References

These reference materials have been made available through the gracious contributions of my supporters to assist us in our personal studies of Scripture.

The English word "Apocrypha" comes from the Greek ἀπόκρυφα, which means "those having been hidden away".  The term applies to books that the early Church considered as useful but not divinely inspired. 

"Non-canonical" books are texts of uncertain authenticity.  The early Church rejected these ancient texts as Scripture because of their content or uncertain origins.  Given that different denominations have different ideas about what constitutes authoritative, canonical Scripture, there are several different versions of the Apocrypha.

While these writings are not Scripture, the historical and cultural information they contain is often very insightful and worthy of our attention.

This General References section contains lists and summaries compiled from Scripture and comparisons of various kinds of things.  No extended commentary or analysis here.  Just the facts.

Ezra and the men of the Great Assembly established a cadence of weekly Torah readings called פָּרָשַׁת הַשָּׁבוּעַ [parashot hashuva- weekly portions].  Each part (called a פָּרָשָׁה [parashah]) includes a passage from the Torah along with corresponding verses from the Prophets and the Writings.  Believers have included an additional reading from the Gospels.  John Parsons of Hebrew4Christians.com details the history of the parshot while Torah Portions.org publishes a yearly reading schedule.

A special "thank you!" goes to my son, Nathan, for his work to create the pages in this section conduct the initial research on the Hebrew words and their meanings.

While I strive to provide insightful and well-reasoned articles, I also recognize that nothing can compare to individual, Spirit-led studies of Scripture.  With this in mind, one of my goals is to equip readers for their own studies of G-d's Word.

I'm pleased to provide the following Technical References and plan to provide additional materials as the need arises and the site grows.