The Link Between the Old and the New Testaments, is it the Cornerstone?

For starters, the question used in the title sounds a bit awkward, one might say. So, we know that a cornerstone is the base or foundation of a corner in a building that joins two walls. The reason why I am bringing it up is because both the Old and the New Testaments mention a cornerstone, but when we read the verses that mention a cornerstone, it does not sound at all like a literal meaning. I will show some verses that mention the word, and maybe you will have to think about it on your own, and decide for yourself on the meaning in the context. First, I want to present Psalm 118:22, it says:

“The stone which the builders rejected is become the chief corner-stone (JPS).”
The previous verse, Psalm 118:21 says:

“I will give thanks unto Thee, for Thou hast answered me, and art become my salvation (JPS).”

The verse that followed verse 22 (23), says:

“This is the LORD'S doing; it is marvelous in our eyes.”

Let’s leave Psalms, and move on to another book, Isaiah. Isaiah 28:16 says:

“Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD: Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a costly corner-stone of sure foundation; he that believeth shall not make haste (JPS).”

Now, the same verse with the preceding and proceeding verses sounds as follows:

“Isaiah 28:15 Because ye have said: 'We have made a covenant with death, and with the nether-world are we at agreement; when the scouring scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us; for we have made lies our refuge, and in falsehood have we hid ourselves';
Isaiah 28:16 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD: Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a costly corner-stone of sure foundation; he that believeth shall not make haste.
Isaiah 28:17 And I will make justice the line, and righteousness the plummet; and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding-place (JPS).”

Now, when we look at the New Testament, this is what 1 Peter 2:6-7 says:

"For it stands in Scripture: "Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame." So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe, "The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone (ESV)"

Okay, I will not get too involved, and I will leave it up to you to investigate about the cornerstone. I will not provide any further clues, so, enjoy your search!

References:

ESV Bible

JPS Tanakh

How many siblings did Jesus have?

Well, I suppose this is sort of a trivial posting, but I am in a trivial mood, so I will ask the question. How many siblings did Jesus have? Based on the canon and not anything extra-canonical in this case, the answer can be found easily in the Gospel of Mark. Yes, the Gospel of Mark contains a verse that gives us an idea of how many siblings Jesus had more or less. The verse is the following:


Mark 6:3 says: “Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us (ESV Bible)?"


Well, now we have a good understanding of how many brothers and sisters Jesus had while he was on planet Earth based on this previous verse alone. He had four brothers (half-brothers, I am sure). The brothers were James, Joses, Judas and Simon. He had at least two sisters or more because the word sisters appears as plural in the verse; however, we do not know their names based on this verse. Well, I hope you enjoyed the trivia question. I also encourage you to read the entire chapter 6 in context to get a better idea of what was going on in the story. Moreover, if you have time read the entire Gospel or Book of Mark, I think that you will find it fascinating. Oh, a little inside information, the last 12 verses of chapter 16 do not appear in some older manuscripts, so it is very possible that the book ends in chapter 16 and verse 8. Although, I really do not think that is a huge deal because some of the things described in those last 12 verse seemingly take place in the Book of Acts written by Luke the Physician, and both Luke and Mark were students of the Apostle Paul. Furthermore, some of the things described in those 12 verses are still happening today….



References:

ESV Bible

You Knew

This past August 15th, as every year, the Eastern Church celebrated the Dormition of the Theotokos or The Dormition of the Virgin Mary in the Western Church perhaps. The celebration is literally remembering her falling asleep at the end of her life on earth. It is not the celebration of her death because as soon as her soul left her body she was with her son in Heaven. Mary is to be venerated because even in Luke 1:28, the angel Gabriel spoke to her saying: "Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!" Her own cousin Elizabeth said in Luke 1:42 said: "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!” Indeed, she was the mother of “the Word” as John 1:1 reads: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Mary was the mother of our Lord, and she is to be venerated as such, although she is just like one of us believers, and is our sister. Furthermore, we all have the hope of being with Jesus when our time on earth expires. When she slept, Mary went to be with him. In 1 Corinthians 15:51-52, St. Paul wrote the following about all of us believers in Christ which is very exciting.

"Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed (ESV Bible)."

I think that I have explained myself. And, I do take into consideration what someone may have said about Mary in the Talmud. Anyhow, the following is a brief poem that I wrote in remembrance of Mary because I simply felt like writing it. The poem is titled: You Knew and it reads as follows.



In envy some called you Marian the hair dresser, and worse things followed the phrase.

But, when Gabriel brought you the message, you were overwhelmed and filled with joy.

You got to see him grow up and, yes, you knew.

The pain and suffering must have been almost unbearable for you.

When he was on the tree, you knew, and you cried like no one had ever cried.

And, now and ultimately, you knew and know that Gabriel’s message was right.




Reference:

ESV Bible

Apologetics and the New Testament

Since this blog is about Apologetics than perhaps I should spend a little more time on the matter. Perhaps one of the best forms of apologetics is New Testament apologetics because of all the manuscripts that exist for it. Many of the facts with relevance to manuscript reliability can be found in much text on paper and all over the web. A really good website for such information is CARM (Christian Apologetics Research Ministry). The following is some of the data you will find when visiting this site:

“There are thousands more New Testament Greek manuscripts than any other ancient writing. The internal consistency of the New Testament documents is about 99.5% textually pure. That is an amazing accuracy. In addition there are over 19,000 copies in the Syriac, Latin, Coptic, and Aramaic languages. The total supporting New Testament manuscript base is over 24,000.

