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Where Did King David Place the Ark?

In your research have you located where David pitched the Tent for the housing of the Arc of the Covenant when he brought it to Jerusalem as in 1 Chronicles 15:1 and 16:1?

−Karen Buchanan

Both II Samuel and Josephus report that the Ark of the Covenant was brought into the city of David. Josephus says that David  �transferred the ark to his own house; the priests carrying it, while seven companies of singers, who were set in that order by the king, went before it, and while he himself played upon the harp and joined in the music� (Josephus, Antiquities 7.4.2, Whiston 1957:212). There was shouting and the sound of the shofar (I Kings 6:15). Michal the daughter of Saul looked out the window and saw king David leaping and dancing (I Kings 6:16) as they brought the Ark into the city. The city was the former Jebusite stronghold, or Acra, which David had made into his own fortress. 

The king�s men brought the Ark into the fortress and set it in its place in the tent that David had pitched for it. The venue of the Ark was apparently an open area inside the walls conducive to public worship yet close to the king�s residence. The tent was likely placed in the King's garden area at the northeast corner of the terraced Millo. In reference to this tent, David later described the Ark as resting �within curtains� (I Kings 7:2).

While the Ark of the Covenant was safely lodged in the city of David, in a curtained tent, the official tent of meeting remained at Gibeon (I Chronicles 16:39; I Kings 3:4). The tent containing the ark at the city of David did not replace the tent at Gibeon. There is no evidence that King David established a functioning priesthood at Jerusalem.

I Kings 1:38-39  records that Zadok the priest took a horn of oil out of the tent, without mentioning where the tent was at the time, and with it he anointed Solomon at the Gihon Spring (I Kings 1:39). There is no hint in Josephus or in the Hebrew Scriptures that David placed the Ark at the Gihon Spring or that it left the city of David until placed in the Solomonic Temple. His possession of the ark in Ir-David was a shrewd political move by a cunning desert chieftain.

�Editor

Did the Ten Commandments Precede the Creation of the Earth?

I have read materials in your site with great interest. I have a question which goes like this: "Did the 10 Commandments exist before the earth was created and will they forever be the same?" I look forward to hearing from you. God bless you in your ministry

�Ana Taufatofua

The commandments of God, the royal law  with its underlying spiritual policy called love (agape), preceded the creation of the earth and human kind. God governs the godhead, the angels, and all God created by this royal law. This royal law is eternal and transcends the Ten Commandments. Many religious people confuse the Ten Commandments with the royal law of God. They are not one and the same. The Ten Commandments required a guilty act such as lust, murder, stealing, taking God's name in vain, or breaking the Sabbath. They dealt with human behavior. The Ten Commandments were given by God to the Israelite people as the very heart of the Old Covenant. That covenant was an ancient marriage agreement wherein God bound himself to the Israelites as a husband (God) and wife (the Israelite nation). When Jesus of Nazareth died on the cross (or stake) in 30 CE this marriage covenant ceased and the Ten Commandments then became no longer binding on Israelites.

Does sin still exist? Yes it does. The commandments of God are eternal and define the way of life God expects all to live by. Transgression of the commandments of God is sin (James 5:14). Satan and a third of the angels sinned by allowing vanity to enter their lives and they rebelled against God (II Peter 2:4).

As presented in the Old Covenant, the Ten Commandments were a codification of the commandments of God for the regulation of human conduct within God�s nation. The Ten Commandments were the standard of reference for acceptable behavior in the Israelite theocracy. Noncompliance was sin. But, even if an ancient Israelite lived by the Ten Commandments perfectly, he still would be a sinner under the commandments of God (the royal law) for all human minds sin. The penalty is death, but if all humans lived at least by the Ten Commandments how much better place the world would be.

In the New Covenant the divine standard of the royal law, that is the commandments of God, is to be internalized by Christians. The apostles wrote of this eternal standard, sometimes called the law of Christ as contrasted with the law of Moses. Notice how Jesus made clear the commandments of God by taking examples of the Ten Commandments and showing their underlying spiritual policy (Matthew 5:21-32.

