We're going to look at Prime Minister Netanyahu's historic speech to Congress and dig again into Daniel 9, 24 to 27. Welcome, friends, to our Thoroughly Jewish Thursday broadcast.
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866-34-TRUTH. We're going to look at some highlights from Prime Minister Netanyahu's speech. We're going to listen to some excerpts. We're going to talk about some responses to his speech. Then I want to go back to Daniel 9, Messianic prophecy that I discussed on the air with a young ultra-orthodox caller a few weeks ago.
I want to go back to that, tell you what a traditional rabbi has to say about it and why I differ with him. And then we'll get to your calls. If you're not getting my weekly email letting you know about the latest articles we've written, latest videos we put out, then by all means sign up.
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Went through it, read the transcript, listened to some of it, then had to do my own radio show yesterday, but went through, read through the transcript, pulled out what I thought were the best quotes, the most powerful quotes and shared them with you. So you won't miss that. You'll get the email letting you know at the end of the week. Here are the articles. Here's what we've sent out. That's at the line of fire dot org.
Click subscribe. So this was Prime Minister Netanyahu's fourth time addressing a joint session of Congress. No world leader in history has done that. So he has spoken to joint session of Congress more than any other world leader. And he received at least fifty five standing ovations, which is also a record. Remember that Prime Minister Netanyahu is more popular in America than at home in Israel, where he's much more of a controversial figure. And he is even more loved among evangelical Christians than by the American population in general, where there is much more division about him.
Let's put this B roll up. If you're watching on YouTube or Facebook, I want you to see some of the images. This is what was happening as Prime Minister Netanyahu was speaking or about to speak. Monuments were being defaced. Statues were being defaced. Protesters, pro Hamas protesters were burning flags, burning American flags, burning American flags in the name of their activism and violence and putting up a Hamas flag or a Palestinian flag. And protesters got arrested. You think, how in the world were they able to just deface all these monuments? How did this go on?
How were they able to do this? Now, the critics, critics of Prime Minister Netanyahu, of course, had it in for him before he even came. So in Haaretz, let's just see here. Here we go. Haaretz, which is radical left wing and just watching more images on the screen there.
But I'm going to read this to you. Haaretz says, Netanyahu's hollow triumph in Congress, winning in speeches, losing in wars, disclaimers full of cliches, empty promises, rapturous Republicans. Netanyahu's speech was detached from wartime reality and from Israelis. The Jerusalem Post said no clarity on Gaza, Hezbollah, Iran and the Saudis.
While he called for a noble sounding Abraham alliance, presumably including the Saudis, he ignored even any hint of concessions towards the Palestinians or any reference to a long term solution. Times of Israel, which is going to be more pro Netanyahu addressing Congress. Netanyahu lays out vision for post-war Gaza, anti-Iran alliance. Prime Minister blast Tehran is driving force behind turmoil, denounces anti-Israel protesters, defends conduct of war, some hostages relatives removed for protest.
Talib holds war criminal signs. It's an overview of some of what happened as he was speaking. Let's let's look at some of the clips here from Prime Minister Netanyahu. Let's listen together. First is after his introductory greeting. This one, this one, this one. Here's where he starts his speech.
Clip number one. We meet today at a crossroads of history. Our world is in upheaval. In the Middle East, Iran's axis of terror confronts America, Israel and our Arab friends. This is not a clash of civilizations. It's a clash between barbarism and civilization. It's a clash between those who glorify death and those who sanctify life. For the forces of civilization to triumph, America and Israel must stand together.
All right. That's the first quote how he starts out. There were former hostages that were there with him. There were soldiers who were wounded in combat. He mentioned Lieutenant Yonatan, Yonathan Ben Hamo, who lost a leg in Gaza and continued to fight.
He was there during this address to the joint houses of Congress. And he said, my friends, these are the soldiers of Israel, unbowed, undaunted, unafraid. Then on the difference between good and evil.
Clip number two. My friends, defeating our brutal enemies requires both courage and clarity. Clarity begins by knowing the difference between good and evil. Yet incredibly, many anti-Israel protesters, many choose to stand with evil. They stand with Hamas. They stand with rapists and murderers.
They stand with people who came into the kibbutzim, into a home. The parents hid the children, the two babies in the attic, in a secret attic. They murder the families, the parents.
