Revisiting the Question of Cannabis in the Bible

The following program is recorded content created by the Truth Network. Once again, we're going to separate fact from fiction when it comes to the question of cannabis and the Hebrew Bible. It's time for the Line of Fire with your host, biblical scholar and cultural commentator, Dr. Michael Brown. Your voice for moral sanity and spiritual clarity. Call 866-34-TRUTH to get on the Line of Fire. And now here's your host, Dr. Michael Brown.

It is Thoroughly Jewish Thursday. Welcome to the broadcast. Michael Brown here. I'm not sure what happened to my voice today, but it is yours truly for those watching. Yes, it's me. For those listening, trust me, it's me.

Welcome to the broadcast. We're going to have a fascinating conversation today and we're going to take your Jewish related call. So any Jewish related question of any kind, 866-34-TRUTH, 866-348-7884 is the number to call. Another reminder, if you want to join us in Israel next year, God willing, May 2023, the trip of a lifetime. So many ways, an amazing, incredible experience we'll have together, enriching on every level. If you want to go, go to the website, AskDrBrown.org, askdrbrown.org. Right on the home page, you'll find info on the tour.

If you want to go there earlier, you register the better because seating is limited. OK, a few years ago, I saw some articles online and was hearing people talk about all the the Bible and the Torah. It prescribed the use of cannabis. It was part of the holy oil that was to be used in the sanctuary. So I looked up the claim. It was utterly bogus.

It had zero academic support, was easily refuted. I wrote about it way back then. Well, a few weeks ago, I wrote an article about whether marijuana should be legalized, gave him my own opinion on it. And it got a lot of attention on the Daily Wire where I posted the article. So I wrote a follow up article with the Bible really says about cannabis. And it was a complete fresh new article from the old one I'd written some years ago, overlapping, but a fresh new article. And to my utter surprise, this article, which is just for subscribers to Daily Wire. So not even just the large general public reading, but they're subscribers, which is almost a million people. There are right now almost a thousand comments to the article just posted a couple of days ago, almost a thousand comments to the article. So I decided to come on the broadcast today as it is through the Jewish Thursday and get into a little more depth.

Those who are able later to go to our YouTube channel, Ask Dr. Brown, Ask Dear Brown on YouTube or on our home page, ask your brown dot org, you'll be able to watch where I put some slides up. But otherwise, I'm going to explain everything for all those, because I know the vast majority of you are listening for all those listening by radio or podcast. Again, excuse me, if you want to interact with me on the subject or you have a Jewish related question on any other subject, we'll get to the calls a little bit later in the show. Eight, six, six, three, four truth.

So some people raised in their comments and I've only seen some of the comments. Genesis one, where God says to humanity to Adam, see, I give you Genesis 129. See, I give you every seed bearing plant that is upon all the earth and every tree that has seed bearing fruit.

They shall be yours for food. So the argument is God gave us every plant to use and marijuana is one of those plants and it can be used for many good purposes. So we should use it. Well, whether it's good or not, whether it has value or not is unrelated to this verse, which says it's for food. No one eats marijuana for nourishment. You can ingest it to get high.

You can ingest it for medical purposes, but you don't eat it for for sustenance. OK, so this is all the plants, seed bearing plants that were given for food, of course, before the fall. And presumably there are no poisonous plants. But even if you want to say it's all the plants, fine. It was for food, for eating. So this verse does not address the subject at all.

Subsequent to the fall, when we have poisonous plants, are you saying that we should eat all plants because God gave us all plants or rather see the use of the plant, whether it's helpful or not? But in any case, this is for food. Got it? All right.

So completely unrelated. So the main verse that comes up is Exodus chapter 30. So for those watching, I'm going to put it on the screen for you in Hebrew, Hebrew on the left and English on the right. OK, and here God tells Moses next take choice spices, 500 weight of solidified myrrh, half as much. Two hundred and fifty of fragrant cinnamon, 250 of Aramaic aromatic cane. The words aromatic cane I have highlighted here. Ooh, can a bosom.

All right. Aromatic cane. The word can a is cane.

So can a cane. And then bosom is aromatic, aromatic, sweet smelling, sweet spices. All right. I also highlighted in the same verse the word cinnamon. Kinamon for Kinamon Besam.

