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Luba and her husband moved from Russia five years ago to their ancestral homeland of Israel. They were building a life and family in their new country. And then, tragedy struck.  

Suddenly, Luba lost her husband to heart failure—leaving her to raise two toddlers by herself. She recalls, “When my husband died, it was a complete shock to us. Without his income, it was very difficult financially. I could barely afford groceries, or things needed for the house.” 

Thankfully, friends like you were there for this lonely widow. Someone told her about CBN Israel, and Luba reached out to us. Donors brought her a dryer, along with nutritious food. 

Then, her home flooded. Luba admitted, “After the flood, my son struggled with asthma attacks because of the mold on the sofa. But we didn’t have any money to buy another one.” Once again, friends were there through CBN Israel—and delivered a new sofa to her! And as she studies to become a dental assistant to support her family, they are providing her with groceries. 

Luba says, “I can’t believe there were people out there who were willing to help us the way CBN Israel helped us… Your generosity means so much!” 

And your gifts to CBN Israel can offer many others in the Holy Land a lifeline of essential help—including food, housing, and financial assistance. 

We live in a time when large numbers of people in Israel are in crisis situations—from immigrants escaping war, to vulnerable seniors, to victims of terrorism. Your support can extend aid and hope to them. 

Please consider helping with a gift today!

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By Marc Turnage

Visitors to the Old City of Jerusalem today can enter the city through seven gates scattered around its eastern, southern, western, and northern sides. These gates, like the walls of the Old City, date to the Ottoman Period (16^th-20^th centuries). 

Along the northern stretch of the Old City walls are three gates, from west to east, New Gate, Damascus Gate, and the Flower (or Herod’s) Gate. The current Ottoman Damascus Gate stands upon the remains of a triple-arch gate that dates to the Roman remains of Aelia Capitolina, which was the name given to Jerusalem in the 2^nd century A.D. by the Roman Emperor Hadrian. The center arch was the largest, and the two side arches were lower. 

Gates are named for what lies outside of them; therefore, Damascus Gate gains its name because the northern road towards Damascus leads out of the city from there. In Hebrew, the gate is referred to as Shechem Gate because the road to Shechem (modern day Nabulus) led out of the city from there. 

After the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in A.D. 70, the city’s footprint changed due to the damage caused by the Roman forces in certain parts of the city, particularly the southern area of the city. This caused the city to shift north and west in the Late Roman Period. From the 2^nd century A.D., Jerusalem began to look like a Roman city, which the Old City of Jerusalem more or less parallels until today. 

The Roman Emperor Hadrian renamed Jerusalem, Aelia Captitolina, and the province Judaea, he changed its name to Palestina. As part of the rebuilding of Jerusalem (Aelia Capitolina), the triple-arch, on which Damascus Gate now stands, was constructed. 

This triple-arch gate marked the northern limit of the city. The triple-arch gate was originally free standing, but in the late 3^rd century, it was connected to the city’s wall. Entering through the arches, one encountered a paved plaza (similar to what one does entering through today’s Damascus Gate) in which Jerusalem’s two main north-south roadways came together. It seems that a column stood in this plaza, probably with a statue of the emperor on it. 

A mosaic map of the Holy Land in the floor of a church in Maedaba, Jordan that dates to the 6^th century A.D. depicts the column, without the statue, standing in the plaza in front of the Damascus Gate. Until today in Arabic, one refers to Damascus Gate as Bab al-‘Amud, the Gate of the Column, which retains the memory of the column in the plaza. 

The triple-arches of the Later Roman Period were built on a stretch of wall that dates back to the first century.

Marc Turnage is President/CEO of Biblical Expeditions. He is an authority on ancient Judaism and Christian origins. He has published widely for both academic and popular audiences. His most recent book, Windows into the Bible, was named by Outreach Magazine as one of its top 100 Christian living resources. Marc is a widely sought-after speaker and a gifted teacher. He has been guiding groups to the lands of the Bible—Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, Greece, and Italy—for over twenty years.

Website: WITBUniversity.com
Facebook: @witbuniversity
Podcast: Windows into the Bible Podcast

“Those who plant in tears will harvest with shouts of joy. They weep as they go to plant their seed, but they sing as they return with the harvest” (Psalm 126:5-6 NLT).

Farming in ancient Israel was tough. You cleared your field, then plowed it. You scattered your seed hoping that the rains would come soon. Ancient farmers in the land of Israel depended solely upon the rains from heaven to water their fields.

