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The Jesus of History

Why Care about the Historical Jesus

The Jesus of History is a religious study that has grown out of lectures upon the historical Jesus given in a good many cities in India during the winter 1915-16. The lectures were written in shorthand in Calcutta and revised in Madras; and most were re-written in the six following months by T. S. Glover.
Jesus, also referred to as Jesus of Nazareth and Jesus Christ, was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious leader who became the central figure in Christianity. Most Christians believe him to be the incarnation of God the Son and the awaited Messiah (Christ) prophesied in the Old Testament. Most modern scholars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed historically, although the quest for the historical Jesus has produced little agreement on the historical reliability of the Gospels and on how closely the Jesus portrayed in the Bible reflects the historical Jesus. Jesus was a Galilean Jew who was baptized by John the Baptist and began his own ministry, preaching God’s message. Jesus debated with fellow Jews on how to best follow God, engaged in healings, taught in parables and gathered followers. The Jewish authorities arrested and tried him, and turned him over to the Roman government, and he was crucified on the order of Pontius Pilate, the Roman prefect.
After his death, his followers believed he rose from the dead, and the community they formed eventually became the Christian Church.
This book begins with a study of the individual Jesus as a simple carpenter and his passion for nature and extracted what his life was like from historical accounts and Biblical scripture. In the beginning we get to know him as a mere man through the eyes of a citizen of the first century. The author builds a case for the amazing life of the man called Jesus and his incredible impact on humanity and builds up into the psychology of a man still bowed down to today.

The question about the historical Jesus boils down to this: who was the ancient human being named Jesus of Nazareth? It’s not a question about what Christians or other religious folk understand about Jesus. The question does not consider any title for Jesus, like Prophet or Priest or King or Savior. It’s a question about a human being of history. It is the same question we can ask about Socrates or Confucius or Aristotle. To many people, this question is an academic one. Yet, the study of the historical Jesus, unlike the historical Aristotle, is never just a question of history.
Jesus is also a legend who holds the central position in Christianity and an important position in Islam. In Christianity he is the God Incarnate, and in Islam he is the messenger of revelation from God. The study of the historical Jesus is not just an academic one. It is a question that challenges the very heart of religion and its meaning for well over four billion people worldwide.
To tell anyone what Christianity is, we must begin with Jesus — with the Jesus who lived in our midst, with “the historical Jesus.” The Jesus who was, who is and who will be. He is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. Let us hope that those who themselves have tried to draw the likeness attempted in this book will best understand, and perhaps more easily forgive, failures and mistakes of others and themselves.

Terrot Reaveley Glover

Classical Scholar and Historian

Terrot Reaveley Glover (T.S. Glover), classical scholar and historian, was born in Cotham, Bristol, United Kingdom on July 23, 1869.
He attended Bristol Grammar School before entering St John’s College, Cambridge, in 1888, where he became a Fellow in 1892.
They appointed him Professor of Latin at Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, in 1896. Glover returned to Cambridge in 1901 as a teaching fellow at St John’s, and was a university lecturer in ancient history, 1911-1939, and orator, 1920-1939.
He died in Cambridge on 26 May 1943. Glover worked as a lecturer for 20 years, and wrote several well-known books, including The Jesus of History, Poets and Puritans and The Conflict of Religions in the Early Roman Empire.

Quotes by T. R. Glover

“The kind Apollo (ho phílos),” he says, “seems to heal the questions of life, and to resolve them, by the rules he gives to those who ask; but the questions of thought he himself suggests to the philosophic temperament, waking in the soul an appetite that will lead it to truth.” ― T.R. Glover, The Conflict of Religions in the Early Roman Empire

“The eunuch priests of Cybele and the monks of Serapis introduced a new abstinence to Western thought. It is significant that Christian monasticism and the coenobite life began in Egypt, where, as we learn from papyri found in recent years, great monasteries of Serapis existed long before our era. Side by side with celibacy came vegetarianism. No” ― T.R. Glover, The Conflict of Religions in the Early Roman Empire

Works by T. R. Glover

Studies in Virgil (1904)
The Conflict of Religions in the Early Roman Empire (1909)
Poets and Puritans (1916)
From Pericles to Philip (1917)
Jesus in the Experience of Men (1921)
The Pilgrim: Essays on Religion (1921)
Progress in Religion to the Christian Era (1922)
The Jesus of History (1922)
The Nature and Purpose of a Christian Society (1922)
Herodotus (1924)
Apology: De Spectaculis (With Felix M. Minucius) (1931)
Democracy and Religion (1932)
The Ancient World: A Beginning (1935)

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The International Jewish Cookbook

Traditional Jewish Cookery

The International Jewish Cook Book, by Florence Kreisler Greenbaum, is a book about Traditional Jewish Cuisine, is a compilation of the various culinary practices of Jewish communities.
It is a distinctive style of cooking that developed over many generations, defined by Jewish dietary laws, Jewish Festivals and Shabbat (Sabbath) rituals. Jewish cooking is shaped by the agriculture, cooking practices, and the economy of the many countries where Jewish people lived and differs all over the globe. The distinctive styles of Jewish cuisines are Arab, Ashkenazi, Indian, Latin-American, Mizrahi, Persian, Sephardi and Yemenite. There are likewise unique recipes for differing Jewish nations stretching from Central Asia to Ethiopia. Since the State of Israel was established in 1948, and especially since the 1970s, an emerging Israeli “fusion cuisine” has evolved, embracing and modifying aspects of all the Jewish styles mentioned previously.
New dishes have sprung up based on the different agricultural crops that have been introduced since 1948 and blending in Middle Eastern foods and other foreign cuisines.

