I have been an avid fan of “Kitchen Nightmares” with Gordon Ramsey for a couple of years. While I am not a fan of his abusive language I do like to see the transformation that he makes in the restaurants he visits. In each case the chef of the restaurant has become overwhelmed and lost their passion for cooking. They have lost their edge and creativity and have slid into a survival mode. They have allowed the grease and dirt to accumulate and they have lowered their standards especially in the area of the food that they serve. They start taking shortcuts in preparing the meal, shortcuts in the quality of the food used, etc. In most all cases the chef is unaware that the food that they are serving is substandard. When they are told of their substandard quality they become defensive. Financially the restaurant is failing because of a lack of patrons because of the reputation that the restaurant has in the community. The patrons which do come have low expectations and come because it is convenient or because they can see people they know. They are in need of Gordon’s help to relaunch their restaurant and bring back their passion. It is only after Gordon has caused them to face reality that they are ready to make a change.

One day as I was driving I was thinking about the Kitchen Nightmare program and started to think of how it describes many of the churches in America and their pastors. There are many churches that have a pastor that was once very passionate and creative. However, over time the pastor has become overwhelmed with the day to day responsibilities and has lost their passion. They have allowed things to build up and they have lowered their standards in the spiritual food that they serve. They have started to look for shortcuts in preparation and delivery. They have entered a survival mode and many are unaware that the food that they serve is substandard leaving their congregants hungry. If they were told that their food was substandard they would be appalled and feel disrespected. They have lost their edge and creativity. Many of the people that they serve on a weekly basis come with little expectation and come more out of a sense of convenience or come to visit people that they know.

During the period of the Tanach, Israel had the prophets who would challenge the king and the people and bring back their passion for HaShem. During the First Century Yeshua challenged the religious leaders and the people to bring them to a closer relationship with HaShem. In some cases he challenged the quality of the teaching that was put forth to the people. Today the religious world is in a need for a Gordon Ramsey to come and challenge them, to reveal to them the areas in which they have let go and their food standards.

As teachers we need to examine what we put out and examine to see if we are cutting corners and sacrificing the quality and level of the teaching. We may need to be honest with ourselves admitting that we have lost our passion and be willing to change.

American textbooks now make the same claim as Arab texts by claiming that Jesus was a a young Palestinian and three mega-publishers in Texas and California approve and publish a textbook which claims:

• Jesus was a "Palestinian," not a Jew.
• The Arab nations never attacked Israel. Arab-Israeli wars “just broke out,” or Israel started them
• Arabs nations want peace, but Israel does not
• Israel expelled all Palestinian refugees
• Israel put the Palestinians in refugee camps in Arab lands, not Arab governments
• Palestinian terrorism is nonexistent or minimal
• Israel is not a victim of terrorism, or terrorism against Israel is justified
• U.S. support of Israel causes terrorism, including 9/11
• The intifadas were children’s revolts not involving adults or terrorism

JERUSALEM — A three-foot-tall tablet with 87 lines of Hebrew that scholars believe dates from the decades just before the birth of Jesus is causing a quiet stir in biblical and archaeological circles, especially because it may speak of a messiah who will rise from the dead after three days.

When David Jeselsohn bought an ancient tablet, above, he was unaware of its significance.

If such a messianic description really is there, it will contribute to a developing re-evaluation of both popular and scholarly views of Jesus, since it suggests that the story of his death and resurrection was not unique but part of a recognized Jewish tradition at the time.

The tablet, probably found near the Dead Sea in Jordan according to some scholars who have studied it, is a rare example of a stone with ink writings from that era — in essence, a Dead Sea Scroll on stone.

It is written, not engraved, across two neat columns, similar to columns in a Torah. But the stone is broken, and some of the text is faded, meaning that much of what it says is open to debate.

Still, its authenticity has so far faced no challenge, so its role in helping to understand the roots of Christianity in the devastating political crisis faced by the Jews of the time seems likely to increase.

Daniel Boyarin, a professor of Talmudic culture at the University of California at Berkeley, said that the stone was part of a growing body of evidence suggesting that Jesus could be best understood through a close reading of the Jewish history of his day.

“Some Christians will find it shocking — a challenge to the uniqueness of their theology — while others will be comforted by the idea of it being a traditional part of Judaism,” Mr. Boyarin said.

Given the highly charged atmosphere surrounding all Jesus-era artifacts and writings, both in the general public and in the fractured and fiercely competitive scholarly community, as well as the concern over forgery and charlatanism, it will probably be some time before the tablet’s contribution is fully assessed. It has been around 60 years since the Dead Sea Scrolls were uncovered, and they continue to generate enormous controversy regarding their authors and meaning.

The scrolls, documents found in the Qumran caves of the West Bank, contain some of the only known surviving copies of biblical writings from before the first century A.D. In addition to quoting from key books of the Bible, the scrolls describe a variety of practices and beliefs of a Jewish sect at the time of Jesus.

How representative the descriptions are and what they tell us about the era are still strongly debated. For example, a question that arises is whether the authors of the scrolls were members of a monastic sect or in fact mainstream. A conference marking 60 years since the discovery of the scrolls will begin on Sunday at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, where the stone, and the debate over whether it speaks of a resurrected messiah, as one iconoclastic scholar believes, also will be discussed.

Oddly, the stone is not really a new discovery. It was found about a decade ago and bought from a Jordanian antiquities dealer by an Israeli-Swiss collector who kept it in his Zurich home. When an Israeli scholar examined it closely a few years ago and wrote a paper on it last year, interest began to rise. There is now a spate of scholarly articles on the stone, with several due to be published in the coming months.

“I couldn’t make much out of it when I got it,” said David Jeselsohn, the owner, who is himself an expert in antiquities. “I didn’t realize how significant it was until I showed it to Ada Yardeni, who specializes in Hebrew writing, a few years ago. She was overwhelmed. ‘You have got a Dead Sea Scroll on stone,’ she told me.”

Much of the text, a vision of the apocalypse transmitted by the angel Gabriel, draws on the Old Testament, especially the prophets Daniel, Zechariah and Haggai.

Ms. Yardeni, who analyzed the stone along with Binyamin Elitzur, is an expert on Hebrew script, especially of the era of King Herod, who died in 4 B.C. The two of them published a long analysis of the stone more than a year ago in Cathedra, a Hebrew-language quarterly devoted to the history and archaeology of Israel, and said that, based on the shape of the script and the language, the text dated from the late first century B.C.

There are several problems associated with this stone:

1) We do not have information on where it was found, by whom, when, documentation, etc.

2) Although its authenticity has not yet been challenged publicly, I am afraid that it is another scam to make Christianity look foolish.

3) There are large areas on the stone where the text has faded or is missing which lends to many assumptions.