So this is related. So it is fragrant cinnamon. Again, you have Besam, bosom for fragrant. But Kinamon, if you look at it, you'll see that in the third letter, there's a dot in it. That's called the dagesh. That means it's a double n. All right. That's why cinnamon in English, which comes from the Hebrew Kinamon.

Right. That's that's why the English has a double n, cinnamon with two ends. Contrast that with cannabis, which is spelled with two ends. But the Hebrew from which this allegedly comes from which this is allegedly derived can a bosom only has a single n. In other words, the phonetic correspondence from the Hebrew to the English or from the Hebrew to the Greek to the English is not there.

It is plainly not there. Not only so, but the final m, the mem is missing in cannabis. And you also have different vowels entirely. Right.

So instead of Kanae, you have Kana instead of Bo, you have Be and then you don't have the final m and then you don't have a double n. It completely breaks down. You say, well, where did anybody get this from? It was a Polish anthropologist tragically lost her entire family to the Nazis and the Holocaust. As I read her brief biography when she passed away, I believe at the age of 76, she was a professor at Hunter College in the States at that point. And she had a PhD in Poland that earned a PhD in Columbia University. So she was a learned woman, but apparently lost her entire family so that she had no immediate surviving relatives. Some of the horror of the Holocaust in Poland. And she was an anthropologist.

So she looked at folklore through the world and different customs through the world. And in 1936 said, looks like cannabis actually comes from these words in Hebrew. Now, there is there is no linguistic phonetic correspondence. It simply doesn't work any more than the word mice is related to the name Moses.

It doesn't work. It's completely unrelated. And in all my years of studying, getting my PhD in Semitic languages, her name never came up once. Never an article, never a book, never referenced because she was not a Semitic scholar. She was not a linguist. She was not an entomologist. She was an anthropologist. All right.

Studying human traditions and human development over the centuries. So it is a complete bogus, complete bogus comparison or argument that God prescribed cannabis in a sanctuary. It's nothing to do with bias. This is nothing to do with the fact that I was a pot smoker before I got saved in 71.

Also a heroin shooter. So I did everything. But it's nothing to do with the fact, excuse me, that I haven't used drugs, illicit drugs in over 50 years. I'm just saying what the Hebrew says. You say, well, all right, I see the thing about the comparison and the letters don't work and it breaks down there. But how else do we know you're white, Brown? Because you're just making this claim and we can't just accept it because you have these degrees. Fair enough.

Fair enough. So here's the next question. When the ancient translators saw these words, the ancient Greek translators, the ancient Aramaic translators, the ancient Latin translators, the ancient Syriac translators. How did they translate this? Because you would think that somebody in the ancient world knew that this referred to cannabis and not just general Aramatic cane. OK, so let's take a look at what's called the Targum. This is Targum Uncalas. This is the Aramaic translation of the Torah. OK, when Uncalas saw this, so again, Exodus chapter 30, verse 23, he translated with Ucanei Bousma, Ucanei Bousma, which is basically the exact same thing in Hebrew, Nara and Aramaic.

All right. And Aramatic canes, you could make it plural there, Aramatic canes, but it's the exact same words. In other words, he didn't think Uncalas didn't think that this was the word for hemp or something like that. No, he just understood Aramatic cane.

Now, here's what's interesting. The Greek language already had the word cannabis. The Greek language had it. It existed already when the Greek translators in the in the third century B.C. translated the Torah from Hebrew into Greek. These were Jewish Greek scholars. The word cannabis, excuse me, existed already in Greek.

We'll show you that in a moment. OK, they didn't translate with cannabis. How did they translate?

They translated with Kalamu Yodos. So this is, again, sweet smelling fragrance. This is this is not hemp.

This is not cannabis. They had the word for cannabis. They didn't use it. They didn't use it. The same with the pashita, the Syria translators, a few hundred years after the time of Jesus. For those that know Syria, I'll just put the slide up.

It's highlighted for you. But they did the same thing. You even have that same bosom in Hebrew.

You have it here in Syria. All right. So excuse me, the same thing.

They saw it. They did not translate with hemp or any form of that or cannabis. No, they simply translated the Hebrew correctly. Aramatic cane, sweet smelling cane. The same thing with the Vulgate. Jerome in Latin in the fourth century. All right.

What does he have? Kalami. Right.