This is an old-fashioned cook book originally printed in 1911 that includes over 1600 recipes. The aim of this cookbook was to feature those time-honored Jewish recipes passed down through the generations by Jewish homemakers for the Sabbath and Biblical High Holy Day meals. However; the book includes many other recipes including the beloved recipes of Australia, France, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Russia and also has hundreds of recipes practiced in American homes.
This book literally contains recipes of most any kind of food that appeals to the Jewish palate, and which the Jewish homemakers could adapt to the dietary laws, making this a genuinely international cook book.
Utilizing agricultural crops from foods of a particular Jewish culinary tradition to embellish dishes of separate Jewish culinary traditions, and combining and altering various Middle Eastern dishes from the resident non-Jewish community of Israel. Israeli Jewish cooking is both genuinely Jewish, typically kosher, and uniquely regional “Israeli”, yet a complete hybridization of its diverse Jewish roots.

Short Biography of the Author

Florence K. Greenbaum, was born on December 30, 1905 and died on July 16, 1995 in Cleveland, Ohio.
Florence Greenbaum graduated from Hunter College in New York City, where she studied food chemistry and diet and got a comprehensive knowledge of the experimental methods for blending foods.
The first half of Malan’s translation is included in Rutherford Hayes Platt Jr’s book The Lost Books of the Bible and the Forgotten Books of Eden as the “First Book of Adam and Eve” and the “Second Book of Adam and Eve”. We find parts of this version in the Talmud, the Koran, and elsewhere, showing what a vital role, it played in the original literature of human wisdom.

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The Golden bough

A Study of Magic and Religion

The Golden Bough is a fascinating book by Sir James Frazer that parallels distinct religious and scientific concerns. In it he we see Mr. Frazer believes individuals have risen from believing in magic, by advancing to religious faith, before finally moving to scientific thought. He discourses how ancient civilizations practiced in both scientific in religious aspects. Mortal sacrifice, for instance, was a method to demonstrate gratitude to the gods.
Religion is one of the main contentions of James Frazer’s work, and it has developed throughout the history of mankind. Starting with a story about magic, people have tried to understand things that are going on in this world, before they shifted to religion. And now, religion has been replaced by science, leading to a new age of understanding the world.
According to Frazer, science is the newest pace in the human supplementary understanding process. It concluded this as it illustrated things that seemed unexplainable before science. Since the key idea of the book is that science and religion are similar in certain ways, science is a thought process our species has developed and will continue to develop for years to come.
He defined magic as a system for regulating world events by other than normal processes. Frazer claims that these magical experiences are innate in people and are intrinsic to all cultures.
He contends magic is analogous to science and refers to it as “the bastard sister of science”. Similar to science, specific regulations govern magic. Unlike religion, where we call to a greater being to rule world, magic infers nature is inflexible. The wizard presumes that “the performance of the proper ceremony, guided by the spell, will predictably get the desired result”. Similarly, the wizard remains dependent upon the laws of nature. “If he claims a sovereignty over nature, it is a constitutional sovereignty limited in its range and implemented in an exact conformity with ancient usage”. Frazer says magic is not the pure path in which the world works. Once it becomes true, then “it is no longer magic but science ”.
We can divide magic into two facets: The Law of Similarity and the Law of Contact. The Law of Similarity is the belief that like forms like, and that the result of something is like its origin. The magician that works under this scheme of belief thinks they can make any result that they desire by emulating it. Homeopathic Magic formed under this scheme are referred to as charms. An example of a charm could be of a wizard destroying a photograph or model of an adversary in order to destroy the physical person.
Law of Contact is the belief that phenomena connected to one another will continue to affect one another even after they split from each other. A magician functioning under this structure expects that whatever they do to an object will keep affecting an individual who the object was linked to, even after the connection is severed. They call charms performed using this technique Contagious Magic. The view that acquiring a fingernail or a fragment of hair from someone gives you command over that individual is an example of this type of magic.
Contagious Magic and Homeopathic Magic are often used side by side. Frazer explains the difference between these two sorts of magic, stating that we can label both Contagious Magic and Homeopathic Magic as Sympathetic Magic. Frazer adopted the term Sympathetic Magic because he maintains both sorts of magic presume elements work on each from a distance through a secret sympathy or imperceptible atmospheric condition.

There are 2 kinds of practices under Sympathetic Magic, taboo and positive magic. Frazer identifies them as:
“Positive magic or sorcery says, “Do this in order that so and so may happen”. Negative magic or taboo says, “Do not do this, so and so should happen.” Sorcery or positive is to produce a desirable result; Taboo or negative magic is to avoid an undesirable result”.
He believed that science and magic were indistinguishable in that they shared an emphasis on experimentation and common sense; his insistence on this relationship is so comprehensive that virtually any refuted scientific hypothesis technically makes up magic under his system. In opposition to both science and magic, he characterized religion in terms of faith in individual, divine forces and attempts to mitigate them.
Frazer recognized that both magic or religion could prevail or return. He saw that magic occasionally returns and develops into science, just like when experimentation developed into chemistry during the renaissance. He showed apprehension about the possibility of a prevailing acceptance of magic to embolden the people, displaying fears of and prejudices against working-class people in his opinion.

James George Frazer

“Small minds cannot grasp great ideas; to their narrow comprehension, their purblind vision, nothing seems really great and important but themselves.”

