"One can give without loving, but one cannot love without giving "~ Amy Carmichael
I ordered this curriculum waaay back in October of last year so I have been waiting a while for it to arrive from the States.
Actually, I was looking at it years before then but every time I looked it just seemed overwhelming visually. The pages looked crammed chock~a~block & Ditz & I are visuals so it was rather off~putting. Still I kept coming back to it ~ especially when I had trouble getting a bible curriculum I really liked. I wanted something deep & meaty because Ditz is not half so Ditzy as she'd like to have everyone think she is.
I have crashed & burned on bible curriculum more than anything else because I am rather particular about the way I want my kid to understand about God so I awaited the arrival of this volume with some trepidation.
When it arrived I thought, 'Oh, good, just in time for Easter' & had visions of an activity or two that Ditz might enjoy doing. Well, we won't be doing the passover from here this year! Nope. There is sooo much information crammed in here that I haven't even begun to get my head around it yet, let alone Ditz's. I need to start preparing now for next year.
I'm sure some super organized people like my beloved Mrs Darling over at the Dishpan Dribble could swing this in their sleep but I am not Mrs Darling & a cursory thumb through of the Pesach brought to light my enormous & overwhelming ignorance of all things O.T.
The sheer volume of information has me gasping & paddling as fast as I can just to stay afloat & I'm the scholarly sort, which Ditz isn't. Did you know that the high priest, Caiaphas, tore his clothing, which disqualified him as high priest, while the soldiers gambled for Jesus' clothing rather than tear them? Meaning Jesus is qualified to be our High Priest even as regards the small matter of clothing. And that poor, much maligned rooster of Peter's! The *rooster* in fact refers to a priest who served as the priesthood's alarm clock calling the Jews to sacrifice & worship. Ouch! Poor Peter.
There is also the inadvertent history. Now good scholar that I am I knew perfectly well that 40 years after Jesus' crucifixion Jerusalem was razzed to the ground & the temple completely destroyed. One million one hundred thousand Jews were killed ~percentage wise a match for those who were later annihilated in the Holocaust! Gob~smacked. Truly?! That I didn't know.
And I'm just browsing, people. I haven't really begun to sink my teeth into this study yet. So browsing among the footnotes {where all the really interesting information always is} I found this!: The Romans nailed a sign over Jesus head which read; Jesus of Nazareth, the king of the Jews. Translated into Hebrew it would read : Yeshua HaNazari VeMeleh HaYadahim ~ that's right, the beginning letters spell out the secret name of God. My blood ran cold.
I am finding I only have half the information, which means only half the story which means not the truth! I am fascinated & appalled that the church let all this fascinating stuff go in favour of Easter bunnies & chocolate eggs ~ though I rather like chocolate eggs so long as the chocolate is dark & bitter.
Now this is just information. There is beginners Hebrew ~ I think I'm too old for that ~ recipes & how to run a N.T seder, which I should love to do but not this year. Truly the sheer volume of what's been lost is overwhelming but I know just enough, I think, to be able to build on the foundation I have & I want to do this slowly & thoroughly. And this is just one festival . Shavout is next. I might have better luck with Shavout. What do you think? Me too. *sigh*
18 comments:
If they have Christmas stuff, you'd better order it now!! :]
my goodness this sounds amazing! *i'd* like to study it myself..
Mrs C: I haven't even looked to see if there's *Christmas* ~ though it would be Hanukkah, wouldn't it?
Diane: I will post some pics & things on our HS blog as we tackle some of this. I'm not good at updating there but I'm working on it. ;) This wasn't cheap & I got their God's Awesome Acts at the same time because I was really hoping to use this one as a *family/church* study. I do like their hands on approach which is crafty rather than scientific. We do so come apart in the math science arena.
Sounds really cool.
