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The Mormon Doctrine of Deity

Christianity and Mormon Culture

This work is well written and simply organized to deal with this complex and often controversial topic. In many ways, this presentation attempts to explore the nature of God In a larger context than traditionally expressed by the field of philosophy. As such, many accepted explanations and constructs are examined, while allowing for Roberts, as the principal author, to create a more coherent structure for Latter-day Saint doctrinal beliefs.
Understanding God’s nature is important because it helps us to better understand our potential. Heavenly Father is the all-powerful Creator and Ruler of the universe, but He is also patient, paternal, merciful, and devoted to our eternal progression. “For behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man” (Moses 1:39). God is not abstract or incomprehensible; indeed, we should all strive to come to know Him and His Son in this life.
Mormonism and Christianity have a complex theological, historical, and sociological relationship. Mormons express the doctrines of Mormonism using standard biblical terminology and have similar views about the nature of Jesus’ atonement, bodily resurrection, and Second Coming as traditional Christianity. Nevertheless, most Mormons do not accept the Trinitarian views of orthodox Nicene Christianity, codified In the Nicene and Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creeds of 325 and 381. Although Mormons consider the Protestant Bible as scripture, they do not believe in biblical inerrancy. They have also adopted additional scriptures, including the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price. Mormons practice baptism and celebrate the Sacrament, but they also participate in religious rituals not practiced by traditional Christianity. Mormons self-identify as Christian. Focusing on differences, some Christians consider Mormonism “non-Christian”; Mormons, focusing on similarities, are sometimes offended at being so characterized. Mormons do not accept non-Mormon baptism nor do non-Mormon Christians usually accept Mormon baptism. Mormons regularly proselytize individuals actually or nominally within the Christian tradition, and some Christians, especially evangelicals, proselytize Mormons. Some view Mormonism as a form of Christianity, but distinct enough from traditional Christianity so as to form a new religious tradition, much as Christianity is more than just a sect of Judaism.

The Mormonism that originated with Joseph Smith in the 1820s shared strong similarities with some elements of nineteenth-century Protestant Christianity. Mormons believe that God, through Smith and his successors, restored various doctrines and practices that were lost from the original Christianity taught by Jesus. For example, Smith, as a result of his “First Vision”, primarily rejected the Nicene doctrine of the Trinity and instead taught that God the Father, his son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost are three distinct “personages”.
While the largest Mormon denomination, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), acknowledges its differences with mainstream Christianity, it also focuses on its commonalities such as its focus on faith in Christ, following the teachings of Jesus Christ, the miracle of the atonement, and many other doctrines.

Brigham Henry Roberts

Historian, Politician, and Leader in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Brigham Roberts was born on March 13, 1857, in Warrington, Lancashire, England, and died on September 27, 1933, in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. He characterized his childhood as horror and his adolescence as a catastrophe in one of his later published works. His father, Benjamin Roberts, was an alcoholic ship plater and blacksmith, and his mother, Ann Everington, was a seamstress. Just after he was born, his father and mother converted to the Latter-Day Saints Church.
He left England in April 1866 aided by the Perpetual Emigrating Fund along with his sister, where they joined a wagon train in Nebraska and walked most of the way to Salt Lake City, Utah to meet their mother.
In 1867, Seth Dustin baptized Roberts into the LDS Church, and in 1869 he wed Roberts’ mother, Ann. Ann was granted a divorce in 1884 because Dustin had long since deserted the family. Roberts liked Utah and settled in a town called Bountiful, which he considered home.
As a young adult, he worked as a laborer in the mines. He, like most of the young men In Bountiful, took a liking to drinking and gambling. Later on, he learned to read and got an apprenticeship as a blacksmith while he was in school. After a life of only menial jobs, he had found his calling. He became especially zealous about reading and voraciously read many publications Including the Book of Mormon and other Mormon theological texts and publications on philosophy, history, and science. He graduated at the top of his class from the University of Deseret in 1878. Soon afterward he wed Sarah Louisa Smith, and they had 7 children.

