9 Nov 2023, Samaria: In 1965 under Egyptian occupation of Gaza, an ancient synagogue was discovered in dating back to 508 AD. At first, Egyption archeologists assumed it was a church, but upon further research, they agreed it was a synagogue. The mosaic tile floor had artwork with David written in Hebrew, with a picture of David playing what appears to be a psaltery, with docile animals nearby.
Museum photo of the mosaic recovered from the ancient Jewish synagogue in Gaza, circa 508 CE/AD.
After discovery, the Arabs of Gaza defaced the mosaic, so following the Six Days’ War of 1967, it was removed from that location to be restored at the Israel Museum.
“Nowadays, visitors can marvel at the mosaic floor of the synagogue in the Museum of the Good Samaritan, located near the Jerusalem-Jericho Road close to the Israeli settlement of Ma’ale Adumim. One of the most renowned panels in the mosaic floor portrays King David, identified by a Hebrew inscription reading ‘David,’ as he plays the lyre with a gathering of docile wild animals before him.” Source: Jerusalem Post: https://www.jpost.com/judaism/article-772218
During the night around 5:10 am the doors and windows rattled; Since no Arabs broke thru my apartment, I think it must have been sonic booms from fighter jets passing high overhead. I turned on the Israeli news hoping to see live views of Gaza hit by surgical strikes, but nothing, just more commentary and opinions about the war so far. Hamas is bringing much sorrow to the people of Gaza; they are the ones that will suffer for what Hamas has done to Israeli civilians in cold blood. And yet, when the voters in Gaza voted for Hamas to replace the Fatah party government in 2006, then-President Obama comforted the world saying that we need to respect the democratic process in Gaza. Hamas then began throwing the Fatah members of the former government off the top of high rise buildings and dragging their bodies through the streets. The State Department had no criticism for that. There has never been an election in Gaza since. Whether the voters actually voted for Hamas or whether that election was rigged, either way they are stuck with Hamas in power unless they have their own uprising. However they seem to be blinded by their hatred for Jews to the point they have not been able to see the enemies in their own ranks who do not hesitate to use them as human shields.
Sadly, this time I suspect that Hamas will use the 165+ Jewish hostages in Gaza as human shields to protect their bases and munitions from Israeli fire. So I would think it would be a great strategy to break with Israeli tradition and use the Air Force to flatten all military areas in Gaza without any respect to whoever is there. This won’t happen. If Israel did so, it would convince Hamas for good that there is zero value in taking hostages – which would be a good thing. But Israel has built up a strong reputation of showing more restraint than any army in the whole world. Israeli army has dropped paper fliers and sent millions of text messages to the cell phones in Gaza to warn the people of incoming fire and the location. After that Israel drops “knock knock” empty bombs on the rooftop to alert the people inside that the real bomb is coming within a couple minutes — giving them time to get out. All of this weakens Israel’s strategic advantage, obviously, but this is what Israel does in order to preserve civilian lives in Gaza.
Thus, if Israel is not going to bomb Hamas and Islamic Jihad military assets along with all civilians nearby, I would expect that Israel will instead sacrifice scores of young men with a ground troop invasion into Gaza, hoping to rescue hostages and neutralize Arab military assets. This would be bloody, in an arena of urban guerrilla warfare.
Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the two reigning organizations in Gaza, have zero concern for civilians, whether they be their own Arab civilians, or the Jewish civilians of Israel. Yesterday morning during the Shabbat and the Great Day of the Feast of Tabernacles they flew over the fence with powered paraglider ultralights, motorcycles, brand-new Toyota pickup trucks with military guns mounted, full of weapons and men, and by foot. They swept into a Jewish all-night trance techno party and mowed the people down with guns as they fled in the dawn light towards their cars. The surviving partiers said that they had heard the rocket explosions but thought it was part of the music. Many partiers were taken as hostages. The terrorist rode into border towns, shooting everyone on sight, breaking into homes, slaughtering civilians indiscriminately and taking hostages. Obviously all that Hamas and Islamic Jihad does (and both parties have publicly taken responsibility for starting this war) does is multiple war crimes according to international law. My Israeli friends who have served in the Intelligence departments of the Army are completely mystified as to how a border breach could go undetected for enough minutes for such attacks to occur. The Israeli people will have to be persistent if they will ever get any satisfactory explanations from the peoples’ army, the Israel Defense Force.