Which the King James wrongly then derived Kalamus from that. It was speaking of something else. But again, they didn't use a cannabis word. Didn't use it. And look, cannabis.

I want to put up one more slide for you. The Liddell Scott Jones Greek English lexicon, the premier lexicon of classical Greek to this day, a massive work of scholarship. It it knows the word cannabis. OK, and those with with two ends. The Hebrew Kanae only has one and two ends. And it goes, you know, Herodotus uses it goes all the way back in the ancient Greek world. And when it's when it's derived, where they're trying to get where the word comes from. There's a reference to Hebrew.

Why? Because it has nothing to do with Hebrew Kanae bosom. And all the ancient translators fully understood that they knew it. Every solid dictionary of the Hebrew language knows it. Why do people reject it?

Because they want to have their Bible and pot, too. That's the only reason. Is that a shred of scholarly evidence to support?

Not a shred. We'll be right back. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get on the line of fire by calling 866 three for truth.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks, friends, for joining us on Thoroughly Jewish Thursday. I'm going to go to the phone shortly. Eight, six, six, three, four, eight, seven, eight, eight, four. Yeah.

Whatever's going on with my voice feel good otherwise and hopefully doesn't put you off too much. But having said that, check out vitaminmission.com if you haven't. My friend, Dr. Mark Stangler, my personal physician, just great, great health supplements.

And he's a sponsor of this broadcast. So you order there. Go through the site vitaminmission.com.

You get a 10 percent discount when you order using the code that's listed there. And Dr. Stangler turns around and makes a generous contribution to our ministry to help us talk to more people like you. All right. So just a little bit more on the cannabis question. There's an etymology online Web site that I checked today and its entry for cannabis, as far as I can see, is is reliable. So the word cannabis it lists is this common hemp from cannabis. Modern Latin plant genus named 1728 from Greek cannabis hemp, a Scythian or Thracian word. And then it gives us as a source of Armenian kind of in these other languages as well.

So etymologists have traced this back to a Scythian or Thracian word. So there was oh, no, no. It goes back to it doesn't go back to Hebrew.

The argument breaks down on every single point. Well, I saw a comment that was posted and it said, well, what what about on Sepharia? This is a great website. Sepharia dot org, great compendium of traditional Jewish sources.

There's an article Kosher Cannabis, Judaism and Marijuana by Rabbi Aaron Filmas. And it goes that quotes Genesis 129 about what can Jews inhale and then quotes what we've just been reading in in Exodus, the 30th chapter and tries to and then quotes the Polish anthropologist we've mentioned, Sula Bennett. And he calls her a Semitic etymologist, which she wasn't. At least she was not known for that. She did not specialize in that. So is to be known in the larger academic world as a Semitic etymologist.

She was known as an anthropologist, as a learned anthropologist, three different fields. All right. And she claims there's an astonishing resemblance between the Semitic khanbos and the Scythian cannabis. It was not Semitic khanbos. OK, it is not Semitic khanbos.

There is Semitic kanei bosim. All right. With a single n, not a double n and on and on.

So it completely breaks down. So he quotes her and then he quotes an article. Another Jewish man did Aaron the high priest smoke.

This is published in Haaretz a few years back. Did Aaron the high priest smoke and said, hey, play on words, high priest, get it? There's nothing excuse me, of academic substance in either of these articles to back the idea that cannabis was prescribed for use in the Bible or recommended for use. The Bible basically doesn't comment on it, just as it doesn't comment on other plants or plants from which we get opium and things like that. It does comment a lot on drinking.

Right. It does comment about getting drunk, the proper use of alcohol or the abusive use of alcohol, comments on those things. It doesn't comment on that.

So, look, I don't know what I could do other than one, show you that the phonetic correspondence does not work. That's one to show you that all the ancient versions, which were the best scholars of their day or people fluent in biblical Hebrew, translating into Greek or Aramaic or Syriac or Latin, that every one of them translated differently than cannabis, basically rightly translated into Hebrew, and that every major dictionary you're going to find of Greek where it's going to go through etymology or of Hebrew, biblical Hebrew will say, no, they're not going to even address the cannabis issue because it's unrelated. It's unrelated. Just going to say the Hebrew means this, Greek means this, et cetera. So you you can make the Bible mean what you want. You could say, well, according to the Bible, there is no God. According to the Bible, there is no heaven. According to the Bible, there is no Jesus.