The apostle John wrote: "this is love, that we walk according to His commandments" (II John 1:6), "His commandments are not burdensome" (I John 5:3), "one who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him" (I John 3:24), "whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight" (I John 3:22), "one who says, 'I have come to know Him,' and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him (I John 2:4), "we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments" (I John 2:3).

The apostle Paul wrote about this as well. He wrote: "what matters is the keeping of the commandments of God" (I Corinthians 7:19) and "you know what commandments we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus" (I Thessalonians 4:2). Paul wrote to the congregation at Corinth that Christians are, metaphorically, letters of Christ �written not with ink, but with the [Holy] Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of human hearts� (II Corinthians 3:3). Paul saw this distinction as a fulfillment of God�s promise through the prophet Jeremiah, �I will put My law within them, and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people� (Jeremiah 31:33 NASB). He saw the law for Christians as internalized through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit rather than an external legal reference written on stone.

It is the commandments of God of which we must be concerned not the Ten Commandments. The converted Christian has to live by every word of God (Matthew 4:4) and bring every thought captive to the will of Christ (II Corinthians 10:5).

Most Christians profess some support of the Ten Commandments except when it comes to the fourth one�the Sabbath day. In the Old Covenant this day was to be kept as the corporate day of worship and work was to cease. It was a physical day of rest giving time for some spiritual renewal. For the Israelite and the gentile people living in the land of Israel this was holy time belonging to God. The people were to keep the time holy.

In the New Covenant the people of God are to be holy all of the time, not just on the Sabbath day, by having the law written in their hearts and mind by having Christ in them. God does not at this time instruct the people of God, the Church, to physically utilize the Sabbath (from sunset Friday night to sunset Saturday night) as the corporate day of worship although it is certainly acceptable for us to do so. Corporate worship on the Sabbath, however, was the universal practice of the Church of God in the apostolic period. Some people want to know what are the signs of God's true people in the past 2,000 year of history. The answer is not Sabbath observance but actually the manifestation of the fruits of the Spirit of God in the lives of the people of God. Where you find those fruits you find the Church of God.

--Editor

The Apostle Paul and the Torah

1.Wasn't Paul FALSELY accused of teaching against the TORAH?

2. When James gave his ruling concerning the requirements of gentile believers, wasn't that based on the fact that Moses [Torah] was being taught in every synagogue from earliest times? In other words, if the gentiles had rec'd the Law written on their hearts [which is the New Covenant according to Jer. 31:31-33], they could learn it gradually every shabbat as the Holy Spirit would lead. 3. Didn't Jesus himself say not one jot would be removed until ALL is fulfilled? Are you saying ALL is fulfilled? And Jesus also said anyone who breaks or teaches against the Law will be called least in the kingdom [Matt 5:19]. To speak against the Torah.....and teach against it....isn't that the great Apostasy or falling away spoken of by Christ?

I have greatly enjoyed your website with all the historical perspective it provides, but I can't seem to reconcile these concerns. I am a sincere seeker and would greatly appreciate your thoughtful response. Thank you and God Bless you.

�Jan Planholt

According to Matthew�s gospel, Jesus said, "Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished" (Matthew 5:18 NASB ).  So, until God comes to the earth and establishes the new heaven and the new earth the Torah will continue to exist. If you look at the context of Matthew 5:17-18 you will notice that the Greek word is "pleroo" (to complete or to fulfill) and not "poieo" (to keep or do). He came to complete or to complete or fulfill the Torah but also what the Prophets had said about him. Jesus Christ came to accomplish what the Torah said about him just as the Prophets had prophesied about him. The issue was not the Ten Commandments nor whether the Torah was binding on Christians of Jewish or gentile descent.