Selected Works

James George Frazer was born on January 1, 1854 in Glasgow, Scotlandand died on May 7, 1941 in Cambridge, England. He wed Elizabeth (Lilly) Grove, a novelist from Alsace, in 1896. Frazer and Lilly died on the same day, within a few hours of each other, and were laid to rest at the Ascension Parish Burial Ground in Cambridge.
He was a Scottish social anthropologist and folklorist prominent in the beginning phases of the contemporary studies of mythology and comparative theology. Frazer postulated that a person’s belief’s advanced through 3 phases: primitive magic, superseded by religion, superseded by science. His most remarkable piece is The Golden Bough, which records and describes the correlations between magical and religious ideologies worldwide.
Frazer was educated at Springfield Academy and Larchfield Academy in Helensburgh, before attending the University of Glasgow and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he finished with honors in classics. After Trinity, he studied law at the Middle Temple, although he never worked as an attorney. Field investigations could not verify his perception of the yearly sacrifice of the Year-King. Yet, The Golden Bough, his examination of ancient cults, rituals, and superstitions, including their relationships to early Christianity, were continuously studied by mythographers for many years because of the extensive amount of information it contains. He was the first writer to illustrate the connections between legends and customsin such a comprehensive fashion.
Frazer first became interested in the study of social anthropology after reading E. B. Tylor’s Primitive Culture (1871) and more so after being encouraged by his associate, William Robertson Smith, the biblical scholar known for comparing segments of the Old Testament with ancient Hebrew legend. He became an expert in the study of religion and mythology. His principal information sources were ancient histories and surveys completed by missionaries and royal officers.
Scholars frequently describe Frazer as an agnostic because of his disparagement of Christianity, especially Roman Catholicism, in The Golden Bough. His later works and non-published writings imply a contradictory relationship with Neoplatonism and Hermeticism. Around 1930 Frazer became partially blind. Elizabeth later converted Frazer’s “The Golden Bough” into a book of children’s stories entitled “The Leaves from the Golden Bough.”

Creation and Evolution in Primitive Cosmogenies, and Other Pieces (1935)
Devil’s Advocate (1928)
Man, God, and Immortality (1927)
Taboo and the Perils of the Soul (1911)
The Gorgon’s Head and other Literary Pieces (1927)
The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, 3 volumes (1913-24)
The Golden Bough, 3rd edition: 12 volumes (1906-15; 1936)
Totemism and Exogamy (1910)
Psyche’s Task (1909)
Description of Greece, by Pausanias (translation and commentary) 6 volumes (1897)
The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion, 1st edition (1890)

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The First Book of Adam and Eve

This book is a pseudepigraphal bible book that details the creation story written in Genesis. The First Book of Adam and Eve was in both the Septuagint and the original King James Bible.
The story of Adam and Eve is synonymous with the introduction of sin, death, and deception into human existence, but the story of creation has far more depth.
It is also about the power of temptation, the difficulty of overcoming obstacles, forgiveness, redemption, mercy and love. This story expresses the difficulties of battling Satan on your own and why you need God’s Word to guide you. Adam was born perfect and sincerely wanted to follow the teachings of God, yet even he needed God’s Word to lead him in his fight against Satan. The cunning deceiver Satan often beguiled Adam. The lying devil not only came to Eve in the serpent’s form, he comes to both Adam and Eve as apparitions on 13 different occasions in the book. He came as a beguiling angel of light, as an old man sent by God to help lead them and as a beautiful maiden to sow dissent and discourse between them.
Satan deceived Adam and Eve on multiple occasions after God expelled them from the Garden of Eden but could not change their hearts toward God. Each time he deceived them, they showed remorse and sought forgiveness. In fact, committing these unwilful sins left Adam so distraught and his heart so heavy he hurled himself off of a mountain, and Eve after him, and would’ve died had God not sent his Word to raise them. God showed much mercy and love to Adam because he knew Adam loved him in his heart.

The book further illustrates the concept that a man’s heart shall be his judge by telling us that if Adam’s son Cain was repentant about killing his brother Abel, he too would have been forgiven and shown mercy.
This book shows how far Satan will go to turn Adam away from God. It is incomprehensible that he’s using these same deceits today as he continues to roam back and forth across the earth seeking whom he may devour. Today, on an international level, nuclear bombs and biological weapons are available that can destroy millions of innocent lives. At the other end of the spectrum, now through cloning, we’ve been able to create life. Why do you think man has such desire to create and destroy lives? Is it possible that we continue to be beguiled by Satan? Even in what some might say is the most civilized nation in the world, most homes in the USA, out of fear, have guns that can destroy lives in an instant.

There are now over 300 mass killings in the USA every year. Consider the number of murders that occur worldwide daily. How does a society get to a place where an event like the Holocaust is even possible? How did we accept putting a race of people in slavery and valuing their lives so little we could kill them without cause, or take their babies away and sell them?
Why have we had so much political and religious persecution, oppression and avarice down through the ages? As with Adam, our story ends with a loss, but not an irreparable one, for it is possible for us as descendants of Adam to access the garden and the tree of life by simply feeling remorse, being repentant and trying to make amends.

About Reverend Solomon Caesar Malan

The First and the Second Book of Adam and Eve, also known as the Conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan, is a pseudepigraphal work found in the Ethiopian language Ge’ez, translated from an Arabic original, written by an Egyptian author, and thought to date from the 5th or 6th century AD.
It was first translated from the Ethiopic version into German by August Dillmann. It was first translated into English by Solomon Caesar Malan (S. C. Malan) from the German of Ernest Trumpp in 1882.
The first half of Malan’s translation is included in Rutherford Hayes Platt Jr’s book The Lost Books of the Bible and the Forgotten Books of Eden as the “First Book of Adam and Eve” and the “Second Book of Adam and Eve”. We find parts of this version in the Talmud, the Koran, and elsewhere, showing what a vital role, it played in the original literature of human wisdom.
Malan was born in Geneva on April 22, 1812, and died on November 25, 1894. As a young boy he displayed a remarkable faculty for the study of languages, and when he came to Scotland as tutor in the marquis of Tweeddale’s family at 18 he had already made progress in Sanskrit, Arabic and Hebrew. He later became proficient in many other languages including English, Greek, French, Latin, Spanish and Chinese. In 1833 he enrolled at St Edmund Hall, Oxford, and in 1880 the University of Edinburg conferred upon him the honorary degree of D. D.