If the seed lay on the ground more than a week without rain, it would die, and you had to take from the seed you’d carefully set aside for the family’s food to sow it again. Once you sowed and the rains came, you waited. You waited for the harvest.

The life of the ancient Israelite farmer, living in a land on the edge of the Mediterranean and on the edge of the desert, meant rainfall could be problematic. Some years it came, and some years it didn’t. As the farmer wandered through the plowed land of his field, he hoped the rains would come. He prayed the rains would come.

Within the Bible, rain is always a sign of God’s blessing. He provides the rain in its season, particularly when the people obey. This rain allows for crops to grow and people and flocks to have what they need to survive another year.

You have to wonder if these ancient farmers, described by the psalmist as planting “in tears” and crying out to God for rain, prayed the weak prayers we often pray. Or did their recognition of their absolute dependence upon God lead them to cry out to Him in desperation?

Anyone who has been around farming will tell you that even when the seeds receive water to grow, growth is not immediate. It takes time. You have to wait—patiently.

Do we see our existence as dependent upon God the way the ancient farmers in Israel did? Do we cry out to Him for our daily needs in desperation? When He answers, do we have the patience to wait for the harvest? Do we allow ourselves to rejoice when we truly gather the harvest of our cries to God?

We live in a culture that values speed over patience. Everything depends on getting quick and immediate results. In such a fast-paced world, we often lose our ability to wait patiently for the harvest brought about by God.

Our modern advances in technology can often delude us into a sense of self-reliance. We do not see ourselves dependent upon God for our daily provision. But we are. The ancient Israelite farmers can teach us a lot about our faith—if we will pay attention.

PRAYER

Father, our lives are in Your hands. May we never lose sight of our dependence upon You, and our need to wait patiently for the harvest to come. Amen.

No one single cause led Christianity to drift from its Jewish roots. No one single event brought it about. A combination of factors and forces caused Christianity’s deviation from Judaism, some came from within the Christian communities and others came from outside. But by the time of the Byzantine Empire, most Christians did not know Jesus and the Apostles were Jewish. 

The status of non-Jews within Jewish communities fostered a sense of not belonging. While Jesus’ movement accepted non-Jews as equal children of God, the non-Jewish followers of Jesus found themselves outside of the Jewish community and without a place in their non-Jewish cities and families, who adhered to idol worship. 

Jesus’ movement prohibited non-Jews from worshipping idols; thus, non-Jewish followers of Jesus found themselves between two worlds, with no place in either. This led, in part, to the establishment of Christianity as a “third race” separate from Judaism and idolatrous non-Jews among the Church Fathers at the end of the first century and beginning of the second. Christianity needed to separate itself from Judaism, which it did.

This did not take place within a vacuum, however. The anti-Jewish sentiment and legislation within the Roman Empire, because of the Jewish revolts (A.D. 66-136), encouraged and accelerated the movement of the non-Jewish followers of Jesus away from Judaism. So too, the Jewish community, as it sought to reorganize itself after the destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple, set firmer boundaries between Jews and non-Jews, pushing back on the different, non-Pharisaic forms of Judaism. 

This escalated the Christian drift from its Jewish origins. Rabbinic Judaism and Christianity are sisters, the mother of both being ancient Judaism. As in the case with most sibling rivalry, tension forms. 

Christian theologians in the second century A.D. separated the God of the Jews from the God of Jesus. The writings of Valentinus (130s), Marcion (140s), and Justin (150s) present the God of Jesus as not the God of Israel. These Christian thinkers came out of Middle-Platonism, in which the high god must be transcendent, perfect, immaterial, and changeless. Such a god would not create matter. 

Another, lower god, a demiurge, organized the material universe. He could act in the world, unlike the high god. The imperfections, ills, and evils of the physical universe happened because of this lower god. The God of the Bible, a being of passions and changing of mind, a God who suffers, how can He be the high god, unchanging, incorruptible, and immaterial?  

These Christian thinkers concluded, God the Father was an eternal, transcendent deity, without body or passions, and prior to the revelation of Christ was utterly unknown. The God of the Jews was the demiurge, the lower god. He gave the Jews their laws, like circumcision, Sabbath, and dietary restrictions. They differed on the relationship of this lower god to Christ. 

Valentinus argued Christ fulfilled the good laws of this lower god and destroyed those laws Valentinus considered baseless. Marcion viewed the demiurge as hostile to the Gospel of Christ. Justin identified the lower god as “another god,” distinct from the high god. Justin identified the lower god, the God of the Jews, as the pre-incarnate Christ. The God of the Jews was the God of the Christians, the pre-incarnate Christ, the Son. The God of Israel was dead. 

