Recent Articles

You know, with all the neglecting of this blog, I haven't even made a point of posting links to the articles I've written over at HebrewRoot, so here's some recent material:

• The Feasts and the Exodus, and overview of the Appointed Times of the Lord, how they related to the Exodus, and how they in turn relate to the two Comings of the Messiah.
  
  
• Yeshua: The Living Torah, in which I look at the true significance of John 1:1 and demonstrate that not only is Yeshua not opposed to the Torah, but that He is the Torah--that is, the substance of which the written Torah is the shadow--drawing on both rabbinic and Christian thought. This one is probably foundational to understanding Messianic Judaism.


• Mark 7:19 and Acts 10:10-16: Jesus Ended the Kosher Laws, in which I address the long-held misconception about these two passages and their true significance. I also address why a Gentile believer does not even have to appeal to the B'rit Chadasha for proof that keeping kosher is not mandatory for them, as well as why some of us choose to keep it anyway.

I also have a major piece coming up, called "Who Has the Authority?" In it, I look at the question of how authority devolves in Scripture, and why, even if Sha'ul (Paul) or another Apostle did claim that we should no longer keep Torah (and I've been doing a pretty good job of demonstrating that they didn't, but just for the sake of argument), they would not have the authority to do so, and would have to be rejected as apostles. It can be summed up in one sentence--"If Jesus and Paul ever did disagree on something, who would you follow?"--but goes into far more detail, including details on how we should understand the authority of non-canonical sources like the rabbis or the early Church fathers.

Before that's finished, I plan to have an answer to the argument from Galatians that keeping Torah makes Messiah of no avail to us. I've actually answered this in my debate with Myles Davis, but I look forward to giving more detail than the format of the debate allows. Speaking of whom, Myles has been held up by a firework injury (third-degree burn) to his leg; he and I speak on the phone regularly and he's doing well, though a bit in pain. He'll have his next response up soon; this will be our last argument round, after which we'll make our closing arguments.

I think that's all for now.

Shalom!