You could fantasize as much as you want. It doesn't change the truth. It does not change the truth.

So the whole question of should cannabis be legal or not, should a Christian get high or not, those are separate questions. This question is easily dismissed and there's no argument about it from a linguistic, lexical, etymological viewpoint. Zero, zero. Prove me wrong. Go ahead.

Prove me wrong academically on this. All right. Go ahead. Phone lines are open. It's six, six, three, four truth. With that, we go to the phones. Ruben in Brownsville, Texas. Welcome to the line of fire. Hello, hello, I'm Dr. Brown.

This is Ruben Varela from Brownsville. Yeah, go ahead, Dr. Brown. So I have a question. Well, I'm a Gentile believer. I currently go to a Christian church. I practice messianic Judaism as a Gentile. But what is the Nazarene Jewish movement? I see the difference between that movement and the Hebrew roots and messianic Judaism. But I can't find any reliable source online as to how this Nazarene, modern Nazarene Jewish movement was created.

It's it's just what names people put on things, Ruben. And in other words, the closest equivalent to the Nazarenes of the early centuries of this era would be messianic Jews. Those are Jewish believers in Jesus who maintain their Jewish identity, but are Orthodox believers.

You had other early groups. You had the Ebionites that were Jewish believers who maintain their identity, but they were heretical in some of their beliefs, or the Corinthians, not the Corinthians, but the Corinthians, also Jewish believers with some heretical beliefs. So the ones that rejected the authority of rabbinic Judaism, the ones who accepted the Orthodox gospel and views of Jesus and Paul and things like that, but continue to live as Jews and were often misunderstood by the church.

Those were the Nazarenes. So the modern equivalent of that would be messianic Jews who hold to the fundamentals of the faith, but continue to identify as Jews. Now, others may use the term for themselves today, and everybody uses it differently. In other words, you've got heretical groups in Hebrew roots and some that are not as bad. You've got messianic Jews who have gone heretical. And so people use the term in different ways.

And I don't know myself, I've never looked at it to see if you could trace back to who starts saying we are the modern Nazarenes. But it's basically a term that people are putting on themselves, maybe accurately, maybe inaccurately. So I would completely look past the term, right? I would not even focus on that. I just say, OK, what you actually believe and how do you live?

And that would be the only one. They could put a good term on it or a bad term on it. The question is, how are they living?

What do they believe? Those would be the issues to me. And again, it's going to be different from one group to another. But we know the danger signs. We know the denial of the deity of Yeshua, a great danger sign. We know the danger sign of the rejecting of the writings of Paul or Hebrews or things like that. We know the great danger sign of saying everyone is obligated to observe the Sinai Covenant, Jew and Gentile, or you're not right with God. So you can look for those danger signs in these groups. But beyond that, it's it's all a matter of how they use the term. So that's best I can answer it.

OK, thank you, doctor. Can I ask you a quick question regarding Matthew 2819? Yes, I was going into it. Is the Trinitarian baptismal formula of Matthew 2819 authentic or was it added later on? I see some sources that say that it wasn't in the original brief text.

No, it's authentic. There and it's reflected in early literature like the dake, which is maybe early second century, so within 100 years of the time of Jesus. And they reflect that the writing there, so-called teaching the twelve apostles, that reflects it as well. So if I was looking that up right, so what I would do, I'd go to my software, right? And I pull up Bruce Metzger's textual commentary on the New Testament.

So it's just take a second to do that, but we'll do this together here. And what Metzger does is, is he has a textual commentary on the Greek New Testament. So for every single variant, he's going to have a detailed note and then he's going to rate them.

OK, this is how certain the reading is and things like that. So when you go to Matthew 2819, all right, when you go there, you see, actually, there's not a note on it. In other words, this is not something that's in dispute.

So you may hear, oh, it's in dispute and things like that. But as far as textual scholarship, this is not something that's in dispute that textual critics wrestle with. This is there or not, you know, contrary to say, John eight, one through 11, the adulterous woman or Mark 16, nine through 20. You know, there's great discussion on textual scholars there.

But as far as Matthew 2819, nope, not at all. Hey, Ruben, thank you for the calls. Much appreciated.