These forces—social and theological—provided the foundation for Christianity’s deviation from its Jewish origins. This is a tragic reality still felt in many Christian communities today.

Marc Turnage is President/CEO of Biblical Expeditions. He is an authority on ancient Judaism and Christian origins. He has published widely for both academic and popular audiences. His most recent book, Windows into the Bible, was named by Outreach Magazine as one of its top 100 Christian living resources. Marc is a widely sought-after speaker and a gifted teacher. He has been guiding groups to the lands of the Bible—Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, Greece, and Italy—for over twenty years.

Website: WITBUniversity.com
Facebook: @witbuniversity
Podcast: Windows into the Bible Podcast

By Julie Stahl

“And in the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month (which was the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon), Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard, a servant of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem. He burned the house of the LORD and the king’s house; all the houses of Jerusalem, that is, all the houses of the great, he burned with fire” (2 Kings 25:8-9 NKJV).

Tisha B’Av (“the ninth of the Hebrew month of Av”), is considered the saddest day on the Jewish calendar. It commemorates the destruction of both the First and Second Temples as well as other disasters that have befallen the Jewish people throughout the millennia.

Although the day is based in part on biblical events, it is a Rabbinic fast day that marks the end of a three-week mourning period.

Rabbis say that both the First Temple built by King Solomon and the Second Temple built after the return from the Babylonian exile and expanded by King Herod the Great were destroyed on Tisha B’Av.

Jewish people also remember other tragedies that happened to them during this time, such as the Crusades, the Inquisition, pogroms, the Holocaust, and anti-Semitism in general.

For instance, the Expulsion Order from England in 1290 was issued on Tisha B’Av; and the Alhambra Decree or Edict of Expulsion from Spain was issued on March 31, 1492 and gave the Jews until July 31 of that year to leave—that was Tisha B’Av.

More recently, in 2005, many Israelis took note when Israel’s uprooting of 9,000 Jewish Israelis from 21 Gush Katif Jewish communities in the Gaza Strip and four in the northern West Bank (Samaria) were uprooted in what was called the Disengagement. It was considered by political leaders at the time to be a unilateral “peace” move. Ironically, it occurred just at the end of Tisha B’Av.

Rabbi Welton told a story about the significance of Tisha B’Av throughout history revealed in a legend about French leader Napoleon Bonaparte. While traveling through a small Jewish town in Europe, he rode by a synagogue and heard terrible cries coming from within.

“Peering through the window, he saw an incredible sight: hundreds of men and women weeping. They were sitting on the floor on small stools holding candles while reading from books. The synagogue had an elaborate chandelier but only a few candles were lit. If not for the small candle lights, the magnificent synagogue would have been in complete darkness. It was a gloomy and sad sight to behold,” writes Rabbi Welton.

“Napoleon asked his advisers what misfortune had happened there. His top adviser responded that nothing new and terrible had happened, but that the Jewish people had a tradition to gather once a year on a day they called the ninth day of Av, the day marking the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. Twice they built a magnificent Temple in Jerusalem and both were destroyed. After their second Temple was destroyed, the people were scattered all over the world and sold as slaves and somehow the Jewish people still exist without their Temple. In order to commemorate these sad events, they gathered once a year in synagogue. There they fasted, prayed, and read sad prophetic writings concerning the destruction of their Temple and land.”

“The adviser concluded, ‘Mon Roi (“my King”), what we see in this town is happening today in Jewish communities around the world.’

“Napoleon then asked, ‘And how many years ago was this Temple destroyed?’

“The advisor answered, ‘Over two thousand years ago.’

“His eyes widening in surprise, Napoleon exclaimed, ‘A nation that cries and fasts for over two thousand years for their land and Temple will surely be rewarded with their Temple,’” Welton concluded.

Today, Tisha B’Av is still considered a day of mourning, fasting, and prayer. The book of Lamentations is read in the synagogues. In Jerusalem, thousands of people often walk around the Old City Walls in a group at night.

Julie Stahl is a correspondent for CBN News in the Middle East. A Hebrew speaker, she has been covering news in Israel full-time for more than 20 years. Julie’s life as a journalist has been intertwined with CBN—first as a graduate student in Journalism at Regent University; then as a journalist with Middle East Television (METV) when it was owned by CBN from 1989-91; and now with the Middle East Bureau of CBN News in Jerusalem since 2009. She is also an integral part of CBN News’ award-winning show, Jerusalem Dateline, a weekly news program providing a biblical and prophetic perspective to what is happening in Israel and the Middle East.

