy, Levine, Levis, Lewis, Levit, Lewyt, LeVeen, Le Vine,Levenson, Levinsky, Lewisohn, etc. Another family of the Levites are the Cohens (literally "priests") who are known in different lands as Kohns, Cohans, Cowans, etc. "
 
“However, we should make it clear that the descendants of Levi now have no monopoly of the ministerial or educational fields as they once did in Israel. For since the first advent of the Messiah, Yahshua (who was both the Lamb of Yahweh and a High Priest after the order of Melchizadek), He has opened the door of the priesthood to every true child of Yahweh …” (Angelo Traina,Treasure in the Field, p. 96). An example may be Ken Lewis who was a Church of God minister in Australia, a very nice and kind man. Rather different to wolves that tear apart and scatter God’s children. They will meet their fate. But in the Millennium, the Levitical Priesthood will be revived in connection to the Temple system and the elders will also continue operating in God’s revived and refreshed system on earth. 
Suggested Further Reading:
• Do Sacrifices Provide Forgiveness? by Craig M White.
• Understanding the Burnt Offering. by Craig M White.
• Will the Temple, Sacrifices & Tribal Allotments be restored during the Millennium? by Craig M White.
 
CONCLUDING REMARKS
A Dr. Jacques Abaddie (1654-1727), wrote the following in his Le Triomphe de la Providence et de la Religion in 1723, wrote: "Certainly, unless the Ten Tribes have flown into the air, or been plunged to the earth's centre, they must be sought in that part of the North which, in the time of Constantine, was converted to the Christian Faith - namely among the Iberians, Armenians, and Scythians; for that was the place of their dispersion-the wilderness where God caused them to dwell in tents, as when they came out of the land of Egypt... Perhaps, were the subject carefully examined, it would be found that the nations who in the fifth age made irruption into the Roman Empire, and whom Procopius reduces to ten in number, wer in effect the Ten Tribes,who kept in a state of separation up to that time, then quitted the Euxine and Caspian, the place of their exile, because the country could no longer contain them. Everything fortifies this conjecture; the extraordinary multiplication of this people, marked so precisely by the prophets, the number of the tribes, the custom of those nations to dwell in tents, according to the oracles, and many other usages of the Scythians similar to those of the children of Israel." 
 
Abaddie was the Dean of Killaloe, Ireland and a Huguenot refugee (they were French, Calvinistic Protestants) who put in writing these thoughts. Indeed! For the Israelites did migrate north via the area we call Armenia and the Iberian Caucasus region and into southern Russia becoming known as Scythians and also the Cimmerians. We have seen that the Welsh name Cymry likely derives from Cimmerian, and this can be a variation or transliteration of Khumri (= House of Omri). Further, the Welsh and certain of the Scots descend from this ancient tribe of Levi and continue the bloodline, fierceness and religious fervour (even if their religion has been contaminated). The similarities are just too obvious to ignore.
 
 
 
APPENDIX. WHO WERE THE CIMMERIANS/WELSH? TRIBE OF LEVI
[NB: I came across a protestant website that promotes the belief in the Welsh – Levi connection which I include below. https://christianbaptistliving.com/, 12 Feb 2014].
 
Who were the Cimmerians {KMR}? Where did they come from? Does anybody know?
 
The Cimmerians {KMR} SUDDENLY show up in history about 710 BC when they were pushed out of the Russian Steppes by the Scythians {SKD}. Some of them moved into what is now modern-day Crimea and in the 5th century BC established the Kingdom of Cimmerian Bosporus. They were there long enough to leave their name there, ‘Crimea,’ which is derived from Cimmeria {KMR}.
 
The rest of the Cimmerians {KMR} moved south across the Caucasus Mountains first destroying Urartu (near MT Ararat) and then the kingdom of Phrygia in Anatolia (in modern Turkey). In 705 BC Sargon II, king of Assyria, was killed fighting the Cimmerians {KMR}. Appian writes in Mithridates 114 that east of the Roman province of Pontus et Bythinia (in modern Turkey and about 59 BC) lived the Iberi (Hebrews) {BR} and the Albani (Whites, probably because of white skin, most likely ancestors of modern Albania) {LBN}. This is also one of the areas that the Israelites were deported to and also the area that the Cimmerians {KMR} overran.
 
Herodotus says, “It is that the wandering Scythians {SKD} once dwelt in Asia, and there warred with the Massagetae {SKD} (descendants of the deported Israelites?), but with ill success; they (the Scythians {SKD}) therefore quitted their homes, crossed the Araxes, and entered the land of Cimmeria {KMR}. For the land which is now (circa 440 BC) inhabited by the Scyths {SKD} was formerly the country of the Cimmerians {KMR}.” He also noted, “Scythia {SKD} still (circa 440 BC) retains traces of the Cimmerians {KMR}; there are Cimmerian {KMR} castles, and a Cimmerian {KMR} ferry (on the Tanais {DN} River (modern day Don River{DN}?)), also a tract called Cimmeria {KMR}, and a Cimmerian {KMR} Bosphorus. It appears likewise that the Cimmerians {KMR}, when they fled into Asia to escape the Scyths {SKD}, made a settlement in the peninsula where the Greek city of Sinope was afterwards built.” (History of Herodotus, book IV)
 
But WHERE were the Cimmerians {KMR} BEFORE 710 BC? History is totally silent regarding their whereabouts. And WHERE are their descendants TODAY? No one seems to know.
 
What is known is that the Assyrians called ancient Israel ‘mat-bit-Humria’ {MD BD KMR} (the land of the house of Omri) or ‘Bet Omri’ {BD KMR} (the house of Omri) or ‘Bit Humri’ {BD KMR} (the house of Omri) or simply ‘Khumri {KMR}’, calling Israel after its most famous king, King Omri {KMR} (c885-873 BC). We also know that King Tilgath-Pilser III (King Pul) deported most of Israel in 734-732 BC and King Sargon II of Assyria deported the rest of the people of the kingdom of Israel (NOT to be confused with the kingdom of Judah {JD} to the south) in 721-718 BC. The Israelites of the first captivity were settled on the fringes of the Assyrian Empire south of the Caspian Sea, and were eventually referred to as Cimmerians. Those Israelites of the second captivity were resettled primarily in the Assyrian controlled province of Medo-Persia which is to the south and east of the first captivity. These people were eventually referred to as Scythians {SKD}. This is exactly the territory in which the Cimmerians {KMR} and Scythians {SKD} FIRST appeared in history a few years LATER.
 
