A reader asked if the Exodus really happened, and, when I assured him it did, he then wondered why Moses is not mentioned in secular Egyptian history. Well, it’s quite possible that Moses is featured in the historical records of the eighteenth dynasty, and that he has been overlooked because…
The Moabite Stone (aka Mesha stele in archaeological circles) refers to “Omri, King of Israel,” saying that Moab was oppressed by Omri and that Mesha won a great victory against his son. Mesha is mentioned in the Bible, “And Mesha king of Moab was a sheepmaster, and rendered unto the…
Over the years, I have studied dozens of interpretations of Daniel 9:24-25, the prophecy of the Seventy Weeks . To refresh your memory, those verses say: “Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and…
There is much confusion in Christian circles about the meaning and application of the phrase “times of the Gentiles” as spoken by Jesus and recorded in the Book of Luke. Many modern expositors consider the “times of the Gentiles” to still be underway, despite what Jesus said about its duration,…
Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is observed on the 10th day of Tishri on the Hebrew calendar. Jews all over the world will go to their local synagogue on that day for the purpose of achieving atonement. However, the Tanakh says Yom Kippur as celebrated by Jews today will…
The Jewish people have been taught by their rabbis for twenty centuries that Jesus was not the Jewish Messiah, and that his death proved to all Jewish people that he was a renegade Jew making false claims. Maimonides firmly established that thought with his teachings. In his Mishneh Torah Maimonides…
On May 14, 1948, in Tel Aviv, Jewish Agency Chairman David Ben-Gurion proclaimed the State of Israel, establishing the first sovereign Jewish state in 2,000 years. In an afternoon ceremony at the Tel Aviv Art Museum, Ben-Gurion pronounced the words “We hereby proclaim the establishment of the Jewish state in…
Quoting from the JPS 1917 Tanakh and the King James Version “He was despised, and forsaken of men, A man of pains, and acquainted with disease, And as one from whom men hide their face: He was despised, and we esteemed him not.” (Isaiah 53:3) “He was in the world,…
The most popular traditional interpretations of Daniel 9:24-27 (aka the prophecy of the Seventy Weeks or the Messiah Prophecy) begin their exposition with a Persian decree, most often the one issued by Artaxerxes I Longimanus to Nehemiah. That decree is usually dated by most traditional interpreters to 445 BCE. The…
The Book of Daniel describes a detailed history of the Jewish people and must be interpreted from that viewpoint. The seventh chapter of Daniel describes a period of Jewish history involving four kings described as beasts, with the fourth beast having ten horns, each horn in turn representing a king.…