Don't Assume The Day Always Begins at Midnight

Most of us, in the Western world at least, assume the calendar day starts and ends at midnight, but this has not always been so -- and with some people it still is not today.


There was no set way of counting days following the Noachian Flood and the spread of civilizations throughout the Middle-East. Some began and ended their days in the evenings. Some started each new day at sunrise. Some began a new day at midnight.


Like us  the ancient Egyptians and Romans had a day that ran  from midnight to midnight. But the Babylonians started their days at sunrise. But others like the Jews. Numidians and Phoenicians set a 24 hour day which ran from one evening to the next -- from one sunset to the next.


This was a pattern established by Jehovah God in his six creative days were one day started in the evening and ended the following morning ( Genesis 1: 5, 8, 13, 19, 23, 31) and in his commands to observe the seventh day as a Sabbath at Leviticus 23: 28, 32 were he said: "from one evening to the next you should observe your sabbath."


This is a custom still practiced by modern day Jews.

The Ships of Tarshish

The Phoenicians were among the first builders of ocean going vessels in the Mediterranean Sea. These were ships that helped make King Solomon very rich -- and the Phoenicians, at least for a time, not only very rich but also the masters of the Mediterranean from Tyre along its eastern shores as far West as Spain.


Their seamanship grew gradually. First they built and sailed smaller vessels made from Juniper wood and propelled by the wind and linen sails and sailors manning oak oars up down the eastern end of the Mediterranean trading with their neighbours to the North and South of them such as Israel and King Solomon of Israel thousands of years before the time of Christ.


As their ship technology and building skills grew over the years they eventually built vessels over a hundred feet long and their sailors ventured farther West along the northern shores of Africa creating trading alliances and settlements as they went.


Eventually they reached what today is known as the Straits of Gibraltar at the western entrance to the Mediterranean and crossed over to Spain where they established a lucrative trading business with the inhabitants of Tarshish who had an abundance of minerals such as gold, silver, and other minerals to trade.


Because of their ability to withstand the often violent weather they encountered on these 4,000 mile voyages these ships soon became renowned as "The Ships of Tarshish" and other nations, such as Israel, seeking to building their own navies  on the  Mediterranean and Red Seas  copied both the design and name  of these early ocean going vessels

Forgotten Bible Translation Was Unique, Contentious

How would you like to own a Bible that was comfortable to hold while you looked up easy to find information and with a typeface that was easy to read, unlike copies of the Bible produced with a Gothic typeface trying to imitate handwriting?. If you lived back in 1560 you could have had all of this and more. This translation of the Bible,  translated by William Whitting, was the first in English with numbered verses and running heads across the top of the pages -- much like many modern Bible translations do today

It was very popular not only with the general public but also literary giants such as Shakespeare and Marlowe who took their Biblical quotations from it no doubt not only because it had such features   but also because its editors strove for textual accuracy and clarity. Examples of this include:

• The English words retained the sense of flavor of the original Hebrew.
• God's name, Jehovah, was rendered in a number of places like Exodus 6:3 and Psalm 83:18.
• Explanatory editions were written in Italics.
• Words added for grammatical clarity in English were enclosed by square brackets.
• Marginal notes explaining difficult passages
• Illustrations, maps, and prefaces
• Genealogical tables
• Text summaries

However, it was not a Bible translation liked by many religious leaders because of what they considered radical marginal notes and kings like King James I hated it because some of these notes also challenged the "divine right of kings."

It was eventually replaced by the King James or Authorized version at the instigation of this James I who wanted to promote a Bible version that did not challenge his (and other monarch's) claims to such divine authority , but not before the Geneva Bible had done much to encourage Bible reading.  

He Never Did Claim That

 

Certain Bible scholars have resurrected the question again about whether there is any merit in Jesus" claim to be God. The ironic thing here is that after their years of study none of these persons have detected one simple thing in the Gospel and other Bible accounts about Jesus – and that is that he never ever claimed to be God. He said very clearly that his Father was greater than he was. That he came to do the will of his father. This his food was to do the will of his father etc. etc. Not once did he claim to be this same person.

Read the Gospel accounts as well as other parts of the Christian Greek Scriptures or the New Testament with an open mind (no preconceived ideas) and you will see this clearly.

This idea of him and God being the same person was something early apostates, after the death of the Apostles , incorporated into their teachings from the religions of the Middle East and the rest of the world the world in an effort to attract people from other religions to the Christian faith.

Simple, Nourishing Foods of Jesus' Day

The Jews of Jesus' day were early leaders in the production of wholesome organic foods with a selection of nourishing breads, grains vegetables, fruits, fish and meat used to create nourishing meals from breakfast to dinner as well as for special feasts.

Grains such as wheat, barley, oats, spelt and millet were grown by Jewish farmers in Jesus' day and formed a major part of the first century Jewish diet with each person consuming nearly 200 kilograms of cereals each year. This provided them with about half of their caloric intake. A good part of these grains or cereals were in the form of bread.

