So, we are delving into the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew, and each month I will present a week of 15-ish minute lessons on Yeshua’s/Jesus’s teachings. This last week, we explored the Beatitudes, in their first-century context.

Part one covered the Ashrei “Blessed are” teachings in the Bible, notably Psalm 1, and we talk about the theme, setting and audience – which gives us a lot more insight into their meaning:

Part two continues with the setting, which uses some hidden Temple language, and we covered the poor in spirit:

Part 3 covers the meek and the mourners:

In part 4 we explored those who hunger and thirst for righteousness in the context of the Exodus out of Egypt, and the merciful by delving into the Parable of the Ungrateful servant:

In part 5 I covered the last three, the pure of heart (as opposed to the Sadducees and Herodians), and Peacemakers (the Pharisees vs the zealots) and the persecuted for righteousness:

Four of Herod’s sons, a grandson, great-grandson, and various granddaughters appear in the Biblical accounts. They all play important roles in the world of first-century politics, and when we understand them as real people, their interactions with John the Baptist, Yeshua (Jesus) and the apostles make a lot more sense. Fortunately, as with Herod the Great, we know a great deal about them from first-century historians outside of the Bible. This will be a Pg/PG-13 teaching because we will be talking about violence and wife-stealing. References are listed below the video.

References:

Josephus: Antiquities of the Jews Book 17, 18 and 19 and The Jewish Wars Book 2

Lightfoot: Commentary on the New Testament from the Talmud and Hebraica

Netzer: The Architecture of Herod the Great Builder

Cohen: The Beginnings of Jewishness, and From the Maccabees to the Mishnah

Skarsaune: In the Shadow of the Temple

Schurer: A History of the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ, First Division: Vol I and II

Herodian Family Tree

Sons of Herod Family Tree

Herod the Great is one of the most complex and notorious figures in History, and although he is only mentioned briefly in Matthew 2, he and his offspring play into so many of the events in the Gospels and the Book of Acts that we need to understand as much as Herod’s family tree

References

Lightfoot: Commentary on the New Testament from the Talmud and Hebraica

Netzer: The Architecture of Herod the Great Builder

Cohen: The Beginnings of Jewishness, and From the Maccabees to the Mishnah

Skarsaune: In the Shadow of the Temple

Schurer: A History of the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ, First Division: Vol I and II

France: The New International Commentary on the New Testament: The Gospel of Matthew

Josephus: Antiquities of the Jews and The Jewish Wars

Welcome to our second Biblical Geography lesson! I hope you caught the last episode on Bethlehem of Judea. This week we are going to do an overview of the entire Roman province of Judea and talk briefly about some of the cities we will be covering later. It’s so important to understand how different Judea and Judeans were from Galileans, Samaritans, Greeks, etc because when Yeshua/Jesus spoke to these people, they became his audience and depending on where they came from, it could change what we think we understand about the story.

As I mentioned at the beginning of the video, here are the links to the two maps from Bible History Online.

First Century Israel

First Century Judea

And here is this week’s video:

A lot of scholars and even believers out there are quick to undermine the ministry and even the existence of Yeshua/Jesus Christ. However, the entire world serves as a witness that something amazing happened when He rose from the dead – the world changed drastically and has never been the same. Not only can we prove that He was a real person, but we can also prove that He destroyed the sting of death by looking at the world before and after His death, burial, and resurrection.