All right. We've got some phone lines open. So if you would like to call in 866-348-7884. Any Jewish related question could be related to the Hebrew Bible, messianic prophecy, Jewish background to the New Testament, questions about Israel today. Glad to answer any Jewish related question. And Angelo, you'll be first up on the other side of the break when we come back. So stay right here, folks, on the line of fire. And hey, I guess you've gotten used to my voice a little bit different today, but the same thoroughly Jewish host on Thoroughly Jewish Thursday.

We'll be right back. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown, get on the line of fire by calling eight, six, six, three, four, truth here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks for joining us, friends, on Thoroughly Jewish Thursday, Michael Brown, delighted to be with you, eight, six, six, three, four, truth.

Excited to be with you, eight, six, six, three, four, eight, seven, eight, eight, four. Go into the phones momentarily. So I've got a headline that I'm looking at on my screen, Jews, non-Christians, not part of conservative movement, GOP candidate consultant.

Let me read that again. Jews, non-Christians, not part of conservative movement, GOP candidate consultant. Both Republicans and Democrats have called on Mastriano to withdraw his ad campaign from the Gab social media platform.

All right. So this is in in Pennsylvania, Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano, who is an outspoken, unashamed Christian. He has advertised on Gab social media alternative to Twitter and the like. But unfortunately, while Gab is not censoring people on the right as Twitter is, the leader of Gab, the CEO, Andrew Torba, has made numerous statements that many consider blatantly anti-Semitic.

And many would say a spouse is a form of Christian nationalism that is terribly dangerous. Well, I just looked at my Twitter feed right before coming back on the air during the break and I saw a post from about 30 minutes ago from Dr. D. Jackson. Dr. Brown, I would love to hear your take on Christian nationalism as a spouse by Andrew Torba, CEO of Gab, or any thoughts.

Thank you. So I wrote back, said I'm about to address this on the air. So we will reach out to Mr. Torba privately and invite him to come on the air with me and present his views, making clear that I differ strongly with his perspective. If he declines the invitation or simply doesn't get back to us, then, God willing, I will address the quotes, his stance. I'll address it fairly in writing and on the air. But as always, if we can reach out to someone first and get them to interact with us and present their side, we will absolutely do that. As for the quotes in the article, as for the form of Christian nationalism that are espoused by Mr. Torba, as I understand his views, I categorically reject them. My next book coming out in September, The Political Seduction of the Church, I believe will be a tremendously important volume. One of the most controversial that I've written, but tremendously important. In fact, beginning next week, we'll tell you how you can preorder, get a signed copy of the book and a numbered copy from the first printing. So we are we are eager to get this in your hands. And of course, I address those questions in the book. Broader question, do I expect extreme forms of Christian nationalism, namely that Christians are called to take over America and, quote, disciple the whole nation by getting everyone under Christianity and under Christian law of some kind?

Do I expect that to be anti-Semitic? Absolutely. No question about it. All right, let's go to the phones in Richmond, Virginia. Angelo, thanks for holding. Welcome to the line of fire. Hey, God bless you, Dr. Brown. I appreciate your ministry. Thank you. One of the questions that I wanted to address as a Christian and a non-Jew, Gentile, as you would call us, I wanted to know the impact or the significance of the synagogue in the days of Jesus and kind of how that concept as far as, you know, as Jesus warned himself, you know, kicked out of the synagogue. Yes, sir.

Absolutely happy to answer. And let me first say, as you mentioned, a Gentile believer, as I would refer to it, the word Gentile in the Bible can have two different meanings, a neutral meaning and a negative meaning. The negative meaning is like pagans, you know, just worldly people, ungodly, the people that don't know the one true God, the people of the nations who worship their other gods, and that's why in Ephesians 4, Paul says, hey, don't live like the Gentiles, meaning the other Gentiles.

Don't live the way they live. The other meaning of the word is simply the people of the nations or the word nation. God told Abram, you will be a great goy, and the word goy is the word for Gentile. So in other words, you'll be a great nation. So the goyim, those are the nations and the people of the nations. So Paul uses it in that sense in Romans 11, when he says, hey, I'm writing to you Gentiles. As the apostle to the Gentiles, I want to provoke, I want to, I want you to provoke my people Israel to envy. So when I use it, obviously, it's the positive sense of people from the nations. And just, I know you understand that.