Like today different types of bread could be bought in the market but in most cases Jewish women made their own bread in stone ovens after spending up to three hours or more grinding wheat or other grains into flour. And bread formed only part of the meal.

The breakfast meals, especially for people living near coast also included fresh fish, bread, nuts, raisins and olives. This is likely the type of breakfast Jesus offered some of his disciples after they had spent an entire night fishing without much luck. Remember how Jesus called out to them on this occasion described in John 21: 9-13: "Come, take your breakfast."

Like many of us the midday meal or lunch was often light. According to the book, Life in Biblical Israel the Jewish often prepared a meal from bread, some type of grain, as well as olives and figs.

The evening meal varied widely depending on the wealth of the individual or family. According to Poverty and Charity in Roman Palestine, First Three Centuries C.E. most persons ate a very simple meal. "Most people ate bread or porridges made of barley, various cereals and legumes or sometimes wheat. They supplemented them usually with salt and oil or olives, occasionally a strong sauce or honey, or sweet fruit juices.

But, depending on the family and part of the country a wide variety of foods could form a part of the menu with milk, cheeses and 30 different types of vegetables such as onions, garlic, radishes, carrots, cabbage to name a few. And many of the Jewish people also a choice of some 30 different types of fruits such as figs, dates, and pomegranates growing in the area. And those living near the sea could also catch and prepare fish as part of their menu while more wealthy persons also included some type of meat and wine (a very popular beverage in ancient Israel) as part of the evening meal made even more flavourful with a dash of herbs such as dill, cumin, and mustard finished off with a desert "of roasted wheat prepared with almonds, honey, and spices."

 

 

 

 

God's Qualities Can Be Clearly Seen

 

The Apostle Paul's words partially quoted here from Romans 1:20: where Paul said, "For his invisible [qualities] are clearly seen from the world's creation onward."

What he meant is evident in the design of creatures around us. Consider the humpback whale for instance. This 30 ton 40 foot long animal is more agile than most human swimmers being able to turn in seemingly impossibly tight circles even when the whale is climbing at steep angles.

The secret is in the leading edge of its flippers. They are not smooth like the leading edge of an airplane wing as you might imagine but faced with protruding bumps or tubercles which cause the water to accelerate over the flipper in an organized, rotating flow. This reduces drag and increases lift – much better than any airplane wing

So much more efficiently, actually, that biomechanics experts such as John Long believe that before too long we could see every jetliner wing designed with similar protruding bumps on the leading edges. Such wings would definitely need fewer flaps and other moving parts, need less maintenance and make the airliner much safer to fly in and is a perfect example of God's design intelligence.

Another example of this is the seagull's wing which aircraft designers have been to mimic in prototype drones which have the seagull's ability to hover, dive and climb rapidly according to an article in New Scientist magazine.

Military aircraft designers are keen on designing and building such small aircraft, which can hover and dive between tall buildings to help search for chemical or biological threats in big cities such as New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles throughout the world.

All of this so far is but a quick look at what Paul was talking about in the introduction to his Bible book of Romans, but it does help to illustrate what he meant – the proof all around us in the world of nature of a super intelligent and creative God.

 

 

 

 

 

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The Words of Three More Bible Writers Vindicated

Many sceptics question the accuracy of the Bible, claiming things like it is nothing but an anthology of mythical events and characters, but archaeologists are proving them wrong.
Take, for instance, the accounts of the destruction of the two Egyptian cities of Memphis and Thebes. Both of these cities were once famous cities of ancient Egypt. Memphis on the West side of the Nile River was about 14 miles to the South of Cairo. From here the ancient Pharaohs rule Egypt until about the Third Century B.C.E. when they moved their capital 300 miles farther South to the city of No or Thebes the site of the largest structure ever built with columns – a temple dedicated to their chief god: Anon.
Both Ezekiel (Ezekiel 30: 14,15) and Jeremiah ( Jeremiah 46: 25, 26) predicted the complete destruction of these cities along with their inhabitants. And that is exactly what happened.
If you were to travel to the old location of Thebes all you would find would be the modern town of Luxor built over part of the ruins of the ancient city. And, according to Bible scholar Louis Golding all that remains of ancient Memphis are stones protruding above the black soil for mile on mile.

Then there is the matter of one Belshazzar who Daniel said was the King of Babylon at the time that Cyrus the Great destroyed it. For centuries Belshazzar was never heard about outside the pages of the Bible so sceptics claimed that he never existed, that he was just the figment of Daniel's imagination.
But sometime in the Nineteenth Century somebody discovered cuneiform cylinders mentioning one Belshazzar, the oldest son of King Nabonidus – the recognized King of Babylon at the time of its fall at the hands of Cyrus and the Medes and Persians. So Belshazzar did exist after all.
And not only did he exist as the Bible says – but archaeologists also found other tablets with cuneiform text that proved that Nabonidus had entrusted the kingdom to this son, Belshazzar, some time before Cyrus attacked and destroyed the city.
He was the number two ruler of Babylon definitely – under his father, Nabonidus – but he was the King of Babylon – at the time of its destruction.