Works by S.C. Malan

The Book of Adam and Eve, also called The Conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan, a Book of the early Eastern Church, translated from the Ethiopic, with notes from the Kufale (Jubilees), Talmud, Midrashim, and other Eastern works, 1882.
The Conflict of the Holy Apostles, an apocryphal book of the early Eastern Church translated from and Ethiopic Ms.
The Epistle of S. Dionysius the Areopagite to Timothy, translated from an Ethiopic Ms.
The Rest of Assumption of S. John the Evangelist, translated from the Armenian.
The Life and times of S. Gregory the Illuminator, founder of the Armenian Church.
On the Corean version of the Gospels, original documents of the Coptic Church.
Original notes on the Book of Proverbs mostly from eastern writings.
Seven Chapters from S. Matthew I-VI to S. Luke XI of 1881, revised.
A short history of the Georgian Church

About Rutherford Platt

This version of The First Book of Adam and Eve was edited by, RUTHERFORD HAYES PLATT, JR. (August 11, 1894-May 28, 1975) in 1926 and was included in his book The Forgotten Books of Eden, wherein he collected several apocryphal biblical writings. The authors of these works are unknown, having hidden themselves behind the names of the great religious legends that they wrote about. These works aren’t considered part of the official “Apocrypha,” despite their timeless wisdom and helpful additions to Christian, Jewish, and Islamic understanding and lore.
Rutherford H. Platt, Jr.’s father was a son of a sister, Fanny Arabella Née Hayes of President Rutherford B. Hayes. Rutherford H. Platt, Jr., born in Columbus, Ohio, was an American nature writer, photographer, and advertising executive. He died at 80 years of age in Boston, Massachusetts and was survived by his widow, his children, nine grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren. At age 42, he divorced his first wife, Eleanor, and in 1937 he married his second wife, Jean Dana Née Noyes. There were two children from the first marriage and three children from the second marriage. One of his sons, Rutherford H. Platt, III, became a professor of geography at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a specialist in land and water resource policy for urban areas.

Books

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The Church and the Empire

Being an outline of the church from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304

From its inception, the Christian Church has had a reciprocal relationship with empires and royal authority. Christianity developed within the Roman Empire; they constructed it amid persecution and martyrdom by imperial power.
The medieval and early modern times saw notions of empire as both a speculative system of rulership and a political-theological order. This included notions of papal dominium through universal authority and Christ/the pope as dominus mundi – and developing perceptions of ‘regnal imperialism’, with ‘the king as emperor in his own kingdom’.
Professor of sociology Dr. Alvin Schmidt notes Elwood Cubberly’s view that the scriptural teachings of Jesus Christ challenged “almost everything for which the Roman world had stood” (How Christianity Changed the World, Schmidt, p. 44). Dr. James Kennedy writes, “Life was expendable prior to Christianity’s influence.
In those days abortion was rampant. Abandonment was commonplace: It was common for infirm babies or unwanted little ones to be taken out into the forest or the mountainside, to be consumed by wild animals or to starve. They often abandoned female babies because women were considered inferior” (What If Jesus Had Never Been Born?, pp. 9–11).
The Romans promoted brutal gladiatorial contests where thousands of slaves, condemned criminals and prisoners of war mauled and slaughtered each other for the amusement of cheering audiences. Roman authors indicate that “sexual activity between men and women had become highly promiscuous and essentially depraved before and during the time that Christians appeared in Roman society” and that homosexuality was widespread among pagan Greeks and Romans, especially men with boys (Schmidt, pp. 79–86). Women were relegated to a low status in society, where they received little schooling, could not speak in public and were viewed as the property of their husbands (Schmidt, pp. 97–102).

Change Not Always Voluntary

Christianity held many biblical teachings in its canons, traditions and doctrines, but it was a blended religion that combined some of Jesus’ scriptural teachings with the beliefs, practices, and philosophies of many of the peoples it wanted to convert.

Many intellectuals who realize the benefits that professing Christianity contributed to the world as its influence widened also recognize that this growing influence was usually achieved by unbiblical and unchristian measures through movements such as the Spanish Inquisition which sought to forcibly convert Jews and Muslims to Catholicism. The religion that spread Christ’s name was often not Christ like as they demonstrated by their launching of the Crusades and other militaristic attempts to establish areas where its influence could expand.
Burnings at the stake, beheadings, hangings and other executions of heretics and those unwilling to convert were characteristic of both the Roman Catholic and Protestant strains Professing Christianity (Schmidt, p. 293). The theology that was changing the world was called “Christianity,” but it was not the religion of Jesus Christ.

Impact on Modern World

Still, the impact of that religion continues to be visible in Western civilization today. Historians of professing Christianity have noted that “by the Middle Ages, Christianity had shaped Western culture, and it would continue to influence culture wherever [its teachings] spread” (Seven Revolutions, Aquilina & Papandrea, pp. 6–7). The charity encouraged by biblical teachings eventually blossomed into hospitals, orphanages, homes for the elderly and care for the poor, the hungry and the homeless (Schmidt, pp. 147–148).

Many of our finest and most distinguished universities were established for “Christian” purposes. And while critics claim the Christian religion impeded the growth of science, history says otherwise. Dr. Rodney Stark, a professor of sociology and comparative religion, states, “the leading scientific figures in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries overwhelmingly were devout Christians who believed it was their duty to comprehend God’s handiwork” (For the Glory of God, p. 123).
Unlike the godless religions of Asia and the capricious gods of other faiths, the God of the Bible was a rational Being whose creation operated on laws that were discoverable and could be applied to solving problems for the benefit of mankind, an understanding “essential for the rise of science” (Stark, p. 123).
Modern, atheistic critics can sneer at the doctrines of the Bible and the superstitions of professing Christianity, but they do so while benefitting from living in a society based on many of the principles they despise. Although Christianity appears to be in decline at this time, the Bible foretells that this apostate, professing Christianity will later gain power, not just to influence the world, but to conquer it, on a route that will put it in conflict with the true Christianity it has undertaken to leave behind. And in maybe the turning point in history that the dissemination of Christianity represented may foretell a stronger turning point to come.