By Marc Turnage

The Western Wall refers to the western retaining wall built to support the Temple Mount platform. In the first century, this wall faced the city of Jerusalem, and as such, it had four gates in it that led onto the Temple Mount platform. 

The gates alternated in their access lower and upper. A street ran along the western wall in the first century. The two lower gates offered access to the Temple Mount from this street. The two high gates were accessed through a bridge and a stairwell supported by a massive arch. 

Today, we refer to these gates by the names of the modern explorers who rediscovered them and identified them. From north to south, they are Warren’s Gate, named after the British explorer Charles Warren. The next gate, accessed by the bridge that led from the Upper City of Jerusalem is Wilson’s Gate, named for the British explorer Charles Wilson. 

The third Gate, which today can be seen on the women’s section of the Western Wall prayer area, is Barclay’s Gate, named for the American missionary doctor, James Barclay. The final gate was named after the American explorer, Edward Robinson. Robinson identified the spring of an arch protruding from the western wall, which was the remains of a large arch that supported a monumental staircase that led onto the Temple Mount. 

Today visitors to Jerusalem encounter three areas of the Western Wall. The most famous in the Western Wall prayer plaza. This has served as a place of Jewish prayer for hundreds of years. It was a small area of the western wall of the Temple Mount retaining wall that was left exposed where Jews could come and pray. 

The Western Wall was not considered holy when the Temple stood but developed into a place of Jewish prayer centuries later. Today it functions as a synagogue and is the most holy site for Jews around the world. Men and women have two separate areas designated for their prayers. 

North of the Western Wall prayer plaza, one can go through a tunnel created by construction in later periods of buildings up against the western wall that follows the Western Wall. In these tunnels one sees the pillars that supported the bridge in the first century leading to Wilson’s Gate; one can even see Warren’s Gate, which is sealed up. 

Following along the tunnel, the first century street is visible in places, as are the massive hewn stones used to build the Western Wall. On the northern end of the tunnel, one encounters a pool, which was an open-air pool in the first century known as the Struthian Pool (or “Sparrow’s Pool”). 

South of the Western Wall plaza, one can walk along the first century street that ran along the Western Wall. On the southwestern corner of the Temple Mount, the spring of Robinson’s Arch is visible as are the small shops where vendors sold sacrifices for the Temple and changed money in the first century. 

The destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans can be seen in a pile of large hewn stones from the Temple Mount, which remains where they fell in the first century. So too, the buckling of the street from the collapse of the walls of the Temple attest to the destruction inflicted by the Romans. 

Marc Turnage is President/CEO of Biblical Expeditions. He is an authority on ancient Judaism and Christian origins. He has published widely for both academic and popular audiences. His most recent book, Windows into the Bible, was named by Outreach Magazine as one of its top 100 Christian living resources. Marc is a widely sought-after speaker and a gifted teacher. He has been guiding groups to the lands of the Bible—Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, Greece, and Italy—for over twenty years.

Website: WITBUniversity.com
Facebook: @witbuniversity
Podcast: Windows into the Bible Podcast

“As He drew near Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the road begging. Hearing a crowd passing by, he inquired what this meant. ‘Jesus the Nazarene is passing by,’ they told him. So he called out, ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!’ … Jesus stopped and commanded that he be brought to Him. When he drew near, He asked him, ‘What do you want Me to do for you?’ ‘Lord,’ he said, ‘I want to see!’ ‘Receive your sight!’ Jesus told him” (Luke 18:35-42 HCSB).

Jesus is on His way to Jerusalem for the Passover, where He will be crucified by the Romans. He makes His way with a crowd of pilgrims, which includes His disciples. This traveling crowd found itself in hopeful anticipation that Jesus would inaugurate God’s kingdom immediately.

On the one hand, Jesus makes His way toward the cross, where the axis of history will come crashing down on His shoulders. And, on the other, He’s surrounded by people caught up in His charismatic greatness.

We can imagine Him laser-focused on the Father’s will and ready to face the suffering that awaited Him in Jerusalem. We can also imagine Him caught up in the redemptive expectations of the crowd surrounding Him. Either way, how easy would it have been for Him to completely miss the cry of a blind beggar broken on the side of the road?