James instructed Christians who were ethnic Gentile to abstain from things contaminated by idols and from fornication and from what is strangled and from blood (Acts 15:19-20;  Deuteronomy 12:16, 12:23, 15:23). The exhortation related to Christians of Gentile origin being particularly circumspect in the three common Gentile practices that offended and infuriated the traditional Jews. These were all incorporated into New Covenant anyway but they were particularly hypersensitive issues with non-Christian Jews. While the Old Covenant spelled out these restrictions it was necessary to bind clearly them as applications of God�s law in its New Covenant administration.

In context of Acts 15 and the cultural context of the Greco-Roman world, it was the social setting of meals and not what Christians consumed that was of concern to James. The issue was avoiding idolatry not clean and unclean meats. In context the reference to idol-meat in Acts 15:29 prohibits attending pagan temple meals and it is not a discussion of the food laws of the Hebrew Scriptures nor Torah.

--Editor

The Biblical Festivals 

I have a question about the death of the Law of Moses. Does that mean, we as the new Israel don't need to observe any of the festivals of the Lord as outlined in Leviticus 23? I have been thinking about this lately and I am wondering about how I have received a tradition from my elders that may not be something that is pleasing to God. Do you think that someone who observes Sabbath on Friday evening and Saturday and who celebrates the Spring and Fall Festivals is resurrecting the Law of Moses? I understand that the cult system is what has ceased.

�Ginny Wilkerson

You might want to read "The Sinaitic Covenant and the Law of Moses: Irrelevant? Or, Do They Still Matter?." In apostolic Christianity, Christians of Jewish or Gentile origin were free, as they remain today, to adhere to the Ten Commandments and observe various Mosaic Covenant traditions such as observing the Sabbath, celebrating the annual Sabbaths and associated festivals, abstaining from unclean meats, paying tithes, and circumcision, but they were not bound to do so. Nevertheless, observing these customs does not make anyone more righteous, sanctified, or pleasing in God's sight�just a little bit different. There is no condemnation in living lives consistent with the Ten Commandments such as observing a day of rest to draw close to God on the Sabbath. The Ten Commandments are a good moral code for all humanity. Lest there be any misunderstanding, however, all true Christians, those indwelled with the spirit of God, are bound to live by every word of God (Matthew 4:4), to bring every thought captive to the mind of Christ (II Corinthians 10:5), and to abide by the law of liberty�that is, the royal law which constitutes the underlying intent of the Ten Utterances�involving doing the right thing always (James 1:25; 2:8; 4:17). This means that all Christians are to be holy in their hearts and minds all the time while living with the Sabbath peace of God in their lives every day.

�Editor

The Nature of God 

I would like to teach Monotheism and the Nature of God to my A Level students for a piece of coursework, but I am not quite sure how to approach the topic in such a way as the students would understand. Can you give me some ideas as on how to approach the teaching of the topic.

�Margaret Mc Cabe

Monotheism is the doctrine or belief that there is but one God. There are three forms�Unitarianism, Binitarianism, and Trinitarianism.

Unitarianism (sometimes called monarchianism and by some unitary monotheism) is a strict form of monotheism wherein the deity exists only in one persona, but in a historic sense consisting of two general schools of thought�one denying the full deity of Jesus Christ (exemplified in the teachings of Paul of Samosata and Arius) and the other holding that the deity simply manifested itself in Jesus Christ (a modalistic view as seen in Noetus, Praxeas, and Sabellius).

From the standpoint of Judeo-Christianity and the successors of Greco-Roman Orthodoxy (Roman Catholicism, the Orthodox, Evangelicals, and the like) Unitarians claiming to be Christian are without a doubt heterodox. They are not Christians. The Ebionites of the first and second century were Unitarian and rejected by Judeo-Christians and Greco-Roman Orthodox Christians as heretics.

In a contemporary form the one God is understood to be the Father, who is the Creator and Savior. The resurrected Jesus of Nazareth, a distinct and separate being from God, is understood to be Lord [king] and the Anointed One [High Priest] but not God. The Father is God who is the Creator and Savior.