D. J. Medley, M.A

Dudley Julius Medley (D.J. Medley) was born on March 31, 1861 in Paddington, London, England and died on October 14, 1953. He was the 2nd son of Lieutenant-General Julius George Medley, Royal Engineers, and Adelaide Steele, daughter of Colonel James Steele, CB and married Isabel Alice (Gibbs) Medley in 1890 in England.
D.J. Medley was educated at Wellington College 1875-80; matric at Oxford (Keble College) October 1880; 1st Class Modern History and BA 1883; MA 1887; Hon LLD Glasgow University 1931.
He became a lecturer and tutor at Keble College, where they gave him the nickname “Deadly Muddly”, before coming to Glasgow in 1899. He was a Professor of Modern History at the University of Glasgow from 1899 until 1931 and then became Chairman of the University Appointments Committee for many years before they awarded him an LLD in 1931.
He threw himself into the life of Glasgow University, encouraging the General Council to take a more active role in its affairs; serving for sixteen years as Honorary President of the Athletic Club and introducing the annual conversazione at which graduates met members of the Court and Senate. He set up a class library in the Department of History, the first in the University, and founded the History Club. The son of a Lieutenant-General, Medley took a great interest in the Officer Training Corps and became Chairman of the Military Education Committee at the University and of the Central Organization Military Education Committees. He was also a member of the Glasgow School Board.

Most widely held works of D. J. Medley

A student’s manual of English constitutional history by D. J Medley
– 58 editions published between 1894 and 2011 in English and held by 1,565 WorldCat member libraries worldwide
– Intended for the student, this overview digs deep into British history to present a clear account of how constitutional law was developed and then evolved. Starting from Roman, Teutonic, and Celtic roots, Medley considers land, tenure, feudalism, royalty, privy councils and star chambers, treason, the origins of Parliament, as well as the judiciary
Bibliography of British history; the eighteenth century, 1714-1789 by Stanley Pargellis( Book )
– 27 editions published between 1951 and 1977 in English and German and held by 839 WorldCat member libraries worldwide
“A Dialogue between Joseph Smith and the Devir, 1844
Essays introductory to the study of English constitutional history by Henry Offley Wakeman
– 18 editions published between 1887 and 1911 in English and held by 735 WorldCat member libraries worldwide
Original illustrations of English constitutional history by D. J Medley
– 22 editions published between 1910 and 2010 in English and Latin and held by 565 WorldCat member libraries worldwide
– Contains “selected documents suitable to the needs of the ordinary student”—Preface
The church and the empire, being an outline of the history of the church from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304 by D. J Medley
– 14 editions published between 1910 and 2015 in English and held by 334 WorldCat member libraries worldwide
A student’s manual of English constitutional history by D. J Medley
– 3 editions published between 1898 and 1907 in English and held by 72 WorldCat member libraries worldwide
Essays introductory to the study of English constitutional history, by resident members of the University of Oxford by Henry Offley Wakeman( Book )
– 4 editions published between 1887 and 1911 in English and held by 71 WorldCat member libraries worldwide

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The Ancient Hebrew Calendar

Ancient Hebrew vs Modern Jewish Calendar Comparisons

The “Ancient Hebrew Calendar” was a lunisolar calendar that depended on both the moon and the sun to calculate its durations. In ancient times, the duration from one new moon to the next determined the duration of what we now refer to as a month, and they based the duration of the days and years on the cycle of the sun.
The time from one sunset to the next sunset was one day, and the time required for the earth to make one complete revolution around the sun was one year.
Another way to think of a year is that it’s the time from one vernal (Spring) equinox to the next (365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes and 45.51 seconds).
The average duration of a new moon cycle is 29.528 days, so a year of 12 lunar moon cycles (months) would be 354.367 days long; and the calendar year is a solar year, which is 365.242199 days long. Therefore, the ancient Hebrew calendar year sometimes has an intercalary (extra) new moon cycle depending on when the vernal equinox occurs in relation to the new moon closest to its date.
Our website calendar uses Hebrew names, and transliterated English names for the holy/set-apart festival days, the new moons and the days of the week.
Since agriculture was the largest part of the economy during ancient times, biblical scribes often use agricultural imagery to describe what Yahweh wanted his people to understand. Likewise, many of the set-apart festivals also have agricultural themes. The Rosh Chodesh (New Moon) and the Shabbat (Sabbath) are closely associated, as both are holy/set-apart days unto Yahweh and observing the new moon is as equal in importance as keeping Shabbat.
Yahweh chose the children of Yisrael (Israel) to be a beacon of light to the Gentiles, a divine, set-apart nation to reveal His splendid light. At the birth of each new moon the Hebrews were called to put away their routine worldly duties, to ponder the reason they were chosen to reveal His existence to the world.

Relevant Scriptures

Numbers 10:10
“And in the day of your gladness, and in your appointed times, and at the beginning of your New Moons, you shall blow the trumpets over your burnt offerings, and over the sacrifices of your fellowship offerings; that they may be to you for a memorial before your Elohim: I am Yahweh your Elohim.”
2 Chronicles 8:12-13
“Then Shelomoh (Solomon) offered burnt offerings to Yahweh on the altar of Yahweh, which he had built before the porch, (13) Even as the duty of every day required, he observed the daily requirement for offerings according to the commandment of Mosheh (Moses) for Sabbaths, New Moon’s, and the three annual appointed festivals – the Festival of Matzot (Festival of Unleavened Bread), the Festival of Shavuot (Festival of Weeks), and the Festival of Sukkot (Festival of Booths).”
2 Chronicles 2:4
“Behold, I will build a temple to the name of Yahweh my Elohim, to dedicate it to him, and to burn before him sweet incense, and for the continual shewbread, and for the burnt offerings’ morning and evening, on Shabbats, and on the New Moons, and on the appointed feasts of Yahweh our Elohim. This is an ordinance for ever to Yisrael.”
Isaiah 66:23
“And it shall come to pass, from New Moon to New Moon, and from Shabbat to Shabbat, all flesh shall come to worship before me, says Yahweh. “

Ancient Hebrew Calendars, Jerusalem (Israel)

Ancient Hebrew Calendar, Georgia (USA)

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Ten Great Religions

What do different religions teach us?