Published Works

Roberts, B. H. (Brigham Henry), 1857.1933: Corianton: A Nephite Story
Roberts, B. H. (Brigham Henry), 1857-1933: Defense of the Faith and the Saints (Volume 1 of 2)
Roberts, B. H. (Brigham Henry), 1857-1933: Defense of the Faith and the Saints (Volume 2 of 2)
Roberts, B. H. (Brigham Henry), 1857-1933: The gospel. an exposition of Its first principles, (Salt Lake City, George Q. Cannon & Sons Co., 1893)
Roberts, B. H. (Brigham Henry), 1857-1933: The gospel. An exposition of its first principles, (Salt Lake City, The Contributor Company, 1888)
Roberts, B. H. (Brigham Henry), 1857-1933: The Gospel: an exposition of its first principles; and man’s relationship to Deity / (Salt Lake City, Utah: The Deseret news, 1901)
Roberts, B. H. (Brigham Henry), 1857-1933: The Gospel: An Exposition of its First Principles: Revised and Enlarged Edition
Roberts, B. H. (Brigham Henry), 1857-1933: History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. (Salt Lake City, Utah, Deseret News, 1902-1932), also by Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Roberts, B. H. (Brigham Henry), 1857-1933: The Mormon Doctrine of Deity: The Roberts-Van Der Donckt Discussion

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The Masoretic Texts

The modern Hebrew text of the Old Testament is called the Masoretic Text because it is based upon the Masora—the Hebrew textual tradition of scholars known as the Masoretes (or Masorites).
The Masoretes were the first to separate what we now refer to as apocryphal books from the canonical books. They were likewise the first to divide the Torah into the twenty-two books, 22 being the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet, which has subsequently morphed into what is now the 27 books of the Old Testament. After the division into books, the books were further subdivided into chapters and verses. Like the Septuagint, the Masoretic Texts were translated directly from the Ancient Hebrew Scriptures.
The Masoretic Text has become a modern Hebrew translation of the Scriptures and is the basis of the present-day Old Testament materials. Likewise, earlier English Bible translations like the Wycliffe Bible in 1382 AD and the King James Authorized Version in 1611 used the Masoretic Texts for the 27 Books in today’s Bibles, but these Bibles also included the Septuagint books that are now referred to as apocryphal. When the popular King James Version removed the apocryphal books in 1885 AD, the Masoretic Text became universally accepted as the authentic Hebrew Bible. This text is the only text quoted in rabbinic writings and the only text used by organized Judaism since the 10th century AD. The oldest complete version of the Masoretic Text is the Leningrad Codex produced in 1009 AD. In comparison to the Septuagint the Masoretic Text are a very late manuscript.

Septuagint vs. Masoretic Texts Begotten Ages Table

Who Were the Masoretes?

The Masoretes were groups of Hebrew scribes from the latter part of the 5th through 10th centuries AD. They primarily lived in early medieval Palestine in the cities of Tiberias and Yerushalayim(Jerusalem) and in Babylonia (Iraq). Each group devised a system of diction and grammatical keys in the construct of diacritical signs on the external form of the Scriptural content in order to standardize the pronunciation, chapter and verse sections, and cantillation of the Hebrew Bible for the global Hebrew society.
The Masoretes developed the vowel notation system for Hebrew that is still universally practiced, as well as the trope symbols adopted for the diacritics used in texts that are to be chanted in liturgy.
The ben Asher family of Masoretes were primarily responsible for the preservation and production of the Masoretic Text, although there was an alternative Masoretic text of the ben Naphtali family. There are around 875 differences between the two texts. The halachic authority Maimonides preferred the ben Asher version, and the Egyptian Hebrew scholar, Saadya Gaon al-Fayyumi, endorsed the ben Naphtali system. It is believed that most of the Masoretes were Karaites.

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The Masoretic Recension

The impetus to contrive a new Hebrew Scriptural Text stems from the growing dissatisfaction with the Septuagint amongst the Pharisees, the Sadducees and the Sanhedrin Council, who denied that the Messiah had come. Not only did the Septuagint have the 5500-year Genesis timeline, and the apocryphal books which support that timeline, it had also added the works of the Apostles.
By 135 AD, the Septuagint had fallen out of favor and the Rabbi’s needed to come up with an alternative. They initiated the concept of a new Hebrew Text around 70 AD and it developed over many years and gained wide acceptance by the 6th century as the Masoretic Text was published. In his book “Seder Olam Rabbah” Rabbi Yose ben Halafta, declares that the year in which many proclaimed that Yahusha (Jesus) the Messiah had come, in 1 AD, was only 3760 years after the creation of Adam; therefore, he couldn’t possibly have been the King of the Hebrews from prophecy.

