Epharta

The title of this post is not an error. That will become evident in the following discussion.

Ephratah (or Ephrath) is an ancient name for Bethlehem (בֵּית לֶחֶם Hebrew = house of bread), the prophesied birthplace of the Messiah (Micah 5:2), There were other places also known as Bethlehem so this town was called Bethlehem Ephrathah. This is the place where Jacob buried Rachel.

The Hebrew word אֶפְרָתָה (Ephrathah) comes from the root פרה (parah), meaning to be fruitful, or to increase. Strong’s 672. Genesis 35:16-19, 48:7; Micah 5:2

There are several communities named Ephratah: Efrah, Israel; Ephrata, Pennsylvania, Ephratah, New York; and Ephrata, Washington, with the town in Pennsylvania (USA), being in the national news in 2013.

Ephrata, Pennsylvania, which is of historical importance in its own right, became the focus of a national news story for what basically amounts to sloppiness and failure to attend to details. The problem was a highway sign reading 322 Epharta EXIT 2 Miles, which was noticed in 2013. Highway 322 is a United States Highway which is maintained by the Pennsylvania State Highway system.

Ephrata is pronounced as ef-rah-tah but the town name on the sign would be read as Ee-fart-uh. For readers unfamiliar with idiomatic English, a fart is the expulsion of bowel gas, usually very audibly evident. This sign clearly was a problem.

https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/local/misspelled-road-sign-costs-penndot-12k/1962842/

https://lancasteronline.com/news/did-you-catch-that-embarrassing-typo-on-the-sign-along-route-222-near-ephrata/article_4d7d85e4-6694-5a90-841f-dedee1a3ac6a.html

The historical importance of this small Pennsylvania town (2024 population 13,719) comes from the fact that it is the site of the first communal religious society in the United States, the Mystic Order of the Solitary. The buildings are now a tourist and pilgrimage site.

            In 1732, Johann Conrad Beissel (1691-1768) founded the pietist, pacifist, celibate, and ascetic

 group which was known locally as the Ephrata Cloister. Their doctrines identified them as Seventh Day

 Dunkers. The modern survivors of the group are Seventh Day Baptists.

Hello, Palestine!

 Hello, Palestine! 22 February 2026.

 

Hello, Palestine! Welcome to the world-wide group of readers from many countries who also visit this blog.  I hope you find some of the posts useful or meaningful. Tell your friends about this blog. Everyone is welcome.

 

أهلًا فلسطين! مرحبًا بكم في مجتمع القراء العالمي من مختلف البلدان الذين يزورون هذه المدونة أيضًا. أتمنى أن تجدوا بعضًا من منشوراتها مفيدًا أو ذا مغزى. أخبروا أصدقاءكم عن هذه المدونة. الجميع مرحب بهم.

 

As of 22 February, there have been 916,164 page views of this blog. The current number of posts is 1835. These posts can be searched using the Search This Blog function. An alphabetical list of subjects discussed on this blog is at the extreme bottom of the blog page under Labels and indicates the number of posts about the subject in question. The Translate This Page tool can present the blog in numerous languages.

 

The Labels section at the bottom of the page is useful in searching for all Saints on the Loose blog posts which mention a particular subject. Numerous subjects are mentioned on this blog. All, in one way or another, are pertinent to the purposes of this blog. Search for any word of interest to you. There are hundreds of labels on various subjects including grace, sanctification, film commentary, food, horror, magic, archaeology, Star Trek, sanctification, blood, Pee-Wee Herman, Spain, blasphemy, Star of Bethlehem, doctrine, humor, distracted driving, ekklesia, and Arianism.

 

            This blog has been viewed from at least one hundred and fifty-one countries including Albania, Algeria, Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Armenia, Aruba, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belarus, Belgium, Belize, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Brunei Darussalam, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Cambodia/Kampuchea, Canada, Cape Verde, Cayman Islands, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Democratic Republic of the Congo (Congo - Kinshasa), Denmark, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Estonia, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Gabon, Georgia, Germany,  Ghana, Greece, Grenada, Guam, Guyana, Honduras, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Ivory Coast/Core d'Ivoire, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kiribati, Kosovo, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Latvia, Lebanon, Lesotho, Libya, Lithuania, Luxembourg,  Macau, Macedonia, Madagascar, Malaysia, Mali, Malta, Mexico, Moldova, Mongolia, Morocco, Myanmar, Namibia, Nauru, Nepal, Netherlands, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Palau, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Republic of the Congo (Congo - Brazzaville), Reunion, Romania, Russia, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Suriname, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Tanzania, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Togo, Tunisia, Turkiye, Turkmenistan, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States of America, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, Vietnam,  Yemen, Zambia, Zimbabwe.

