Customer Reviews

The Seven Festivals of the Messiah

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Edward Chumney's "The Seven Festivals of the Messiah" is a very detailed and thorough look at the Jewish Feasts - the Feasts of the Lord - found in Leviticus 23. He does a great job in explaining the feasts and the festive cycles. He also explains the difference between the religious and civil calendars of the Jews. A chart and several tables accompany his explanations.

Chumeny writes for a Christian audience, but is very sensitive to any Jews who might also read his book. He omits the vowels when referring to G-d and the L-rd out of respect for the Jewish practice of not saying or writing the name of G-d. He also includes the Hebrew terms for Jewish readers. However, he writes with the English term then adds the Hebrew in parenthesis (following the English word). This is commendable, but it becomes cumbersome after about 30 pages.

Chumney focuses in on the prophetic aspects of the feasts. He discusses other aspects, but prophecy seemed to be his passion in the book. His guiding principle is that "God gave the natural for us to understand the spiritual (p. 9)." So, he takes the natural and begins to extrapolate based on typology and numerology. Sometimes his conclusions are clearly founded in Scripture, but sometimes he seems to be stretching beyond what the Bible actually says.

In the end I felt that much of the historical sense of the feasts was lost by his focus on the fulfillment of the feasts. His writing is very detailed on the prophetic aspects, seeking to show how Jesus fulfilled every aspect of each feast (or will fulfill every aspect), even if every minute detail does not require a fulfillment. The focus on the details made this cumbersome reading for me and left me somewhat skeptical of some of the author's conclusions - even though I believe he is right much of the time.

If you're a big fan of Bible prophecy and really like studies that include typology and numerology, you'll undoubtedly love this book. If you're looking for an introduction to the Jewish feasts for Christians and are not as concerned about the prophetic aspects of them, you will be better served by Barney Kasdan's "God's Appointed Times." Whichever you chose, there is much for every Christian to learn about the Jewish Feasts. Enjoy! And, learn to celebrate as God expected the Jews to do.

This book provides depth and insight into who Jesus (Yeshua) is, was, and is to come. If you read this book you will experience the magnificent provision of God for both his bride Israel and the Gentile church. This book will bring together both the Jewish and Gentile parts of the vine and you will find yourself anchored in the Rock of Salvation.

A well studied book, that reviews all of the festivals of God. The prophetic meanings behind each of these feasts, both past and future events is very well laid out. The primary focus is on the feasts relationship to the first and second coming of Jesus Christ. Tony Valasek (Valasek@prodigy.net)

is an important and timely subject. Eddie Chumney's book makes an important contribution in this area of study.Eddie's thorough research is very impressive and well documented. In addition the book's outline is well thought out and makes for a fairly easy read. Readers unfamiliar with Jewish terminology will find it somewhat difficult, but Eddie supplies an excellent glossary.

First, please know that I agree wholeheartedly with the most basic premise of Chumney's book--that the Festivals commanded in the Torah point to Christ--and that it is not my intention to disparage the premise of this book or its basic theology. On the contrary, I agree with it VERY much.

Those things said, I must regretfully give this book and "it's ok" rating (3 stars) rather than something better. In fact, I would be more likely to give it two stars than four. Before you disagree with me, please read the rest of my review.

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Since this is such an unmanageably long review, and most of you won't read it, I offer this as perhaps the best piece of advice I can give: the author has posted his book at his site, www.hebroots.org. (You'll have to scroll down to the heading "Books by Eddie Chumney") Before buying, perhaps you should check there to see if my review is correct.
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As already stated, I actually agree with the premise of Chumney's book. Sadly, Chumney falls far short of actually providing a work that successfully and persuasively proves that point. There are enough faults in the book to seriously detract from his effectiveness as an author. But I'll talk about the good stuff first.

(1) Chumney organizes the book in a manageable format, which makes for easy reference. You can easily re-find points made in the book, because it is organized by headings. One can easily thumb through any given chapter, reading chapter headings only, and get the gist of what Chumney is trying to say.

(2) Chumney's premise, again, is a good one. As a Christian, I find it to be amazingly profound to study just how deeply the Torah (Pentateuch) and the rest of the Tanakh (Old Testament) point to Christ--particularly the Torah. Upon study, it appears that the pages are literally dripping with allegories, portraits, and details about Christ. Further, I agree with Chumney that in order to understand the parallels with which the Torah is rife, one must study and understand the Jewish customs surrounding the practices depicted there.

(3) The book is succinct, with a generally large amount of scripture references to keep the reader informed of where Chumney gets his information. Thus, one can easily read this book, and in most cases, can corroborate what Chumney says. I have obviously qualified this statement, and will discuss that qualification shortly.

After talking about the good things in Chumney's book, I now turn to the things which I find to seriously detract from the book's effectiveness.

