Ben-Yahuda and the Rebirth of the Hebrew Language

https://cbnisrael.org/2022/08/18/the-famous-ben-yehuda-street-a-walk-into-jerusalems-history/

Cremation vs. Burial: considerations for Believers

I don't believe that it is possible to make a case for or against cremation from the Bible.  The Bible never speaks of cremation.  The reason is rather clear.  Cremation was unknown to any of the Middle Eastern cultures.

The Hebrews adapted much from the cultures around them.  During the 430 years of exile in Egypt, they would have been influenced by the Egyptian respect for the dead (mummification, pyramids, etc.), and they would have known no other way of doing things.

Respect for the bodies of the dead is carried through the Old and New Testaments.  We learn in Exodus that the bones (mummy) of Joseph were returned to the Promised Land with the Hebrews when they escaped from Egypt, and that Joseph had communicated his desire to be buried there.

The Bible doesn't just say that Moses died on the mountain, but that God buried him.  In Jude v. 9, we learn that Michael the Archangel fought with the devil over possession of the body of Moses.

Throughout the Old Testament there is a lot of mention of buying caves for burial and of burying people with their ancestors.  Evidently proper care for the deceased was of concern.

The Bible is specific that John the Baptist's disciples obtained his body and buried it after the beheading.  And Joseph of Arimathea risked his reputation by asking for the body of Jesus.  In both cases they could have just allowed the government to dispose of it.  Mary Magdalene's pouring very expensive perfume on Jesus' feet was "to prepare me for burial".   Taken together, there is a lot of mention of care for the body in a book as "short" as the Bible.  The body was always treated reverently.  In my opinion it should still be treated reverently because it housed the Holy Spirit.

Since cremation was unknown to Middle Easterners in Bible times, we have no idea whether or not the Jews and early Christians would have considered cremation to be reverent care.  

There is one similarity between ancient burial and modern cremation that is worth noting.  In Jesus' time the body was "anointed for burial" and wrapped in spices.  This was not to preserve the body but only to keep down the smell of decay.  After a year, when the body had decomposed, the bones were removed from the tomb and pulverized and placed in a small carved stone box (called an ossuary), which was then stored in the back of the tomb / cave.  So the end result of burial and cremation were the same, at least by Jesus' time.

Another consideration for some people is that, in the earlier days of Christianity after people learned of other cultures, cremation was seen as associated with pagan religions.  It's an individual choice whether to make that mental or spiritual connection or to ignore it.

Some people believe that cremation is the more "Christian" thing to do because of the "waste" of thousands of additional dollars for a traditional burial, the "waste" of natural resources (aluminum, steel, concrete)and the ecological effects of embalming fluid going into the ground and the "waste" of space for burial.  That is an open question.  

It is generally agreed that we have "liberty" (freedom of conscience) in areas in which the Bible is not specific. 

My strong personal preference is for burial because of the Biblical precedent, because of cremation's association with paganism, and because I do not see the cremation process as showing respect for the body which housed the Holy Spirit.

Considerations for Messianic Gentiles Regarding Torah Observance

Should Messianic Gentiles (which I will define as Christians who grew up in the church and now have an interest in the Messianic Jewish expression of faith in Yeshua / Jesus) follow Torah?  That is, should they become "Torah-observant" and follow the "Laws" of Torah, particularly observing the Sabbath, the Festivals, and eating kosher foods?  

The Scriptures, and interpretation of those Scriptures, regarding this issue can be confusing and seemingly contradictory.

Below is an outline of issues that one needs to prayerfully consider and become settled about in his or her own mind.

I. Sabbath and Festivals

Exodus 20:8 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.

The Lord commands the seventh day to be a day of rest and worship.  

Worship was changed to the first day by the early Roman church in the days of Constantine.  In a flurry of anti-Semitism, observances of the seventh day and Old Testament festivals were forbidden.  

The church has always claimed that early Believers changed the weekly holy day to Sunday as a way of weekly celebrating the Resurrection of Jesus .  This may have been true of gentile Believers who had no background in the Jewish faith.  Jewish Believers in Messiah, who were the first Believers, continued to worship on the Seventh Day and to worship in the Temple and to observe the Festivals for two centuries or longer.

