John,
Does the Complete Jewish Bible use the Hebrew names? Even my Tanakh (with the side by side translation) and my Aramaic translated New Testiment use the "English" names (well on the English sides)(When I first got the Tanahk that kind of surprised me). Hubby wants to be able to participate, and he doesn't have the time right now to learn Hebrew as fast as he would like. He would love an "English" version bible with "Hebrew" names and Jewish "feeling" in translation.


I loved Biblical Holidays! Good book!



Added in part: I do know the NT was written in Greek and Aramaic. Aramaic was the "English" of the day back then, Greek was the scholarly thing to write down. There were some Aramaic versions running around very early on. For some reason, I feel it's easier to understand the word usage of the day for when Yeshua was speaking to the crowds... It ends up translating slightly differently. Not much, but the feeling of it blends better for me.

Sandy-
Have fun with the Matzohs! They are so fun to make!


Adrian thank you!

• PetticoatLace Said:

Ah, yes ... this year's maror did seem a bit more bitter than last years?

Quick question (for any or all): I was under the impression that lamb is no longer used at Passover because of the destruction of the Temple (and thus no "proper" place to make the sacrifice) ... have I been mistaken in this?

David

David-
For me personally, I feel Yeshua was the perfect lamb sacrifice, the atonement for my sins, and my bridge to El Shaddai.

So my thinking on this goes: The last and perfect sacrifice was already made. I do this in rememberence of that.

(Sidenote: and also to remember the the passover)

Others may feel differently or do something different?

Shalom,
~ Deborah

What an exciting thread. Its funny I always had considered myself "in the know" where religions were conserned. I just recently (last year) found out that there were some Jews that believe in the messiah. I was shocked and since that point I have been ever so curious about it. I have read this thread with much interest and its been nice to learn some new things.

A link I found interesting on another site :

»Is Jesus the Jewish Messiah ?«

I'm not a Messianic Jew, but I can see that it might offer a different, more authentic path for those who may not feel totally at home with mainline Western churches. If this is not too personal / probing too deeply, I was wondering if you feel learning Hebrew and being able to say prayers in Hebrew has deepened your spirituality? I have often thought that learning Hebrew would open up new levels of meaning, but I don't have time to pursue that at the moment. Is it something that you've found worthwhile? And is it really difficult as I've heard?

John

1.) Perhaps because I grew up in a time when we Catholics prayed our liturgical prayers in Latin, being able to pray certain prayers during Passover in the Hebrew has a level of comfort and/or feeling of "rightness" for my personal observance ...

Of course, being neither fluent in Latin or Hebrew, my spontaneous prayer -- the bedrock of my prayer life -- is in the language in which I "live and move and have my being."

2.) I don't think learning basic Hebrew -- enough to "say the prayers" -- is really all that difficult. Being fluent enough to read and translate the TANACK (the "Hebrew Bible") is another matter ...

Blessings and prayers,

David

I have read through the all the posts but am very interested as I converted to Judaism when I was 19 and came to the christian church when was 31 so I consider myself a messianic jew. I personally celebrate the jewish holidays (at least the biggies) and the christian holidays with my family. The jewish holidays have far more meaning to me. Though I do celebrate the birth of christ and his death and rising, I do not "celebrate" christmas and easter.

I do not eat pork, in so much as I do eat bacon from to time but rarely. I also avoid shellfish and fish without scales.

In most cases I feel called to follow Noahidic law in most cases I am not even sure what all 688 laws of the talmud are, but I learn more always.

I try to follow the living word of God as my main guide and in that I cannot go wrong.

• PetticoatLace Said:

Yes, it uses both Hebrew and Aramaic names. There's a glossary in the back to help you know who or where the name is about. So Moshe is Moses and Yisra'el is Israel, and the other way around, Peter is Kefa and Jerusalem is Yerushalayim.

Yochanan/John

Yochanan/John,
Thank you so much! I will look into that!

One of the better places to save in buying the Complete Jewish Bible is at CBD (www.christianbook.com).

There are three editions (softcover, hardcover, and leather). You may need to click on the 'click here to see the variations of this item', to find an edition that CBD may not immediate list when doing a search.

Check out »www.messianicjewish.net« for other titles that may be of interest.

john

• John B Said:

I haven't really been following this thread, but....

I have two years of Hebrew from college. While I can still read Hebrew with my Jewish friends, I do not remember as much vocabulary as I once did. And working through some of the verbs is quite a challenge. Hebrew has nine tenses (although tense isn't really a good word for it) and because of the way letters can change, all three of the consonants of the stem can change and you can wind up with a word that doesn't even resembly its basic form.

There are two routes to take. You can learn to read and pronounce Hebrew fairly easily - but you don't know what you're saying. Or you can fully learn Hebrew. The thing to remember is that Hebrew is not a western language. It is fundamentally different from English, German, French, Latin, or Greek, for example. All of those languages, though very different, work in similar ways. Hebrew does not. It isn't necessarily difficult, just very, very different.

David

Thanks for this thread, Deborah...
I suppose that i've always been a little curious about Messianic Judaism and reading over this and the links is very interesting.

From the brief amount that I've read, so far... Messianic Judaism really doesn't sound much different than my own religion/denomination... there might be more rituals and different pronounciations than we have... and does remind me some of the Roman Catholic church (that some of my in-laws belong to).

I've just touched the surface of this subject and it's really interesting and I feel drawn to learn more.

Thank you, again..
Sandy

I do not attend a Messianic congregation anymore, but I used to attend a nondenominational Pentecostal/Charismatic fellowship that "converted" to become a Messianic congregation. I learned a lot about the Jewish roots of Christianity from them but I ultimately left them because it was getting a bit too legalistic for me. People would give you weird looks if you said Jesus instead of Yeshua and some people would actually openly correct you in public. This was a bit much for me. I am still interested in the movement though and I led a Passover Seder with my non-Messianic church this past Good Friday which my pastor said was the best Good Friday service he has ever been to.

Grace and Shalom,

I've been studying Y-shuik/Messianic Judaism for a few years now, observing the High Holy Days with »Beth Am Messiah Congregation, attending shul as much as I can, going over Torah with the guys on a weekly basis. I don a kippah whenever I drive through Monsey out of respect (since it's a heavily Orthodox Hasidic community), and have introduced Y-shua to tons of Jewish friends. My grandabba is Sephardic Jewish from Spain and was the conduit to my awakening. In this month of Elul, I'm feeling the conviction again to don tzitziyot and find Tashlich utterly fascinating, with a connection to Him as the Bread of Life, who takes away our sin. Been to Israel circa 2003 (I'll never forget going from Sukkah to Sukkah in Hevron; Sukkot is my favorite) and have convinced a slew of Messianic friends to travel there for free courtesy of Taglit Birthright«. My halachic standards are flexible, since I'm a part of a kibbutz-community in flux, but perform mitzvot as lead by HaShem.

I'm working on several seferim of piyyutim. I find the lack of Messianic Maskilim a little sad...

I have also been researching East Asian Jewry and find the »Falash Mura/Beta Israel of Ethiopia beautiful people. If you've never seen an Asian Jew, check out these vidyos I've compiled of the B'nei Menashe«:

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=4B0A 431213...

Be sure to visit »GLBT Messianic«!