That’s how many of us would have responded in a similar situation. Focused upon our task, with nothing distracting us, or caught up in our own press. But not Jesus. He heard the blind man’s call in the midst of the crowd’s enthusiasm and His own steely determination. He heard the cry, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” And He stopped.

Jesus was an important man, to both God and men. Yet He stopped. His mission was the most important mission ever given by God to a man. Yet He heard. Jesus never became so enamored with Himself or so task-focused that He lost the ability to see and hear the cry of a person broken on the side of the road.

Would the cross have meant as much if He had walked by, ignoring the blind man’s desperate plea for mercy and healing?

We can find ourselves so caught up in our tasks, even our tasks for God, that we fail to see the broken, poor, and suffering on the side of the road crying for help.

If Jesus could hear the cry, if He was willing to take the time to stop, and if He could bring healing mercy to the blind man, then so can we.

PRAYER

Father, open our eyes to see and our ears to hear the cries of the suffering, broken, and poor in our world, because in their cries, we meet You and can follow Your Son. Amen.

The Dead Sea Scrolls are arguably the most significant archaeological discovery of the twentieth century. Why? What is their significance? To understand the significance of the Dead Sea Scrolls, we need to discuss their discovery and what comprises them.

Sometime in 1946 a young Bedouin boy discovered scrolls and pieces of scrolls in a cave along the northwest shore of the Dead Sea, near to an ancient ruin known as Khirbet Qumran. This began a search for scrolls within caves along the Dead Sea between Bedouin and scholars.

Manuscripts were discovered at places along the Dead Sea, Wadi Muraba’at, Nahal Hever, Masada, and Jericho, but the most concentrated discovery of scroll manuscripts came from eleven caves around the site of Khirbet Qumran. These eleven caves yielded approximately 30,000 fragments of manuscripts, which, when assembled, represent about 1,000 scrolls. These scrolls were written on animal skin, papyrus, and one even on copper. The majority were composed in Hebrew, some in Aramaic, and a few in Greek.

The Qumran scrolls date from the third century B.C. to the first century A.D. They represent the library of the community which lived at the site of Qumran. Most scholars identify this settlement as belonging to a Jewish group known from Josephus and other ancient writers known as the Essenes. The scrolls represent the library of this community; some were brought to the community and others were copied there.

The library divides into three groups:

1. Biblical texts: This refers to the Jewish Scriptures known to Christians as the Old Testament. Every book of the Old Testament was found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, except for Esther. Scholars have recently suggested they identified a fragment of Esther, which, if true, means every book of the Old Testament was discovered among the Qumran library.

1. Jewish non-sectarian literature: Fragments of Jewish works written outside of the Bible yet known within other contexts were discovered in the Qumran scrolls. Books like Tobit, Ben Sira, 1 Enoch, and Jubilees were discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls. These works were preserved in translations into other languages, like Greek, Latin, and Ethiopic, but the Hebrew and Aramaic originals no longer existed. The Qumran scrolls provided Hebrew and Aramaic copies of these works. So too, other Jewish works not previously known, but not belonging to the Jewish sect that lived at Qumran were discovered among the scrolls. These provide important windows into ancient Judaism, its thoughts, beliefs, interpretations of the Bible, and practices.

1. Sectarian scrolls: The settlement of Essenes lived at Qumran. This group produced their own literature which reflects their sectarian beliefs, theology, and expectations. These scrolls also provide an important window into the spiritual world of ancient Judaism.

These scrolls offer a treasure trove of information about ancient Judaism, the differences of interpretation, ideas, beliefs, practices, and expectations of redemption and the end. They offer a contemporary library to the world of the New Testament and what developed into rabbinic Judaism.

No book of the New Testament was found among the Dead Sea scrolls. So too, no character within the New Testament appears within the Dead Sea Scrolls. The amount of information the Dead Sea Scrolls provide to our knowledge and understanding of the world which birthed Christianity and rabbinic Judaism makes them one of the most significant discoveries ever.

Marc Turnage is President/CEO of Biblical Expeditions. He is an authority on ancient Judaism and Christian origins. He has published widely for both academic and popular audiences. His most recent book, Windows into the Bible, was named by Outreach Magazine as one of its top 100 Christian living resources. Marc is a widely sought-after speaker and a gifted teacher. He has been guiding groups to the lands of the Bible—Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, Greece, and Italy—for over twenty years.

Website: WITBUniversity.com
Facebook: @witbuniversity
Podcast: Windows into the Bible Podcast