Where is the nations’ condemnation of Hamas? All I see so far is the normal false equivalence: “We condemn violence on both sides.” There is no equivalence between an army that acts morally and lawfully and an army that does not. One type of violence is quite different from the other and both types cannot be leveled with a blanket statement of “violence,” unqualified. Such behavior from the world media outlets must not be tolerated.
We request your prayers and financial support during this difficult time.
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2023-05-22, Netanya, Israel: A question came in about divisions in the Body of Messiah.
Teddy: So, the teaching about Ephesians 4 goes like this: We have the first 9 verses or so which describes the unity of the Spirit, because there is actually only one Elohim since the false ones don’t count, for us who are believers. So for any believers in Y’shua – how can they actually be in disunity of the Spirit if there IS only ONE Spirit? So thus, we are called to maintain that unity of the Spirit – maintain it, not gain it – because we already have it as a free gift.
The second type of unity is something different. That unity is built with the help of the pastors, prophets, apostles, evangelists, and teachers, and that is unity of faith, which is to say, unity of the knowledge of the full stature of Y’shua, the Son of Man. That we may be built UNTIL we come into that unity of knowledge of Him. See there – UNTIL means we don’t have it YET. But we will. Meanwhile, we already have the unity of the Spirit, as verses 1-9 already explained.
The mistake that many make, is getting these two types confused. So then they wrongfully split from one another because of different knowledge about Y’shua’s stature. No, different knowledge is ok – let’s try to learn from each other. And while we try and do that, we must MAINTAIN the unity of the Spirit.
In the ancient tradition of the Body of Messiah in the Eastern half of the world, the New Testament was written down in Aramaic, delivered to the Elders of the Eastern Church, and then quickly translated into Greek for the benefit of Europe and the West.
Why Aramaic and not Greek? First of all, first-century CE Israeli Jews considered Greek to be a pagan foreign language which contained the names of false gods, never to be pronounced by the faithful. As Josephus wrote:
“I have also taken a great deal of pains to obtain the learning of the Greeks, and understand the elements of the Greek language, although I have so long accustomed myself to speak our own tongue, that I cannot pronounce Greek with sufficient exactness; for our nation does not encourage those that learn the languages of many nations, and so adorn their discourses with the smoothness of their periods; because they look upon this sort of accomplishment as common, not only to all sorts of free-men, but to as many of the servants as please to learn them. But they give him the testimony of being a wise man who is fully acquainted with our laws, and is able to interpret their meaning; on which account, as there have been many who have done their endeavors with great patience to obtain this learning, there have yet hardly been so many as two or three that have succeeded therein, who were immediately well rewarded for their pains.” —Antiquities of Judeans XX, XI.
For many text comparison examples, FREE download:
“Was the New Testament Really Written in Greek?” With contributions from Andrew Gabriel Roth, Paul Younan.
Paul Younan, Aramaic scholar: “Native Aramaic spells Arabia (the geographic name) with an Aleph, which is how we know that the Peshitta NT wasn’t originally translated from Hebrew. However, we (aramaic speakers) spell “Arab” (the ethnicity) with an Ayin. For reference, see Acts 2:11 for “Arab” (the ethnic designation) spelled with an Ayin.” – Paul Younan
Acts 2:11, Eastern Aramaic Peshitta, from Aramaic English New Testament, 1st edition (2008), pg 305.