Could the Cimmerians {KMR} actually be part of the Israelites resettled by Tilgath-Pilser and Sargon II? Yes, for several reasons. First, the Cimmerians {KMR} do NOT appear in history until shortly AFTER the Israelite resettlement. Second, they first appear in exactly the SAME territory. And third, the name ‘Cimmeria {KMR}’actually derives from ‘Omri {KMR}’ the ancient king of Israel. Some say that the Cimmerians {KMR} were descendants of Gomer {KMR} the son of Japheth, but if so, WHY is history silent about them prior to the deportation of the Israelites? Since the Cimmerians {KMR} first appeared in history, they have shown up in various parts of Europe, quite often leaving their name behind. For example, the peninsula Denmark {DN} occupies is the Cymbric {KMR} Peninsula. Names like Umbria {KMR}, Cambria {KMR}, Cumberland {KMR}, Crimea {KRM}, etc are also waymarks of the Cimmerians {KMR}. Even today, the official Celtic name of Wales is CYMRU {KMR} and of the Welsh people is CYMRY! {KMR}
 
Are the Welsh the descendants of the Cimmerians {KMR}? They claim to be. Their name says they are. Samuel Lysons states, “the Cimmerians {KMR} seeming to be the same people (as) the Gauls {KL} or Celts {KLD} under a different name; and it is observable that the Welsh (a Celtic {KLD} people), who are descended from the Gauls {KL}, still call themselves Cymri {KMR} or Kymry {KMR}.” (Our British Ancestors, 1865, pp 23,27). The time-trail of Cimmerian {KMR} names STARTS in the Russian Steppes about 710 BC and ENDS in modern day Wales!
 
Does this mean that the Welsh are descendants of ancient Israel? Is there ANY other possibility? Not to my knowledge. Is there anything else that supports the Welsh coming from ancient Israel? Examine the Welsh language. Several studies have been done comparing modern Welsh to ancient Hebrew. What was found? There is an unmistakeable and absolute relationship between them!!! Whole SENTENCES are exactly the same in BOTH languages! Not just one sentence, but hundreds and hundreds. Even more common are exact phraseologies, and more common yet are vocabulary words.
 
Outside of the Celtic {KLD} languages (Welsh, Cornish, Manx, Gaelic, Breton, etc.) NO LANGUAGE ON EARTH (with the possible exception of Basque, which could be derived from Hebrew {BR} when the ancient Danites {DN} inhabited the Iberian {BR} Penninsula before migrating to Hibernia {BR}, now called Ireland) CAN CLAIM to be even REMOTELY related to Hebrew {BR}, as none of them to the best of my knowledge have more than a small smattering of words and phrases ADOPTED from Hebrew {BR}.
 
Now before you go out on a limb and say that Welsh and Hebrew {BR} don’t look alike, be aware of several things. First, Welsh is written from LEFT to RIGHT, while today Hebrew is written from RIGHT to LEFT, although anciently Hebrew could be written EITHER LEFT to RIGHT OR RIGHT to LEFT. Second, Welsh and Hebrew use DIFFERENT alphabets. Third, written Welsh uses vowels and ancient written Hebrew does NOT use vowels, although modern Hebrew does use ‘vowel points’. Fourth, over time the vocabularies and structures of both have diverged as new things and new ideas needed to be expressed. Fifth, Welsh sometimes uses two or more words to replace the original Hebrew word and vice versa, but when you concatenate all of these words into a single word, this concatenated word is exactly the same as the word in the other language with exactly the same meaning. To compare these languages, one must use sentences and words extant in ancient Hebrew. When one does this, an extremely large number of these sentences have the same exact meaning in modern Welsh and when spoken can be understood by the modern Welsh. Is Welsh (and by extension, other Celtic languages) really a modernized version of ancient Hebrew? In my opinion, absolutely yes! Does this mean that the Celtic {KLD} peoples are DIRECT descendants of the ancient Hebrews {BR}? I see no other alternative.
 
So, WHICH tribe could the Welsh (Cimmerians {KMR}) be descended from? The Welsh are world famous for their singing and their choirs. Which tribe of Israel contained the cantors of Israel? The tribe of Levi {LV}, whose sole duty was to educate Israel in the ways of God, which included all of the music of the Temple. What about the names Wales and Welsh? Are they in any way connected to the tribe of Levi {LV}? Possibly, but I know of no way of proving/disproving this conjecture. Hebrew, both ancient and modern, uses ONLY consonants when writing, so the tribe Levi {LV} would be written “VL” in Hebrew which writes from right to left. The letters and sounds of V and W are often interchangeable from language to language, like in Latin and German and others. So, since the Welsh now write from left to right, could the name Wales (VaLes, or VL) be a holdover from when the ancestors of the Welsh were of the tribe of Levi {LV} and wrote Levi as “VL”? I don’t know, but this seems reasonable given everything else that points to the Welsh being from the tribe of Levi {LV}. In conclusion, everything points to the people of Wales (Cymry {KMR}) being descendants of ancient lost tribes of Israel, probably from the tribe of Levi {LV}. Michelle - April 18, 2016 at 4:46 pm

Another interesting titbit: the House of Omri (Israelites) was referred to as ‘Bit Humri’ or Bet Omri’. There is a very popular Welsh motto which reads ‘Cymru am byth!’ (Wales forever!). It doesn’t take much imagination to see the connection ‘Bet Omri’ vs ‘Cymru (am) Byt(h). Long live the House of Omri!