They find the secret latch to the hidden attic and then they murder the babies. These protesters stand with them. They should be ashamed of themselves. They refuse to make the simple distinction between those who target terrorists and those who target civilians, between the democratic state of Israel and the terrorist thugs of Hamas. Yeah, and maybe one of the most memorable lines from the speech.
It's amazing, he said, absolutely amazing. Some of these protesters hold up signs proclaiming gays for Gaza. They might as well hold up signs saying chickens for KFC.
Exactly. He said these protesters chant from the river to the sea, but many don't have a clue what river and what sea they're talking about. They don't only get an F in geography, they get an F in history. They call Israel a colonial state. Don't they know that the land of Israel is where Abraham, Isaac and Jacob prayed, where Isaiah and Jeremiah preached and where David and Solomon ruled? For nearly 4000 years, the land of Israel has been the homeland of the Jewish people. It's always been our home.
It will always be our home. And as far as the International Criminal Court, he said the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has shamefully accused Israel of deliberately starving the people of Gaza. This is utter complete nonsense.
It's a complete fabrication. Israel has enabled more than 40000 aid trucks to enter Gaza. That's a half a million tons of food. That's more than 3000 calories for every man, woman and child in Gaza. If there are Palestinians in Gaza who aren't getting enough food, it's not because Israel is blocking, it's because Hamas is stealing it. Then he said this difference between Israel and Hamas. For Israel, every civilian death is a tragedy. For Hamas, it's a strategy. They actually want Palestinian civilians to die so that Israel will be smeared in the international media and be prepared and be pressured to end the war before it's won. So what about Iran's war with Israel and the world?
Clip number three. My friends in the Middle East, Iran is virtually beyond, behind all the terrorism, all the turmoil, all the chaos, all the killing. And that should come as no surprise. When he founded the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Khomeini pledged, we will export our revolution to the entire world. We will export the Islamic Revolution to the entire world. Now ask yourself, which country ultimately stands in the way of Iran's maniacal plans to impose radical Islam on the world?
And the answer is clear. It's America, the guardian of Western civilization and the world's greatest power. That's why Iran sees America as its greatest enemy. Last month, we heard a revealing comment, essentially about the war in Gaza, but about something else. It came from the foreign minister of Iran's proxy, Hezbollah, and he said this. This is not a war with Israel. Israel, he said, is merely a tool. The main war, the real war, is with America. So that's the point. Netanyahu is saying we're fighting against the ones who want to destroy you as well.
All right, one last clip on the same theme. That's why, that's why the mobs in Tehran chant death to Israel before they chant death to America. For Iran, Israel is first, America is next. So when Israel fights Hamas, we're fighting Iran. When we fight Hezbollah, we're fighting Iran. When we fight the Houthis, we're fighting Iran. And when we fight Iran, we're fighting the most radical and murderous enemy of the United States of America.
And one more thing. When Israel acts to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, nuclear weapons that could destroy Israel and threaten every American city, every city that you come from, we're not only protecting ourselves, we're protecting you. My friends, if you remember one thing, one thing from the speech, remember this. Our enemies are your enemies. Our fight is your fight.
And our victory will be your victory. Right. I believe those are all true statements. Does not mean everything Netanyahu wants to do is right. It doesn't mean there's a viable plan for the future. But I agree with those sentiments expressed by Prime Minister Netanyahu. And in that sense, it is good versus evil.
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This is Michael Brown. Shalom, Shalom on Thoroughly Jewish Thursday. If you've got a Jewish related question, give me a call. 866-342-THOSEHOLDING.
I'm going to the phones very shortly, so stay right there. OK, in terms of Netanyahu's speech, you could say he still didn't tell us about the day after. Well, here's what he did say, meaning the day after the war. He did say this, that we do not want to resettle Gaza. There are people in his government that want to resettle Gaza, but basically to take it over. That would be the most radical position that Israel will just take over Gaza. What happens to the Gazans there?
Well, that's their problem. That'd be the most extreme radical view, which I reject. Prime Minister Netanyahu said, no, we are not going to resettle it. But initially, we're going to have to control it and have a military presence.
Now, what would be a goal? A goal would be that Saudi Arabia and other oil rich nations would say, we're going to rebuild this, we're going to make this beautiful. And there was much beauty there before and it was functioning in certain ways, but obviously broke down, especially under Hamas. We are going to enhance the lifestyles of the peoples there and just have a moderate government installed that will not stand for the annihilation of Israel so you can live peacefully side by side. Again, maybe a pipe dream, but that would be kind of a dream if I was trying to figure it out logically in terms of where we are now. Jonathan Feldstein, my Orthodox Jewish friend, wrote a fascinating editorial, which he sent me, saying who could rebuild Gaza and care for the care for the Gazan people and stand with Israel at the same time?