I'd heard a sermon preached about the priests tearing their clothes - seems like in the OT, whenever a priest tore his clothes, he died. The preacher's point was that Caiaphas never was qualified - he was appointed by the Romans. I don't know about that, though, because the Bible says he prophesied about Jesus dying for all because of his position. Anyway, that's all a bit fuzzy because I was 16 at the oldest when I heard that sermon. :-)
So now I'm gonna look up this book and see if I could get anything out of it.
MamaO: interesting point. Does an annointing go with the office just because the person is standing in that place & there is no~one else? I'm inclined to think so. Caiaphas problem was his arrogance & the humanistic thinking that went with it. He was far more afraid of Rome than he was of God.
I'm sure you know this, but Chanukah has nothing to do with Christmas, other than they both happen around the same time.
Good luck with your studies. It was popular a few years ago for some Christian churches to have a seder. I don't know if it still is.
Thanks Sandra, I did in fact know that but always good to be sure when it's me. Notorious for getting hold of the wrong end of the stick, that's me! I've never heard of seder being done in church over here but we don't have a very large Jewish population & in fact I know next to nothing about Juadism. One reason I'm so excited about this study.
Well, Judaism has nothing to do with Jesus. So if you studied Torah it would not lead you to Jesus. But your inquiring mind would like the trip anyway! The seder in the churches were for the same reason you have an interest...looking at the roots. Jews weren't involved, but the church people learned and put them together. You will be an expert before anyone knows it, I think you latch on and learn when you are intrigued!
Wow! Thank you Sandra. When I'm interested I retain information ~ rather like my daughter which is just too, too sad. Juadism has to do with Jesus in the sense that Jesus was a Jew & he was a practising Jew so the Hebrew roots of Christianity would have been the cornorstone of His faith. I expect to understand Him better by learning more about the roots Christianity grew out of.
I find Jewish tradition and symbolism highly interesting and have read some things, but my husband is the one who is more knowledgeable in that area. This curriculum sounds like something we would like also.
Oh good. I need a bread maker. lol. If I run into trouble makining the hallel [?] I will ask the breadmakers. I've got a few readers who are total foodies & know how to do this stuff.
I've skimmed the entire book now & have some idea of how to approach it. I love that it is so detailed & it is actually clearer than I first thought. Such a blessing. The first hour or so I was just totally overwhelmed by how much information there was but it is very logical & clear once you understand how it is set out.
Do you mean challah? It is very good bread. Is this for your Easter dinner?
Sandra: The book uses different spellings than I am used to seeing but yes, it would be challah bread. The recipe looks simple enough. I will try it out on Thursday with Ditz & see how we go.
My wrists aren't good for kneading any more but Ditz should be able to do that. She's got exceptionally strong wrists.
October??? Good grief. I know, stuff sometimes takes a while to get there, but...October to April?? What did the do, send it by swimmer? :-P
Sounds like an interesting book...I only understand half of what you're talking about in this post, but I'll just smile and nod and play with your doormat. I mean cat. *grin*
(I, evidently, am not a history buff)
(seder? shavout? secret names?)
Moly, m'love, you are a scream. My supplier had problems with his supplier & I'd ordered the Beautiful Feet music program as well & ...well, it just took forever. They're both here now so all's good.
Shavout ~ Pentecost/ The Feast of weeks
seder ~ the order of service for the passover meal that celebrates the exodus
Secret name ~ I probably shouldn't have described it that way but written Hebrew doesn't have vowels as such. I'm a little vague about how it works exactly but if you write Yahweh [how Jews & messianic Jews refer to God] in Hebrew you get YHWH. V & W are interchangeable like J & I in Latin. Probably more information than you want but this *is* a study on the Jewish roots of Christianity. ;)
"like J and I in Latin" she says, like it's common knowledge. *grin* ...no such thing as 'more information' than a person can want - or at least not to me. I don't have much background on the roots of Christianity... my father & stepmother, who raised me for the larger portion of my childhood, are hardcore atheists, so I've come into it all pretty much from the other end LOL
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