There are a number of Scriptures which clearly show us that the Levitical Priesthood will be restored during the time of the Messiah – His Millennial reign on earth. Many of the Psalms double up as prophecies. For example, the following is clearly Millennial:

“O house of Israel, bless the LORD! O house of Aaron, bless the LORD!
O house of Levi, bless the LORD! You who fear the LORD, bless the LORD! Blessed be the LORD from Zion, he who dwells in Jerusalem! Praise the LORD!” (Ps 135:19-21)

Look at the chapters in Ezekiel on the Millennial temple and the role of the Priests and Levites:

“And he said to me, “This chamber that faces south is for the priests who have charge of the temple,
and the chamber that faces north is for the priests who have charge of the altar. These are the sons of Zadok, who alone among the sons of Levi may come near to the LORD to minister to him.” (Ezek 40:45-46. See also 48:31) 

The Levites are mentioned in another Millennial prophecy in Zech 12:12-13. As we can see, during the Millennial reign of the Messiah, the Levites will function once again (Is 66:20-21) even though they, as a tribe, have always been around (Jer 33:18). Currently their physical role is on hold while there is no Temple in Jerusalem and Israel has not yet been fully regathered into the Holy Land (this will be fulfilled at the Second Exodus). Like all the tribes of Israel, they have gone into apostasy (Jer 33:20-22; Ezek 43:19; 44:10) but it is prophesied that they will repent (Mal 3:3; Ezek 48:11-31; 45:5; Ps 135:19-20; Rev 7:7). You can read more about the revival of the Levites and the sacrificial system during the Millennium in the articles by this author listed at the rear of this section. In the meantime, are there Levites among today’s Christian clergy (and Jewish community)?

“Since many of the Levites undoubtedly remained among the Ten Tribes -- although we know many continued among the Jews -- and since those remaining among the Ten Tribes have lost their identity along with all Ten Tribes, it is entirely possible that many if not most, of the called true ministry of Jesus Christ through the centuries have been of the tribe of Levi.” (Herbert W. Armstrong, United States and Britain in Prophecy, p. 56)30

30 Even some Mormon (Latter-day Saints) believe that their ministry is the restored or continuation of the Levitical Priesthood. One such group is Aaronic Order which published a book The True Church of God (With His Levites). See pp. 19-23, 64, 83, 85-87, 90-91, 95, 112, 118-119.

Given the multi-racial and multi-national component of the ministry (one can easily discern their physical differences), it is more likely that the word “some” would be better that “many if not most”. One issue that can arise due to this belief by certain ones is that some place themselves above the brethren claiming to be priests or sort of priests instead of elders that guide the flock. They were able to do this via deception: they told the Shechem and his father Hamor that all the men of the city had to be circumcised to enable the marriage with Dinah to proceed (Gen 34:13-24). Given the state that the men of the city were in after circumcision, this provided the ideal opportunity for the brothers to utilise their extreme behaviours on an entire city. While they slaughtered, the other brothers plundered (Gen 34:25-29). The excuse to undertake such a horrific act was supposedly to protect Dinah’s honour, but this did not please their father who anticipated that surrounding peoples would react to the slaughter (Gen 34:30-31). As we have seen, the blessing of Jacob in Gen 49:5-7 reflects this: they would be scattered or allocated among the tribes (this does not rule out concentrations of these people in various places) with the Simeonites allocation within Judah (Josh 19:1-9). Similarly, due to his nature, Levi’s descendants were not allocated a single tribal geographic area at that time, but instead were allocated among the tribes (Num 18:23-24; 35:1-8; Josh 21:1-45) – in this way they became the religious leaders and priesthood without a land allocation (Josh 13:14, 33; 14:3-4; 18:7). No land? No problem! God and the priesthood became their inheritance. This Levitical allocation “out of the inheritance” of the tribes were 48 cities (Josh 21:3, 41-42) including the cities of refuge (Josh 21:13, 21-27, 32-38; Num 35:6). Instead of slaughtering indiscriminately, they now became the protectors of man slaughterers under certain circumstances. But when it was necessary, their violent nature could be unleashed upon the apostate (Ex 32:25-29) in defence of the honor of God Himself. The Levites held various offices such as that of judges, teachers (see Peter Leithart, “What is a Priest?”, Biblical Horizons, Jan 1992, pp. 3-4) and many of their duties are mentioned in Num 1:50; Deut 10:8; 33:10; IIChron 17:7-9; 35:3; Neh 8:7-9; Mal 2:4-7. In this way they redeemed themselves and, in a sense, also their forefather. Their violent nature extended to the daily slaughter of animals as part of the sacrificial system and also to function as the guardians of the Tabernacle and Temple (Num 1:53) as sort of ‘warrior-priests’. They were to “work and keep” the sanctuary (Num 3:7-8; 8:26; 18:5-6). 

While the nature of him and his descendants were violent (Gen 34:25-31), this could also be transferred to righteous wrath in service of God (Ex 32:26-28; Num 25:7-13; IIChron 23:1-9). They were therefore ideal for service in the ministerial and priestly capacity at the Tabernacle (Ex 38:21) and set aside for this purpose and for other offices of public service such as in the judiciary (Deut 17:9; Num 8:6, 10-15; IIChron 19:8, 11; Ezek 44:24 etc). The Gershonites and Merarites handled the sanctuary (Num 7:1-8) but not the Kohathites (v 8; 4:15; Deut 10:8; IISam 6:6 – they were not permitted to touch the holy things). Refer also to IChron 13:9-10; Josh 3:3, 6, 8, 17; 4:9-10, 16-18. Other duties included functioning as teachers and health inspectors (Deut 24:8; 31:9; 33:10; Mal 2:6; 3:7; IIChron 35:3; 17:7-9; Neh 8:7; Jer 2:8; 18:18; Ezek 44:23); and money collectors for the national income scheme (Num 18:24; IIChron 24:4-11).

2 Where are the Levites today? Version 1.0 Authored by Craig Martin White. Copyright © Craig Martin White, GPO Box 864, Sydney, Australia 2001. All Rights Reserved. This work is promoted through History Research Foundation (USA), History Research Projects (Australia) and Friends of the Sabbath (Australia) www.friendsofsabbath.org No part of this work may be edited. It may be freely shared as part of research, projects or for educational purposes as long as quotes are properly cited. All graphics are taken from the internet where they were made freely available. “Your majesty says very true; if your majesties is remembered of it, the Welshmen did good service in a garden where leeks did grow, wearing leeks in their Monmouth caps; which, your majesty know, to this hour is an honourable badge of the service; and I do believe your majesty takes no scorn to wear the leek upon Saint Tavy’s day.” (Shakespeare, Henry V: Act 4, Scene 7) DRAFT Where are the Levites today?

