Today, there are 5,500 separate versions of the Bible to read

When Jesus was on earth, He was a Jew promoting the Jewish religion. Paul changed it to Jesus the Christ, the Savior who was crucified, died, and rose again. Paul converted Gentiles. Those Jews who expected a Messiah’s kingdom on earth were disappointed. The road to Damascus’s conversion of Saul to Paul changed everything. The book of Acts traces the spread of the good news. Of the 21 epistles, Paul wrote 14 of them (or maybe less), and others wrote the remaining 7 (or maybe more). Paul focused on what today is Turkey and Greece. Paul’s epistles were written. First, the rest followed.
Paul had been a Pharisee; they believed that the end was near. They were members of a party that believed in resurrection and following legal traditions that were ascribed not to the Bible but to “the fathers’ traditions.” Like the scribes, they were also well-known legal experts: hence the partial overlap of membership of the two groups. Paul thought that Jesus would be back before he was dead. Paul’s message was that you don’t have to be a Jew to be saved. The word rapture isn’t even in the New Testament. Paul’s epistles were written to the churches that he had started; their purpose was to fix things. Copies of his letters were kept and passed around. Knock-off letters were also circulated. The purpose of these re-writes was to get the author’s point of view out there. Written forgeries were rampant during the first century. Second Peter was the last New Testament book to be written. Paul took three significant trips to Asia Minor. Faith in Christ superseding Jewish law simplified things.
The Timothy and Titus writings were pastoral letters that Paul did not write; there were just written in the Pauline style. The spiritually gifted ran the churches. The church gatherings were held in houses.
There was no structure nor leadership. In Paul’s churches, women participated, in some of the other churches, not so much.
The Dead Sea scrolls contain no Christian writings. The Essenes wrote them; they were a Jewish sect. Their first followers were the Pharisees. The group’s second followers were the Sadducees. The third set of the sect’s followers were called Essenes. The Essene sect adhered to a stringent set of disciplines. All members were Jews by birth. The Sadducees were the party of high priests, aristocratic families, and merchants from the wealthier elements of the population. They came under the influence of Hellenism, tended to have good relations with the Roman rulers of Palestine, and generally represented the conservative view within Judaism. They seem to have a greater affection for each other than the other sects had. The scrolls range from small fragments to a complete scroll of the prophet Isaiah and every Hebrew Bible book except Esther and Nehemiah. When they fled, they stored their scrolls in desert caves. The desert’s dry air preserved the scrolls, for the most part.
Gnostics were dualists and worshiped two (or more) gods; Christians were monists who worshiped one God. Gnostics focused on the eradication of ignorance; Christian concern was the eradication of sin. Gnosticism says that humans are divine souls trapped in the ordinary physical (or material) world. They say that an imperfect spirit made the world. The inferior spirit is thought to be the same as the God of Abraham. Some Gnostic groups saw Jesus as sent by the supreme being to bring gnosis to the Earth.
Evil is now; good is later. (After good comes around). Visions usually end with the victory of interest.
- You’ve got it all wrong about John the Revelator.
Firstly, Revelations is written in obscure symbolism, which is subject to interpretation. Wrongful interruptions abound. Does John the Revelator use bizarre word pictures? Yeah, you bet. George Bernard Shaw called Revelations “a curious record of the visions of a drug addict.”Pictures of evil. The visions of the seven seals. John sees the throne room with the four beasts and the twenty-four elders; God holds a scroll with seven seals. The conquering lion wins via the slaughtered lamb. John uses word pictures to make his points. The Lamb gives to receive. Through the four horsemen, He shows the futility of battlefield conquests and the ruling power’s limits. Things are only momentarily within your control. Your accomplishments are fleeting at best. In the long run, nothing that you do measures up to the everlasting.A red dragon, a seven-headed beast, stars fall, the moon turns blood red, and the antichrist shows up. A cosmic battle between good and evil commences, and good triumphs. Demonic forces are everywhere, and deception becomes a way of life. It’s a disclosure story, written in the abstract. It is a vision of hope, and God wins. Sin loses to Grace.The book was written in Greek two thousand years ago. There were seven Christian churches in existence; all were within today’s Turkey. Turkey was a Greek culture living under Roman rule. The battle was fought with the Creator’s lamb Vs. the seven-headed dragon and the beast/harlot of Babylon. The book was instructive for those alive two thousand years ago. After good wins, you won’t be doing war, no more. Death gets swallowed up, and only life and peace remain. The Spirit of truth remains, and the spirit of deceit is gone. The Prince of light wins over the angel of darkness.. When the sixth seal is opened, nature melts down, and accountability shows up. Justice is at hand. In the new life, evil is gone. The new age began before the old generation was gone. Future hope arises from the trials and tribulations of now. Things have changed; faith, hope, and love shine through. Countless crowds are saved.The seven trumpets perspective is LSD on crack, for the most part. A third of everything gets torn asunder: hellfire rains down, a fiery mountain is cast into the sea, drinking water is undrinkable, the sky goes dark, demonic locusts ascend like helicopters from the underworld devouring everything. The seventh trumpet announces that the end is now. Or, looking at it another way: Admittedly, plagues and hellfires don’t beget much change of behavior on you anyway. Hope for the future inserts itself into the present. God’s purposes are redemptive; never lose sight of that. The beast’s purpose is death to you and wipes out justice every step of the way. So, If you make some changes, I’ll change the scenario that I’ve described: Try to do it right, repent, and be saved from the turmoil that I described. The ball is now in your court. Fix the worshipping community. Truth wins the war of words. Oppression also loses to spoken and written truth—tyranny and deception end. The door to the great abyss is opened wide, and the destroyers are cast inside. Justice wins in the future. The book of deeds and the book of life are opened. The final judgments are made. Divine grace decides. Alpha and omega are now one. A new creation is now at hand. Death and its destructive forces are gone. The rot of evil has been cast out. All remaining life is made new. The new transformation has been accomplished. The new Jerusalem is at hand, a world without end.
Revelations update: John the Revelator had the first century AD in mind when he wrote Revelations. The whore of Babylon was Rome.
The antichrist and the beast were also Rome. The seven heads7 mountains (Rome)
666 Was Nero.
Today, there are 5,500 separate versions of the Bible in existence, and no two are alike.

