I recently read a fascinating book by Grant Jeffrey which provides a defense of all Bible prophecy and part of the way it does this is by providing some very interesting information that is not widely known about Jewish fast/feast day/Holy days and the very significant good and difficult/hard events that occurred on them . For example, the books author states in one of his books:
"As mentioned earlier the phenomenon of ....major historical disasters affecting one nation over thirty-five centuries happening on the same anniversary day is totally unprecedented in human history." (see:
http://www.gnfi.org/html/ninth_of_av.html ) The book is called Armeggeddon: Appointment with Destiny by Grant R. Jeffrey (see these sites for a review:
http://www.cuttingedge.org/review/rv128.html and
http://www.baptistfire.com/books/jeffrey.shtml ). It contains some information that I believe has only recently been reported in a broad way although many Jewish people are aware of this information already.
I would also add that it appears it is not just the Ninth Day of Av and the 17th day of Tammuz in terms of Jewish feasts/fasts days which appears to exhibit this anniversary date phenonema (Read below for resources regarding these days)
PREFACE
The Jews have several major feasts/days of fast (mourning)/Holy Days: Feast of Pentecost, Feast of Trumpets, 17th day of Tammuz (theme: fasting and mourning), 9th day of Av (theme: fasting and mourning), Passover, etc. There are four days of fasting on the Jewish calendar.
As you can see above some days are associated with difficulty/mourning. Other days are the opposite and are associated with rejoicing/days of blessing.
THE EVIDENCE I WISH TO DISCUSS
Recently I read some material which I believe strong corroborates the divine nature of Bible prophecy. It increases the "Wow factor" of Bible prophecy for myself in that it provides additional corroboration of the sovereignty of God and his foreknowledge of events.
Here is a review of the book that explains things in a little more depth:
"This book will challenge you with its unique discovery that virtually every major event in the history of Israel has occurred on the anniversary of the Feast of Passover, Pentecost, Tabernacles, etc."
taken from:
http://philologos.org/guide/books/jeffrey.grant.1.htm
Here is another site which explains things in a little more depth:
" Key Points : 1) Jeffrey has discovered that God has dealt with the Israelis according to very distinct time patterns. 2) He also discovered that God has caused many critically important national events to occur during Jewish High Holy Days, or during a High Holy Period. When Jeffrey demonstrates that God has continued this pattern during the time of the Dispersal of the Jews from their land, and after Israel has become a nation....
Significance of Book; Contribution Book Makes : 1) Jeffrey shows God's faithfulness and Mercy in the way in which He has continued to deal with Israel. When he demonstrates that God has continued to deal with Israel according to these ancient timing patterns, even during their 2,000 year Dispersal, you realize that he has just added to the weight of Biblical truth that God has continued to view the Jews as His Chosen People....2) Jeffrey shows an Omnipotent God that intervenes in world history on a regular basis to show His power to an unbelieving world; 3) This is a faith building book."
taken from:
http://www.cuttingedge.org/review/rv128.html
ADDITIONAL COMMENTARY BY MYSELF
Now what is significant in the book is that a proponderence of these above alluded to events occured both in modern times and Biblical times and that it apprears as if most of these events were beyond the control of the Jews or they had very little control. For example, below is some commentary of the major things that happened of the Ninth day of AV:
NINTH DAY OF AV COMMENTARY
I did some research on this topic and I found some interesting websites that have been written by Christians and Jews on the Ninth day of AV (If the Jewish sites say anything contrary to Christianity I wish to say as a Christian I do not endorse these statements):
A website below makes the following important point regarding the Ninth day of AV:
"Note:
Grant R. Jeffrey wrote a book titled, Unveiling Mysteries of the Bible. His chapter, Israel’s Day of Tragedy — the Ninth Day of Av documents the many events that took place on this day. Here are a few points to consider from his book:
Grant organizes his chapter around a list of eight major events that took place historically on the Ninth of Ave. This fact alone makes this Jewish fast day significant. I quote him, "As mentioned earlier the phenomenon of eight major historical disasters affecting one nation over thirty-five centuries happening on the same anniversary day is totally unprecedented in human history." (p. 130)
He found no comparable set of historical coincidences in any other nation's history.