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Where are the Levites Today Part 3

Read Part 1 Here. and Part 2 Here
 
OUTLINE HISTORY OF THE BRYTHONS AND WELSH
The country of Wales (Cymru) constitutes a nation within the larger United Kingdom. The population is around 3.4 million and the land area covers 20,735 km sq. While most of the population descends from the native Brythons, people of Anglo-Saxon and Norman stock also reside there. Christianity is still the largest religion, but the percentage of atheists and non-Christian religions is increasing. Chief among its economic activities is coal mining, lead, slate, refining of imported petroleum, tourism and electronics manufacturing. The Welsh, despite their small numbers, have long been recognized as excellent contributors to society. Thomas Rees wrote a book about some of these in 1908 under the title of Notable Welshmen 1700-1900 (the book is available free online). Ethnically, the first inhabitants of the British Isles (and indeed much of Europe) after the Flood of Noah were descendants of Japheth. Then came some Israelites, apparently having escaped from the clutches of the Egyptian captivity, while others arrived in waves. Welsh history contains a lot of traditions including one that states that Brutus of Troy actually landed in the British Isles and then he became the first King of the Britons around 1170BC. Apparently, this commenced the dynasty of the Royal Brythonic line. You can read all about this in works such as The Chronicle of the Early Britons (annotated translation by William Cooper) so I shall not summarise this information here. The early Brythons spread all over what we call Britain today (England, Scotland, Wales). In northern Scotland we find the Picts who spoke a language that we cannot find evidence of which language group it is related to. However, what we do have are Pictish place names and personal names showing that without doubt, it was a Brythonic tongue (the Irish, Scottish Gaels and people of Manx spoke the Goidelic tongue.17) The earliest Picts were of Mongoloid extraction, but the Brythonic people that later settled in that area took on the name of the Picts (this transfer of names from one people to another is not unique and does cause confusion in the minds of researchers, let alone the casual reader). The Irish called them Cruithne which is cognate (i.e., related or connected) with the Brythonic Priteni. In the 6th century AD, the Gaels from Northern Ireland entered northwestern Britain (Scotland) and over time they absorbed the Picts into their Alba and Dál Riata kingdoms. The areas of Orkney, Hebrides, Shetland and Isle of Man all became Gaelic. I should state here that the Gaels and Brythons are the same race but different tribes or the same tribe sub-divided over time. In the larger sense of Israel identity, it makes little difference. 
17 While the Irish and Scottish spoke the Q-Celtic language (Gaelic), the Brythons and Welsh spoke the P-Celtic tongue which developed over time (Vaughan Thomas, Wales. A History, p. 32).
 
It is apt that the name Britain remains, given that it denotes the ancient occupants of all of the island. Today only the Welsh, Cornish and most Scottish Lowlanders (with a small mixture with Anglo-Saxons) represent that group.18
 
All of these Brythons, Picts and Gaels were considered to be fierce and warlike. History records these people as always willing to make a stand and attackers knew that it was better to leave these tribes alone or be very wary in fighting them. The area north of the Hadrian Wall and also the Welsh Cambrian Mountains were regions known to be best avoided and the Romans found out that these peoples were best not tangled with. If they did invade those territories, they found the going very difficult. Surely there are too many similarities of these peoples with the fierce tribes of Levi, Simeon and Judah. Centuries later, around 50AD, the Romans invaded the land, and it took 9 years to finally reach the Strait of Menai (northwest corner). Tacitus wrote about the battle that ensued across the Strait on the banks of the Anglesey Island. The Brythons (including their women and the Druids) fought valiantly but the Romans were terrible and slaughtered all. In the south the Silures (mix of Brythons and some Phoenicians) continued on the fight but could not stop the all-conquering Romans and by 78AD the entire land was under Roman rule. In the 5th and 6th centuries, the Angles, Saxons (and some Frisians and possibly Jutes) entered the land we call England gradually and pushed the Brythons into their strongholds of Wales and southern Scotland. Many found refuge in the Highlands and Cambrian Mountains. As the Brythons were pushed further west, they grouped into the territory we call Wales today which was intended to prevent further takeovers. When the Normans (the same race as the Anglo-Saxons) came to England in 1066AD with a small force, the managed to conquer the land and unite the petty kingdoms. Years later they invaded Wales followed by all sorts of political maneuvering's one can read about from a number of sources. There was a partial conquest of Wales in the late 13th century, and it became a principality in 1284AD when England annexed the country. 
18 Below is the sort of information this has not found its way into the works of historians and minds of people to the extent it should. The author provides a good summary of the facts:
“At the turn of the 18th century, the Welsh linguist Edward Lhuyd discovered that Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Manx, Welsh, Cornish, and Breton comprised a single family of related languages. He theorized that the languages had originated in Iberia or in what is now France. Because the Romans had referred to some inhabitants of those areas as Celts, Lhuyd named the language family “Celtic.” Lhuyd’s interest was primarily linguistic, and he never suggested that the ancient inhabitants of the islands themselves were Celts.
In the 19th century, cultural nationalists in Great Britain and Ireland, influenced by the theories of Johann Herder, argued that if the ancient Irish, Welsh and Scots were Celtic speakers, then they must actually have been Celts, and therefore their descendants were the remnants of a Celtic “race” or Volk. That faulty logic led to the invention of the myth of the island Celts, a race of mystical warrior-poets.
In the mid-20th century, scholars came to agree that the Iron Age Celtic culture in continental Europe originated in the foothills of the Alps, and associated it with the great archaeological sites at Hallstat and La Tène. Because the ophisticated Hallstat/La Tène technology had spread across much of Europe, scholars assumed that the technology had accompanied migrations outward by the Celts themselves along with, of course, their language. Thus, if the peoples of the British Isles had been Celtic speakers, then of course they must have been Hallstat/La Tène Celts.” (Éamon O'Kelly, www.quora.com/Are-Lowlanders-of-Scotland-ethnically-a-Germanic-people).
 