Christian values are still relevant today for a third of the world’s population; seventy percent of America’s population are Christian believers. Church attendance is slip-sliding away, but that is due to the decline of the culture, ethics, and the crumbling of the family unit. The Christian ideal has served as a moral compass for 2,000 years, but the culture is also damaging. The culture is causing some of the Christian moral compass precepts to lose focus also. Christian faith has always been foundational to Western cultures; it is becoming less so.

From Roman to Holy Roman Empire: The difference is the Roman Government oversaw the Roman Empire. The Holy Roman Empire was governed by the Holy Roman Emperor (the secular ruler) under the Vatican in Rome. The Roman Empire collapsed in 476 AD when the Goths sacked Rome. Holy Roman Empire, German the varying complex of lands in western and central Europe ruled over first by Frankish and then by German kings for ten centuries (800–1806).
The Holy Roman Empire was a feudal monarchy that encompassed present-day Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Austria, the Czech and Slovak Republics, and parts of eastern France, northern Italy, Slovenia, and western Poland at the start of the early modern centuries.
As heirs to the ancient Greeks and the Roman state, the Byzantines thought of themselves as Romans, though they knew they were ethnically Greeks.
Today, although the Byzantine Empire is long gone, Constantinople (now called Istanbul) flourishes and is still regarded as a crossroads, both literally and metaphorically, between Europe and Asia.
Latin dominates the Greek language. Cultural disruptions abound throughout the empire. After Rome fell, the Western territories disintegrated. Migrations were rampant in the Western regions. Persia and Islam split up the Western Holy Empire. The Franks, a Germanic tribe, took over much of Europe.
Clovis I was king of the Franks and ruler of much of Gaul from 481 to 511, a critical period during the transformation of the Roman Empire into Europe. His dynasty, the Merovingians, survived for more than 200 years. Though he was not the first Frankish king, he was the kingdom’s political and religious founder. Clovis I (465-511) founded the Merovingian kingdom of Gaul, the most successful of the barbarian states of the 5th century. He is widely regarded as the originator of the French nation; he converted the country to Christianity.
Charlemagne (c. 742-814), also known as Karl and Charles the Great, was a medieval emperor who ruled much of Western Europe from 768 to 814. In 771, Charlemagne became king of the Franks, a Germanic tribe in present-day Belgium, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and western Germany. He embarked on a mission to unite all Germanic peoples into one kingdom and convert his subjects to Christianity.
1000 A.D.–1300 A.D. The church wanted to develop a civilization in western Europe that was based on Christian ideals. By 1000, missionary monks had brought the Church’s teachings to most of Europe. … The Roman Catholic Church united western Europeans and took the lead in government, law, art, and learning for hundreds of years.