Christians. What if again, this is even more of a pipe dream? Seems even more impossible.
But Jonathan said, hey, why not dream it? What if Christians got involved and said we are going to work for the betterment of the life of the people here in Gaza? And just have to stop trying to kill the Israelis and support radical Islamic fundamentals like Hamas.
And let's let's rehabilitate this. Let's we won't look to another Arab nation or Muslim nation to do it. Let's rehabilitate Gaza, but have you stand peacefully side by side with Israel. The challenge is how to actually make it work. The American politicians and others who still urge a two state solution have never adequately answered the question. If a good amount of the of the population or the leadership of that two state solution, the Palestinian state, if they are devoted to Israel's destruction, if they do not believe the Jews should have a Jewish state, a Jewish homeland, if they hold to the extreme views of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Ayatollah Khomeini's and Hajj Al-Mihn, Al-Husseini's of this world and the Yahya Sinwar's of this world, leader of Hamas, when the leaders of Hamas, if they hold to those ideologies, how are you possibly going to live side by side peacefully?
You can't. It still doesn't adequately address things. And you say, no, no, no. But they're more moderate voices. The problem is that often in the West, we don't understand radical Islam. We don't understand the mentality. We don't understand the mentality that that the death is a glorious thing, that Islamic martyrdom and things like that, and you produce more and more children, you get more and more martyrs. We don't relate to that way of thinking. And we often think, well, people just be more rational, not when it comes to religious fundamentalist beliefs.
Now, Christians may have religious fundamentalist beliefs, but they don't have the violent outlet that Islam would have in terms of some of its historic expression. So I don't have solutions. Do I think that Israel really has to completely wipe out Hamas in order to have any hope for security?
Yes. On the other hand, or completely decimate their leadership. On the other hand, the Arabs, the Palestinians living in Judea, Samaria, so the West Bank, they are very, very strongly pro Hamas, very, very strongly backing what happened on October 7th. Hamas has become greater in their eyes. Within Gaza, there's more mix because the people see the terrible suffering that Hamas has brought on them.
If those people could be empowered and Hamas taken out of power, you could have a possible solution moving forward. With that, we go to the phone, starting with an anonymous caller from Michigan. Welcome to the line of fire.
Yes, Dr. Brown, thank you so very much for having me. I have a question about Jesus on the cross. So some time ago, I was taught that by what I consider to be a pretty conservative apologetics-focused pastor, that Jesus wasn't actually saying on the cross that God had truly forsaken him. But instead, Jesus was quoting the beginning of the 22nd Psalm, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me, not to say that God had actually forsaken him, but instead he was following a Jewish tradition of the time where the beginning of scripture was quoted to remind the listener of what's contained in the rest of the scripture. And in this case, verses 16b through 18 say, they pierced my hands and my feet.
All my bones are on display, people staring glowed over me. They divide my clothes among them and cast lots for my garment to prove that he is, in fact, the Messiah. So is this true regarding quoting the beginning of Psalm 22 to prove he is the Messiah versus him actually being forsaken? You know, how does an omnipresent, triune God that is in perfect harmony with each other, have separation between the Father and Son while still acknowledging that he, Jesus, bore all of our sins? Yes, sir. Great question, and thanks for articulating it so clearly.
It's not either or, it's both and. In other words, yes, you could quote from a passage referring to the rest of the passage, but not obviating the meaning of that passage. In other words, when he quoted it, yes, I do believe he was drawing attention to Psalm 22 on a larger level. I do believe that which is part of why he quoted it. But the meaning of the verse stands.
In other words, it's not a Jewish tradition that you quote a verse, but the verse actually has no meaning because you're pointing to the rest of the passage. It's both that Jesus and his humanity experienced the sense of being forsaken, of being abandoned to die and given over to death and expressed it at that moment. And also in doing so drew attention to Psalm 22. When we speak of the triune God as we do, we almost take away any sense of humanity or what Jesus experienced as a human being.
The grief and the heaviness and the weight and the feeling of being forsaken. So at that moment, that was his expression. And it also draws our attention to Psalm 22.
