The majority of what we have come to know about Barry and the Vale of Glamorgan in which it is to be found, has been gathered from the observation of old properties in the area. However, many of these are in a very bad state and have been for a very long time. There are also legendary tales like the one about Joseph of Arimathea, who traded tin across the channel in Glastonbury and was one of the first missionaries to the country.
A very active retired pastor of 40 years gave me quite a caning with this Scripture 1 Tim 1.4 “nor to be taken up with with myths and never ending genealogies.. “. After I had been preaching about the death burial and resurrection of Jesus had simply made some interesting observations.
When I first became involved in religious studies, I had no definite career plans. It actually started with an anthropology class. We covered a lot of different world religions, and my curiosity was piqued. I was raised by atheists, and I had never studied religion before in my life. Knowing the variety of beliefs that people held seemed like a useful life skill for me.
In Hebrew Torah scrolls, and most printed editions, seventeen times, certain letters appear either larger or smaller than the other letters. (Hebrew doesn’t have upper or lower case letters like English.) This is most apparent in the first word of the Torah, Bereshit (translated “In the beginning” or “In the beginning of”. We’ll return to this word in a moment.
Not long back I had a retired Pastor reprove me very sharply, for making some interesting points while preaching on the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. He was very old school, and he referred to 1 Tim 1.4 “nor to be taken up with with myths and never ending genealogies.. “