Acts 2:46  
So continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house,

Another argument that early gentile Believers worshipped on Sunday is found in  Acts 20:7  Now on the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul, ready to depart the next day, spoke to them and continued his message until midnight.

Acts 2:46, however, has shown that the Believers broke bread together daily, not as a matter of worship on Sunday.

I Corinthians 16:2 states  
On the first day of the week let each one of you lay something aside, storing up as he may prosper, that there be no collections when I come.

This verse has been used to show that the early Believers worshipped on Sunday.  However, Sunday was a workday, workers were paid daily, and I see this as setting aside a tithe of their income on the first workday of the week.

Jesus taught in Matthew 5:  17 “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. 18 For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one [b]jot or one [c]tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. 19 Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20 For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.

​Jesus said that He did not come to destroy the Law (Torah) but to fulfill it.  Christians often interpret this to mean that Jesus's sacrifice for our redemption ended the rules of Torah for Believers in Jesus.  However, Jesus says that we shall not break the commandments of the Torah, and that those who teach people that they may break the commandments will be least in the Kingdom of Heaven.  

I do not want to be in that position by saying that we no longer need to observe the commanded festivals or to eat according to the Kosher laws of the Bible.  Such people are labeled as least in the Kingdom of Heaven.

Celebrating the festivals should not be thought of as an obligation so much as a "family privilege".  They are "invitations into the blessings of God".  (Paul Wilbur).

New festival days were established by the Roman church, namely Christmas and Easter, which were celebrated on days which had been sacred to pagan Roman gods and goddesses.  Many, if not most, Messianics will say that these days should not be celebrated because they have pagan origins, because their celebration is not commanded in the Bible, and because early Believers did not celebrate those days.  

My personal feeling is that the church's observance of the "Christian year" (Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter, Pentecost, etc.) is a good teaching device for annually rehearsing the chronology of our faith, but such days are inferior to the Festivals, which God commanded to be celebrated for all time, and which also present the chronology of Christ.  Observing "the Christian year" would have especially been a good teaching device when most lay people were illiterate.  It remains a teaching device for children and young believers.  

As to the argument that Believers should not celebrate days which are not commanded in Scripture, I would point out that the celebration of Purim and Hanukkah are not commanded in Scripture either.  We know that Jesus celebrated Hanukkah  (John 10:22-23).

As to the argument that Believers should not celebrate holidays of pagan origin, I would point out that God can redeem anything which the devil intended for evil and can give it a purpose for His good.  Believers are not using those days to worship Saturn or the earth goddess.  We are redeeming those days for the glory of God, although some would argue that anything once used for Satan cannot be blessed by God.

The issue of gentile Christians celebrating the Hebrew Sabbath and feast days is addressed in Colossians 2:16 So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a [j]festival or a new moon or sabbaths, 17 which are a shadow of things to come, but the [k]substance is of Christ. 

A major influence on my thinking came from Dr. Tom Bradford of torahclass.com (Seed of Abraham Ministries).  He points out in his commentary on Joshua that evangelical Christians are the quickest to point out that God never changes, that He is the same yesterday, today, and forever; and yet, they are the first to say that God changed His Law.  Christians will also say that Galatians proves that the Law was done away with.  As I read it, Galatians states only that obedience to the Law as a means of salvation was done away with by the blood of Yeshua / Jesus.

My personal conviction is that I have a preference for observing a seventh-day Sabbath and the festivals as being of primary consideration and being the practices of the first believers in Yeshua the Messiah.  But the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus every Sunday can be spiritually uplifting.  The earthly incarnation of Jesus -- God become flesh --  and the sacrificial death of Messiah for our sins, and resurrection of Jesus as the firstfruits or promise of our own resurrection are worth celebrating on a recurring basis. 

​Romans 14:  5 One person esteems one day above another; another esteems every day alike. Let each be fully convinced in his own mind.

II.  Kosher eating

Should Christians / believers in Yeshua the Messiah follow the Law (Torah) of not eating certain foods that God has declared as unclean?  Or has that Law been done away with for Christians?  