There are well known claims from Eusebius et al that Matthew was written in Hebrew. I disagree slightly. “In the Hebrew tongue,” actually means the “in the dialect in use by the Hebrew people at the time,” which was Aramaic after the return from Babylon. I give Acts 1:19 as one example. The name for “field of blood” given there (“Khagel Dema”) is Aramaic, whether read in Aramaic or Greek, where the Greek scribe explains the meaning in a gloss which does not appear in the Peshitta. So Eusebius meant Aramaic as the Hebrew tongue. Even if I’m wrong, and Eusebius meant Hebrew and not Aramaic, it doesn’t practically matter since all that’s survived is Aramaic. And that’s over 360 mss. strong. – Teddy Chadwick
Acts 1:19, Eastern Aramaic Peshitta, from AENT 1st Ed (2008) pg 305.
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24 April, 2023, Israel: Have you ever made yourself vulnerable, to share your struggle with another, only to have them say “Well, you think THAT’s bad…” You’re not alone. I’ve experience the same thing often, when I’ve expressed what are the needs. This kind of response also seems to belittle the need, as if I ought to feel guilty for bringing it up.
Whenever I speak of a need, my request is that people will pray about it. It’s never for manipulation: “Not under compulsion,” 2 Corinthians 9:7.
Today, one of JTOD’s monthly Partners sent me the below article, to encourage me. I’m so thankful that they show the time and care to understand my challenges and heartbreaks in this work.
It’s such a blessing, that I decided to feature it as a special insert below: “Don’t Tread on My Suffering,” from sufferwell.org:
* Once the Feast has arrived according to JST, start the feast when the sunset arrives where you are for that JST day of the month. As for weekly Shabbats, they begin where you live when the local sunset ends the sixth day of the week.
“Better is the poor that walketh in his integrity, than he that is perverse in his lips, and is a fool.” Proverbs 19:1 AV
In so many potential situations, there might be something to be gained financially through some type of deception. It might be hiring workers and then paying them less, or selling a car for more than it is worth, or selling pharmaceutical medication that injures people while telling them that it will heal them. Lies.
“Perverse lips” means speech that is twisted rather than straight. When a person wants to know the truth, he may say to his friend, “Give it to me straight, bro,” meaning, stop with the excuses and the stories and tell the truth plainly, if you can. This is why the Scriptures which scribes had written in the Aramaic language is called “Peshitta” (puh-Sheet-ah) because that means “the Straight” in Aramaic; it means that these particular scribes placed a high value on straight writing, and they avoided twisted writing, perverse writing which is designed to re-interpret and bend the meanings.
In books as well as in speech, “bending the truth” can bring much profit. But this Proverb states that it is better to be poor while speaking straight, and writing straight, than any riches or fame that may be gained by bending the truth or hiding the truth. At the end, the Proverb teaches that bending the truth is a foolish thing to do. Why? The truth-bender would say, “Hey, I can make a lot more money to feed my family if I bend the truth.” Sure, in the short term. But in the long term, since YAH sees and knows everything, and nothing to be hidden from Him, therefore in the long term it is foolish to conceal the truth, or bend the truth, or any such thing.
Notice how this verse does not pose a contrast between a truth-speaker who is poor, versus a truth-bender who is rich. No – the contrast is between a truth-speaker who is poor versus a truth-bender who is, by virtue of his perverse speech, “a fool” rather than “rich.” Very interesting. The fool is thus “poor” by virtue of his lack – of wisdom.
Galatians 1:6-9’s protection against false gospels, prophecies, visions, dreams, PLUS: a new pump for bicycle tires makes all the difference.
Imagine this: A very eloquent preacher shows up in the city or on the internat and makes convincing arguments for why it all makes perfect sense to follow his religious ideas. How can people avoid deception? What if people cannot manage to formulate counter-arguments?
Or, this: A flash of lightning appears in the living room and a 15-foot tall angel appears wearing a white robe, with a loud voice and overpowering presence that immediately blows up the microwave, toaster, and all electric light bulbs. He delivers instructions and a powerful religious message. How does one deal with that?
Here in this video I attempt to explain a powerful Scripture that was given in order to help us. If this info had been widely known, many lives could have been saved. Don’t be duped!