  

Hello, Cape Verde!

 

Hello, Cape Verde! 21 February 2026.

        Hello, Cape Verde!  Welcome to the world-wide group of readers from many countries who also visit this blog.  I hope you find some of the posts useful or meaningful. Tell your friends about this blog. Everyone is welcome.

       Olá, Cabo Verde! Bem-vindos ao nosso blog, onde recebemos leitores do mundo todo, de diversos países. Espero que encontrem artigos úteis e relevantes. Compartilhem com seus amigos. Sejam todos bem-vindos!      

        As of 21 February, there have been 915,986 page views of this blog. The current number of posts is 1835. These posts can be searched using the Search This Blog function. An alphabetical list of subjects discussed on this blog is at the extreme bottom of the blog page under Labels and indicates the number of posts about the subject in question. The Translate This Page tool can present the blog in numerous languages.

         The Labels section at the bottom of the page is useful in searching for all Saints on the Loose blog posts which mention a particular subject. Numerous subjects are mentioned on this blog. All, in one way or another, are pertinent to the purposes of this blog. Search for any word of interest to you. There are hundreds of labels on various subjects including grace, sanctification, film commentary, food, horror, magic, archaeology, Star Trek, sanctification, blood, Pee-Wee Herman, Spain, blasphemy, Star of Bethlehem, doctrine, humor, distracted driving, ekklesia, and Arianism.

         This blog has been viewed from at least one hundred and fifty countries including Albania, Algeria, Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Armenia, Aruba, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belarus, Belgium, Belize, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Brunei Darussalam, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Cambodia/Kampuchea, Canada, Cape Verde, Cayman Islands, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Democratic Republic of the Congo (Congo - Kinshasa), Denmark, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Estonia, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Gabon, Georgia, Germany,  Ghana, Greece, Grenada, Guam, Guyana, Honduras, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Ivory Coast/Core d'Ivoire, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kiribati, Kosovo, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Latvia, Lebanon, Lesotho, Libya, Lithuania, Luxembourg,  Macau, Macedonia, Madagascar, Malaysia, Mali, Malta, Mexico, Moldova, Mongolia, Morocco, Myanmar, Namibia, Nauru, Nepal, Netherlands, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Palau, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Republic of the Congo (Congo - Brazzaville), Reunion, Romania, Russia, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Suriname, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Tanzania, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Togo, Tunisia, Turkiye, Turkmenistan, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States of America, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, Vietnam,  Yemen, Zambia, Zimbabwe.

Trout Ice Cream

 If you enjoy making homemade ice cream, why not be adventurous? Try ice creams made with uncommon ingredients: pickles, corn, carrots, tofu, bacon, ham, avocados, butterbeans, etc.  Some of them sound as if they might be quite good. 

Japanese Iron Chef Hiroyuki Sakai is known to have made cod roe ice cream. In 2019, on Iron Chef America, chef Morimoto Masaharu, a fish expert, made trout ice cream. The judges unanimously told him to never make it again. 

A Christian understanding which can be taken from this event is that, in our Christian freedom, just because you can do something, that does not mean that you should or even that you must do it.

Surprisingly to me, the Google AI function expressed this very well. "Christian freedom does not mean a license to indulge in sinful desires or do whatever one pleases, but rather a freedom from the bondage of sin and an opportunity for serving others through love, as well as doing what is good, true, and beautiful in obedience to God's will. It is freedom to live a holy life, act in love, and serve others, not freedom to pursue fleeting desires or self-indulgence."

Who was Lydia?

