Nations rise against nations, there are wars and rumors of wars, fires, earthquakes, floods, and droughts. Incurable disease sweep across the lands and brothers take up against their fathers. Once great nations see their economies falter, and their people scream for securities at the sacrifice of their freedoms. The answer to the world's plight will come as a thief in the night. The answer comes swiftly. The answer is... The Apocalypse of Enoch. "I will smash the door posts, and leave the doors flat down, and will let the dead go up to eat the living! And the dead will outnumber the living!" -Epic of Gilgamesh Tablet Six.
The Book of Enoch (also 1 Enoch) is an ancient Jewish religious work, traditionally ascribed to Enoch, the great-grandfather of Noah. It is not part of the biblical canon as used by Jews, apart from Beta Israel. It is regarded as canonical by the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church and Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church, but no other Christian group.
Though widely read by early Christians, the book of Enoch was banned by the church in the fourth century and considered lost for 1,600 years. A mention of it in the New Testament led 19th-century scholars to a manuscript of the Enoch story in Hebrew and Aramaic verse, and a theological study of the manuscript in English followed in 1912. Yet it too eventually disappeared from public view. This edition of the lost biblical book is re-written in contemporary English and recounts the apocalyptic vision revealed to Enoch, the father of Methuselah, when he was taken to heaven by archangels who showed him the future of mankind as he looked down upon the world.
Did Jesus claim to be the "bridegroom"? If so, what did he mean by this claim? When Jesus says that the wedding guests should not fast "while the bridegroom is with them" (Mark 2:19), he is claiming to be a bridegroom by intentionally alluding to a rich tradition from the Hebrew Bible. By eating and drinking with "tax collectors and other sinners," Jesus was inviting people to join him in celebrating the eschatological banquet. While there is no single text in the Hebrew Bible or the literature of the Second Temple Period which states the "messiah is like a bridegroom," the elements for such a claim are present in several texts in Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Hosea. By claiming that his ministry was an ongoing wedding celebration he signaled the end of the Exile and the restoration of Israel to her position as the Lord's beloved wife. This book argues that Jesus combined the tradition of an eschatological banquet with a marriage metaphor in order to describe the end of the Exile as a wedding banquet.
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Galatians is one of the earliest of the Pauline letters and is therefore among the first documents written by Christians in the first century. Paul’s letter to the Galatians deals with the first real controversy in the early church: the status of Jews and gentiles in this present age and the application of the Law of Moses to gentiles. Paul argues passionately that gentiles are not “converting” to Judaism and therefore should not be expected to keep the Law. Gentiles who accept Jesus as Savior are “free in Christ,” not under the bondage of the Law. Galatians also deals with an important pastoral issue in the early church as well. If gentiles are not “under the Law,” are they free to behave any way they like? Does Paul’s gospel mean that gentiles can continue to live like pagans and still be right with God? For Paul, the believer’s status as an adopted child of God enables them to serve God freely as dearly loved children. Galatians: Freedom through God's Grace is commentary for laypeople, Bible teachers, and pastors who want to grasp how the original readers of Galatians would have understood Paul’s letter and how this important ancient letter speaks to Christians living in similar situations in the twenty-first century.
Who could have known how much influence the writings of a mysterious group of prophets and scribes hundreds of years before Christ would have on our understanding of end times prophecy? As it turns out, much of what we've been taught about Israel in the First Century is incomplete. There were, in fact, Jewish believers who knew exactly what to expect in the coming Messiah: that He would be God in the flesh and would die for our sins. If they accurately predicted the first arrival of Jesus, what did they say about His soon return? In this groundbreaking book, you will learn:?How an ancient Jewish calendar actually predicts the year 2025 AD as prophetically significant?How the enigmatic group, known as the Essenes, formed and what influence they had over the New Testament?Lost prophecies only recently discovered in the Dead Sea Scrolls about our time today?What messages the Essenes left behind for believers living in this present age?How the prophecies of Daniel and Revelation fit within the ancient Essene timetable?What hidden feasts and festivals the Essenes observed and what they point to in the future?What were the circumstances of the disappearance of the Essenes and how it connects to every Christian from the past two thousand yearsOnce you learn about the Essenes and the Dead Sea Scrolls they left behind, you will understand the entirety of the Bible in a brand new light. Finally, the prophetic texts of Scripture can be understood as originally intended. Discover what God is revealing in these final years of our current age and what is ahead in the next age, soon to come!
The final book of the Bible, Revelation prophesies the ultimate judgement of mankind in a series of allegorical visions, grisly images and numerological predictions. According to these, empires will fall, the "Beast" will be destroyed and Christ will rule a new Jerusalem. With an introduction by Will Self.
The four kingdoms motif enabled writers of various cultures, times, and places, to periodize history as the staged succession of empires barrelling towards an utopian age. The motif provided order to lived experiences under empire (the present), in view of ancestral traditions and cultural heritage (the past), and inspired outlooks assuring hope, deliverance, and restoration (the future). Four Kingdom Motifs before and beyond the Book of Daniel includes thirteen essays that explore the reach and redeployment of the motif in classical and ancient Near Eastern writings, Jewish and Christian scriptures, texts among the Dead Sea Scrolls, Apocrypha and pseudepigrapha, depictions in European architecture and cartography, as well as patristic, rabbinic, Islamic, and African writings from antiquity through the Mediaeval eras.
Take a journey with the artist and writer Petar Meseldzija, who tells how he was allowed unparalleled access through the Invisible Curtain and into the land of giants. A year in the making, this book's sixteen paintings and nearly ninety drawings bring to life Petar's experiences on this journey and secrets uncovered, going back to ancient times. He shares stories of new discoveries that free giants from the murky abyss of myth and a forgotten past. Told in three stages, The Book of Giants includes the illustrated stories The Giants Are Coming, recounting a dynamic clash that lasted one hundred years; The Little Kingdom, where a giant befriends a nation of humans and becomes their adamant protector against ferocious invaders; The Northern Giants, who embrace the warrior spirit through countless battles; Giant Velles, the story of ignorance and how the strength of goodness perseveres; and The Great Forest, wherein the author discovers little creatures called the keppetz and relates his experiences spent with ogres while on his quest to meet the Golden One and to determine the purpose of his journey. Through the strength of his own power, he discovers his blessings, his limitations and finally his personal myth. Furthermore, you will discover why giants made a push into the underground, followed by their exodus and deliverance to a new land. You'll also learn why the myth of giants is still alive, why their time spent with humans remains elusive and why giants prefer to remain hidden in their world. Join Petar Meseldzija on his journey of discovery.