A few years later, in 1301AD, the title of Prince of Wales was given to the heir to the English throne and during the reign of Henry VIII (1509 – 1547AD) it was incorporated into England under the Act of Union in 1536AD, but further details were laid out in a subsequent act in 1543AD. Since then, there has been some intermarriage between the ethnic Welsh and English, but the racial type is still dominantly Welsh. Almost 400 years later the Welsh nationalist party, Plaid Cymru, was founded in 1925 and pushed its agenda until a referendum in 1997 they gained home rule and their own elected parliament which was convened in 1999.19 Of additional interest is that Wales has a plethora of biblical place names which extend back over 1,000 years. In exploring this phenomenon, researcher John Davies remarks: “… in their adoption of Old Testament names, the speakers of the Brittonic languages (the early forms of Welsh, Cornish, and Breton) before about AD 1100, especially those persons existing in an ecclesiastical or other primarily religious setting, had something to tell us about their own religious and cultural roots and identity.” (“Old Testament Personal Names Among the Britons: Their Occurrence and Significance Before the Twelfth Century”, Viator: Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Vol. 43, No. 1, p. 176) 20 
9 A good outline of Welsh history can be found here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Welsh_history
20 A British-Israel publication contained a list of place names in Cornwall that appear to be related to Hebrew which needs to be further investigated, but seems likely (“Our Israel Britain Homeland”, The National Message, July 1978, p. 210). The article also records that there is an olive-skinned, people amongst the Cornish, especially in west Cornwall and Scilly Islands – these would by a mix of Brythons with some Phoenicians.
 
Davies provides his reasons, but one wonders if there is not something deeper lurking in the Brythonic psyche (i.e., their ‘racial memory’).
Welch Children
Amy Mulligan quotes Mary Garrison’s “Divine Election for Nations,” (in The Making of Christian Myths in the Periphery of Latin Christendom (c. 1000-1300) edited by Lars Boje Mortensen, 2006): “if the Old testament was ‘the historical record of the church before Christ,’ it now became, with a new immediacy, the history of the protestant groups who saw themselves as the New Israels such as the Dutch, the English “Protestants of the Civil War, [and] the Puritans who fled to America.” (Amy Mulligan, “Moses, Taliesin, and the Welsh Chosen People: Elis Gruffydd’s Construction of a Biblical, British Past for Reformation Wales”, Studies in Philology, Vol. 113, No. 4, pp. 774-75). 
Mulligan explains: Elis Gruffydd [a Welsh chronicler who lived in the 16th century], like other marginalized Protestants, appears to be thinking of his own Welsh people as another New Israel.” (ibid, Mulligan) 
 
Perhaps there was something deep in the national psyche or memory that resurrected the belief in Israelitish identity? “In writing his chronicle Elis Gruffydd, like earlier authors, created a richly textured picture of the Welsh, or native Britons, as typological counterparts to the Israelites. At the same time, by focusing on Moses specifically, and distancing his narrative and Taliesin from the trying aspects of the Israelites’ experience, Elis shifts the focus to more thoroughly celebratory associations between the Welsh and the Israelites,” (ibid, Mulligan, p. 789) And: “The links between Wales and the Israelites do not end with Elis Gruffydd, of course. Charles Edwards (1628–91), writing in 1667, links the Welsh and the Jews through (faulty) linguistic equations of Hebrew and Welsh.” (ibid, Mulligan, p. 794). 
 
If the reader would like to read further into Welsh history, the following are excellent works: A History of Wales by John Davies; When was Wales? A History of the Welsh by Gwyn Williams and Wales. A History by Wynford Vaughan-Thomas.
 
The Phoenician element in Wales
The article “The Tribes of Wales”, Welsh History Review, Vol. 4, pp. 161-74 examines the tribes and their territory in both the pre-Roman and Roman periods that Wales experienced. They maintain the whatever few textual sources that are available (chiefly Tacitus and Ptolemy), they are not necessarily reliable. In addition, the archaeological proofs are limited. However, drawing upon the siting of the forts of the Romans in relation to those tribes they were attempting to subdue provides clues as to the friendliness or otherwise of those particular tribes. They discuss the Deceangli, Demetae, Ordovices and Silures: the Demetae were a friendly tribe located in south-west Wales; the Ordovices were roughly in the middle of Wales; the Deceangli were in the area we call Flintshire; the lightly olive-skinned Silures21 were in the south, partial descendants of Phoenicians (Canaanites)22, but mixed with the Brythons.23 Publius Tacitus in his famous book Agricola (c.98AD), mentioned the darker and shorter Silurians (Agricola, xi.): “The red hair and large limbs of the inhabitants of Caledonia point clearly to a German origin [i.e., northern European racial stock]. The dark complexion of the Silures, their usually curly hair, and the fact that Spain is the opposite shore to them, are an evidence that Iberians of a former date crossed over and occupied these parts.” 
 
The Phoenicians were from the Mediterranean rim including Carthage (a colony in North Africa) who sometimes used mercenaries from the northern parts of Africa. They are known to have mined or traded with miners of copper and lead. As if to corroborate this, Michael Weale et al in “Y Chromosome Evidence for Anglo-Saxon Mass Migration”, Molecular Biology and Evolution, Vol 19, Issue 7, July, pp. 1008–1021, have shown via DNA analysis that the population of the town of Abergele in north Wales contains small traces of people from north Africa. To this one should also note the very little genetic Roman (Italian) presence that was left behind after they abandoned the island.
 
“Sir Walter said ‘At that time [time of Roman occupation], the population of Britain could have been as much as one million, so an awful lot of people would need to arrive in order for there to be an impact. You can have a huge impact culturally from relatively few people. There is no evidence of a Roman genetic signature but there is evidence of what the Roman’s achieved.” (Fiona Macrae, “Are the Welsh the Truest Brits?”, Daily Mail, 19 March 2015).
In any event, most of the Roman troops on British soil were brought in from West Europe (such as the Belgae) and were not from Italy. The article contains a map stating that “People in North and South Wales are less similar to each other that the English to the Scots.”
21 These and others are regarded as darker and found also in pockets in northern Wales, parts of Ireland, western Scotland and Exmoor in Devon (directly across the sea from Wales) and seem similar to some peoples along the coast of northwestern Spain (Emrys Bowen, Wales. A Physical, Historical and Regional Geography, p. 135).
22 “It is true that the Cassiterides, the “Isles of Tin,” whence the Phoenicians obtained great quantities of this metal, so much in request for the making of bronze, are no longer identified with the Scilly Isles, but it is suggested with much probability that they were the British Isles themselves” (John Lloyd, History of Wales, p. 27). Refer also to “Who were the Phoenician?” Watch Jerusalem, Nov-Dec 2021, pp. 4-10.
23 See also Edwin Guest, Origines Celticae (Vol. 2), pp. 46-55 for more about these tribes.
 