In this book Comparative religion is the division of religious studies regarding the methodical relation of the traditions, practices, ideologies, and Influences of the world’s religions.
The comparative examination of religion offers a greater awareness of the underlying philosophical considerations of religion such as moralities, attitudes, and the character and constructs of deliverance.
Examining this material promotes an expanded and more mature knowledge of human principles and actions concerning the hallowed, spiritual, divine, and sacred.
Ten Great Religions is a captivating book of 10 religions Including Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Zoroastrianism. Buddhism, and others. This book answers the question, what can a Christian learn from a Jew. or Jew from Muslim, or an atheist from a believer? We assume that our own religion must be the best, and that other doctrines are substandard. This book Illustrates how naive this way of thinking is, and how perilous the intolerance or religious radicals can be today.

Religious intolerance is almost as old as religion itself.

Currently in Europe, there are still major Issues with women wearing veils and violent Incidents against Muslims continue to take place. Animosity against anyone who doesn’t adhere to the Muslim faith is common, In the Middle East.
There is nevertheless room for mutual understanding. While preserving faith toward one’s own culture, one can appreciate, treasure and respect alternative traditions.
Should an individual of a specific religion study another religion? Many people think the answer into” and believe that learning about others’ beliefs is needless, that learning about other religions can damage your faith in God. However, we can gain considerable knowledge from other doctrines that can enhance our faith.
Studying other religions is a good way to not only Appreciate why someone believes what they do, but likewise to help us understand why we believe what we believe. Many people are fascinated by religious studies. By examining new doctrines, we further understand what leads someone to their belief, which aids us in understanding our own faith.

When you debate with someone about their religious beliefs, they may ask you if you are knowledgeable about their religion or holy book. If you answer “yes,” it demonstrates that you’ve taken the time to learn their religion and that you understand the arguments you’re making. It also shows that you aren’t blinding accepting your religion. Understanding other religions can help you understand the contrasts between different religious doctrines and factions.

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Stories of the Prophets

Prophets in Israel

The ancient prophets of Israel were holy men who pondered the ways of life from its noblest position. They were the particular output of the Hebrews’ spiritual wisdom and were teachers of righteousness who showed the house’s of Jacob and Israel their misdeeds and wrongdoings. For them morals and politics were the same, and virtue and spirituality were fused.
The appeal for justice and their absolute desire for morality dominated their thoughts and words. Throughout history, their names have been beacons of light for people seeking the truth. The definition of the word prophet is “to speak for”. The ancient prophets spoke for Yahweh (Hebrew God) to the congregation of Israel, who were chosen to receive his message through their dreams and visions. Many prophets opposed the leaders of the time and were frequently greeted with hostility and ridicule for criticizing the direction the people were being led by their kings. During hard times they supported the people with words of hope and encouragement; and when things were going well, they warned the people about an impending doom if they failed to repent.

The Prophets

The Prophet Amos

The Prophet Amos was a herdsman from the town of Tekoa in Judah who Yahweh called to prophesy in Israel during the middle of the eighth century B.C. Amos’ messages were offensive to Israel’s ruling authorities with its bitter comments targeted specifically at its aristocracy and royalty. Amos rebuked the privileged for making themselves wealthy by taking advantage of the poor and made it clear that their treatment of the poor would condemn them.
He also changed the narrative of the prophetic conversation of truth and holiness, from concentrating on the congregation of Israel’s relationship with Yahweh to their behaviors towards one another.
His message was never well received in Israel, and he was compelled to leave the religious center of Israel and return to Judah. See Amos 3:9-15 and 6:1-7.

The Prophet Elijah

The Prophet Elijah was an ancient Hebrew prophet whose accounts are chronicled in the Scriptures in First and Second Kings. Elijah’s prophecies include the story where he predicts the impending drought and scarcity and the subsequent time of bountiful food in the land. He’s also the prophet that won a contest against 450 seers of the pagan god Baal, before killing all of them. Likewise, it was Elijah, along with Moses, that appeared at Mount with the Messiah during his Transfiguration.
At the end of his life, Elijah did not die a natural death on earth; instead, he was taken up to the heavens on a chariot of fire. The Israelites consider Elijah as the greatest of the prophets, and to this day continue to look for the return of Elijah at every Passover celebration.

The Prophet Ezekiel

Ezekiel was the 6th-century BCE ancient Hebrew prophet who wrote the Book of Ezekiel, which presents revelations referring to the imminent ruin of Jerusalem, and the subsequent repatriation to the homeland of Israel. He offered words of comfort to the downtrodden and expressions of requiring and judgment of the unrighteous and guaranteed redemption for the refugees who changed their behaviors.
Ezekiel was a priest in the Temple in Jerusalem before being taken to Babylon with other refugees in 597 B.C. when the Babylonians seized Jerusalem. The scriptural writings of Ezekiel chronicles what occurred 4 years afterwards while he resided in a Babylonian village when he was called to prophesy. He prophesied to the Hebrew refugees that Yahweh would demolish Temple because of their worship of false idols before the exile. The Temple was demolished 10 years afterwards by the Babylonians.