He attributes it to God's foreknowledge and sovereignty. He runs statistics on the odds that it could have happened by chance alone. It comes out to 1 chance in 863 Zillion. That is six groups of triple figures, or 863,078,009,300,000,000. It's calculated by 1 (chance) x 365 (days in a year) x 365 x 365 (etc.)--you multiply 365 times itself 8 times."
taken from:
http://www.gnfi.org/html/ninth_of_av.html
Some Ninth day of AV websites which list some of the events:
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http://www.gnfi.org/html/ninth_of_av.html
http://www.ou.org/yerushalayim/tishabav/tishabav.html (Jewish site)
http://judaism.about.com/library/3_...habav_taboo.htm (Jewish site)
Here is some commentary of the Seventeenth day of Tammuz
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0701/wein070601.asp (Jewish site)
Here is some commentary on some events that have occurred on the Seventeenth day of Tammuz:
Page not found – Heritage House
By the way, the above website says:
"THIS coming Sunday marks the fast day of the Seventeenth of Tammuz, one of the four (Yom Kippur is not counted as a day of fasting but rather as a day of "rest") biblical fast days on the Jewish calendar."
Some brief but more BROAD commentary on Jewish feasts and events that happened on them:
The Feasts of Israel | The Believers Web
http://www.yeshiva.org.il/midrash/shiur.asp?id=447 (Jewish site)
http://www.layevangelism.com/qreference/chapter33.htm
GENERAL COMMENTARY REGARDING THE JEWISH FEASTS
404
ADDITIONAL COMMENTARY RE: JEFFREY'S BOOK
I think the key phrase above regarding Grant is: "He found no comparable set of historical coincidences in any other nation's history." First of all I wish to say that I do not consider Jeffrey Grant to be reliable in all his conclusions which he has made over the years. In my estimation Jeffrey Grant has some works that are badly reasoned and yet he does some very good material too (Again, see these reviews of Grant Jeffrey's work which I have cited: (see these sites for a review:
http://www.cuttingedge.org/review/rv128.html and
http://www.baptistfire.com/books/jeffrey.shtml ). In my first post, I gave Jeffrey Grant'a probability statement for the set of 8 events on the ninth day of AV. I can see some changes I would make in regards to his probablity statements. And although I studied and understand higher statistical reasoning and love some of the methodologies that many historians use to weigh evidence, I am not a professional statician or historian by any means. However, I think if you investigate the history of those 8 events plus look at the other events that happened on other major Jewish days (please read Grant Jeffreys book plus all the links I gave in the first post regarding the other Jewish days) you will come to the conclusion that it is extremely improbable to the nth degree that they merely occured by chance. If you investigate this further the next question is how diligent was Jeffrey Grant because he "found no comparable set of historical coincidences in any other nation's history." He claimed he was very diligent in his book but given some of his past performances I am not so sure of his effort. But at the same time I find it hard to believe that any nation could have such a comparable set of "coincidences"! At the same time I would encourage you to read Grant's book and to do further study. I certainly am looking into this further in terms of the history but so far the history part looks promising and I think if you look at the websites I offer this would also help if you did not do so already.
So I think the "coincidences" especially show extraordinary divine intervention and sovereignty in the history of Israel which of course the Hebrew prophets claimed also in regards to the state of Israel. In short,there is a match/corroboration. Also, I believe I may have found instances where the prophecies overlap the instances where the Jewish fast days overlapped the days where there were historical calamaties to the Jews that were prophesied (For example, the Babylonian captivity and the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. I am currently investigation the historicity of some of these events falling on the Ninth day of AV or the 17th day of Tammuz. But it appears for example as if Flavius Josephus may have recorded that the destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D. occured on the Ninth Day of AV. In this particular instance Mr. Jeffrey did not give specificity in confirming the particular historical sources he may have used although it appears by his mentioning of Josephus's account that he may have used Josephus.
Next, in the above mentioned book Mr. Jeffrey speaks on the subject of death rates/ birth control. I wish to distance myself from his remarks on birth control because I am not in favor of the many methods of used for birth control. To Mr. Jeffries credit he in no way endorsed abortion. PLEASE REFRAIN MAKING THIS STRING INTO A REFERENDUM ON ABORTION. IF YOU WISH TO START A SEPARATE STRING ON THIS TOPIC FEEL FREE TO DO SO, HOWEVER.
IMPORTANT ADDENDUM
Also, summer is a busy time for me due to my work. I also have some very initial symptoms of carpal tunnel (I am confident it will go away though if I in fact have it). I also wish to give people the chance to read the above book so they could have time to read the cummulative case that Mr. Jeffrey presents and thereby be able to provided well informed and intelligent commentary. With this in mind, I may not come back to this string in September or October (perhaps the carpal tunnel will be over quickly. I have read that very mild carpal tunnel can go away in one to three weeks). The book is about 300 pages long. I also wish to add that I have very little desire to comment on posts where people make comments without doing their due diligence (In all likelihood, you will have to read the book before providing any significant commentary but I could be wrong. I did provide quite a bit of resources above but it does not compare to reading Mr. Jeffrey's book which provides more in depth commentary on the feasts/fasts etc plus Mr. Jeffrey's book gives other evidence to support Bible prophecy).
Sincerely,
Ken
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