The Byzantine Empire | Saint John Chrysostom Albanian Orthodox Church

The longest-lasting empires, governments, or nations:

The Pandya Empire 1850 years. This society of Southern India is the longest-lasting empire in history. Byzantine Empire,1123 years.
Silla 992 years. Ethiopian Empire (837 years) Roman Empire 499 years.
THE GREATEST BOOK EVER WRITTEN, AGAIN AND AGAIN. The Hellenistic culture of the Jews read the Torah. It was for the conservatives and the Sadducees. The Septuagint is the Greek version of the Torah. The Hebrew Bible’s Greek translation is the Septuagint because 70 or 72 Jewish scholars took part in the translation process. Aramaic is a dialect of Hebrew. The Essenes were the pure ones; they lived in the desert. The Jews were divided by which version they followed. The New Testament was written in the seventy years following the death and resurrection of Jesus. The Christians used the Septuagint as their Old Testament. Note: Every translation loses and gains some of its nuances each time. Translations make differences in meaning. At first, the New Testament writings were scattered. Later, they were codified. From 100 Ad to 300 AD, the Roman Emperors tried to kill all Christians. The First Punic War between Carthage and the Romans was a decisive naval victory against the Carthaginians at the Agate Islands. The win gave Rome complete control of Sicily and Corsica. The end of the First Punic War saw the beginning of the Roman expansion beyond the Italian peninsula. In one of the most decisive battles in history, a large Roman army under Valens, the Roman emperor of the East, is defeated by the Visigoths at the Battle of Adrianople in present-day Turkey. Two-thirds of the Roman army, including Emperor Valens himself, were overrun and slaughtered by the mounted barbarians. 330 Ad, Constantine moved the capital to Constantinople (formally, Istanbul). In 1452 (after 1,100 years), the Romans were defeated by the forces of Islam. During the reign of the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great (AD 306–337), Christianity began to transition to the dominant religion of the Roman Empire. Constantine ruled the Roman Empire as the sole emperor for much of his reign. It was now the Jew’s time to be persecuted. Late in the fifth century, the Bible went from Imperial sponsorship to Royal Scripture. In the 1500s, moveable type showed up, and the wide distribution of the Bible happened. The new testament included the gentiles twenty years after Jesus was gone. They didn’t need to be circumcised nor follow the 613 commands of the Torah. The New Testament writings emerged from community experiences generated from assemblies of the faithful. Perspectives are all over the place; some are self-evident, while others are self-validating. The poor and the oppressed are usually the core audience. What to leave in and what to leave out is decided along the way. Preaching a point of view is a slippery slope. The Jews were diverse and divided. The scattered Jews mostly spoke Greek. Gabriel allegedly shows up to Mohamed and recites a monologue, and Islam is born. The Christians used the Septuagint as their Old Testament. In the New Testament, the Word was conveyed orally. Then the letters of Paul were added. The message that Jesus is the Lord/God was the overriding good news. The first Gospel is Mark (not Matthew), written around 70. Revelation is not last, but almost in the middle, registered in the 90s.In one fell swoop, Jesus had gone from an outcast, a failed messiah, hung on a cross, to the Son of God. Gentiles now had salvation, also. Biblical inerrancy is an innovation of the last few centuries, becoming widespread in American Protestantism, beginning only a hundred years ago. It is affirmed primarily on “independent” Protestant churches, not part of “mainline” Protestant denominations. Catholics have never proclaimed the inerrancy or infallibility of the Bible; the canon of the New Testament books was written before 120 AD. For the Orthodox, the recognition of these writings as authoritative was formalized in the Second Council of Trullan of 692. Rabbinic Judaism recognizes the twenty-four books of the Masoretic Text, commonly called the Tanakh (Hebrew) or Hebrew Bible.^[7] Evidence suggests that the process of canonization occurred between 200 BC and 200 AD. A popular position is that the Torah has canonized c. 400 BC, the Prophets c. 200 BC, and the Writings c. 100 AD^[8]. In contrast, the priestly Sadducees taught that the written Torah was the only source of revelation; the Pharisees admitted the principle of evolution in the law: humans must use their reason to interpret the Torah and apply it to contemporary problems. The Jerusalem Talmud, also known as the Palestinian Talmud^[1]^[2] or Talmud de-Eretz (Talmud of the Land of Israel), is a collection of Rabbinic notes on the second-century Jewish oral tradition known as the Mishnah. The Talmud is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (halakha) and Jewish theology.^[1]^[2] Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the centerpiece of Jewish cultural life. It was foundational to all Jewish thought and aspirations, serving as “the guide for the daily life” of Jews. Gnostics considered the principal element of salvation to be direct knowledge of the supreme divinity in the form of mystical or esoteric insight. Gnostic texts deal not in concepts of sin and repentance but with illusion and enlightenment; Gnosticism says humans are divine souls trapped in the ordinary physical (or material) world. They say that an imperfect spirit made the world. The inferior nature is thought to be the same as the God of Abraham. Some Gnostic groups saw Jesus as sent by the supreme being to bring gnosis to the Earth. The Zealots were a political movement in 1st-century Second Temple Judaism that sought to incite the people of Judea Province to rebel against the Roman Empire and expel it from the Holy Land by force of arms during the First Jewish–Roman War (66–70). Jerusalem has been destroyed twice during its long history, besieged 23 times, attacked 52 times, and captured and recaptured 44 times. Egypt and Syria started aesthetic monasteries around 400 AD. In the West, everyday life in a community mode monasteries was started up. For a thousand years, they churned out biblical and secular manuscripts. The monostatic life of work and prayer did the job of God. Concurrently, the Jews were marginalized in the West. They couldn’t own land, and they were rebuked and scorned.
- - - The Roman Empire and the Bible combined. Constantine stood out because he became a Christian and unabashedly made Jesus the patron of his army. By 313, just two contenders remained Constantine and Lucinids. The two jointly issued the Edict of Milan, which made Christianity a legal religion and officially ended the persecution. The Jews have no homeland and no temple.
      