The Prophet Isaiah

The Prophet Isaiah was an ancient Hebrew prophet from the 8th-century BC who the Book of Isaiah is named after. Isaiah resided in Jerusalem prior to the Babylonian Exile. Isaiah was directly involved with the exile of the Hebrew people to Babylon and the ruin of Jerusalem. During that time Isaiah’s theology revolved around the giving the refugees hope and emphasizing that they must continue to trust in Yahweh. In addition to the many prophecies of Isaiah is an assemblage of fore warnings about the Suffering Servant.
In the year 734 B.C., Isaiah met with King Ahaz in Jerusalem and warned him of the impending hardships that were coming. Isaiah informed the king that the Davidic regime was still in Yahweh’s favor. Isaiah revealed to King Ahaz the sign to come involving a young woman who would give birth to a son named Immanuel (Isaiah 7:14). This child represents Yahweh’s favor with the Davidic regime and also with King Ahaz. The Book of Matthew further explains that Isaiah’s directive to Ahaz was a presage about the coming of Yahusha the Messiah (Matthew 1:22–23).
The Book of Isaiah, as well as the Book of Jeremiah, are unique in the Hebrew scriptures for their focus on the “wrath of the Yahweh” as indicated in Isaiah 9:19 stating, “The land shall be burned up by the wrath of Yahweh of hosts, and the people shall be as the fuel for the fire.” A man shall not spare his brother.

The Prophet Jeremiah

The Prophet Jeremiah was a 7th century B.C. ancient Hebrew prophet from a priestly household. Jeremiah contributed to the Israelites’ knowledge of truth, penitence, and prophecy. He is best known for his prophesy of “a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.”
Another prophesy of note was when Yahweh told Jeremiah that “I will place my law within them, and write it upon their hearts” and “All, from least to greatest, shall know me, says Yahweh, for I will forgive their evildoing and remember their sin no more” (Jeremiah 31:31,33–34).
It was Jeremiah who aided King Josiah’s intentions to bring back the worship of the Yahweh, the true God, in Jerusalem. After King Josiah’s death, when the worship of false idols had returned to Jerusalem, Jeremiah was so critical of the Israelites that he was publicly scorned, arrested and imprisoned.
After the Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar, conquered Jerusalem and banished the Hebrew king, Jeremiah attempted to lead King Nebuchadnezzar towards Yahweh, but his endeavors were futile. In 587 B.C. King Nebuchadnezzar came back to Jerusalem and annihilated it, they took Jeremiah to Egypt by force where he continued to prophesy.

Isaac Landman

October 24, 1880 – September 4, 1946
Isaac Landman was born on October 24, 1880, in Sudilkov Russia, and died in Cincinnati, Ohio on September 4, 1946. He was an American Reform rabbi, playwright, poet and an active participant in the anti-Zionist movement. Landman and his brother, Michael Lewis Landman, wrote the popular Broadway play A Man of Honor.
Landman emigrated to Cincinnati, Ohio in 1890, and earned a degree from Cincinnati’s Reform Hebrew Union College. He, along with the support of Simon Bamberger, Julius Rosenwald, and Jacob Schiff, established a Jewish farm colony in Utah in 1911. Landman wed Beatrice Eschner in 1913.
During World War I he became the United States Army’s first Jewish chaplain ever stationed overseas.
He was a key player in promoting Jewish-Christian unity among the world’s Christian Churches. In 1918 he became editor of the American Hebrew Magazine, and was chosen as the ambassador of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations to the Paris Peace Conference in 1919.
Landman was against the Zionist movement. In 1922, he and Rabbi David Philipson were selected to present the Reform movement’s anti-Zionist stance to the US Congress’ House Committee on Foreign Affairs as they contemplated the Lodge–Fish proposition in backing the Balfour Declaration bill, which was universally backed by Congress and ratified by President Harding. Landman continued to publish many points of view in opposition to the agreement and to Zionism in his American Hebrew Magazine.
In 1931 he became Rabbi of Brooklyn’s Congregation Beth Elohim. In 1934 he started editing the Universal Jewish Encyclopedia, which was published throughout the 1940s, in 10 volumes.

Works by Isaac Landman

The Universal Jewish Encyclopedia: An authoritative and popular presentation of Jews and Judaism since the earliest times by Isaac Landman
Christian and Jew: a symposium for better understanding by Isaac Landman
Stories of the Prophets: Before the exile by Isaac Landman
The Universal Jewish Encyclopedia: The seven-branched light. A reading guide and index to the Universal Jewish encyclopedia
The Seven-branched Light: A reading guide and index to the Universal Jewish encyclopedia: An authoritative and popular presentation of Jews and Judaism since the earliest times by Simon Cohen
The American Hebrew and Jewish Messenger
A Man of Honor: A drama in three acts by Isaac Landman

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Sextus Julius Africanus

No one knows the given name of Sextus Julius Africanus. Most of the ancient Hebrew writers living in Greek-speaking countries are known known today by a Greek name or sometimes by a Greek and a Hebrew name. Historians believe Africanus was born in 160 AD in Ancient Libya, grew up in Jerusalem, and died in Greece in 240 AD.
His linguistic background included proficiency in Hebrew, Latin, Greek and Roman. Many historians regard him as the “Father of Chronology”. Besides being an authority of biblical chronology, he was likewise an authority of biblical prophecy evidenced by being the first scholar who correctly interpreted the Prophecy of Daniel 8 and Daniel 9.