So it's not either or it's both. And but again, there is no Jewish tradition where you would quote a verse and with that has no meaning or application simply to draw attention to a whole passage. The verse is the beginning of the passage. The verse is part of that passage. So he certainly experienced that, that sense of being forsaken.
You just I'm just left here to die. But you read through the whole psalm, which is a psalm of great victory and triumph and deliverance from death. And without question, he's drawing our attention to the psalm as well. So it's both and. OK, I accept that.
I didn't consider that is both and because of his humanity along with his his deity. OK. Yeah. Thanks. Yes. And thanks for for processing it with me. God bless.
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Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. His grace and his face shine upon you. Welcome back, friends, to Thoroughly Jewish Thursday.
That sounds like the voice of Misha Goetz, Marty and Jennifer's daughter. Eight, six, six, three, four, eight, seven, eight, eight, four, Daniel, chapter nine, beginning verse 24. Seventy sevens are decreed for your people and your holy city to finish transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for wickedness, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal vision and prophecy and to anoint the most holy place or possibly the most holy one.
Now, Daniel has been praying. He's in exile and he's one of the earlier ones taken into exile. There are a few waves of exiles being taken. He's one of the earlier Jews taken into exile. And he's looking and saying, well, Jeremiah prophesied that there'd be seven years of captivity. And it's like seven years I've been here. So it wasn't seven years from the fall of Jerusalem and the burning of the temple.
But it was seven years roughly since he had been in captivity. So he's saying, God, we're only supposed to be here for seven years. And God speaks to him and says, actually, there's a period of seventy times seven, which is virtually universally understood to mean four hundred ninety years.
So this is a bigger period. And during this time, during this time, this is it is the seventy sevens are decreed for your people and your holy city to finish transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for weakness, to bring an everlasting righteousness, to steal a vision of prophecy and to anoint the most holy place. Now, critical scholars, those who don't believe in the full inspiration of scripture say that this is referring to what happened with the cleansing of the temple in the days of Antiochus Epiphanes. So in the 160s B.C., the problem is the chronology doesn't fit at all.
What's the answer? Well, Daniel got the dates wrong. So obviously, for those of us who believe in the inspiration of scripture, that doesn't work. Moreover, even though the temple was cleansed and rededicated, what's described here did not happen.
So how have Christians understood this? They've understood this, that there is a period of time during which Jerusalem is rebuilt, temple rebuilt. And then at the end of this time period, before this this time period culminates, the Messiah will be cut off, will die for our sins, will make atonement, thereby bringing everlasting righteousness, bringing a culmination of transgression by being nailed to the cross, deal with sin once and for all and fulfill these other aspects of the prophecy.
There are different nuances as to how it will work out. Some say the first three things happen before the destruction of the temple. The 70th week is still future and that's when the last will happen. But the Christian interpreters that believe in inspiration of scripture and see this as messianic would universally say that it's a prophecy about the cross and Jesus' death on the cross and the consequences of that. And it has to happen before the second temple is destroyed.
And that's been a very strong force of our argument. And it goes on, no one understand this from the time the word goes out to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the anointed one or until an anointed one, the ruler comes. There will be seven sevens and sixty two sevens. It will be rebuilt the streets and a trench. But in times of trouble after the sixty two sevens, that anointed one will be put to death.
Or is it a messiah? When we put to death, we'll have nothing. The people of the ruler who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end will come like a flood.
War will continue until the end. Desolations have been decreed. He will confer a covenant with many for one seven in the middle of the seven. He will put an end to sacrifice and offering. And the temple he will set in the temple at the temple has set up an abomination that causes desolation until the end of this decree is poured out on him. So some Christians see that last passage about a future antichrist. Others would understand this about the destruction of the temple.
The key thing is that before the temple is destroyed, there is the atoning death of the Messiah. So I had an interesting conversation with a young Lubavitch Hasid, ultra orthodox Jewish man in Brooklyn talking about this prophecy and why it couldn't refer to Jesus, etc. So we had a good, engaging conversation. And last night, as I was thinking about revisiting this, I was reminded that Rabbi Yisrael Blumenthal, a leading counter missionary rabbi, a man with whom have engaged privately for many, many, many hours here and there face to face, otherwise by phone, then by email, then by video, public video, then by public article. So we've engaged a lot to have the utmost respect for Rabbi Blumenthal. And he wrote a document, Contra Brown, years ago, and I said, I'm going to write a rebuttal to it as I have time. And I started years ago and then many other projects came up.