      Early Christianity was a diverse phenomenon. This diversity also appears within the New Testament. Apocalyptic literature appears in both early Judaism and early Christianity. It was one manifestation of the typical eschatological trends of the time and the expectation of a crisis in world history.
      
      Many apocalypses were written in the name of and from the perspective of a significant religious figure of the past: Moses, Elijah, Enoch, or some other figure “foresees” in the fictitious time of composition the real-time of writing.
      
      The Old Testament prophesied, and the New Testament fulfilled the prophesies. The holy book of the first Christians was the collection of Jewish writings that Christians call the Old Testament. In particular, the Greek translation of the Old Testament – the Septuagint – achieved a strong position among Christians.
      
      The New Testament is a collection of early Christian literature, which together with the Old Testament forms the Holy Scriptures of the Christian churches. The origin of the New Testament was a multi-stage process. At the end of the second century, it began to be evident which of these writings would be accepted as part of the New Testament and which would remain outside it. There was still some controversy in the West over the Letter to the Hebrews and in the East over the status of the Revelation of John. In addition, the fate of the so-called catholic epistles, that is, the letters of Peter, John, James, and Jude, was thoroughly considered in the 3rd and 4th centuries. It was finally decided to include them.
      
      In its present form, the NT comprises 27 books, the central part of which contains the four Gospels, which tell of the life and teaching of Jesus, and several letters and epistolary writings. In addition, the NT includes a book called The Acts of the Apostles, which tells the story of the first Christians, and the apocalyptic work The Revelation of John.
      