 Lydia was the first gentile European convert to Christianity and was probably the richest commoner mentioned in the Bible. She was a merchant in Thyatira (in modern Turkiye) who sold purple cloth, an expensive luxury item which was only available to the very wealthy and especially to members of the royalty. The purple dye used was extracted from a special sea mollusk. Less well-off people used red dyes while most probably used no dyes at all. Lydia allowed Paul and Silas to use her home as a house church.

Acts 16:14-15.

Science in Antiquity: Part 7

 

Many modern people have a very limited view of history. They can only see or think about five or ten years into the past. They see history as boring and they think of the ancients as ignorant and backward. This was actually not true. What the ancients lacked was the modern accumulation of facts. An ancient Israelite would have been very puzzled and culture-shocked to have been dumped into the modern world, but he or she could have eventually learned to drive a car or to cook on a stove or to use a cellphone.

The ancients were just as intelligent as we are but the accumulation of scientific facts had not yet reached a critical point. Human knowledge took centuries to double, fact by fact. As knowledge accumulated, the rate of accumulation began to speed up. Every answer exposes a new question. Buckminster Fuller spoke of the Knowledge Doubling Curve which was relatively flat for centuries, then began a slow climb, and then went into an explosive upward thrust.

By the end of the 19^th Century, knowledge was doubling once per century. By about 1945, the rate of doubling was about every 25 years. By 1982, the rate was about every 12-13 months. By 2020, the doubling was occurring about every 12 hours. With at least 50,000,000,000 devices now operating and with the rise of artificial intelligence, the rate may now be in minutes.

 

387-312 BC/BCE: Life of the astronomer, Heraclides of Pontus. Among his statements; Venus and Mercury revolve around the sun; the Earth rotates on its axis once per day.

388 BC/BCE: Plato teaches that the sun, moon, and the planets move in perfect circlers around the Earth.

408 -355 BC/BCE: Eudoxus, a Greek astronomer and mathematician, explains the movements of the planets and calculates that the solar year is six hours longer than the stated 365 days.

426 BC/BCE: Thucydides correctly explains the cause of tsunamis.

428 BC/BCE: Death of Anaxogoras, a Greek philosopher whose students included Socrates, Pericles, and Euripides. He taught that matter is composed of tiny particles and that the heavenly bodies are large stones thrown from the Earth.

Come, Let Us Reason Together

 

Isaiah 1:18 begins in many translations as “Come let us reason together.” This is God calling to his people. God wants to talk with them and to settle a dispute. He is giving them a chance for repentance.

Many modern people see argument as hurtful, but traditional Jewish culture sees argument as healthy and productive. Come, let us reason together. Argue your points with respect and civility towards one another, examining everything from all possible sides. Argue as friends.

The rabbis speak of arguments for the sake of heaven and arguments not for the sake of heaven. A matter of degrees of importance.

Jews are famous for arguing, often seeming to enjoy it, without becoming hateful or personal with it. Some describe a good argument as something that spices or flavors life. A rabbinic study method is pilpul, which carries the idea of peppers, to spice, to season, and to violently dispute (the idea of getting hot like a pepper). The method examines every possible angle on a dispute until arriving at an agreed upon answer.

https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/12153-pilpul

Jews historically prefer reason over violence or force and argument over intimidation. Argument has even been described as a form of scholarship. Come let us reason together.

https://inheritmag.com/articles/the-jewish-way-to-argue-without-losing-friends

Modern Western society has become increasingly argumentative without the underlying brotherhood. Everyone pulls into their own camps and seeks to “cancel” those with whom they disagree. This even happens in our churches.

Maybe we would be wise to listen to Isaiah 1:18. After all, it is in our Bible.

______________________________________________________

לכו־נא ונוכחה    Isaiah 1:18 word study: A very loose approximation or paraphrase could be, “Come, let us walk alongside one another and discuss this.”

            Le-ku  לכו (from halak, Strong’s 1980), “Come,” an imperative or a command. It can also mean argue, reason, decide, or walk alongside.

            Na נא (na, Strong’s 4994), meaning now or pray. This is an article of exhortation or entreaty, giving a courteous urgency to the imperative or command. The one being addressed is being given respect as a person. Something like “now I pray you” or “now I request of you.”

            We-niw-wa-ke-hah ונוכחה (from yakach, Strong’s 3198), meaning dispute, argue, reason (together). The wa וְ is not usually translated but can mean something like and.