{"id":11515,"date":"2020-09-17T11:25:34","date_gmt":"2020-09-17T18:25:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/portfolio-item\/2020-clayjars-copy\/"},"modified":"2020-09-17T12:19:46","modified_gmt":"2020-09-17T19:19:46","slug":"2020-jewishny","status":"publish","type":"portfolio","link":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/gospel-express\/2020-jewishny\/","title":{"rendered":"New Year in Biblical times"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"flex_column av_one_full  flex_column_div av-zero-column-padding first  avia-builder-el-0  avia-builder-el-no-sibling  \" style='border-radius:0px; '><section class=\"av_textblock_section \"  itemscope=\"itemscope\" itemtype=\"https:\/\/schema.org\/CreativeWork\" ><div class='avia_textblock  '   itemprop=\"text\" ><p style=\"text-align: right;\">Israel Biblical Studies<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-11517 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/jewishny-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"650\" height=\"245\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/jewishny-1.jpg 650w, https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/jewishny-1-300x113.jpg 300w, https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/jewishny-1-450x170.jpg 450w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 650px) 100vw, 650px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Although 2020 is far from over, according to the Jewish calendar the new year of 5781 starts next week! The festival of Rosh Hashanah, which means \u201chead of the year,\u201d is one of the most widely observed Jewish holidays today. But the Bible tells us very little about it.\u00a0<strong>How did people celebrate the new year in the days of the Bible?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-11518 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/jewishny-2-e1600367795322.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" \/><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>A Disappointing Return to Zion<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The Bible tells us that on the first day of the seventh month we are to observe a \u201cFestival of Trumpets,\u201d marked by blowing the ram\u2019s horn (<em>shofar<\/em>). The richest description of this new year\u2019s feast is in chapter 8 of the Book of Nehemiah. In the year 458 BCE, the Babylonian exile ended, but only a small group of Jews returned to Jerusalem.\u00a0<strong>The knowledge of the Torah was lacking after years of exile<\/strong>.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-11519 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/jewishny-3.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"480\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/jewishny-3.jpg 480w, https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/jewishny-3-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/jewishny-3-450x338.jpg 450w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Ezra Instructs the People<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Ezra the Scribe decides to educate the people. He chooses the day of Rosh Hashanah to publicly read the whole Torah to the city. He stands before the people with a scroll of the Torah. But he does not just recite the words, rather,\u00a0<strong>\u201che read from the Book of the Law of God, making it clear and giving the meaning so that the people understood what was being read\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0(Neh. 8:8).<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"featured_media":11517,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","tags":[],"portfolio_entries":[35],"class_list":["post-11515","portfolio","type-portfolio","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","portfolio_entries-english-writer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/portfolio\/11515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/portfolio"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/portfolio"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11515"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/portfolio\/11515\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11516,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/portfolio\/11515\/revisions\/11516"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11515"},{"taxonomy":"portfolio_entries","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/portfolio_entries?post=11515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}