
Psalm 23 Explained in Judean Desert
Joe Amaral explains the context behind why David wrote Psalm 23:3 near Jericho....
Joe Amaral explains the context behind why David wrote Psalm 23:3 near Jericho....
Ancient Scrolls found in Israel, in the caves of Qumran region near the Dead Sea in the 1940s were the find of the century 20th century. An impressive collection of ancient Jewish writings contained what is now the oldest known copies of Biblical texts. In this 1st session, I explain...
The scholars assume that the Dead Sea Scrolls library found in Qumran belonged to Jews who inhabited a nearby settlement. Where did Qumran Jews fit in in the greater Jewish society? What do we know about their practices from the ruins? What do we know about their beliefs from the...
What are the contents of the scrolls found in the caves of Qumran? Why did the scholars debate their translations for so long? What new things did these findings teach us about the Hebrew Bible and other ancient texts? In this 3rd session, I explore the contents of the Qumran...
For generations, the scholars were wrong about the Jewish spirituality of the first century. The evidence from the Dead Sea Scrolls found in the Qumran region shows uncanny similarity with some of the teachings found in the New Testament. In this 4th session, I compare the words of Qumran Jews...
You might ask, "What is Anti-Judaism and why would it be in the Gospels?" Or you may think, "Of course, the New Testament is an antisemitic book". Are Anti-Judaism and Antisemitism the same? An unpleasant issue as it may be for both Jews and Christians who...
Is John's gospel anti-Jewish? Not really! But Anti-Judaism can be read into it. And that is how many generations of Christians have interpreted the gospel of John. Try reading John's prologue from an Anti-Judaic perspective and then look deeper into Greek to see that the original...
What if by "the Jews" John does not mean Jewish people in general, not a simple broad reference to those who are Jewish ethnically and religiously. So who are "the Jews" in John's Gospel? What is John has some subgroup in mind? In this...
Who are "the Jews" in John's gospel? In this lecture segment, I explore the third option of how John's term "hoi Iudaioi" - "the Jews" can be read. I consider reading the term as "the world" the cosmos,...