First, we are limiting this discussion to "biblical Kosher"; that is, the foods specifically forbidden in Leviticus 11.  Issues such as forbidding the eating of meat and dairy products at the same meal, using the same dishes and silverware for meat and dairy products, etc., are not found in the Scriptures but only in the Talmud and other writings of the ancient rabbis.  Therefore, those man-made rules, which Jesus taught against,  are not under consideration here. 

In Leviticus 11:1-24, God lists the items which are not to be eaten by His people.  If one examines this list, he or she will note that none or almost none of the dozens of forbidden animals are commonly eaten by people of any culture.  According to Dr. Tom Bradford (torahclass.com), no one has successfully identified what these animals have in common.  There are exceptions to any "rule" that one would try to identify as to what makes an animal clean or unclean.  The only conclusion that one can draw, in his opinion, is that something is unclean only because God says that it is unclean.

Since none of the items are customarily eaten today by almost any culture, it would seem logical that swine and shellfish should not be singled out as having suddenly become acceptable.  

Jesus, His disciples, and Jewish believers in Messiah for the first couple centuries followed these dietary laws.  Jesus never broke any law of the Torah.  He did not eat pork products or shellfish.   However, he did not  follow the man-made interpretations of the law. 

Once again I point out ​Matthew 5: 17 “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. 18 For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one [b]jot or one [c]tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. 19 Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20 For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.

Some may point to I Timothy 4:1-5 as a New Testament passage that does away with the Torah laws regarding food.

​I Timothy 4: Now the Spirit [a]expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, 2 speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron, 3 forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. 4 For every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be refused if it is received with thanksgiving; 5 for it is [b]sanctified by the word of God and prayer.

As mentioned, Jesus never did away with any of the Torah.  Any rules that He broke were the Pharisees' man-made interpretations of the Torah.  Does this passage state that all foods are acceptable to eat?  Note in verse 5 that the food is "sanctified by the word of God and prayer".  Food which God has forbidden to eat in the Torah cannot be "sanctified by the word of God".  

Does this apply when one is a guest in a home and is served non-Kosher food?  There may be an answer for that in I Corinthians 10.  I will not state a definitive opinion on this verse. 

 

​I Corinthians 10: 27 If any of those who do not believe invites you to dinner, and you desire to go, eat whatever is set before you, asking no question for conscience’ sake.

In the first-century church there was much disagreement as to whether gentiles who accepted Jesus / Yeshua as the Messiah should be required to obey all the Laws of the Torah.  The specific issue which had arisen was whether male  gentile Believers in Yeshua needed to be circumcised.  An apostolic delegation went to the church leaders in Jerusalem for an opinion on this issue.  The leadership decided to apply the Noahic Covenant to these gentile believers.  This was a set of millenia-old rules that non-Jews who had chosen, whether by marriage or for other reasons, to live among the Jews, were required to follow.  There were only four rules from the Torah that non-Jews had to obey, and these rules were reaffirmed by the Jerusalem Council as applying to gentile Believers who became "spiritual Jews" by accepting Jesus as Messiah.

 

Acts 15:28 For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things: 29 that you abstain from things offered to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from sexual[a] immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well.

So these verses would seem to say that observing the Sabbath and the Festivals, and abstaining from eating pork and shellfish, are not required of gentile Believers.  It would seem that these rules are still required of Believers of Jewish heritage.  

This is an open question to which I do not have an answer.  However, I have chosen whenever possible to avoid scripturally prohibited foods.  It is not a big issue or a big sacrifice for me, as I prefer fish and poultry.  I do not like seafood.  I do not particularly like bacon; I have not eaten luncheon meats for decades; I do not really like hot dogs, and when I purchase hot dogs, I have purchased all-beef hot dogs for several decades.  I am not a huge fan of meats in general.

In conclusion, I do not have a definitive answer as to what every Believer in Jesus should do.  I personally choose to follow Torah as Jesus and His disciples, and all the early Jewish Believers in Jesus did.  This is a personal choice that I do not believe is required of every Believer.