(1) Poor writing. Yes. As already stated twice, I AGREE with the general premise of this book. However, the writing is sub-par. There is inadequate use of synonyms, varied writing style, and developed rhetoric. I'm not just being picky--I just know good writing when I see it, and this unfortunately does not qualify. I'll give an example.
Chumney SERIOUSLY encumbers his work by parenthetically including transliterated Hebrew words. For examble, every time Chumney uses the word "Messiah" it is followed by the Hebrew transliteration, as in the following example:

The festivals of the L-rd...were given...so His people
could understand the coming of the Messiah (Mashiach)...
(Chapter 1, page 1, first sentence.)

On that very page, which only includes two small paragraphs, the same convention of using the "(Mashiach)" after "Messiah" is used two more times. I can understand Chumney's desire to use Hebrew words in a work of this type, especially since he expects a part of his audience to be Jewish. Very well. Then use the Hebrew words. Don't use both, throughout the entire book. If he wanted to use the Hebrew words, he should swap the order and say "Mashiach (Messiah)" the first time he uses the word, then use "Mashiach" the rest of the book, and could easily include a glossary for quick reference. As it is, the parentheticals get REAL distracting, REAL quick. In the first five pages of the book, there are no less than 44 such parentheticals...and the quantity does not go down throughout the book.

(2) Poor logic. The general purpose of Chumney's book is to be persuasive. However, he makes his argument much LESS persuasive by making rather large leaps of faith...in both theology and in logic. While I noted above, in the positives, that Chumney includes biblical cites for his assertions in most places, those cites do NOT always support his claim. Take the following example, found on page 14:

The Bible says that the L-rd's right hand destroyed
the Egyptians (Exodus [Shemot] 15:6, 12). The right
hand is a term for the Messiah, Yeshua (Psalms
[Tehillim] 44:3; 48:10; 63:8; 74:10-11; 89:13; 98:1;
110:1; 118:16; 138:7; Isaiah [Yeshayahu] 41:10; 53:1-5;
62:8; Acts 2:32-36; 5:31-21; Hebrews 1:3.

Well, I won't insult you by going through each passage, but suffice it to say that if you look up EVERY one of the passages above in the long string he includes, you will find that NOT ONE of them refers directly to the Messiah, but refers to one of two things: (1) the arm of the Lord by which he defends his people and accomplishes victory for them, and (2) the figurative place of status at God's right hand. While Christ is identified as occupying this position many times, the right arm of God itself is not a direct reference to Christ, unless you do a fair amount of text-adulteration. Chumney then goes on to make the ridiculous logical jump that since Christ is the "arm of the Lord" then this explains why it is custom today for Jews to eat the shankbone, or "arm" of the lamb. Seems an absurd stretch to me.

I'll include one more unfaithful reading of the text. In Acts 1:6, Christ's Apostles asked Christ when he would restore the kingdom to Israel. Chumney reads this to mean asking when God would re-unite the Gentiles with the Jews. This is very far from the most natural reading of the text, which suggests simply that the Apostles expected Christ, upon his resurrection from the dead, to establish a temporal kingdom. I invite you to read it for yourself.

(3) Chumney simply doesn't support his assertions of fact, or of theology on way too many points. In a piece of literature like this one, it is imperative that the author support his propositions with scripture or other authors, at least where possible. Failure to do so raises serious questions as to the validity of the author's arguments. I invite you to read more scholarly works, such as those written by Alfred Edersheim (dated, but still very good) and compare.

Bottom line: decent, but before you buy, read it online at the above link.

I got to meet the author while celebrating one of the Messiah's festivals (the Feast of Tabernacles) last fall. He lives what he writes about, and this is a great book. He provides great insight into what the Lord calls *His* festivals (not just "Jewish" festivals). The festivals are the Lord's "miqra" -- usually translated "convocations," but the underlying meaning in Hebrew is that these are the Lord's rehearsals. Isn't that a great picture of the shadow of things to come? It certainly provides a great motivation for learning and studying them. Highly recommended...

This book was very informative. I wondered about the Jewish Festivals as a follower of the Messiah Yahshua. This book told me so much about the Festivals and being a follower of the Messiah we should follow the Festivals. You will find out roughly when the Messiah was born and during what Festival and alot more. I Highly Recommend this book if your searching for the truth it will help you in your search and why he command us to keep these Festivals.You can continue following the Constantine religion of today that everyone follows or you can start looking for the TRUTH. This book will help you find that and get closer to HaShem. David Skellie

The Seven Festivals of the Messiah book was as described on the site. The processing was quick and easy. It arrived before the time given and was properly packaged. A good experience from start to finish.

This book is the best for an overview of the 7 festivals described in Leviticus 23. I use this book for teaching classes on the Festivals and have found it the most comprehensive book for this purpose. It not only describes the Fesitivals, but gives the historic and prophetic significance of the Festivals. It is easy to read and is an excellent reference.

Jesus was Jewish not Christian! I have loved my Christian Jesus for as long as I can remember but now I am realizing that the Jesus I thought I knew actually did Jewish customs while on earth because He was a Jew. Christians need this book to understand that our God is a Jewish God. It doesnt change the love He has for us it just helps us to understand Him better. Great Book!