Palestine - In Christ's Time

(A page from my 1929 Bible)

The above image demonstrates the distinction between Judea, Samaria and Galilee. In the N.T., the word 'Judean' is translated as 'Jew'. Jesus was a Galilean from Nazareth - not a Judean.

The following is a post I made HERE at OC.net

'Jews' = Judahites, 'Jews' = Judeans, 'Jews' = Edomites??

I am convinced that many - if not most of the 'Jews' (Judeans) in the New Testament narrative were actually Edomites.

The Old Testament in English presents the word that should be translated 'Judahite' as 'Jew', while the New Testament in English presents the word that should be translated 'Judean' also as 'Jew.'

It seems clear to me that these two words are not synonymous!

Here's an e-mail I sent to Presvytera Jeannie Constantinou which spells out my point... (I would also love to hear people's take on all of this) [Here at Christ Conquers also!]:

Quote

"I hear people all of the time (and I've now heard you as well) equating the 'Jews' with Hebrews and O.T. Israelites. This is one of my pet peeves, and the majority of 'Christians' do this! Where have they gotten this idea?

"Strictly speaking, it is incorrect to call an ancient Israelite a 'Jew' - or to call a contemporary 'Jew' an Israelite or Hebrew."
- Jewish Almanac (1980 ed.)

Was Hiroshima Necessary? (Nevermind Nagasaki)

Why the Atomic Bombings Could Have Been Avoided

by Mark Weber

On August 6, 1945, the world dramatically entered the atomic age: without either warning or precedent, an American plane dropped a single nuclear bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The explosion utterly destroyed more than four square miles of the city center. About about 90,000 people were killed immediately; another 40,000 were injured, many of whom died in protracted agony from radiation sickness. Three days later, a second atomic strike on the city of Nagasaki killed some 37,000 people and injured another 43,000. Together the two bombs eventually killed an estimated 200,000 Japanese civilians.

Between the two bombings, Soviet Russia joined the United States in war against Japan. Under strong US prodding, Stalin broke his regime's 1941 non-aggression treaty with Tokyo. On the same day that Nagasaki was destroyed, Soviet troops began pouring into Manchuria, overwhelming Japanese forces there. Although Soviet participation did little or nothing to change the military outcome of the war, Moscow benefitted enormously from joining the conflict.

In a broadcast from Tokyo the next day, August 10, the Japanese government announced its readiness to accept the joint American-British "unconditional surrender" declaration of Potsdam, "with the understanding that the said declaration does not compromise any demand which prejudices the prerogatives of His Majesty as a Sovereign Ruler."

A day later came the American reply, which included these words: "From the moment of surrender the authority of the Emperor and the Japanese Government to rule the State shall be subject to the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers." Finally, on August 14, the Japanese formally accepted the provisions of the Potsdam declaration, and a "cease fire" was announced. On September 2, Japanese envoys signed the instrument of surrender aboard the US battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay.

A Beaten Country

Apart from the moral questions involved, were the atomic bombings militarily necessary? By any rational yardstick, they were not. Japan already had been defeated militarily by June 1945. Almost nothing was left of the once mighty Imperial Navy, and Japan's air force had been all but totally destroyed. Against only token opposition, American war planes ranged at will over the country, and US bombers rained down devastation on her cities, steadily reducing them to rubble.

Elder Paisios Against Zionists And Cowardly Orthodox

”The Zionists want to rule the world”, warned holy monk of Mt. Athos Elder Paisios before his death in 1994.

On a remote, narrow peninsula in the Aegean Sea lies the monastic republic of Mt. Athos, spiritual heart of the Orthodox Christian world. For centuries monks have lived and prayed here for the salvation of their souls and the world, and every devout Orthodox Christian male strives to make the pilgrimage to Mt. Athos at least once in his life. Elder Paisios (1924-1994) is considered by many to have been the Holy Mount’s greatest ascetic of the 20th Century. Over the course of his life the words of this humble Greek monk, who came to be honored by believers as an “holy elder” (geronta in Greek, starets in Russian), were recorded by the thousands who journeyed to seek his advice and prophecies.

In the following quotes Paisios warns of the great cataclysms which await us in our Apocalyptic times. His counsel of spiritual preparedness and how to achieve it will be of use to all those who strive to do good while maintaining spiritual equilibrium in a world growing increasingly hostile to our salvation. Paisios seems to have foreseen everything: the ever more frequent and senseless wars and the growing totalitarianism of “Schengen Europe” and “Homeland Securitized” America, the downward slide of our modern, globalized world into licentiousness and madness, the approaching Last Judgement.


Translated from a Russian translation of the Greek original.