Shelley Wood Gauld

At least four different voices can be heard in the Gospel anthems. These works are richly orchestrated masterpieces! Their interwoven lyrics and melodies, sung in/by many voices, each with its own unique cadence, form gloriously polyphonic anthems. Our Gospels are multi-layered; they beg to be “turned and turned, for everything is contained therein”. Most of us are familiar with the overall ‘plain text’; but if we stop there, we will be unable to appreciate the distinctive melody lines of the voices that make up the whole... I therefore invite you to start listening for the sounds of the following voices in the Gospel anthems. Shema… Hear… The first voice is the voice of the rabbi. The Gospels were first preserved by means of the Hebrew oral tradition. A rabbi’s talmidim committed his words to memory… And the words of any rabbi were always deeply anchored in the Torah and Hebraic tradition. His teachings were always rooted, in the Semitic fashion, in familiar Hebraic symbols,...

Yeshua's birthplace is normally perceived to be Bethlehem; in Hebrew, ‘ Bet-Lechem’ , meaning ‘House of Bread’. When the priests were later asked by Herod where the Messiah would be born, however, they did not simply say ‘ Bet-Lechem’ , but  ‘Bet-Lechem Efratah’.   The most elemental meaning of the word Efratah , as used to this day in Hebrew, is ‘on the way to…’ Hence ‘Bet-Lechem Efratah’ could be translated as ‘on the way to Bethlehem’; that is, Messiah would be born on the way to Bethlehem, as was Benjamin. This meaning of the term ' Bet-Lechem Efratah'  links Miryam to Rachel, as the second  matriarch to give birth to her son ‘on the way to Bethlehem’. Rachel died ‘on the road to’ Bethlehem, after giving birth to Benjamin, her second son, and was buried in a lowly lonely roadside grave. In 1 Samuel 10:2 a clear reference is made to Rachel’s tomb and the Hebrew indicates that her sepulchre was located not  in  the border (as often translat...

My usual intention in my blog posts is not to present readers with ‘answers’, that would be presumptuous, but to highlight what I consider to be pivotal matters ~ and possible ways of viewing them. Today I will focus first on the two genealogies of Joseph, found in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, and then on a subtle reference to Miryam’s lineage. The importance of the territory of Benjamin will then be assessed, before turning to Rachel, Benjamin, Miryam and Yeshua, and the term ‘Bet-Lechem Efratah’. The names listed in the genealogy of Joseph (Miryam’s husband) in the Gospel of Matthew are Judean and, according to tradition, Davidic. For this reason Yeshua, who appeared to be Joseph’s son, was considered to be a royal ‘Son of David’. Why is it then that a northern name, ‘Joseph’, closes Matthew’s Judean genealogy? I am aware of two possible reasons: The name ‘Joseph’ appears frequently in the Aaronic priesthood. Many ‘sons of Aaron’ were named Joseph, probably becaus...

Kindly also read the previous two posts entitled 'The Sign of Lazarus'. Some men from the scholars and Prushim [Pharisees] answered him [Yeshua] and said, "Rabbi, we desire to see a sign by your hand." But Yeshua answered them, "An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but a sign will not be given it except that of Jonah the Prophet . For just as Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three days and nights, so too the son of man will be in the heart of the ground for three days and nights. The people of Nineveh will stand in judgement of this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the call of Jonah. But look! One greater than Jonah is here." (Matt 12: 38-41) Dear reader, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the 'sign of Jonah', first given by Yeshua in the death and resurrection of Lazarus, was the sign that proved to the scholars and Pharisees, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Yeshua was indeed Messiah. For ...

Out of my respect for the Jewish people, I will continue to view the Passover of our Jewish Messiah’s death and resurrection in the context of his own Jewish tradition; particularly the Jewish priestly tradition. Using the paper entitled To die for the People , originally published in 1996 in The Priest: A Journal of Catholic Theology , by  Reb  HaKohain, as a starting point, I will offer some thoughts which, I hope, will be more sympathetic to the Jewish people than is typically the case. What I will suggest concerning the role of the Jewish priests in the arrest and trial of Yeshua is not exactly spelled out in the surface text of the Gospel accounts, but it is supported by the Jewish messianic tradition. I therefore ask you to seriously reconsider the commonly accepted 'facts' in the light of the following:   1. There is an accepted rabbinic principle in the studying of biblical texts; that the plain meaning of a text represents only the surface layer of what...

Although early historians and Church Fathers acknowledged Yeshua’s lack of comeliness, in keeping with the words of Isaiah 53, the institution of the Church slowly but surely refashioned Him into a majestic symbol of Divinity worthy of veneration. He was portrayed as well-proportioned and handsome, on a par with the classical gods of the ancient world. Isaiah did not paint such a picture… His prophecy rendered the suffering servant as having “no form or beauty that we should look at him: no charm that we should find him pleasing. He was despised, shunned by men, a man of suffering, familiar with disease.” Christians generally accept Isaiah 53 as a portrayal of Yeshua, but only in terms of the crucifixion… The words of this prophet, accurately translated, do not allow for this, however. The sufferings of the servant described in Isaiah were borne from cradle to grave… The implications of this -- for all who accept mainline Christian doctrine with its Romanized aesthetics --...

            In a paper entitled To die for the People , originally published in 1996 in The Priest: A Journal of Catholic Theology , Reb HaKohain argued that the vast majority of Jews and Jewish authorities of Yeshua’s time not only accepted Him as Messiah, but, after raising Lazarus from the dead, after four days in the tomb, precipitated His death in order to inaugurate the Redemption of Israel.          HaKohain suggests that after being informed of the great ‘messianic sign’ of the raising of Lazarus and Yeshua’s claim to being ‘the Resurrection and the Life’, the Pharisees and High Priest, acting on an Oral Scripture (such as Zohar 5:218a) realised that Yeshua was the Messiah of Isaiah 53, Messiah ben Joseph, who had to suffer and die. (Jn 11:49)          This would explain why the Jews are said to have shouted “Hosanna!” (“Save us!”) and “Baruch Haba B’Shem Adonai!” (“Blessed is He who comes in...