The writers of the Masoretic Texts made the following denials of accepted beliefs held by the followers of Yahusha (Jesus):

They denied that many of the existing Scriptural books in the Ancient Hebrew Texts and the Septuagint were legitimate.
They denied the Creation Timeline in the Ancient Hebrew Texts and the Septuagint.
They denied the legitimacy of the writings of the Apostles.
The denied that Yahusha (Jesus) was the Messiah and that the “Prophecy” had been fulfilled.

Septuagint vs. Masoretic Texts Begotten Ages Table

Matthew 23:13
“But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in.”
Matthew 23:27
“Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchers, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness.”

Africanus asserted that “the Hebrew scribes and rabbis purposely hid from the knowledge of the people as many of the passages which contained any scandal against the elders, rulers, and judges, as they could, some of which have been preserved in the canonical writings.” He backs up his theory by recounting the Hebrews violence against their own Prophets, and atrocities against Yahusha (Jesus) and the Apostles, as recorded in the New Testament.

Matthew 12:14
“Then the Pharisees went out, and held a council against him, how they might destroy him.”
Matthew 23:34
” Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city:”

The rabbinic world chronology in the Seder Olam Rabbah (ca. 1 AD.40–160), based on the Masoretic Text, dates Creation to 3761 BC. The Seder Olam was developed and written by the very same rabbis who deflated the Masoretic Texts numbers in the Book of Genesis Chapters 5 and 11 to discredit the idea that the Messiah had already arrived. Simply stated, the rabbinic date of Creation derived from the authoritative Seder Olam places Yahusha’s (Jesus’) life too soon for him to have been the Messiah. This reduction was done in conjunction with their reinterpretation of Daniel 9, which they associated with the Temple’s destruction instead of the coming of the Messiah. Reinterpreting Daniel 9, adopting the Seder Olam as authoritative, and reducing the primeval chronology in their Hebrew texts worked together as rationales for rejecting him as the Messiah.
The deliberate chronological deflation of over 1500 years in the proto–Masoretic Hebrew text arose around 70 AD. In his book, the Chronicle, (AD 260/265–340) Eusebius became the first historian to explain that the rabbis deliberately deflated the proto–Masoretic Text chronology. Many other ancient writers including, Jacob of Edessa (AD 640–708), Armenian annalist Bar Hebraeus (1 AD.226–1286), Byzantine chronologist George Syncellus (d. AD 813) and Julian of Toledo (AD 642–690) also made this claim.

From Septuagint to the Masoretic Text Table

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The Life of Flavius Josephus

Yosef ben Matityahu

The Development of Flavius Josephus, or Vita, is an autobiography written by Josephus in approximately 94-99 CE, where Josephus rehashes the details of the Hebrew-Roman War, in retort to accusations made against him by Justus of Tiberias.
Affixed to the Antiquities was a Vita (Life), which is more of an apology for Josephus’ conduct in Galilee during the revolution, than it is an autobiography. He wrote it as a retort against the attacks of his adversary Justus of Tiberias, who alleged that Josephus was liable for the revolution. In his defense, he countered the explanation offered in his more candid Jewish War, representing himself as a dependable devotee of Rome and a deserter to the rebellion from the outset.
Josephus came across as more trustworthy in his text the Contra Apionem (Against Apion), even though his prior works Concerning the Antiquity of the Jews and Against the Greeks are more significant. Of its 2 volumes, the first responds to different anti-Semitic verbal attacks hurled at the Hebrews by Hellenistic authors, and the second declares the moral supremacy of the Hebrew religion over Hellenism and shows Josephus’ devotion to his culture and religion.