I just want to say that for everybody else. Okay, so the synagogues were an innovation of the Pharisees because there was just one place of worship in ancient Israel, and that was the temple. There was one place where three times a year all the males of Israel were to make pilgrimage to the temple and to celebrate the feasts and things like that. And if there were special sacrifices you had to offer, you weren't allowed to offer them just in your own city or things like that. You were to bring them to the temple.

You bring your tithe periodically to the temple and things like that. So what happened was in between the time of the Old Testament and the New Testament, the Pharisees developed this idea of having meeting houses, not many temples. They wanted to substitute for the temple and you couldn't offer sacrifices there.

You didn't have the full Ark of the Covenant there or things like that. But you would have these places in each community where Jews could come together, be taught the scriptures together, say their prayers together, and have a basic place for communal life. So very much similar to a local church or synagogue today, that these were the communal meeting places where you would come with people of like faith, where you would hear the scriptures read, where you would hear teaching from the scriptures, where you would offer your prayers together, and the prayers developed over a period of centuries. And it would also be a place where community could have a basis. So let's say there were issues that you had to work through or figure out or there needed to be some type of judgment carried out against someone, that the synagogue would be a convenient meeting place.

And the basic word means a meeting place or an assembly, a gathering. So by the time of Jesus, these were very common. And even though they were pharisaic innovation, it was something that he participated in because it was part of Jewish life that in his view was positive and good. So to be put out of the synagogue, as it mentions in John 16 that you quoted, or in the case of the man who is blind and was healed, people were afraid to be put out of the synagogue in John 9. So that was that was very much cutting you off from communal Jewish life.

It would it would be like today. Let's just say you were Jehovah's Witness. Right. And in your city, there were four different Jehovah's Witness congregations and you were excommunicated for being a heretic. So you're put out of those communities.

You're you're not welcome in any of them. So you are now looked at as an outsider. Right. Same thing with Mormons.

Right. So in the early church, it was the same thing. You had you just had the church in the city and you met in different places. And if you were put out, you were put out. That's what was in the synagogue.

It's not like you have. Well, I'll go instead to the from the conservative synagogue to the Reform synagogue or I'll go from the Reform synagogue to the Orthodox synagogue. There were just the synagogues. That was it.

And you were put out there. That was the problem. Now, the Sadducees didn't participate in that. The Sadducees were all temple based. So that did not exclude you from the temple.

But in terms of practical life, especially after the destruction of the temple, that was bad news to be put out of the synagogues. OK. Yeah, I mean, yeah, because of that, I thought I mean, I think you broke you broke it down perfectly. I understand exactly what you're saying. I'm not going to ask any additional questions for it because I need all that information to soak in into my head here. But that was a great explanation of what was going on, what was going on in that time period. Thank you very much. You are very welcome, sir. I appreciate it.

866-34-TRUTH. The other thing I appreciate as Angelo's methodology to let things sink in, digest them and then, OK, maybe that triggers another question. That's a good way to learn. Get it.

Let's sink in, digest it. And then from there, OK, maybe that triggers another question. Maybe that answers the questions. Let me mention a couple things of interest as we talk about synagogues. If we go to James Jacob, the second chapter, it's very interesting. Now, when I was putting up slides earlier in the broadcast, those were all from accordance Bible software.

Check it out. The accordance Bible dot com. Just just great software to dig into the scriptures and go as deep as you want to go into the original languages. But so I'm going to grab James Jacob, the second chapter, and pull that up on my screen here.

All right. And I'll do it with the English on the left and the Hebrew on the right. And here's here's what it says. Beginning verse one, I'm going to read from the ESV. My brothers show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, for a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly. And a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in and you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, you sit here in a good place. You sit here in a good place while you say to the poor man, you stand over there or sit down on my feet. Have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?

All right. I want to focus on verse two for a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly. And when you look at the Greek word for assembly, it is synagogue. All right, synagogue in Greek. So that's the word for synagogue. Now, elsewhere in the New Testament where it occurs over 50 times, it's translated synagogue, synagogue, synagogue, synagogue, synagogue. One verse in the Book of Acts where it's talking about a crowd that gathered in assembly, that would be the one exception. Otherwise, when it's talking about a meeting place, it is always in the New Testament translated synagogue.

