Penina Taylor | |
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Website | peninataylor |
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Penina Taylor is an American-born international Jewish inspirational and motivational speaker, life coach, and author. She became well known for the story of her spiritual journey, but now speaks on topics related to personal growth and marriage, as well as spirituality. Penina is the Executive Director of the Shomrei Emet Institute for Counter-Missionary Studies, and the founder of Torah Life Strategies. [1] Shomrei Emet was briefly affiliated with the counter-missionary organization, Jews for Judaism, Jerusalem, during 2008. [2]
Since November 2018, Taylor has hosted a weekly podcast called "Leap of Faith" on IsraelTalkNewsRadio.com, a Fox News Radio affiliate. [3]
Penina was born into a secular Jewish home in Lakewood Township, New Jersey. [4] After a traumatic childhood, Penina embraced Christianity in high school, and then went on to Miami Christian College (Now Trinity University) where she obtained a Bible Certificate. In college, Penina became certified in the Evangelism Explosion (EE) program, was trained and served as a counselor with the Billy Graham Crusade several times, and was certified as a "crisis pregnancy counselor".
Shortly after leaving Miami Christian College, Penina married Paul Taylor, who had attended Moody Bible Institute, and the two of them continued to serve in lay leadership positions in a variety of churches.
In 1991, Paul and Penina became involved in the Messianic movement, and in 1994, along with Penina's parents, started the Messianic congregation, Knesset Hashuvim, in Bowie, Maryland. During this time, Penina began reading books about Orthodox Judaism, and the four leaders adopted the concept of "Torah-Observant Messianic Judaism". Penina's father, Yeshayahu Heiliczer, established the "Association of Torah-Observant Messianics", or ATOM. [5]
After moving to Baltimore, Maryland, in 2000, while still "Messianic Jews", Paul and Penina began to attend an Orthodox synagogue where they were introduced by the rabbi to the (then) director of Jews for Judaism, Mark Powers. As a result of their discussion with Mark, Penina rejected Jesus as the Jewish messiah, and adopted Orthodox Judaism. [6]
In 2009, Penina published her first book, Coming Full Circle: A Jewish Woman's Journey through Christianity and Back, which narrates her spiritual journey through Evangelical Christianity, "Messianic Judaism", and, finally, Orthodox Judaism. [7]
In 2011, Penina published her second book, Scripture Twisting, which examines Christian claims for the messiahship of Jesus, and the Jewish response to these claims. [8]
In addition to publishing her books, Penina lectures and teaches around the world at Jewish centers, seminaries, and yeshivas, discussing her religious journey at synagogues and with youth groups, engaging in Jewish polemics against Messianic-Christian interpretations of the Hebrew Bible, and opines on the nature of the relationship between Israel and Evangelical Christianity. [9]
More recently, Penina has been teaching on personal growth, marriage, and relationships. [10]
Christianity began as a movement within Second Temple Judaism, but the two religions gradually diverged over the first few centuries of the Christian Era. Today, differences of opinion vary between denominations in both religions, but the most important distinction is Christian acceptance and Jewish non-acceptance of Jesus as the Messiah prophesied in the Hebrew Bible and Jewish tradition. Early Christianity distinguished itself by determining that observance of halakha was not necessary for non-Jewish converts to Christianity. Another major difference is the two religions' conceptions of God. The Christian God consists of three persons of one essence, with the doctrine of the incarnation of the Son in Jesus being of special importance. Judaism emphasizes the Oneness of God and rejects the Christian concept of God in human form. While Christianity recognizes the Hebrew Bible as part of its scriptural canon, Judaism does not recognize the Christian New Testament.
Judaism is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and widely an ethnic religion. It comprises the collective spiritual, cultural, and legal traditions of the Jewish people, having originated as an organized religion in the Middle East during the Bronze Age. Contemporary Judaism evolved from Yahwism, the cultic religious movement of ancient Israel and Judah, around the 6th/5th century BCE, and is thus considered to be one of the oldest monotheistic religions. Religious Jews regard Judaism as their means of observing the Mosaic covenant, which was established between God and the Israelites, their ancestors. Along with the Samaritanism, Judaism is one of the two oldest Abrahamic religions.
Jewish eschatology is the area of Jewish theology concerned with events that will happen in the end of days and related concepts. This includes the ingathering of the exiled diaspora, the coming of the Jewish Messiah, the afterlife, and the resurrection of the dead. In Judaism, the end times are usually called the "end of days", a phrase that appears several times in the Tanakh.
In Judaism, the Seven Laws of Noah, otherwise referred to as the Noahide Laws or the Noachian Laws, are a set of universal moral laws which, according to the Talmud, were given by God as a covenant with Noah and with the "sons of Noah"—that is, all of humanity.
Jews for Jesus is an international Christian missionary organization headquartered in San Francisco, California that is affiliated with the Messianic Jewish religious movement. The group is known for its proselytism of Jews and promotes the belief that Jesus is the Christ and the Son of God. It was founded in 1970 by Moishe Rosen as Hineni Ministries before being incorporated under its current name in 1973.
