Happy New Year to all our readers! “On this day in Messianic Jewish history” enters its 10th year – and more than 700 posts. We bring you significant events in the lives of Jewish disciples in Yeshua. How has the history of the Church and the Jewish people shaped Jewish expressions of faith in Yeshua? How have they impacted Jewish Christianity in the past and its contemporary expression in Messianic Judaism today? As we begin a New Year we reflect on the principle and practice illustrated in the life of Hudson Taylor, the pioneer missionary to China, and John Wilkinson, founder of the Mildmay ..read more

Henry Einspruch (born חײם יחיאל איינשפרוך Khaim-Yekhiel Aynshprukh in Tarnów, Galicia, 27 December 1892 – 4 January 1977), was a Galician-born Jew who became a Lutheran, becoming translator and publisher. Einspruch translated Christian literature into Yiddish, Hebrew, Polish, Russian, and English. His most notable work was a translation of the New Testament into Yiddish. Early life in Tarnow, Galicia His father Mendel was a scholar, an iron merchant, and a Santser Hassid. His mother Mirl was the daughter of the cantor of the main synagogue in the city of Jarosław. As a teenager, Einspruch ..read more

On Tishah B’Av, this day of mourning for the loss of the Temple in Jerusalem, our hearts also go out to the family and friends of Sinéad O’Connor, whose passing was reported yesterday. A sad and tormented soul, she produced some of the most poignant songs and soul-wrenching lyrics of her generation. She sang of love and loss, joy and pain, angst and anger. The beauty of her voice, the power of her lyrics, and the nephesh she expressed will live on in her work, but sadly not her life. One of my favourite albums was “Theology”, a two-volume cover of many biblical passages and prayers. If you ha ..read more

8 In the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month—that was the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon—Nebuzaradan, the captain of the bodyguard, a servant of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem. 9 And he burned the house of the Lord and the king’s house and all the houses of Jerusalem; every great house he burned down. 10 And all the army of the Chaldeans, who were with the captain of the guard, broke down the walls around Jerusalem. 11 And the rest of the people who were left in the city and the deserters who had deserted to the king of Babylon, tog ..read more

Ed Parish Sanders FBA (18 April 1937 – 21 November 2022) was an American New Testament scholar and a principal proponent of the “New Perspective on Paul”, along with James Dunn and N T Wright. He was a major scholar in the scholarship on the historical Jesus and contributed to the view that Jesus was part of a renewal movement within Judaism. Sanders identified himself as a “liberal, modern, secularized Protestant” in his book Jesus and Judaism; fellow scholar John P. Meier calls him a postliberal Protestant. He was Arts and Sciences Professor of Religion at Duke University, North Carolina, s ..read more

It was October 1914. The First World War had just started. On the western front French and German armies were already locked in fierce battles. Werner Simonson was one of a group of fifty German soldiers from the 4th Guards regiment involved in the Battle of Diksmuide in Belgium. They had just taken prisoner over thirty French soldiers. The man Simonson had captured had been a schoolmaster before being called up. He seemed particularly distressed at the turn of events, so Simonson spoke kindly to him in French and shared some of his rations with the unhappy man. As daylight came and the early ..read more

Lili Simon was the daughter of the timber merchant Fritz Simon. She was born in Königsberg in 1908 as the oldest of four siblings.  In 1920 the family moved to Bremen.  Her father had three grandparents of Jewish origin and was considered a “full Jew” according to the “race laws”, and Lili as “half-Jewish” developed an interest in theology in her childhood.  The relationship between Jews and Christians would become the focus of her theology, her own identity and the key to her existence. After graduating from high school in 1928, Lili began studying theology and philology in Bo ..read more

Happy New Year to all our readers! “On this day in Messianic Jewish history” enters its 8th year – bringing you significant events in the life of Jewish believers in Yeshua. What are the events in the history of the Church and the Jewish people that have shaped Jewish expressions of faith in Yeshua? How have they impacted Jewish Christianity in the past and its contemporary expression in Messianic Judaism today? As we begin a New Year we reflect on the principle and practice illustrated in the life of Hudson Taylor, the pioneer missionary to China, and John Wilkinson, founder of the Mildmay M ..read more

This Advent sermon by Karl Barth, with its clarion call to challenge the growing power of Hitler, the Nazi party and the German Christian group, displays at the theological level the complex issues of faith, justice, protest and resistance that Barth, Bonhoeffer and others would demonstrate in the days to come. But it is all done in the language of preaching and exegesis of Scripture, and the message must be decoded and interpreted in the light of its context to see the radical nature of its confrontation with the incipient Third Reich. Below is the sermon in full with an introduction by John ..read more

I am reblogging this with the addition of a copy of the last IHCA Theological Bulletin which Harry Ellison edited, from November 1979. He edited and largely wrote this bulletin three times per year, and it is full of his wit, wisdom and sharp observations on the biblical, theological and Hebrew Christian studies of his day – see https://www.dropbox.com/s/f7bo511il0w9zfm/Ellison%20IHCA%20Theology%201979.pdf?dl=0 On This Day In Messianic Jewish History Henry Leopold Ellison (July 10, 1903 Krakow, Poland – July 10, 1983 Dawlish), usually cited as H. L. Ellison, was a biblical scholar, prof ..read more