Because Josephus’ first-hand narrative of the life of Jesus is the most credible present-day account that endured to the present, he is the most fascinating historian of the Roman emperor.
He related many of the affairs of the Eastern Roman empire, initially as a patriotic Roman, and thereafter in a more sovereign tone.
Flavius Josephus is famous for his first-hand narration of Hebrew history, together with a first-person narrative of the revolution against the Romans (66-73 AD), and factual affirmation of the life and teachings of Yahushua (Jesus of Nazareth to the Greeks).
A Hebrew of priestly and noble lineage, Yosef ben Matityahu (Joseph ben Matthias), was appointed leader of Galilee and fought in the 66 AD revolution against Rome. The Roman Vespasian crushed his forces, and after a 7-week blockade, Matityahu surrendered. He eventually won the support of Vespasian, who became emperor after Nero killed himself. Matityahu assumed the Roman name Titus Flavius Josephus and finished his career with the endorsement of Vespasian and his successors (Titus and Domitian). Josephus penned the History of the Jewish War, in Aramaic and later in Greek.

Antiquities of the Jews is a historical account from creation to 66 AD that acknowledges Yahushua (Jesus), Yohanan (John the Baptist) and Ya’aqov (James), the martyred brother of Yahushua (Jesus).
Although his original works were modified over the generations, most academicians recognize him as the main source of extra-biblical material from early Christian times.
Josephus shined in his studies on Hebrew law. He studied with the Essenes, Pharisees and the Sadducees, prior to joining the Pharisees. Josephus was a witness to these historical events, and his written accounts are deemed factual.

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The Life of Buddha and Its Lessons

The Value of Suffering

The Life of Buddha and its Lessons

Is Buddhism relevant in our modern world? The better question is, how Buddhism is relevant to life. Is there anything special about our modern life?
Cell phones and other technology differentiate modern life, compared to earlier periods of history. Only fifteen years ago there were no mobile phones. The human condition is no different today than before cell phones existed. The human condition has been the same throughout time. People have always had arguments with each other, been unhappy with each other, protected each other and loved each other. Ancient people’s lives had worries like ours do today; whether it’s economic difficulties of the present age, or about a drought causing crop failure. Buddhism has something to offer and is relevant in all times.

True Suffering: Unhappiness, Happiness, and Compulsion

The first true truth is suffering. What is true suffering? What are the problems that we all face?
Unhappiness is the first major problem we face. There can be many gradations of unhappiness; even when we are in pleasurable situations, in pleasant company, eating delicious food, we can still be unhappy. Oppositely, if we are in pain, we can still be happy and at peace and accepting of our situation without complaining, and without becoming upset and self-preoccupied.
The second problem is unusual and most people would not recognize this as a problem; this suffering is our ordinary happiness.
What is the problem with our ordinary happiness? The problem is that it does not last; it is never satisfying, we never get enough, and then it changes. We’re happy for a while, then our mood changes and we’re unhappy. If our ordinary happiness was a true ultimate happiness, the more we had of something that made us happy, the happier we would become.

In theory, the more of your favorite food that you eat at one time, the happier we should become. Once we’re satiated, we are no longer happy eating our favorite food, so this ordinary happiness that we strive for is problematic. I often think: How much of my favorite food do I need to eat to enjoy it? Would one little taste be enough?
The third problematic situation is our compulsive existence. Compulsive means that we are not in control over our minds or our behavior.
We could be compulsively singing a song in our head and cannot stop, have uncontrollable jealous thoughts about a partner, we can’t stop having very negative thoughts or worrying. You can’t satisfy a compulsive, even the compulsion to be perfect in fact is stressful and unpleasant.
This whole aspect of compulsion is what karma is referring to in Buddhism; karma forces us repeated uncontrollable behaviors that are problematic whether they’re destructive or constructive.

