Restoring Nazarene Judaism

Restoring Chag Yeshua The Feast of Deliverance By James Scott Trimm There is an amazng and important festival on the Biblical calendar which has been lost and has not been observed for centuries. The festival was enacted in the 3rd Book of the Maccabees, but since this book was removed from the canon (along with the rest of the apocrypha), this festival was effectively removed with it. As the restoration of truth continues, one of the things that we need to do is restore this lost, biblical festival to our observance. What is the background of this festival? After the Battle of Raphia in 217 B.C.E. Ptolemy IV sought to enter the Holy of Holies in Jerusalem, but was miraculously repulsed (3Macc. 1:1-2:24). Upon returning from Egypt he seeks to punish the Jews there for his humiliation. He lowers their political status and seeks to impose paganism on them (3Macc. 2:25-33) and tortures and kills those that refuse to renounce Judaism (3Macc. 3:1-5:51) An elder priest named Elea...

Those that attack Kabbalah claiming that it is Gnosticism, have a lack of understanding of Gnosticism, Kabbalah or both. Gnosticism teaches that men are god-spirits trapped in our material world which was supposedly created by an imperfect god called “the demiurge”. This creator god is identified by Gnostics with the Jewish “God” of the “Old Testament”. This god is contrasted with a superior god, often identified with the Christian “god” of the “New Testament” as well as with the serpent in the Garden of Eden. The demiurge employs beings called “archons” (powers) who rule the material world and seek to prevent men from coming to the superior god. The demiurge was said to have actually been created by the Superior god by way of a series of emanations called aeons, however having become distant from the Superior god through this series of emanations, the demiurge was evil, and created this material universe as a tool to deceive men and keep them away from the Superior god. ...

In Defense of Kabbalah (Part 1) By James Trimm Those who are uneducated on the topic have found it easy to attack Kabbalah as a “doorway to the occult”. One attacker even tried to connect Kabbalah to Islam calling it “Kab-Allah”. Anyone who knows the origin of both words knows that this is totally dishonest and there is no connection whatsoever between the Arabic word Allah and the Hebrew word Kabbalah. The reason that they find it so easy to attack Kabbalah is because there are many things that have been called “Kabbalah” over the years which are far from the ancient Jewish Kabbalah. The most significant of these is so-called “Hermetic Kabbalah”. So-called Hermetic Kabbalah (often spelled Hermetic Cabala or Hermetic Qabbala) arose in the 1500’s. It grew out of a movement known as Christian Cabala that arose in the 1500’s during the renaissance when certain Christian scholars sought to combine Jewish Kabbalah with Christian mysticism. Some of these Christian mystics...

What is Channukah? Channukah is a celebration of the victory of Judaism over Greek culture. When Alexander conquered much of the known world, it was his dream to bring the Greek culture to the world. Upon his death his Empire was divided among his generals. Each of these new Kingdoms were Greek in culture. In time the Syrian “Seleucid Empire” came to be ruled by Antiochus Epiphanies who also gained control of Jerusalem. This coincided with a campaign of forced helization in Judea. Circumcision and Torah observance became outlawed. Jews were forced, on pain of death, to sacrifice unkosher animals on the alter, to rededicate the Temple to the Greek god Zeus and to eat meat that had been offered up to idols. In reaction to this oppression a group of Jewish warriors known as the Maccabees fled into the wilderness and fought gorilla warfare against the Greco-Syrians. They ultimately prevailed and rededicated the Temple to YHWH on the 25th of Kislev, establishing the eight day...

The Four Levels and the Four Books of the Maccabees In Jewish scriptural understanding it is maintained that a passage may be understood on any of four levels of understanding. The first level of understanding is called PASHAT. Pashat means “simple” is the literal, simple meaning of the text. The second level of understanding is called REMEZ. Remez means “hint” is the implied meaning of a passage” The third level of understanding is called DRASH. Drash means “search” and is the homiletical or allegorical meaning of the text. The fourth level of understanding is called SOD. Sod means “mystery” and is the hidden, secret or mystical meaning of the text. The first letter from each of these words spells in Hebrew PaRDeS meaning “paradise”. The four Gospels are each written on each of the four levels of understanding of the life and teaching of Yeshua. Mark gives the PASHAT, a short, simple, basic account of Yeshua’s life with few details. Luke gives the REMEZ and digs int...

IS THANKSGIVING A PAGAN HOLIDAY? By James Trimm The Pilgrims were a splinter group from the fringes of the Puritan movement. Many of them were leaving a Britain which was too politically difficult for them, to start a “perfect” new world. The first feast lasted 3 days and celebrated their first harvest in 1621,which, thanks to a little help from their native American friends, was abundant. Thanksgiving as a “holiday” come from a cross between a conventional harvest festival and the relief of the Pilgrim Fathers when, after serious hardship which had whittled their numbers down from 105 to 43, they finally realized their settlement was going to make it. Thanksgiving was influenced in part by the English and continental European Harvest festivals popular in the Puritan movement, with churches decorated with cornucopias, pumpkins, corn, wheat sheaves, and other harvest bounty, English and European harvest hymns sung on Thanksgiving weekend and scriptural lections drawn...

Channukah and the Last Days Part 1: The Ram and the Goat By James Scott Trimm Channukah is not just a joyous celebration of the dedication of the Temple, it is also an amazing picture of the Last Days which can teach us much about the things to come. Let us begin by looking at Daniel’s vision of the ram and the goat. Daniel’s vision is as follows: 1 In the third year, of the reign of king Beltshatzar, a vision appeared unto me--even unto me, Daniel; after that, which appeared unto me at the first. 2 And I saw in the vision: now it was so that when I saw, I was in Shushan the castle, which is in the province of Elam. And I saw in the vision, and I was by the stream Ulai. 3 And I lifted up my eyes and saw, and behold, there stood before the stream, a ram which had two horns. And the two horns were high, but one was higher than the other, and the higher came up last. 4 I saw the ram, pushing westward, and northward, and southward. And no beasts could stand before him, ...