Binitarianism is the hypothesis that the deity exists essentially and indivisibly as two personae, hypostases, in the Godhead, the Father and the Son, collapsing the Holy Spirit into the persona of the Son, i.e., the Holy Spirit was not a distinct hypostasis from Jesus of Nazareth but rather another name for him. Scholars and theologians often use the word Binitarian in contrast to Unitarian or Trinitarian theologies. Binitarianism is found in The Shepherd of Hermas (Lake 1970) as well as the Macedonian heresy of the fourth century.

The Binitarian statement is never ditheistic in the sense of affirming two separate self-conscious and self-determining individualities in the Godhead. There are not two separate personalities in the Godhead for that would be ditheism. God is a single entity and not a class. From this perspective it is appropriate to say that God has a family but not that God is a family.

Binitarian monotheism is most likely the understanding of many Christians of the first three centuries�without losing their passionate commitment to the oneness of God, they began to speak of and to worship the resurrected, ascended, and glorified Jesus of Nazareth in such a way as to confess that he was as divine as God the Father.

Due to rising heresy in Gentile Christendom the Council of Constantinople in CE 381 resolved the matter for Byzantine Christianity with adoption of the Nicene Creed declaring the nature of God to be one divine essence existing in three hypostases, known as the Holy Trinity, reflecting their exegesis of the wording of Hebrews 1:3. Theologian Harold Brown holds that it is an "erroneous assumption that theology went through a kind of 'binitarian' phase before developing a full trinitarianism. It would be better to say that while trinitarianism formulas are found in Scripture and were used from the beginning of the church, their meaning was not really clear until it began to be understood that each of the three members of the Trinity is a Person" (Brown 1984:113). The Father is a hypostasis in the Godhead.

Trinitarianism is the theory of the nature of God that one divine essence exists in three divine personae, that is, one divine essence or substance (substantia) existing in three hypostases. The Greek term hypostases (pl.) and hypostasis (sing.) resist translation into English. The Latin equivalent of the Greek hypostasis is persona. The English word "person" from the Latin persona, tends to imply anthropomorphic qualities to God that hypostasis does not. The English word "person" is a source of much misunderstanding. When one reads that there are three persons in the Godhead the word "person" should be understood in its archaic sense and not in the contemporary sense of a center or core of personality. There are not three separate personalities in the Godhead. God is not a person nor three persons.

In theology the words hypostases and personae retain the nuances of meaning of their use by early Christians in the context of a world vastly different from our own.

There are three personae, hypostases, or actual distinctions in the unity of God which are co-equal inasmuch as in each of them the divine nature is one and undivided, and by each the collective divine attributes are shared. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not three parts of God. There are in God three modes of being. The Greek hypostasis indicates a real certain existence or actuality, an independence or principle of individualization or distinction within the being of God.

Moreover, the Trinitarian statement is never tritheistic. God is a single entity and not a class. God is not three individuals. From this perspective it is proper to say that God has a family but not that God is a family. To represent God as a class, such as a family of divine beings, removes discussion of the nature of God from monotheism to polytheism.

From a Trinitarian view Unitarians and Binitarians are not Christians but rather pseudo-Christians. Messianic Jews are by definition not Christians but consider themselves a fourth branch of rabbinic Judaism although rabbinic Judaism does not recognize them as such.

�Editor

BC to AD

The Decree of Artaxerxes: Is It a Key to the Date of the Crucifixion? is a wonderful article. It makes the point that there is no year zero in our calendar. Actually, there is no year zero BCE or CE. The formula should have a + 2 instead of a +1.

−Ralph Hise

You might need to bone-up on your basic mathematics. The progression of negative to positive numbers is -5, -4, -3, -2, -1, 0, +1, +2, +3, +5 and so on. Check with a mathematics teacher, he or she can help you with this.

�Editor

AD or CE?

Please stop using BCE and CE to refer to the same thing as BC and AD, i.e. the birth/death of Jesus. These are merely politically correct terms and in my opinion undermine your credibility. I believe we all live in the year 2005, dated for an explicit reason, and we all know what that reason is.