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The Koranns’ Summary

The Qur’an (al-Qur’an), likewise called Qur’an or Koran, is the most significant religious text of Islam, and Muslims consider it a revelation from God (Allah). Scholars consider it to be the neatest work of Arabic literature. It comprises 114 chapters, with each chapter consisting of many verses, and it can only be spoken in Arabic during prayers. Many stories in the Koran are similar to those recounted in the Biblical and apocryphal scriptures.
The primary focuses of the Koran are of Allah (or God) and Muhammad the prophet Spiritual Importance is attributed to the name of The Prophet Muhammad, contending that although he was human, he was not born but was willed into existence to fulfill his spiritual role.
The Koran denies the Christian doctrine that Jesus Christ is equal to God, accepting that he was an enlightened prophet, analogous to Muhammad, and that his story paramount to the study of Islam and mankind’s relationship with Allah.

Muslims accept that Allah orally declared the Koran to Muhammad, through the archangel Gabriel. They believe the scriptures were given to him incrementally over 23 years, boning in the month of Ramadan, when Muhammad was 40; and ending in 632 upon his death. Muslims consider the Koran as Muhammad’s most important miracle; as validation of his prophethood; and the apex of an array of spiritual directives commencing with those declared to Adam, including the Torah (Tawrah), the Psalms (Zabur) and the Gospel (Injil).
Muslims do not regard the Koran as being divinely Inspired, but the actual word of God. According to tradition, several of Muhammad’s associates worked as scribes, writing the revelations, and assembled the written down and memorized parts of the Koran soon after his death. Caliph Ullmancreated a standard version, now identified as the Uthmanic codex, which is widely recognized as the archetype of the Quran today.

They hall a person who memorizes the entire Koran a hafiz (‘memorize’). During Ramadan, Muslims generally recite the entire Koran during tarawih prayers. To deduce what a specific Koranic verse means, most Muslims rely on exegesis, or interpretations. Many Muslim scholars on the Koran have asserted that the Koran can be relevant in any language and for any society, but acknowledges that it loses much of its substance when translated to a language other than Arabic.

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The King James Bible

(Christianity)

The King James Bible (KJB) is an English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England, commissioned in 1604 and completed and published in 1611 under the sponsorship of James VI.
The original (1611) King James Version included all the books in the Septuagint, including 14 books of the Apocrypha, but changed to the 66 books, 39 Old Testament and 27 New Testament, in the 1739 version to align with the Masoretic texts. They translated the New Testament from Greek, the Old Testament from Hebrew and Aramaic, and the Apocrypha from Greek and Latin.
The King James Bible was the third translation into English approved by the English Church authorities, with the first being the Great Bible, commissioned by King Henry VIII in 1535, and the 2nd was the Bishops’ Bible, commissioned by Queen Elizabeth I in 1568. The Bishop’s Bible was influential in writing the KJB, and its text served as the translators’ primary guide, including keeping the proper names of the people in the bible.

When a question arose concerning the Bishops’ Bible translation, they permitted the translators to consult other translations from a pre-approved list that included: the Geneva Bible, the Coverdale Bible, the Tyndale Bible, Matthew’s Bible, the Taverner’s Bible and the New Testament of the Douay-Rheims Bible.
Over the course of the 18th century, the KJB unseated the Latin Vulgate as the standard version of scripture for English-speaking scholars, replacing it in almost all Anglican and English Protestant churches.
By the start of the 19th century, this version of the Bible became the most printed book in history and one of the most important books in English culture. They based most of the 19th century printings on the standard text of 1769 version, edited by Benjamin Blayney while at Oxford, which omit the Apocrypha books and is the King James Version used today.

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The Jewish Manual

First English Language Jewish Cook Book

Lady Montefiore wrote “The Jewish Manual” because of the increasing enthusiasm amongst the Jews in their ancient roots, traditions, and cook. It outlined the procedures necessary to adhere to the individual conduct expressed in the Bible, in Leviticus (in Hebrew Vayikra).
Although many cookbooks published prior to The Jewish Manual were full of information, they were worthless to the Jewish servant. None of them consisted of distinctively Jewish recipes nor considered the scripturally forbidden items and food combinations deemed essential elements of a dish in the Hebrew kitchen.
Lady Montefiore sought to make the art of cooking as effortless as possible by making her recipes straightforward, simple, and succinct. She was attentive to the details concerning the exactness and cost of the portions allotted. Her meals could be depended on, because she’d had them prepared and analyzed in her own kitchen. She deliberately disregarded all laborious and costly methods of cooking as opposite to the aim of her cookbook; which was to instruct the Jewish housemaid in the extravagance and frugality of the table, on which most of the gratification of social interaction hinges.

