Posts by Admin
From Babylon to Bethlehem – Greek Rule over Israel
After the Persian period, the Greeks conquered a vast empire, spreading Hellenistic Greek culture throughout the area from Rome to India. Alexander the Great conquered the area from Rome and Egypt to India, including Israel. This land would be divided after Alexander’s death, and the area including Israel was known as the Seleucid Empire, ruled…
Read MoreFrom Babylon to Bethlehem – to the Ends of the Earth
Period history up to the beginning of 1 Maccabees. The closing theme is Gerard Satamian’s Chansons Sans Paroles Op. 2 Pastorale, from the album Dry Fig Trees. www.magnatune.com Download MP3 (23:56; 13 MB)
Read MoreFrom Babylon to Bethlehem – Rebuilding the Temple
The return to the land of Israel was an event which really broadened the world of the Israelites. When Jews began forming a Diaspora, it clarified the concept that God was not just a local deity, but rather the God of the universe. Babylon, in particular, appears as a true cosmopolis until the time when…
Read MoreFrom Babylon to Bethlehem – Persian Rule
The Persians under Xerxes invade Greece, and have some success until Greece expels them. It is during this period that the Book of Esther takes place, a book that has great significance when considering the tensions between the many cultures in the Middle East at the time. After Xerxes, the Persia is ruled by Artaxerxes…
Read MoreFrom Babylon to Bethlehem – Return from Exile
The Jewish canon ends the Hebrew Scriptures after the return from the Babylonian Exile. While the canon continues for Christians, there is not much Scripture for the 500 years between the return from Babylon and the birth of Christ in Bethlehem. There are many events that occurred in this time, and placing them into a…
Read MoreWonder’s Role in Faith
This was recorded at the 2009 Rochester Chesterton Society Conference. It is very easy to allow ourselves to experience wonder on a purely intellectual basis, which misses the point, since wonder is too powerful to be experienced merely through the intellect. We should wonder at some of the amazing things written in the Scriptures and…
Read MoreTom Howard on Wonder
This was recorded at the 2009 Rochester Chesterton Society Conference. As we grow older, we lose our grasp on a sense of wonder in the world. Wonder is modulated by time and repetition, but there are three cases unaffected by time: youth, art and eternity, and it is by studying these three cases where we…
Read MoreLife on the Rock
St. Irenaeus Ministries was invited to be a guest on the Life on the Rock program on EWTN on September 4, 2008. This is a recording of that portion of the program. St. Irenaeus Ministries is a Rochester, NY based apostolate promoting orthodox Catholic faith named after St. Irenaeus, an early Christian bishop and writer…
Read MoreChristian Apocalyptic – The Modern Age
In the Olivet Discourse, Jesus tells us that there will be wars and rumors of wars that many will wrongly think to be the coming of the end. This suggests that the end will be many years from the time of the Discourse, and thus it is appropriate to focus our attention on how the…
Read MoreChristian Apocalyptic – The Early Church
The early Church viewed the apocalyptic writings as vital to the faith. Early Christians saw the end times as imminent, though not necessarily coming soon, as suggested by the exhortation to preach the Gospel to all the nations. In the same way, faulty wiring might pose an imminent danger, but it might not actually cause…
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