Almost all biblical scholars agree that the New Testament documents were all written before the close of the First Century. If Jesus was crucified in 30 A.D., then that means that the entire New Testament was completed within 70 years. This is important because it means there were plenty of people around when the New Testament documents were penned who could have contested the writings. In other words, those who wrote the documents knew that if they were inaccurate, plenty of people would have pointed it out. But, we have absolutely no ancient documents contemporary with the First Century that contest the New Testament texts (http://carm.org/manuscript-evidence).”

The website provides much more accurate data and thorough details than I am providing on the New Testament at this time; therefore, I have to say that I highly recommend that you visit CARM and take advantage of their resources. The link for CARM is a follows: carm.org.

References:

http://carm.org/manuscript-evidence.

This Chick-Fil-A thing is Confusing!

Jesus never really spoke about homosexuality; he did say to “love your neighbor as yourself.” Paul seems to be talking about it and seemingly spoke about it in Romans 1:18-32, although many theologians would agree that he was quoting Wisdom of Solomon 13-14, which is an Apocryphal book and most evangelicals do not use the Apocrypha in their canon. So, I am completely bewildered by all this stuff. I get upset with the politicizing of this Chick-Fil-A matter on both sides. I think the Chick-Fil-A guy has a right to do or say whatever he wants, and anyone who has a different view has a right to voice it out; however, I do not really see the theological foundation for it. If people want to eat a lot of Chick-Fil-A, I think its ok, but watch out for the excess of food because that may be a sin. Moreover, the sin of Sodom was that “she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy.” Homosexuality is nowhere on this list. If you want to see this just read Ezekiel 16:49-51 which reads as follows:

“Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. They were haughty and did an abomination before me. So I removed them, when I saw it. Samaria has not committed half your sins. You have committed more abominations than they, and have made your sisters appear righteous by all the abominations that you have committed.”

I think that if one gets a mean response from someone it is usually because one is being mean first…of course, there is an exception to every rule. I personally, will try to love everyone because the Scriptures do say that we are all sinners, and none of us are good. In fact, Psalm 14:2-3 says:

“The LORD looks down from heaven on the children of man, to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one.”

Rest

I suppose that in this current age most of us probably work more than we do rest. You really don’t have to believe my words. You can visit the website for the United States Department of labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, and I am sure you can find most of the stats relevant to who is working and who isn’t in extreme details. If you wish to visit the site it is found in the following link:

http://www.bls.gov/

One thing I can say about the previous website is that it is very informative with relevance to the subject of labor.

Now, the Unemployment Rate for the United States in June 2012 was 8.2%; consequently, if you do the simple math, this means that 91.8% of the labor force must be employed or working. One of the facts I learned early on when it comes to work is that when you work too much you tend to get tired. Moreover, if you work too much or too many consecutive days in a row, you will probably need to rest or to take a vacation. Rest is very good because it helps one recharge their batteries to perhaps continue back at the pace needed to be productive. Of course, the previous thought is not always true because many times people could be suffering from a severe illness and really need medical attention to heal if possible.

In the United States, things like vacations and sick leave fall under employee benefits. And, employee benefits in the United States in March 2012 were as follows:

"Paid leave benefits followed a similar pattern. The difference was more pronounced in the availability of paid sick leave, which was offered to 52 percent of workers in small establishments and 82 percent in large establishments. Paid holidays and paid vacation were available to 69 percent of workers in small establishments and 91 and 90 percent, respectively, to workers in large establishments (http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/ebs2.pdf).”

Perhaps, all of the foregoing data is not really necessary for the message I am trying to convey in this posting; however, information really doesn’t hurt when one is attempting to make a case…. So, really what I want to say is that rest is extremely important and even more in the Holy Scriptures, so we should take it very serious. I only wish to provide a couple of Scriptural verse that confirms what I am trying to say. The very first verses I will include are found in Genesis 2:2-3 which read:

“And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done.
So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation (ESV Bible).”

The second verses that I will include are found in Mathew 11:28-30 in which Jesus is speaking about rest. The verses read as follows:

“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light (ESV Bible)."

In closing, what I want to say is that rest is very important in the Scriptures, so don’t take it lightly, and don’t work too hard, take a break whenever possible. Also, I would pay close attention to the words of Jesus because it appears that the type of rest he is talking about is very important.



References:

ESV Bible

http://www.bls.gov/

Friday April 3rd, 33 C.E.

I was recently reading an article in Bible History Daily which is provided by the Biblical Archeology Society. The article was titled: Is Jesus’ Crucifixion Reflected in Soil Deposition? A Geological Study May Indicate Earthquake Described by Matthew. A portion of the article reads as follows:

“According to the Gospel of Matthew, an earthquake shook Jerusalem on the day of Jesus’ crucifixion. A new study of cores and seismic activity near the Dead Sea in the latest issue of International Geology Review* may provide scientific data relating to the event described in Matthew 27. Moreover, some have suggested** that the new research on sediment disturbances can be combined with Biblical, astronomical and calendrical information to give a precise date of the crucifixion: Friday, April 3rd, 33 C.E.”

I enjoyed reading the article and found it to be quite informative. I highly recommend it and suggest that you read it as a reference or just personal reading. Moreover, I think that most of the articles in this source are very good as well. The link to the specific article I was referencing is as follows:


http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-topics/crucifixion/jesus%E2%80%99-crucifixion-reflected-in-soil-deposition/?mqsc=E3247053.


Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy your visit to their website!










Reference:

http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-topics/crucifixion/jesus%E2%80%99-crucifixion-reflected-in-soil-deposition/?mqsc=E3247053.