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Before time began, who was God? 

As humans, our linear understanding of God leads us to ask this question time and time again. 

On earth, we understand that everything begins and ends. Regardless of our personal beliefs, we understand that death is a part of life — that we are born, we live, and eventually, we all die.

Considering that everything on earth follows this cycle, how does God fit into this definition?

Since we are spiritual beings, God has saved us from physical death. Due to the infinite nature of God, He's called the Alpha and the Omega. 

But what does this term really mean?

In this article, we’ll talk about the meaning of Alpha and Omega in the Bible.

The alpha and omega are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet.

For the Jewish rabbis, the first and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet were commonly used to indicate the beginning and end of things. But only the true God can be described as the beginning and end of all things. 

In God’s word, the alpha and omega represent the comprehensiveness of God, which implies that God includes everything. No matter how many universes there are out there, God encompasses them all.

According to the New Testament, the book of Revelation uses the term alpha and omega to identify the self-designation of God and Christ. In Revelation 1:8; 21:6, and 22:13, Jesus Christ proclaimed himself to be the “Alpha and Omega.” However, Jesus is also known by several other names

Alpha and Omega appear primarily in the last Bible Book, the Revelation (1:8, 1:11, 21:6, 22:13). 

Genesis is brought to completion in Revelation. What God began in Genesis in the Old Testament, He ends in Revelation. Genesis 1:1 says, “In the beginning, God created heaven and the earth. But sin prevented God from completing his plan.” Through Jesus Christ's death on the cross, God brought these plans to fruition. 

Revelation 21:1 thus reads, “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away, and there was no more sea.” The Holy Spirit strategically placed the terms Alpha and Omega in the Bible's last book to declare that He will see the beginning to its end. @ alfabible.com

 Vatican City, in full State of the Vatican City, Italian Stato della Città del Vaticano, landlocked ecclesiastical state, seat of the Roman Catholic Church, and an enclave in Rome, situated on the west bank of the Tiber River. Vatican City is the world’s smallest fully independent nation-state. Its medieval and Renaissance walls form its boundaries except on the southeast at St. Peter’s Square (Piazza San Pietro). Of the six entrances, only three—the piazza, the Arco delle Campane (Arch of the Bells) in the facade of St. Peter’s Basilica, and the entrance to the Vatican Museums and Galleries in the north wall—are open to the public. The most imposing building is St. Peter’s Basilica, built during the 4th century and rebuilt during the 16th century. Erected over the tomb of St. Peter the Apostle, it is the second largest 

religious building (after Yamoussoukro Basilica) in Christendom.

The Vatican palace is the residence of the pope within the city walls. The Holy See is the name given to the government of the Roman Catholic Church, which is led by the pope as the bishop of Rome. As such, the Holy See’s authority extends over Catholics throughout the world. Since 1929 it has resided in Vatican City, which was established as an independent state to enable the pope to exercise his universal authority. Vatican City has its own telephone system, post office, gardens, astronomical observatory, radio station, banking system, and pharmacy, as well as a contingent of Swiss Guards responsible for the personal safety of the pope since 1506. Almost all supplies—including food, water, electricity, and gas—must be imported. There is no income tax and no restriction on the import or export of funds. As the Holy See, it derives its income from the voluntary contributions of more than one billion Roman Catholics worldwide, as well as interest on investments and the sale of stamps, coins, and publications. Banking operations and expenditures have been reported publicly since the early 1980s. 

 During the period from the 4th century to 1870, the Vatican gained control of territory around Rome and served as capital of the Papal States. In 1929 Vatican City’s independent sovereignty was recognized by the Fascist Italian government in the Lateran Treaty. Sovereignty is exercised by the pope upon his election as the head of the Roman Catholic Church. He has absolute executive, legislative, and judicial powers within the city. In 1984 a major reshuffle of offices in the Roman Curia resulted in the delegation of the routine administration of Vatican City to a pontifically appointed commission of five cardinals headed by the Secretariat of State. The inhabitants of Vatican City, the majority of whom are priests and nuns, also include several hundred laypersons engaged in secretarial, domestic, trade, and service occupations.  