Links between Welsh and Hebrew Languages?
Could the Welsh language provide any clues as to true Welsh origins? “In 1899 the Welsh scholar Morris Jones published a paper entitled Pre-Aryan Syntax in Insular Celtic…  “[he] concluded that the pre-Celtic language or languages of the British Isles were of a Hamito-Semitic type of origin” (Heinrich Wagner, “Near Eastern and African Connections with the Celtic World”, in The Celtic Consciousness pp. 51-52). 
 
This includes the Hebrew language (p. 61). 24 They are not to be confused with the Celts of Europe (sometimes called ‘Celto-Slavs’). The labelling of the Gaels (or most of them) and Brythons as ‘Celts’ is a misnomer, much like American ‘Indian’. Some professional linguists such as Theo Vennemann has argued for a Semitic substratum in the Celtic languages, although this has not been accepted at this time by most linguists. In a short article Vennemann notes that “The non-Indo-European structural features of Insular Celtic have all been shown by Morris Jones and Pokorny to occur in Hamito-Semitic, and by Gensler to form a characteristic bundle of islglosses just of Hamito-Semitic and Insular Celtic.” (Theo Vennemann, Semitic → Celtic → English: The Transitvity of Language Contact, p. 1)25 John Wilson in his Languages of Europe states that: "The basis of the English language may, to a remarkable extent, be found in Hebrew. Many of our most common words, and names of familiar objects, are almost pure Hebrew." (J. Wilson, The Languages of Europe. Similar comments are made in John Cohane, The Key, p. 266) 
 
The ancient Welsh language also has some similarities to the Hebrew and has the same characteristic of almost being vowel-less as is the Hebrew. The Scythian language indicates that many of the Scyths were descendants of the Hebrew-speaking "Lost Ten Tribes". The Scythiac language they spoke is classified this way in the authoritative linguistic work, A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (which later became known as the Oxford English Dictionary): "Scythiac ... Scythian (language) ... There is a strong similarity between Hebrew and the Scythian languages". (James Murray, A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles, 1971 ed., Vol. VII, art., "Scythiac")
24 “It is tempting to think that it was the Iron Age hills-fort dwellers who introduced into Wales those dialects of Celtic speech [Brythonic], that became ancestral to the Welsh” (Emryn Bowen, Wales. A Physical, Historical and Regional Geography, p. 136)
25 For instance, “Today the museums of England and Ireland can boast of remarkable Celtic [i.e., British] works of art which reveal the art of the islands as an individual branch of Celtic art … The insular style combined relief ornament with linear engraving, using palmettes, spiral patterns [etc] … The earlier style was in use mainly in south-east England, from whence it later penetrated to Ireland.” (Jan Filip, “Early History and Evolution of the Celts: The Archaeological Evidence”, in The Celtic Consciousness, p. 43) [emphasis mine]
 
A famous Jewish convert to Christianity, Moses Margoliouth, wrote in his The History of the Jews in Great Britain (vol. 1): “Now, if the aboriginal Britons knew not the Jews [i.e., Israelites], where could they have got hold of whole Hebrew—of purely Hebrew sentences? We say then, again, is it not highly probable, if not demonstrated, that the Jews visited this island at a very early period, and tried to teach the natives the lessons which they have themselves learned?” (p. 23)26 
 
Other works bringing tremendous scholarship to the above are Similarities in Germanic and Hebrew by Dr Terry Blodgett and The Word by Isaac Mozeson (both of these works are a “must” to read). Another is “Lat. Sacena, Heb. Sakkin and the Mediterranean Substrate”, The Journal of Indo-European Studies, Vol. 22, pp. 165-175 by Hannan Rosen; The Affinity between the Hebrew Language and The Celtic by Thomas Stratton; and A Comparative Vocabulary of Forty Eight Languages, comprising One Hundred and Forty Six Common English Words, with the Cognates in other Languages showing their Affinities with the English and Hebrew by Jacob Tomlin.27 The latter, for example, strives to prove that early Cymric literature was a derivation of Hebrew in its ancient form. And to cap it all off, perhaps it should not be a great surprise to understand what the name Britain (derived from Briton or Brython, an ancient Celtic tribe) really means. The Hebrew word for covenant is berith or beriyth. While the Hebrew word for man is ish or iysh. In Judges 8:33 the word for covenant is coupled with Baal to mean “idol of the covenant”. Thus, the English pronouncement of the Hebrew berith-ish is British. In other words, the British are the people of the covenant or covenant man – seemingly a concept carried by them down through the generations.
Suggested Further Reading on Welsh History
• “Who Were the Phoenicians”? Watch Jerusalem, Nov-Dec 2021, pp. 4-10 by Mihailo Zekic.
• Celt, Druid and Culdee by Isabel Hill Elder.
26 “Be it recollected that the Jewish nation has been trained to be a wandering nation—to be prepared, no doubt, for their mighty dispersion. Their progenitor, Abraham, seems to have been a type of the same, who was thus commanded (Genesis xii. 1), “Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will show thee;” and 'his descendants have ever and anon manifested a peculiar migratory disposition, as is to be seen in holy writ.” (p. 7)
“Now if Tharshis be Spain, the conclusion that the Israelites must have visited the western countries in the days of Solomon, is inevitable.” (p. 14)
“Now, Strabo calls Britain Bpeamm—Bochart, a profound Oriental scholar, shows that Bperavucn is a corruption of the Hebrew words Barat-Anach, which are in signification the same as Casseritides. Is it not highly probable that Jews came over to this island with the Phoenicians, and named it according to its peculiar quality; which designation was ultimately adopted by the aborigines, when they began to have intercourse with the Jews.” (p. 22)
“Clemens Romanus, who was an intimate friend and fellow-labourer of St. Paul, declares in his Epistle to the Corinthians, that St. Paul having been a herald of the gospel both in the east and in the west, he received the noble crown of faith, after teaching righteousness to the whole world, and gone even, “ to the utmost bounds of the west :” an expression well ' known to every scholar, that always designated, or at least included, the British Islands.” (p. 39). For more details refer to St. Paul in Britain by the Rev. Morgan.27 In If Calmy You Listen by L. Buxton Gresty, wrote: "The Rev. E. E. Williams, a prolific writer and author of The Ancient Celtic Tribes, Historical Anecdotes of the Welsh Language, The Druids and Celtic Bards, etc., has said that “The roots of most of the ancient British, or real Welsh words, may be regularly traced in the Hebrew."" (p. 147)
27 In If Calmy You Listen by L. Buxton Gresty, wrote: "The Rev. E. E. Williams, a prolific writer and author of The Ancient Celtic Tribes, Historical Anecdotes of the Welsh Language, The Druids and Celtic Bards, etc., has said that “The roots of most of the ancient British, or real Welsh words, may be regularly traced in the Hebrew."" (p. 147)
• The Chronicles of the Early Briton. An annotated translation by William Cooper.
• The Light of Britannia. The Mysteries of Ancient British Druidism Unveiled by Owen Morgan.
 