How about the negative verses in Revelation 2-9 and Revelation 3-9 where Jesus refers to claim to be Jews in the leopard or a synagogue of Satan? All these translations translate with synagogue. Why don't they translate James, Jacob 2-2 with synagogue? Well, because it's a Christian meeting place, it's not going to be a synagogue. Jacob, James is written to Jewish believers in Yeshua and the place where they gathered together was called a synagogue, a meeting place. What do you know? They didn't use a different and new word.

They used the word that was used in their Jewish community because that's what this was, a religious meeting place, a synagogue. What do you know? It's the Line of Fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown.

Get on the Line of Fire by calling 866-34-TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks for joining us, friends, on Thoroughly Jewish Thursday, yours truly with this hoarse voice. You know, I don't know where it came from. I've been doing a ton of writing, as I always do, but amped up in certain ways, doing a ton of writing.

But I haven't been doing a lot of interviews and video recording and teaching. All right, okay, it's past weekend in Vegas. I purchased this a couple times, Saturday night, Sunday morning, talking to people like always. So I'm not sure why the horses hopefully be utterly gone tomorrow, but it is the same person speaking to you. I got up this morning. I didn't sleep well.

I didn't know why. And I hadn't talked for a while. I was talking to the Lord just quietly. I hadn't talked to Nancy.

She was out in the yard already doing some work. And when I went to talk to her, my voice sounded about five times worse than this. I thought, what in the world is going on? But anyway, glad to be here. Still the same voice from World Sanity and Spiritual Clarity.

The tone doesn't change that at all, does it? All right. I want to address one other issue. You know my views as a Jewish follower of Jesus.

Sure. I believe that salvation, forgiveness of sins is found in him. And if we reject him, we reject God's mercy.

If we reject what God did through him on the cross, we reject God's mercy. I do not believe there is another means of salvation for Jews as opposed to Gentiles. I do not believe that if a Jewish person observed the Torah faithfully, followed the traditions as best as they could, sought to honor God, that they can bypass the cross, that they have another way of redemption or another way of salvation. If Jesus had come into the world as a prophet to the nations and to die for the sins of the nations because they did not have the Torah and they did not have the traditions and they did not have a means of atonement, then that would be a separate ballgame.

That would be completely different. So we would spend all of our time just going to the rest of the world, the Gentile world, because the Jews already had their own covenant. But the New Testament tells us the exact opposite message, that Yeshua came first and foremost for his own people, the Jews. That it says in Matthew chapter 1 verse 21, you'll call his name Yeshua, for he will save his people from their sins, his people. You read Luke 1, the whole story is redemption coming to Israel and therefore then to the rest of the world. Salvation for Israel means salvation for the rest of the world. His whole self-identity through the Gospels is that he's the Messiah of Israel. He dies as King of the Jews, just as he was born as King of the Jews. And when he rises from the dead, he then meets with his disciples and says, Why were you so slow to believe what was written in the scriptures, meaning the Hebrew Bible? Then he opens their minds so they could understand it, so they could see from Moses on through the Hebrew scriptures the prophecies were about his suffering and the glory that would follow. And then in the book of Acts, as Peter and the others begin to preach, remember all Jews preaching to Jews, what's Peter's message? It's to the house of Israel. Let all the house of Israel know that this same Yeshua, this Jesus whom you crucified, God has made both Lord and Messiah. So repent and turn to him. And that's the theme over and over in Acts 2 and Acts 3 and Acts 4 and Acts 5.

Same thing over and over. In Acts 7, same thing. There's no reference to Gentiles.

There's no reference even to Samaritans, which we consider like half-breed Jews, until the 8th chapter. There's Jews, Jews, Jews, Jews from around the world hearing this message about the Jewish Messiah. And then with the destruction of the temple, God was shouting to the nation, the old system is done.

I've instituted a new and better system. Atonement now comes through the Messiah. You no longer have your atonement system. You no longer have a functioning temple. You no longer have a functioning priesthood in the land with a functioning temple.

That's gone because God has replaced it with something better. Now, there is a fascinating Jewish tradition in the Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Yoma. And it is page 39 A and B, traditional printing of the Talmud. Every page is printed the same. It's not like a Bible. If I tell you page 311, that doesn't mean anything. Depends on which Bible, how it's printed, so on. That's why we say chapter and verse. But in Talmud, as traditionally printed, the standard edition for centuries, you've got the front page is the A page, and you flip it, that's the B side. So the A side and the B side.