−Jack Bartlett

CE as the abbreviation for the "common era" or "Christian era" replaces the designation AD as some object to AD, anno Domini (in the year of our Lord), on historical, political, and religious grounds. We realize some folks get quite upset over this issue as they see it as a symbolic rejection of Jesus Christ. For this Web site we chose to use the convention CE as it is the scholarly convention and palatable to most viewers.

�Editor

Was Luke a Jew?

I have heard some people claim Luke was a Jew not a Gentile. Can you confirm this for me?

−Paul Fogel

The biblical evidence would suggest that Luke was of Jewish descent. You can read the argument in Farber's "Luke Jew or Gentile?"

�Editor

The Joshua Tree

I have heard a story about the Joshua tree being grown in only two places in the world. Southern California and Jerusalem. As I search I cannot find any evidence of it being in Jerusalem. I was also told that it talks about it in the bible. Do you know of this? Is it just a rumor, a story. It has more importance to me than I am explaining. I would really appreciate a reply in regards to this.

−Joshua Niedermeier

The Joshua tree is not native to Palestine.

�Editor

Were All the OT Hebrews Jews?

I was reading through the Q&A at http://www.bibarch.com/Perspectives/3.2.htm and saw part of an answer to a question I have about where the term "Jew" originated. But my question reaches deeper than the answer you provided. On what grounds have the authors/editors of Jewish literature (at least their English translations of the Torah, Tanakh) as well as modern Jews refer to the Hebrews of the old testament as Jews? When I listen to Israel National Radio through the Internet, even the hosts and guests refer to the Israelites as Jews leading me to believe it is a common practice to ignore the original Hebrew text and convert it to Jews. When you look at the original Hebrew, it does not say "Jew" - it says Israelite or Hebrew. This is not always in the context of a religion as suggested in your response at the above site.

Any explanation you can provide would be greatly appreciated. It is somewhat annoying to see this mistranslation in the sacred texts, although it does show that Christian translators are not the only ones who have mistranslated the Word of God contrary to His directions.

−Desseri Clowater; Calgary, Alberta

From their very inception the tribes aligned themselves into factions. Some of this rivalry arose from the dysfunctional family of Jacob and his two wives and two concubines. David himself had a difficult time becoming king over a united monarchy due to this factionalism. The united monarchy existed for a short period of time. The tribal split at Solomon's death lead to two independent nations which were not only divided politically but religiously as well. The true religion of YHWH was the state religion of the nation of Judah not Israel.

For political reasons the nation of Israel not only adopted a different religion but allowed pagan religions to thrive in their midst. When Israel fell to the Assyrians in BCE 586 there were refugees from the northern state who fled to Judah and presumably integrated into the Jewish population politically and religiously. From this most people see the surviving Jewish state and its Jewish people as Israel. The Israelite people who fled the Assyrians or were taken and deported as captives are assumed to have been genetically swamped into the gentile population and lost in pagan religions. They certainly were not Jews. The Jewish people thought of themselves as the only true Israelites left in the world separated from the world by their unique religion including its requirements of being separate from the gentiles. From the time of Moses when one left the religion of YHWH they were cut off from the nation and were no longer part of Israel as people of God (the OT church).

Moreover, anti-Semitism in the Greco-Roman world further isolated the Jewish people. After the demise of the Jewish state the Greco-Romans saw only the Jews as Israel for they could see no other. The literature of the time deals with Jews and gentiles. There appears to be no awareness of any other Israelites.

Lastly, the 70 CE fall and consequent destruction of Jerusalem left the Jewish people devastated. The priesthood and temple were gone. Member's of David's descendants were systematically rounded up and executed by the Romans. The Jewish people today look at this as the Diaspora. Yes, they will admit there were other diasporas, but for them this was the significant one. Out of this situation arose the pharisaic Judaism we know today.