WELSH CHARACTER AND ATTRIBUTES
Let us now explore the national characteristics of the Welsh and how this stacks up with that of the tribe of Levi. Welsh Attributes – Similarities to Levi The Levites (as well as the Simeonites and to a lesser extent the Judahites) were quick-tempered, fierce and sometimes cruel people as we have seen (Gen 49:5-7). Wynford Vaughan-Thomas in Wales. A History noted that the Welsh “are proud to call themselves Celts. They speak a variety of the old Celtic tongues and have a speial affinity with their Celtic neighbours in Ireland and Brittany … Without the Celts there would have been no Wales… they were a race of warrior aristocrats” (p. 28) But that is not all, from what can be ascertained from the Scriptures this tribe are excellent singers, individualistic, musically gifted. How similar to the Welsh who are also known for their individualism, excellent oratory and natural singing as well as an unusual sense of duty for the caring of others. Were not the Levites the main musicians within ancient Israel? See IChron 9:33; IIChron 5:12-14; 34:12; Neh 11:22 for evidence. Recall the famous Tom Jones musically gifted to a very high degree with an incredibly powerful singing voice.
 
In fact, since my childhood I heard that the Welsh were the best singers in the world, producing top class singers out of all proportion to their small numbers. No wonder Wales is known around the world as the “land of song” and their distinctive link to music as part of national identity stands out among the nations.28 Their National Eisteddfod festival which has been in operation in one way or another since the 12 century (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eisteddfod), honours those Welsh who have made a large contribution to Welsh language and culture; it also promotes poetry, music, arts and literature. The most important ceremony during the week-long celebration is the ‘crowning of the bard’ – i.e., the winning entrant. Notice Moses’ prophecy referred to previously: “And of Levi he said, “Give to Levi your Thummim, and your Urim to your godly one, whom you tested at Massah, with whom you quarreled at the waters of Meribah;
who said of his father and mother, ‘I regard them not’; he disowned his brothers and ignored his children. For they observed your word and kept your covenant.

"They shall teach Jacob your rules and Israel your law; they shall put incense before you and whole burnt offerings on your altar.

"Bless, O LORD, his substance, and accept the work of his hands; crush the loins of his adversaries, of those who hate him, that they rise not again.” (Deut 33:8-11) 
28 A blog listing some famous Welsh singers is https://millersmusic.co.uk/blog/iconic-welsh-musicians/
 
This blessing of the congregation at the end of some church services (cp Num 6:23-26) may be found in ancient Israel. Is there a Levitical element within many Protestant churches?
 
National and Tribal Emblems
One of the most prominent national emblems is the leek. A tradition has it that when the Welsh were at war with the Saxons, a Welsh leader (king of Gwynedd) ordered his troops to wear a leek to identify themselves in contrast to the Saxons during the confusion wrought during the fighting. While this distinguished the Welsh from the Saxons, it also supposedly possessed a secret potion that helped them win the battle. While the leek is mentioned in the Bible (Num 11:5), it doesn’t appear to bear any relationship to the Levites. However, the pretty daffodil was chosen during the 19th century as the national flower while the oak is the national tree. As we have seen, the latter has Levitical significance. 
The national flag depicts a red dragon as a heraldic symbol, but it has nothing to do the devil, despite the nonsense spread by conspiracy theorists.29 It may have something to do with the Welsh for warrior or chieftain, ddraich or draig, denoting bravery. Following is a simple explanation of its origin: “The Flag of Wales incorporates the red dragon, now a popular Welsh symbol, along with the Tudor colours of green and white. It was used by Henry VII at the battle of Bosworth in 1485 after which it was carried in state to St. Paul's Cathedral. The red dragon was then included in the Tudor royal arms to signify their Welsh descent. It was officially recognised as the Welsh national flag in 1959. The British Union Flag incorporates the flags of Scotland, Ireland and England but does not have any Welsh representation. 
29 See “Dragon is a symbol of evil and paganism?” www.reddragonflagmakers.co.uk/blogs/blog/128673735-dragon-is-a-sign-of-evil-and-paganism-how-wrong-can-rev-hargreaves-be
 
It is thought to extend clear back to the 5th century to symbolise the withdrawal of the Romans and Welsh power restored. It could be that the dragon evolved from a bull symbol mixed with a dragon symbol found on a few Roman standards. This Roman symbol was even adopted by the kingdom of Wessex.
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Feds launch investigation of anti-Semitism at Berkeley

'Hostile environment' reported to the Office of Civil Rights

(Photo by Mick Haupt on Unsplash)

 

By Kate Anderson
Daily Caller News Foundation

The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced that it is launching an investigation into the University of California Berkeley Law School due to concerns of anti-zionism.