      The books of the NT were written in Greek, and they date from c.50-150 A.D. in Christian circles and on the fringes of the church, there were interpretations of Christianity which the mainline church ultimately rejected. It also dismissed the literature that promoted such ideas. One such tendency was Gnosticism.
      
      Bibles of Constantine were in the original Greek language commissioned in 331 by Constantine.
- - - - Translations of the Christian Bible are canonized. The Jews replaced the Hellenized version that the Christians used. The New Testament is written in Greek, the quality of which varies from writer to writer. The language of some New Testament books has been influenced by the fact that the mother tongue of Jesus and his first disciples were not Greek but Aramaic.
        
        In the New Testament, the word gospel always means the oral preaching of the Christian message of salvation. The oldest manuscripts containing the whole New Testament are from the 4th century. The oldest known fragment of the New Testament is from the first half of the 2nd century, a copy of a passage from John’s Gospel. The original Greek version of the New Testament was translated into Latin. Narrative Gospels are thematic descriptions of the life and work of Jesus.
        
        Jerome. In 382, Pope Damascus commissioned Jerome, the leading biblical scholar of his day, to produce an acceptable Latin version of the Bible from the various translations then being used. His revised Latin translation of the Gospels appeared about 383. Jerome’s version lasted for 1,000 years. Latin became the language of the Holy Roman church.
        
        Rome had taken over Greek cultures. Paul wrote in Greek. The military used Latin. North Africa Latinized first. Coptic and Syrian language translations came soon after. He was followed by Armenian, Georgian, and Ethiopian versions. Persian and Asia Minor versions were next.
        
        Ian monasticism is the devotional practice of Christians who live ascetic and typically cloistered lives dedicated to Christian worship. It began to develop early in the history of the Christian Church, modeled upon scriptural examples and ideals, including those in the Old Testament, but not mandated as an institution in the scriptures. The Eastern monasteries were built on self-denial, work and prayer, and solitude. The Western monasteries were communal and everyday life within the community. They were living a life of obedience, along with prayer and work. Scripture-based learning. Farming. They were islands of knowledge and order. Both types fled the world. They ramped up, big time, during the dark ages. They both produced Biblically and secular manuscripts. The work of God, and prayer.
- The inconsistencies and contradictions within the biblical text are there for you to work out. Vagueness has its purpose. The Jewish Torah, with its 613 rules and resolutions, is not in the Christian Bible. The mural law dictums are included. God only tests; he does not tempt. In the Protestant bibles, faith trumps good works.

During the Middle Ages, a period between the fall of ancient Rome in 476 A.D. and the beginning of the 14th century, Europeans made few advances in science and art. Also known as the “Dark Ages,” the era is often branded as a time of war, ignorance, famine, and pandemics such as the Black Death. Renaissance” is a French word meaning “rebirth.” The period is called by this name because, at that time, people started taking an interest in the learning of ancient times, in particular, the teaching of Ancient Greece and Rome. The Renaissance was seen as a “rebirth” of that learning. Humanism was started.

The Reformation began in 1517 when a German monk called Martin Luther protested about the Catholic Church. His followers became known as Protestants. Many people and governments adopted the new Protestant ideas, while others remained faithful to the Catholic Church. This led to a split in the Church. The Protestant Reformation that Martin Luther sparked continued into the next century. The Catholic Church eliminated the sale of indulgences and other abuses that Luther had attacked. Catholics also formed their Counter-Reformation that used both persuasion and violence to turn back Protestantism. The most outstanding leaders of the Reformation undoubtedly were Martin Luther and John Calvin. Martin Luther precipitated the Reformation with his critiques of both the practices and the theology of the Roman Catholic Church. John Calvin was the most crucial figure in the second generation of the Reformation, and his interpretation of Christianity, known as Calvinism, profoundly influenced many areas of Protestant thought. Other statistics included Pope Leo X, who excommunicated Luther; the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, who essentially declared war on Protestantism; Henry VIII, king of England, who presided over establishing an independent Church of England; and Huldrych Zwingli, a Swiss reformer.