Special extraterritorial privileges are extended to more than 10 other buildings in Rome and to Castel Gandolfo, the pope’s summer residence in the Alban Hills. In addition, Vatican City maintains embassies in numerous foreign nations.

Vatican cultural life has much declined since the Renaissance, when the popes were among Italy’s foremost patrons of the arts. The Vatican Museums and Galleries, the frescoes by Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel, the frescoes by Pinturicchio in the Borgia Apartment, and Raphael’s Stanze (“Rooms”) nevertheless attract critics, artists, and flocks of tourists from throughout the world. Years of restoration work on the Sistine Chapel frescoes were completed in 1994, making it possible to view Michelangelo’s work in full vibrant colours. In 2000 the millennial Jubilee focused world attention on Vatican Cit

 Palestinians are marking 51 years since the 1967 occupation of their remaining lands this week.  

More than 50 years ago, the state of Israel shocked the world when it seized the remaining Palestinian territories of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza Strip, as well as the Syrian Golan Heights and the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula, in a matter of six days.

In a war with Egypt, Jordan and Syria, known as the 1967 War, or the June War, Israel delivered what came to be known as the “Naksa”, meaning setback or defeat, to the armies of the neighboring Arab countries, and to the Palestinians who lost all what remained of their homeland. The Naksa was a continuation of a prior central event that paved the way for the 1967 war. Nineteen years earlier, in 1948, the state of Israel came into being in a violent process that entailed the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. @ bibleholybook.com

Zionist forces, in their mission to create a “Jewish state”, expelled some 750,000 Palestinians from their homeland and destroyed their villages in the process. Shortly after Israel declared statehood, units of the neighbouring Arab country armies came in to fight for the Palestinian nation.

The 1948 war ended with Israeli forces controlling approximately 78 percent of historical Palestine. The remaining 22 percent fell under the administration of Egypt and Jordan. In 1967, Israel .absorbed the whole of historical Palestine, as well as additional territory from Egypt and Syria. By the end of the war, Israel had expelled another 300,000 Palestinians from their homes, including 130,000 who were displaced in 1948, and gained territory that was three and a half times its size.  

The narrative of the war is highly polarised, as is common for many events in the Arab-Israeli conflict. There exists, however, a series of events that undeniably led to the outbreak of the war.

Firstly, there were frequent clashes on the Israeli-Syrian and Israeli-Jordanian armistice lines after the 1948 war. Thousands of Palestinian refugees tried to cross the border searching for relatives, attempting to return to their homes and to recover their lost possessions. 

Between 1949 to 1956, it is estimated that Israeli forces shot dead between 2,000 to 5,000 people who tried to cross. 

In 1953, Israel committed the most notorious reprisal massacre in the West Bank against the village of Qibya, where 45 houses were blown up and at least 69 Palestinians were killed. A few years  The three countries were forced to withdraw, and for a decade afterwards, a United Nations peacekeeping force was installed along the Egyptian-Israeli border. later, the Suez Crisis took place in 1956. Israel, along with France and Britain, invaded Eygpt with the hope of toppling then President Gamal Abdel Nasser after he nationalised the Suez Canal Company. The company was a joint British-French enterprise which controlled and operated the strategic waterway.  

The mid-1950s and 1960s saw the rise of the Fedayeen movement – Palestinian armed resistance groups who attempted to mount attacks against Israel. 

A year before the war, Israel raided the West Bank village of As Samu’ in the largest military operation since the 1956 Suez Crisis, after the Palestinian Fatah group killed several Israeli soldiers. As a result, Israeli forces rounded up the town’s villagers and blew up about dozens of homes. About 18 people were killed and more than 100 wounded in the attack.

Tensions between Syria and Israel was also brewing over disagreements on the use of the Jordan River water and Israeli cultivation along the border, which played a major role in leading up to the war. 

On May 13, 1967, the Soviet Union falsely warned Egypt that Israel was assembling its troops to invade Syria. Under an Egyptian-Syrian defense treaty signed in 1955, the two countries were obliged to protect one another in the case of an attack on either.

Egypt then ordered the evacuation of UN troops out of Sinai and stationed its troops there. A few days later, Abdul Nasser blocked Israeli shipping in the Red Sea. on bibleholybook.com