Gabriel Groisman, an attorney and partner at LSN Law, P.A., and Arsen Ostrovsky, an Israel-based attorney, and CEO of The International Legal Forum filed a complaint with the OCR on Nov. 18, according to the Cleveland Jewish News. The complaint came as a result of multiple student groups adopting Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions bylaws associated with the pro-Palestine movement, that banned pro-Israel speakers from their chapters.

The OCR agreed Tuesday to conduct an official investigation into the “hostile environment” at U.C. Berkeley Law, according to the Cleveland Jewish News.

“Whether the University failed to respond appropriately in the fall 2022 semester to notice from Jewish law students, faculty, and staff that they experienced a hostile environment at the law school based on their shared Jewish ancestry when University-recognized student organizations passed a bylaw against inviting speakers who support ‘Zionism, the state of Israel, and the occupation of Palestine,'” the OCR stated in the letter.

Ostrovsky told the Daily Caller News Foundation that the notion that anti-Zionism and antisemitism are not related was false.

“Zionism is an integral and core component of Jewish identity. So in other words when they use the excuse saying ‘no Zionists [are] welcome’ what in effect they are actually saying that no Jews are welcome,” he stated. 

In August, students from the student chapter Law Students for Justice in Palestine at Berkeley Law passed bylaws banning pro-Israel speakers from being invited to events and required its board members to attend a “Palestine 101” training, according to the chapter’s Instagram. The bylaws were passed by nine other student chapters on campus.

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The Festival of Lights ~ Missing the Most Important Meaning

Hannukah will begin next week, and you can search around and find numerous theories and thoughts surrounding the "Festival of Lights" as it relates to Jesus. As many know, this is also the celebration known as Hanukkah.

Look up the Festival of Lights and you will find that people believe Jesus was conceived during this winter festival and it does fit a logical theory stemming from scripture that Jesus was born in autumn.  Then there are of course the masses that celebrate Christ's birth in late December as they believe He was born on the 25th, you can read more on this theory being debunked. More importantly speaking of Jesus' conception and birth, the exact date is just not known of either, the Bible does NOT specify. We know the Bible is the inspired Word of God, so not being given these details by Him, it must mean then that God really doesn’t want us to know. Human nature is to try to find resolve, but it just plainly and simply was not told to us. And guess what? That is OK, in fact, that is more than okay. God is so specific in what He reveals and what He does not reveal. 

With all of that said, good intentioned people can tend to miss what is most important and to those celebrating the Festival of Lights, are you maybe missing the Biblical message of who really is the TRUE LIGHT? 

Here is a short study on the true meaning of the Festival of Lights from Beyond Today.

Hanukkah, Christmas and Light

See the source image

From UCG.org The Beyond Today Program

[Darris McNeely] The Jewish festival of Hanukkah is a very interesting festival - happening every year usually in December among the Jewish people. Hanukkah goes back - the story of Hanukkah goes back - to the 2nd century, the Jewish story, when the people in Judea threw off the Seleucid yoke and had the opportunity to go back into the temple and there, they we were going to reinstate all of their traditions and all of their ceremonies. They only found enough oil for one day of lighting the lamps in the temple, but a miracle was supposedly performed and there was enough oil for eight days.  And so the tradition and the celebration began around this has come down to the people today of Hanukkah being a season of lights. You have this menorah - which is an eight candled, eight branched menorah - used specifically for the Hanukkah season that relates to that whole festival of lights - which is an interesting period of time because we are also into the Christmas season.

[Steve Myers] Right, a lot of people feel that Hanukkah is the Jewish version of Christmas and they're really not connected in any way. Except there is an interesting connection and it has to do with the lights themselves. At Christmas time so many people put up lights all around their house. They set up their Christmas tree. They put lights on the Christmas tree as well. And of course, at Hanukkah we got the candles that are on the menorah, and they light those candles each day. In fact, some people have an advent candle that they light - for maybe many days before Christmas leading up to it. And so there is this connection of light but is it the kind of light that we should have?

[Darris McNeely]  And here in the darkest season of the year - in December. You have the Christmas celebration which is based upon an ancient period of the Saturnalia festivals in Rome. You have the Jewish tradition of Hanukkah and its lights. But both of them really miss the key scriptural teaching about light which is that of Jesus Christ. In John chapter 3 and in verse 19 it says, "...the Light has come into the world and men love darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil" (John 3:19). Jesus Christ is the true light of the world. And, still today people are not able to come to understand exactly what that light and the truth of Christ's teaching does mean. We love evil too much and we wrap the teaching about Jesus Christ around ideas, traditions and fables. Neither one of which really teach about Jesus.

[Steve Myers] That's right. Christ is left out. Commonly we hear that phrase "put Christ back in Christmas" - well He was never there. So, Christ is left out of Christmas, and He is left out of Hanukkah as well. And so the challenge is much like Ephesians 5:8 says. It says, "…you are the light in the Lord, walk as children in light." And so we have that challenge to walk in spirit and truth, and worship God in a way that pleases Him - one of light, that shines the evidence of Christ in our lives so clearly.

[Darris McNeely] So, with all these human traditions around us at this time of year - Christmas, Hanukkah and whatever the custom might be. Again, we challenge you to go back through all we have talked about in the various Beyond Today programs and really understand who is the true light - Jesus Christ, the Light of the world. Find and worship Him, in spirit and in truth.

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Tourism bonanza predicted at 'exact spot where Jesus was baptized'

Could swell to 1 million visitors a year if a proposed project for 'tourist city' goes ahead

A baptism in the Jordan River in Israel (Image by Gabriel Ballerini from Pixabay)

A baptism in the Jordan River in Israel (Image by Gabriel Ballerini from Pixabay)


Where are the Levites Today-Part 2

In Chapter 1 we learned that some of the tribe of Levi made their way to Wales- now we continue with the study

Descendants of Levi

Those born into this bloodline became the religious teachers and leaders and inherited various privileges of office by virtue of birth. Their role was effectively suspended late in the first century until the time of the Messiah, but the Levites are still extant somewhere on this planet. Who are they? Where do they reside? And by nature, do they still tend to religious roles? The descendants of Levi are represented in the chart below. He had three sons (Gen 46:11) and a number of grandsons, etc. His sons were Gershon, Kohath, Merari and it may be that the clans named after them can still be identified.