Preliminary Remarks by the Author

We avail ourselves of the opportunity our editorial capacity affords, to express our hope, that with all its faults and deficiencies “The Jewish Manual” may prove to the homemaker a useful assistant, and be fortunate enough to meet with their lenient, kind, and favorable consideration.

“Our collection will be found to contain all the best recipes, hitherto bequeathed only by memory or manuscript, from one generation to another of the Jewish nation, and those which come under the denomination of plain English dishes; and also, such French ones as are now used at all refined modern tables”.

About the book

Published in London in 1846, “The Jewish Cookbook” is the first Jewish cookbook on personal hygiene and social deportment written in English, and it reflects the social and economic status of English Jews.
The focus of the book is on the East European and Russian Jews whose descendants represent the majority of the English speaking’ Jews. Because historical documents were rare, not much was known about the English Jewish community. This book is evidence of Lady Montefiore’s faithfulness to Judaism; and her position of affluence in English society.

Through her social status and extensive travels to Jerusalem and other Middle Eastern countries, her recipes show a culinary legacy and awareness of grand gourmet French cuisine new to Russian and Polish Jews. Lady Montefiore’s appreciation of the writings and practice of the fine French chefs and their jargon and cooking styles shows her interest, acumen and culinary skills.
The Jewish Manual was written from the perspective of the lady of the house to instruct her servant in the basic details of refined dining. It assumes that individuals performing the food’s preparation already understand cooking basics. Anyone with a grasp of basic measures and cooking skill can cook from this book, and adjusting the quantities to produce fewer servings is straightforward. You can prepare “The Gateau de Tours” using a purchased poundcake, making it the easiest to make remarkable dessert imaginable. It’s still regarded as the specialty cake of Tours, France, made with the sublime raspberry jam of the country. To this day, the Bola d’Amor remains the most noble dessert of Spain. And the “Muligatawny Soup”, the curried chicken stew from India, is absolutely delicious, yet simple to make.

Judith Montefiore

Judith (Lady) Montefiore was born on February 20, 1784 in London and died on September 24,1862 outside of London, in Ramsgate. Montefiore was a humanitarian, linguist, musician, and journalist. Her privately written memoirs presented her to be sophisticated, devout, and a dedicated adherent of the Jewish religion, yet accepting of those advocating a different faith. Montefiore authored the Jewish Manual, the first Jewish cook book published in English. She lived out the final years of her life in London and Ramsgate. A few months before her death, Judith and Sir Moses celebrated their golden wedding anniversary, and at her death, Sir Moses established the Judith Lady Montefiore College at Ramsgate in her remembrance.
Judith married Sir Moses Montefiore on June 10, 1812. The Portuguese Synagogue disapproved of matrimonies between Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews; but Sir Moses felt this caste discrimination was harmful to Judaism and sought to end it. After their wedding, they moved into a home on New Court, St. Swithin’s Lane, besides Nathan Mayer Rothschild, founder of the Rothschild banking family of England, whom one of Judith’s sisters, Hannah, had wed in 1806. Together they became two of the most well-known members of the Jewish elite.
Lady Montefiore greatly influenced all of her husband’s affairs, and when he retired from business, she administered his fortune in humanitarian ventures. Because of her remarkable linguistic skills, Lady Montefiore traveled with her husband on all of his overseas missions up to 1859, including his excursions to the Holy Land, Damascus, Saint Petersburg, and Rome. While traveling to Russia, in 1846, the wife and daughter of the Russian governor paid her a ceremonial visit to show their appreciation for the reverence she had aroused among all classes. She anonymously published two accounts of some of these trips.
Judith Cohen Montefiore was recognized throughout Jewish society for her social impact and humanity. Besides her memoirs there are no known publications under her name, but academics believe that she wrote the first Jewish cookbook in English, The Jewish Manual: or Practical Information in Jewish & Modern Cookery; with a Collection of Valuable Recipes and Hints Relating to the Toilette, edited by a Lady, which was published in 1846.

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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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