Matthew Chapter 2 is rather unique in the Gospels as it mentions a number of cities and regions: Bethlehem, Judea, the “East,” Jerusalem, Egypt, Israel, Galilee, and Nazareth. These places will pop up again and again in the Gospel histories and so it is important to know where everything is. Matthew 3 will add the “wilderness” and the Jordan River to this list and Matthew 4 will add Capernaum and the Decapolis. Although geography was not my strong subject in school, these places are mentioned in the Bible and so they are worth understanding. Oftentimes, without a knowledge of what these places were like, we miss the meaning of what Yeshua/Jesus was talking about! So this week, we start with Bethlehem of Judea, the City of David. Check out the additional video I am going to post, called The War Cry by Eric Ludy, because it talks about my second-favorite Bethlehem Scripture. You parents will want to review it before having your children view it.

and

Yes, I went totally overboard on Matthew Chapter 1, but as it is our very first adventure into first-century context, there were just too many great subjects that needed to be covered. I take kids seriously and I didn’t want to pass over stuff that would enrich their understanding of the Bible! So, without further ado, here is the entire list:

Part 1: Messiah’s Genealogy: Matthew, Luke, and Missing Links?

Part 2: Why is Tamar in Messiah’s Genealogy?

Part 3: Why is Rahab in Messiah’s Genealogy?

Part 4: Why is Ruth in Messiah’s Genealogy?

Part 5: Why is Bathsheba in Messiah’s Genealogy?

Part 6: How Did the Name Yeshua Become Jesus?

Part 7: Betrothal, Marriage, and Divorce in Ancient Israel

Part 8: Honor and Shame: Messiah’s Origin Story

Part 9: “Jesus Son of Joseph” – Adoption in the Ancient World

and here are the extras I put out:

What is Context? Why is it Important?

Can We Learn from People Who Reject Messiah?

How did Mary Prove Her Innocence? Torah Portion Nasso

Warning, this is a PG-13 teaching and parental guidance is strongly advised.

Well, I noticed that I skipped this Torah Portion last year and so while going through it on Monday, I realized that this would be the perfect chance to teach about the Sotah test in Numbers 5 – the ritual God gave to women in order to prove that they were not guilty of adultery if their husbands got jealous.

This was taught to me by my Temple teacher Joseph Good and you can find his much larger teaching “The Heavens Rejoiced: A Sukkot Story” available to be watched on www.jerusalemtemplestudy.com for subscribers or for sale at Hatikva.org. It is the amazing teaching of the birth of Messiah from his conception during the Feast of Hannukah to his birth on Sukkot – proven not only Biblically but also through extra-biblical Jewish writings.

Modern books and ancient books are incredibly different – for example, a book about a modern person would tell you what day a person was born and might skip any other details about that day, but in Yeshua’s (Jesus’s) day, people would generally say nothing about the day of the year at all but would focus on what made that person’s birth important and impressive. As a result, we know very few ancient birthdays before the time of Messiah – especially among the Jews, who focused on a person’s life, and not their birth! Around 200 CE, people got super concerned with when Yeshua was born, but before that, they really didn’t seem to care much. This week we are going to talk about the stuff that the two Biblical authors, Matthew and Luke, did want to talk about, and why it was important. We will also discuss the very interesting reasons why people at the end of the second century came up with the date of December 25th, and how it relates to Rabbi Eliezer and Jewish beliefs about the redemption of the world.

This is a really interesting article if you are interested in studying the December 25th date in more detail

And my friend Sarah has another great book out for families that is also a lot of fun for kids – teaching them about having great character and developing the fruit of the Spirit.

I spent the last three weeks pouring through the Kehati Mishnah Commentaries on Ketubot, Kiddushin, and Gittin in order to study for this lesson in first-century betrothal, marriage, and divorce. Some of the laws were pretty messed up and others were actually kinda funny – fortunately for women, most modern denominations of Judaism don’t adhere to these rulings anymore. We are going to have some fun though, and laugh at some of the stuff I learned – like divorcing your husband because he handles dog poop in his profession.

I also had to make an apology for last week’s video where I mentioned being excited to see the new Guardians of the Galaxy movie – had I seen it first, I would NOT have mentioned it. I was horrified by it as it was full of sexual innuendos. I hope no one went and saw it just because they saw me excited about it. If you want a good Kurt Russel film to show your family, every single other one of his Disney movies would be a much better choice.