So 39 A and B. There's a fascinating tradition there in the Tractate Yoma, Yoma meaning in Aramaic, the day, namely the Day of Atonement. And it talks about the high priest and everything that has to be done to separate him so he doesn't get ritually unclean before the Day of Atonement and the rites that he goes through. And then these different signs that God gave to Israel as to whether their sins would be forgiven or not on the Day of Atonement.

And there were three different primary signs. The priest would reach into an urn and pull out with his right hand and his left hand two lots. One was the goat that would be sacrificed to the Lord. That should come up in the right hand, that was a good sign. Left hand, bad sign. The other goat was the one called the scapegoat later that would carry the sins of Israel into the wilderness.

It was ultimately killed, pushed off a cliff by the time of Jesus. So that one you wanted the priest to get in his left hand. If he pulled them out and it was reversed, the goat to be sacrificed to the Lord was in the left hand, bad sign, bad sign. The goat that would be sent out into the wilderness, the goat for Azazel, alright. Right hand, bad sign. Next would be that there was a scarlet thread that was tied to the gates of the temple doors.

Excuse me, to the front of the temple doors. And if the sins were forgiven in accordance with Isaiah 118, the scarlet thread would turn white. Also, some of the traditions said there was a scarlet thread put on one of the horns of the goat. And if that turned white, that was a good sign.

If it didn't turn white, bad sign, bad sign. Then last is the candlestick in the temple, the menorah. So the way it would be lit would be from east to west, alright. So the westernmost, excuse me, from west to east. So the westernmost candle was lit first, and if God was with Israel and forgave sins that year, that would be the last one to go out.

First one lit, but the last one to go out. So the tradition records there in the Talmud that in the days of Shimon Hatzadik, so a righteous high priest that lived different dates given a few hundred years before Jesus, that all the 40 years he was the high priest, every year God accepted the sacrifices on the Day of Atonement. Every year, all three signs came up positive, obviously because of his righteousness and intercession.

That would be the understanding. After that, some years good, some years bad. And when it was bad, the bad signs, the nations discouraged. God did not receive our sacrifices and our fasting and our prayer. Then it says this, the last 40 years before the temple was destroyed, all three signs came up negative each of the 40 years. Now there are rabbis very upset with me for using this.

These are our traditions, you're misusing them. I'm simply looking at what's given to New Rabbanaan, the rabbis taught, given as a historical account. Now I understand there are many accounts in the Talmud, and they have to be historically analyzed. Did they happen as written? Were they revised over a period of time? I understand all that. But this is considered to be a widely reliable source and one of those negative things that you wouldn't document unless it really happened.

You wouldn't create this normally, all right? So the last 40 years before the temple was destroyed, none of the signs came up positive. This is either from the beginning of Jesus' ministry until the destruction of the temple, or depending on dating, the time of his crucifixion to the destruction of the temple. So Jesus comes on the scene and ministers, more specifically dies for our sins, and God is shouting to the nation, the old system is over. The old system is over. I've given you a new and better way. And when you rejected the new and better way, then judgment came, temple was destroyed.

That's the bad news, the good news is the new and better way is still here. To this day, traditional Jews, who are some of the most sincere people that I know, the traditional Jews that I've gotten to know over the years, there you have flakes just like I have flakes in the church and flakes everywhere. But I've gotten to know so many deeply sincere men and women and people who really desire to honor God and do what is right and live for him and believe that they're doing the right thing by adhering to the traditions.

In fact, they believe to deviate from that would be grave sin against God. I just want to say to every traditional Jew listening to me, you still don't have atonement outside of Yeshua. You still don't have atonement outside of the Messiah being the righteous sacrifice for our sins. Not human sacrifice, but rather the atoning power of the death of the righteous.

Mitah tan shalzad zakim tekheper. As stated often in rabbinic literature. So I want to appeal to everyone. Listening, do you have forgiveness? Do you know that you know that your sins have been blotted out? Are you in right relationship with God? All of us have sinned, all of us have gone our own way. The Lord has laid on him, Yeshua, the Messiah, the iniquity of all of us. Hi friends, back with you tomorrow. You've got questions, we've got answers. Another program powered by the Truth Network.