In CE 30 there were perhaps as many as 8 million Jews worldwide with at least 6 million living within the Roman empire. Significant Jewish population centers existed all over the Roman world and east as far as India and south into Ethiopia. The loss of the Temple, as the spiritual center of Judaism, brought its priestly forms and rites to an end. This forced the abandonment of the Levitical system and the Aaronic priesthood. It also fostered the rise of Pharisaic Judaism for the Pharisees were the only survivors of the war with Rome with sufficient infrastructure in tact to successfully reorganize themselves. This provided the opportunity for the Pharistic rabbis to take control of the Jewish religion. For them, the "true believers," Israel and Jew became one and the same. They believed their followers alone were the heirs of the promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, for the rest of Israel had disenfranchised themselves.

In CE 300 there were probably about three million Jews living in the Roman empire. My sense is that Pharisaic Judaism was successful in taking control of about 50% of the Jewish population and the rest either converted to Judeo-Christianity or were swamped in into gentile populations.

So, at least from CE 300 the Parasitic Jews saw only themselves as the true remnant of Israel.

�Editor

Dissing the Messianic Movement?

I read an article on your website about the covenant at Sinai [see The Sinaitic Covenant and the Law of Moses: Irrelevant? Or, Do They Still Matter?]. There seems to be a great movement by mainline Christianity to douse the Messianic movement. Why is this movement such a threat to you? I am sure that the commoners asked Yeshua the same question about Himself. They probably said, "why are you such a threat to their system?" How can it possibly be wrong to live more in line with how God told us to live on this earth. His instructions are so that we will live well with God and man and with what He created. You are looking at the scriptures with Roman eyes instead of with Hebrew eyes, your problem is that you have on the wrong glasses. A very good book is Messianic Jews, Challenging Church and Synagogue by John Fieldsend (Fieldsend 1993). Your history is correct, but you need to change your glasses.

−Lisa Welch

A threat? You obviously missed the point of the article. Consider its conclusion: "In apostolic Christianity, Christians of Jewish or Gentile origin were free, as they remain today, to adhere to the Ten Utterances and observe various Mosaic Covenant traditions such as observing the Sabbath, celebrating the annual Sabbaths and associated festivals, abstaining from unclean meats, paying tithes, and circumcision, but they were not bound to do so. Nevertheless, observing these customs does not make anyone more righteous, sanctified, or pleasing in God's sight�just a little bit different. There is no condemnation in living lives consistent with the Ten Utterances such as observing a day of rest to draw close to God on the Sabbath. The Ten Utterances are a good moral code for all humanity. Lest there be any misunderstanding, however, all true Christians, those indwelled with the spirit of God, are bound to live by every word of God (Matthew 4:4), to bring every thought captive to the mind of Christ (II Corinthians 10:5), and to abide by the law of liberty�that is, the royal law which constitutes the underlying intent of the Ten Utterances�involving doing the right thing always (James 1:25; 2:8; 4:17). This means that all Christians are to be holy in their hearts and minds all the time while living with the Sabbath peace of God in their lives every day."

Now, how does that diss the Messianic movement?

�Editor

On Locating Eden

I've come up with a bit of a different spin on the whole locating Eden thing and was hoping for some critical feedback. I'm suggesting that Eden was in Judah and the river in Eden flowed down into the Dead Sea rift, re-appearing as springs in the headwaters of the other four rivers mentioned in the Genesis 2 account. You can review my paper at: http://www.faithwriters.com/article-details.php?id=19131

�Bruce Paul

Megiddo

I was looking for some information on Megiddo and found your site. What a wonderful treasure house of information. I will utilize it often, beginning this very night.

�Ellen J. Ravine

The Last Week of Jesus' Life

Thank you for your outstanding site. I am a Sunday school curriculum editor (and recent seminary grad therefore I love this kind of stuff) and will likely be visiting more when searching for articles to include in our curriculum (when the occasion fits, of course) (or just when I need a dose of biblical archeology written from a conservative standpoint).

I just read your article on the Essenic Passover and untangling the chronology of the last week of Jesus' life [see The Last Seder: Unscrambling its Baffling Chronology Part I The Issues and Part II The Theory]. May I say good job, fellows! One of my seminary professors had talked about the Essenic calendar in passing and how it nicely solves several confusions in the gospels, but he had no time to go into the amount of detail that you gentlemen did.