Counter-Reformation, also called Catholic Reformation or Catholic Revival, in the history of Christianity, the Roman Catholic efforts directed in the 16th and early 17th centuries both against the Protestant Reformation and toward internal renewal. Counter-Reformation took place during roughly the same period as the Protestant Reformation.
The effects of the Counter–Reformation on European society. Protestant groups develop. Church leaders reformed the Catholic Church. Anti-Semitism increased, and religious conflicts spread across Europe.
Council of Trent, the 19th ecumenical council of the Roman Catholic Church, was held in three parts from 1545 to 1563. Despite internal strife and two lengthy interruptions, the board was a vital part of the Counter-Reformation and played a crucial role in revitalizing the Roman Catholic Church in many parts of Europe. The Council of Trent took place in the city of Trent (Trento) in northern Italy.
The Jewish Torah had the five books of Moses, 21 books of the prophets, and 13 books of writings = 39 books,
After the Reformation, the Protestant Bible has 39 Old Testament books, 27 books in the New Testament = 66 books.
The Catholic bible has 47 Old Testament and 27 New Testament = 74 books.
The Eastern Orthodox has 39 Old Testament books, 27 New Testament, plus 11 books from the Septuagint = 77 books. Note: Apocrypha (meaning not canonical) ARE NOT INCLUDED IN ALL THREE VERSIONS).
Luther translated the bible into German. Spanish was completed in 1430 and 1569. Dutch in 1637. French in 1530. Hungarian in 1541. Slavic in 1488.Polish in 1597.
Early Modern English Bible translations are between 1500 and 1800, the period of Early Modern English. This, the first significant period of Bible translation into the English language, began with introducing the Tyndale Bible.^[8]^{[self-published source?]} The first complete edition of his New Testament was in 1526. William Tyndale used the Greek and Hebrew texts of the New Testament (NT) and Old Testament (OT) and Jerome‘s Latin translation. He was the first translator to use the printing press – this enabled the distribution of several thousand copies of his New Testament translation throughout England. Tyndale did not complete his Old Testament translation.^[9]
Henry VIII (28 June 1491 – 28 January 1547) was King of England from 1509 until 1547. Henry is best known for his six marriages and, in particular, his efforts to have his first marriage (to Catherine of Aragon) annulled. His disagreement with Pope Clement VII on such an annulment led Henry to initiate the English Reformation, separating the Church of England from papal authority. He appointed himself Supreme Head of the Church of England and dissolved convents and monasteries, for which he was excommunicated.
Henry VIII is England’s most married monarch. He had six wives in total between 1509 and 1547.