2300 Days Prophecy of Daniel

70 Weeks Prophecy of Daniel

Africanus’ work to establish the Creation Timeline “Chronographiai”, was a history of the world in 5 volumes that he wrote between 212 and 221 AD. The chronological work covers the period from the Creation of Adam to the year 221 AD. Africanus’ historical work is no longer extant, but extensive excerpts from it are in the Chronicle of Eusebius, who used it in compiling his early Episcopal lists and in the work of Georgius Syncellus Kedrenos, a 11th century Byzantine historian, who used many fragments of Africanus’ work. Near the middle of the third century AD, Africanus went to Alexandria to study in its catechetical school where he fully developed his computational skills.
The works of Flavius Josephus “the Antiquities of the Hebrews” and “The Hebrew War” provided valuable cultural material for Africanus’ understanding of Hebrew life during the 1st-century AD. He also used many non-religious sources to cross check his calculations, including the works of Hebrew, Roman, and Greek historians, specifically Justus of Tiberias, who wrote a chronicle of the Kings of Israel from the time of Moses to Agrippa II. Africanus attempted to unite the ancient Hebrew Biblical accounts with Hebraic, Roman, and Greek history.

A major influence were Greek histories and chronicles like the History of Attica by Hellanicus of Lesbos, Greek lists of priests and priestesses, and especially its lists of the Olympiad winners. Today, we still date everything in ancient Greece in relation to the Olympiads. Though he relied on the ancient Hebrew Scriptures as the basis of his calculations, he incorported and synchronized Chaldean and Egyptian chronologies, Hebraic History, and Greek mythology into his timeline.

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Representation of Deities of the Maya Manuscripts

Ancient Maya Deities

Due to the time depth of the Maya culture and the various influences from elsewhere in Mesoamerica, the pantheon of Maya gods and deities is particularly rich and the nature of Maya religious beliefs makes it difficult to grasp for the western eye.
The seemingly well-ordered polytheistic nature of the Maya pantheon derived in large measure from the study of Maya manuscripts written in hieroglyphs from the time just before the Spanish Conquest (i.e. “Postclassic Codices”) which were the most accessible collections of Maya text and images in the early years of Mesoamerican archaeology.
One of the first and highly successful attempt to organise the various Maya deities represented in the Codices was made by German scholar Paul Schellhas in 18975. Since then, our knowledge of Maya iconography and epigraphy has grown immensely thanks to the discovery of thousands of artefacts (painted pottery, carved monuments, mural paintings, etc.). We now know that some Codex deities can be linked to non-Maya gods and that Maya religion didn’t evolve in a silo but was opened to influences from other Mesoamerican cultures (and vice versa).
A dozen or so of Maya gods are well identified and can be found throughout the corpus of Maya iconography. Many of them have their counterparts elsewhere in Mesoamerica. For example, the Mexica (i.e. Aztecs) god Tlaloc and the Maya god Chaak are both gods of rain and lightning. But, for the rest, there is much confusion. This is mostly due to the nature of Maya religious belief.

To the ancient Maya, all things, living as well as inanimate, had an inherent “power” which could be manifested in supernatural beings (i.e. “deities”). The Maya also believed in a host of lesser supernatural beings such as the Way (pronounced “why”) who were spirit alter-egos. Ancestors too were part of that supernatural world and their role was to intercede with the gods for the living. Maya gods could simultaneously exist in several forms or aspects. Pawahtuun, for example, was a quadripartite divinity who stood at the four corners (cardinal directions) of the universe.
Quite commonly deities were paired, expressing primary cosmic oppositions such as light vs Darkness, Wet vs Dry (there are only 2 seasons in the Maya area: the rainy season and the dry season). Many other deities appear to be linked to specific Maya cities or even dynasties and the territory they controlled.
Supernatural beings were characterized by a variety of criteria such as function, sex, direction, age, colour, etc., and attributes such as glyphs, symbols, iconographic elements, etc. Some of these elements could change to reflect the various aspects of the deity.

In the texts and iconography, certain features distinguish supernatural beings from historical characters:

• goggle eyes

• prominent front teeth / snout

• so-called “god-markings”

combination of various animal and human attributes

Paul Schellhas

Maya researcher and German lawyer Paul Schellhas was born on November 16, 1859 in Berlin and died in 1945 during the Battle of Berlin. Currently, he lies at the Zehlendorf forest cemetery in the war cemetery.
Schellhas was born to entrepreneur Julius Schellhas and spent his initial days devoting his time to his career before taking up the lawyer profession. He obtained his doctorate in 1884 after pursuing camera studies and law in Berlin. He started as a lawyer before becoming a judge at the Charlottenburg district court later on in around 1900. By the time of his retirement, he was a district judge.
Schellhas started with Egyptian hieroglyphic script as a part-time job but after coming across the Mayan illuminated manuscript preserved in the Saxon State Library in Dresden, his track completely changed as it made a significant influence on him.
Since then, with substantial support from Ernst Förstemann, Schellhas attempted decoding Mayan literature. He contributed brilliantly to this field between 1892 to 1904 when he was able to identify around 30 Maya gods with the help of letters with the names like God D for Itzamná , God B for Chaac , God K for K’awiil or Goddess O for Ix Chel.
Schellhas’ theory that Mayan literature is ideographic has been deemed false because around 90% of it can be interpreted today. However, his contribution and research is still earning major recognition for being able to decipher the script and there is no denying his brilliance. At an early stage, Schellhas had talked about how it’s possible to interpret inscriptions on stone monuments as the correct names of the depicted individuals, and he also suggested including scripts on grave ceramics.
Since 1959 many others were aware of this too, like Tatiana Proskouriakoff, Heinrich Berlin and even Michael D. Coe. Schellhas served as an official representative of the Washington DC Anthropological Society.

Publications

Ideals and Idealism in Law, 1886
The gods of the Maya manuscripts: a mythological cultural image from ancient America, Dresden 1897
Forensic records, 1900
The bankruptcy cases in judicial practice, 1902
Broadcasting and Copyright, Berlin 1929
The stele 12 by Piedras Negras, in: Zeitschrift für Ethnologie 66, 1934, pp. 416-422
Fifty years of Maya research, in: Zeitschrift für Ethnologie 69, 1937, pp. 365–389
The deciphering of the Mayan hieroglyphs an insoluble problem? in: Ethnos 10, 1945, pp. 44-53

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