�Frank Luke

The Importance of Baptism 

I just want to commend you on the writing regarding baptism. I am a member of a church that believes in baptism the same as you wrote about it. Baptism was not simply a symbolic form but testimony of a conclusive compact with God which required mature decision making. There are many who believe that baptism is simply a symbol and not really important in the conversion process and view denominations who believe it is part of the conversion process as cults and judgmental heretics. I am grateful you are presenting baptism in the view of the first century Christians. I get a lot out of your archaeological articles as well. Thank you.

�Tessa Stanley

King David's Body Lying in State?

I am a Biblical theologian with an earned doctor's degree in theology, Greek, and Hebrew. I have done extensive studies and teaching on the True Location of the Temples and was a moderately close acquaintance of the late Earnest L. Martin. So I am very familiar with this area of study and an not surprised by any of the discoveries made by a researcher like Gary Arvidson.

I am just finishing up teaching the "Life and Times of David" and a special unit on the discovery of David's Tomb will be a fitting conclusion. As an introduction I am doing an extensive study and classes on the interpretation of Psalm 16:10 by Peter in Acts 2:27. I am so excited because I believe that this all throws new light on the Hebrew text and that Psalm 16:10 actually states that the body of David will lie in state uncorrupted until a future date of revelation and/or resurrection.

It appears to me that it actually says, when all the syntax and exegesis is taken into consideration, that the body of David is lying in state and in tact somewhere today.

−Ron Killingsworth

A 17th Century Exodus?

Had been asked a question about your web site, which I have now visited with interest. It is often suggested that there are only two possible datings for the Exodus: Thutmose III and Rameses II.

2 Timothy 3:8 says it was Jannes and Jambres [Iannes and Iambres] who withstood Moses to the face. Josephus' claim notwithstanding, that the Israelites were the Hyksos, there were two 15th-dynasty Hyksos kings, apparently consecutive:

Seuserenre Khayana (Greek, Iannas) [reigned likely 38-39 years] Mayebre Sheshi (Greek, Iambres Assis) [probably reigned 3 years; possibly 13 years] Queen Hatshepsut's inscription would appear to describe as "barbarians" those who brought the plagues on Egypt in Hyksos times.

Paul's epistle would thus suggest the Exodus considerably preceded Thutmose also. That would suggest an Exodus dating in the late 17th century B.C., according to Parker's chronology, and most others also, though not according to David Rohl and other revisionists. Support for such an early date may be adduced from conventional dating of the fall of Jericho. (Also from an event each in the lives of Abraham and Joseph. That could be gone into further, if that is of interest.)

−J. B. Parkinson

The Torn Temple Veil 

The New Testament makes reference to the temple veil being torn from top to bottom during the crucifixion of Jesus. Judaism rejects this event as ever happening. Can this event be proven from a historical point of view? Is there evidence it was repaired, if indeed, it was torn?

�Steve Komaransky

You might want to take a look at Martin's Secrets of Golgotha chapter 7. He discusses Yoma 39b in the context of the tearing of the temple veil.

--Editor

Counting Pentecost 

In your article titled "Sacred Festivals: The Seven Annual Feasts and Sabbaths of the Hebrew Scriptures".

Ref. Sivan, the Feast of Weeks in the first chart displayed. In the column titled "date" you list Sivan ,with brackets ,Day Varies.

How does this day vary? Doesn't it always fall on a Sunday? Lev.23 shows that the days were to be counted from the day that the sheaf of the firstfruits was to be waved before the Lord. Surely that day fell during the Feast of Unleavened Bread and would be the day after the weekly Sabbath which would ensure that the 50th day would always fall on a Sunday. Or is it the morrow after one of the Holy Days ?

The date for Pentecost this year was given as May 26th which was a Wednesday. This date was posted on a Jewish website. Did the Jews get it wrong?

�Adam Brown

We were not writing of the day of the week but rather the day of the month. Pentecost always falls on Sunday.

--Editor