Messianic Judaism is a modernist and syncretic movement of Protestant Christianity that incorporates some elements of Judaism and other Jewish traditions into the Christian movement of evangelicalism.
Religious pluralism is a set of religious world views that hold that one's religion is not the sole and exclusive source of truth, and thus recognizes that some level of truth and value exists in other religions. As such, religious pluralism goes beyond religious tolerance, which is the condition of peaceful existence between adherents of different religions or religious denominations.
The Messiah in Judaism is a savior and liberator figure in Jewish eschatology who is believed to be the future redeemer of the Jews. The concept of messianism originated in Judaism, and in the Hebrew Bible a messiah is a king or High Priest of Israel traditionally anointed with holy anointing oil. However, messiahs were not exclusively Jewish, as the Hebrew Bible refers to Cyrus the Great, Achaemenid Emperor, as a messiah for his decree to rebuild the Jerusalem Temple.
Christian−Jewish reconciliation refers to the efforts that are being made to improve understanding and acceptance between Christians and Jews. There has been significant progress in reconciliation in recent years, in particular by the Catholic Church, but also by other Christian groups.
Carol Harris-Shapiro is a lecturer at Temple University in the Intellectual Heritage Department. She has written a controversial book on Messianic Judaism, a belief system considered by most Christians and Jews to be a form of Christianity, adhered to by groups that seek to combine Christianity and Judaism.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has several unique teachings about Judaism and the House of Israel. The largest denomination in the Latter Day Saint movement, the LDS Church, teaches the belief that the Jewish people are God's chosen people and it also teaches the belief that its members share a common and literal Israelite ancestry with the Jewish people.
Adherents of Judaism believe that Jesus of Nazareth was not the Messiah nor "the Son of God". In the Jewish perspective, it is believed that the way Christians see Jesus goes against monotheism, a belief in the absolute unity and singularity of God, which is central to Judaism; the worship of a person is seen by them as a form of idolatry. Therefore, considering Jesus divine, as “God the Son”, is forbidden according to Judaism. Judaism's rejection of Jesus as the Messiah is based on Jewish eschatology, which holds that the coming of the true Messiah will be associated with events that have not yet occurred, such as the rebuilding of The Temple, a Messianic Age of peace, and the ingathering of Jews to their homeland.
A number of religious groups, particularly Christians and Muslims, are involved in proselytization of Jews: Attempts to recruit or "missionize" Jews. In response, some Jewish groups have formed counter-missionary organizations to discourage missionary and messianic groups such as Jews for Jesus from using practices that they say are deceptive.
Ger toshav is a halakhic term used in Judaism to designate the legal status of a Gentile (non-Jew) living in the Land of Israel who does not want to convert to Judaism but agrees to observe the Seven Laws of Noah, a set of imperatives which, according to the Talmud, were given by God as a binding set of universal moral laws for the "sons of Noah"—that is, all of humanity. A ger toshav, especially one who decides to follow the Noahic covenant out of religious belief rather than ethical reasoning, is commonly deemed a "Righteous Gentile", and is assured of a place in the World to Come .
Religion in Israel is manifested primarily in Judaism, the ethnic religion of the Jewish people. The State of Israel declares itself as a "Jewish and democratic state" and is the only country in the world with a Jewish-majority population. Other faiths in the country include Islam, Christianity and the religion of the Druze people. Religion plays a central role in national and civil life, and almost all Israeli citizens are automatically registered as members of the state's 14 official religious communities, which exercise control over several matters of personal status, especially marriage. These recognized communities are Orthodox Judaism, Islam, the Druze faith, the Catholic Church, Greek Orthodox Church, Syriac Orthodox Church, Armenian Apostolic Church, Anglicanism, and the Baháʼí Faith.
The Hebrew Christian movement of the 19th and early 20th centuries consisted of Jews who converted to Christianity, but worshiped in congregations separate from denominational churches. In many cases, they retained some Jewish practices and liturgy, with the addition of readings from the Christian New Testament. The movement was incorporated into the parallel Messianic Jewish movement in the late 1960s.
Lev L'Achim, or P'eylim Lev L'Achim, is a Jewish educational organization operating in Israel. It has an American non-profit 501(c)3 affiliate of the same name.
Yad L'Achim is a Haredi Jewish organization operating in Israel focusing on outreach, counter-missionary work, and opposition to interfaith marriage. Yad L'Achim is made up of both paid staff and volunteers, and is largely supported by donations, both from Israel and the Diaspora.
Masortim is an Israeli Hebrew term for Jews who perceive and define themselves as neither strictly religious (dati) nor secular (hiloni). Their affinity is mainly to mohels and rabbis of Orthodox Judaism, and in 2015 they comprised roughly one-third of the Jewish population in Israel.
Israel College of the Bible, also known as ONE FOR ISRAEL Bible College is a private Hebrew-speaking Messianic Bible college in Netanya, Israel. It is an independent academically accredited institution not recognized by the State of Israel.