Followers of the Christian religion base their beliefs on the life, teachings, and death of Jesus Christ. Christians believe in one God that created heaven, earth, and the universe. The idea of one God originated with the Jewish religion. Christians believe Jesus is the “Messiah” or savior of the world.
King Henry VIII ruled England for 36 years (1509-1547), presiding over the beginnings of the English Renaissance and Protestant Reformation.
The Tyndale Bible generally refers to biblical translations by William Tyndale (c. 1494–1536). Tyndale’s Bible is credited with being the first English translation to work directly from Hebrew and Greek texts. Furthermore, it was the first English biblical translation that was mass-produced due to new advances in the art of printing.
The King James Bible (KJB), sometimes as the English version of 1611, or simply the Authorized Version (AV), is an English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England, commissioned in 1604 and completed as well as published in 1611 under the sponsorship of James VI .^] The books of the King James Version include the 39 books of the Old Testament, an intertestamental section containing 14 books of the Apocrypha, and the 27 books of the New Testament.
Christianity started with unity of purpose, then drifted into a diversity of thought situation. Legalism and institutionalism then set in.
The Puritans were members of a religious reform movement known as Puritanism that arose within the Church of England in the late 16th century. They believed the Church of England was too similar to the Roman Catholic Church and should eliminate ceremonies and practices not rooted in the Bible.
Translating the Bible:
After the Reformation, many new translations were brought out, Catholic versions and non-Catholic ones. Some errors were passed on. There were thousands of variations in the manuscripts, fewer in the printed versions. Texts tend to expand, not contract when translating.
The Age of Enlightenment: An European intellectual movement of the late 17th and 18th centuries emphasizing reason and individualism rather than tradition. It was heavily influenced by 17th-century philosophers such as Descartes, Locke, and Newton, and its prominent exponents include Kant, Goethe, Voltaire, Rousseau, and Adam Smith. The Enlightenment, a philosophical movement that dominated Europe during the 18th century, was centered around the idea that reason is the primary source of authority and legitimacy and advocated such ideals as liberty, progress, tolerance, fraternity, constitutional government, and separation of church and state. Francis bacon’s works are credited with developing the scientific method and remained influential through the scientific revolution. Bacon has been called the father of empiricism. His works argued for the possibility of scientific knowledge based only upon inductive reasoning and careful observation of events in nature—rationality rules.
KILLING FOR CHRIST:
30 Years War: The war originated in differences between German Protestants and Catholics, which were temporarily settled by the 1555 Peace of Augsburg but were gradually undermined by political and religious tensions. In 1618, the Bohemian Estates deposed the Catholic Ferdinand II as King of Bohemia. They offered the Crown to the Protestant Frederick V of the Palatinate, who accepted. Regardless of religion, most German princes refused to support him, and by early 1620, the Bohemian Revolt had been suppressed. After 1560, the Protestant cause was deeply divided by the growth of Calvinism, a Reformed faith not recognized by Augsburg; Lutheran states like Saxony viewed Calvinists in the Palatinate and Brandenburg with mistrust, paralyzing Imperial institutions.^[18] In addition, rulers might share the same religion but have different economic and strategic objectives; for much of the war, the Papacy supported France against the Habsburgs. The chief agents of the Counter-Reformation were similarly split, the Jesuits generally backing Austria, the Capuchins France.^[19]
For centuries, before Jewish emancipation, European Jews were forced to live in ghettos where Jewish culture and religious observance were preserved. The change began in the wake of the Age of Enlightenment when some European liberals sought to include the Jewish population in the emerging empires and nation-states. The influence of the Haskalah movement^[38] (Jewish Enlightenment) was also evident. Supporters of the Haskalah held that Judaism must change in keeping with the social changes around them. Other Jews insisted on strict adherence to halakha (Jewish law and custom).

Jewish religious movements, sometimes called “denominations” or “branches,” include different groups developed among Jews from ancient times. Today, the main division is between “traditional Judaism” (Orthodox and Conservative) and Reform, with several smaller movements alongside them. This denominational structure is mainly present in the United States, while in Israel, the fault lines are between Haredi Judaism (Haredim), Religious Zionism (Datim), Masorti (traditional), and Hiloni (secular) Jews. For centuries, before Jewish emancipation, European Jews were forced to live in ghettos where Jewish culture and religious observance were preserved. The change began in the wake of the Age of Enlightenment when some European liberals sought to include the Jewish population in the emerging empires and nation-states. The influence of the Haskalah movement^[38] (Jewish Enlightenment) was also evident. Supporters of the Haskalah held that Judaism must change in keeping with the social changes around them. Other Jews insisted on strict adherence to halakha (Jewish law and custom). Zionism is both an ideology^[1]^[2]^[3] and nationalist^{[fn 1]} movement among the Jewish people that espouses the re-establishment of and support for^[6] a Jewish state in the territory defined as the historic Land of Israel (roughly corresponding to Canaan, the Holy Land, or the region of Palestine).^[7]^[8]^[9]^[10] Modern Zionism emerged in the late 19th century in Central and Eastern Europe as a national revival movement, both in reaction to newer antisemitism and response to Haskalah, or Jewish Enlightenment.^[11]^[12]^[13] Soon after this, most movement leaders associated the main goal with creating the desired state in Palestine, then an area controlled by the Ottoman Empire.^[14]^[15]^[16]

- - - The three major doctrinal concerns of the early Church were evil, the soul-body distinction, and issues of sin and redemption. In the Confessions, St. Augustine searches for explanations of these problems, first in Manichaeism, then (Neo)Platonism, and finally Christianity. Underlying this narrative are Augustine’s ideas of opposition to perfectionism, his exaltation of grace, and the notion of sin as memorable, not solvable.

Today, there are 5,500 separate versions of the Bible to read

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