I just had a break in my schedule. I thought, oh, I got to pull that back up because one day I do want to finish writing the rebuttal. And I think it deserves it because he's a sharp thinking man and he's a great example of traditional Judaism in many ways. So we've had our deep differences, but always with the utmost respect for Rabbi Blumenthal. So he wrote this, Daniel 9, 24 to 27. He said, the passage talks of God's ultimate program for the expiation of sin, the ushering in of everlasting righteousness and the culmination of all prophecy. Jews and Christians differ in their interpretation of this passage in two areas. Christians insist that the program must be completed within the four hundred ninety year time frame mentioned in the passage.
And this is the thrust of Brown's argument. While the Jews believe that the four hundred ninety year time frame is a preparation period which must precede the implementation of God's program. The second area of disagreement between the Jewish and Christian interpreters of this passage focuses on the nature of God's program. Christians accept that the career of Jesus was a fulfillment of God's program, while Jews recognize that the scriptures paint quite a different picture. According to Rabbi Blumenthal, this passage is not the only description Daniel gives us of these events.
In Chapter 11, verse 31, Daniel describes the violation of the sanctuary using the same terminology that he uses in the passage under discussion. This event is to take place at the close of the four hundred ninety years. This event is to be followed by a refining process.
Eleven thirty three to thirty five. This refining process represents God's program for the ultimate expiation of sin and for the salvation of mankind. This clearly indicates that the program will only begin at the close of the four hundred ninety years.
The four hundred ninety years were decreed in order to pave the way for the program to be set in motion. He said God's program for the expiation of Israel's sin and for the establishment of Israel's everlasting righteousness requires that Israel undergo a period of suffering. The purpose of the suffering is to refine Israel so that her sin can be pardoned. Leviticus 26, Isaiah one, Isaiah 40, Isaiah 48, Psalm 66, Daniel 11. Ultimately, Israel will be redeemed from her suffering and her sin will be wiped away. Deuteronomy 32, Isaiah 44, Jeremiah 31, Jeremiah 33, Jeremiah 50, Ezekiel 36, Ezekiel 37. He's got specific verses for each. At that time, Israel will be exalted. The light of God will shine upon her head and her everlasting righteousness will be revealed to all.
And then many passages he has backing that in his view. These prophecies all affirm that the expiation of Israel's sin and her ultimate exaltation will only take place at the time of her physical redemption and restoration to the land. According to Rabbi Blumenthal, we can safely assume that Daniel knew all of this, that had been praying for the end of the exile with the assumption that this would be the end of Israel's suffering and the subsequent deliverance would usher in the ultimate messianic era. God that informed Daniel in the ninth chapter, this was not to be.
So what then was God's revelation to Daniel? His nation and the holy city still needed to undergo a period of purification before the final redemption process can begin. The suffering of the Babylonian exile in the turmoil of the Second Templar was going to prepare the nation for the long exile ahead. Will be the suffering that follows the destruction of the Second Temple that would begin the ultimate process for the expiation of sin and for the establishment of an everlasting righteousness. The 490 years which end with the destruction of the city and the temple can only mark the beginning of the process. The completion of the process will be accomplished through the Messiah of the Jewish scriptures, the one who will lead the nation in her age of glory. So Rabbi Blumenthal says that the 490 years described in detail with the chronology of when they start, when they end, is just a preparation for what follows. So Daniel had been praying about a period of 70 years. Here the Lord informed him that there is something greater that God was going to do among his people involving a longer period of time, namely 70 times seven or 490 years. During this time, both the city of Jerusalem and the temple would be rebuilt. At the end of this time, the city and the sanctuary would be destroyed. But before that would happen, six things would have to happen.
And we listed those already. So God's telling Daniel, no, no, I'm not talking about 70 years, I'm talking about 490 years. Well, according to Rabbi Blumenthal and some other rabbinic teachers, the 490 years that he gives in detail is really not that's just going to prepare you for the real deal. Which begs the question then, why give this period of 490 years if that's just the preparation for the real deal and why give it in such detail? And why lay out the six things that are supposed to happen during this period of 490 years? So we can clearly say from our perspective that the Messiah's sacrificial death on behalf of our nation, just 40 years before the city and sanctuary were destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE, fulfill these requirements and the text is clearly speaking about him.
But this is what I want to do is respond directly to Rabbi Blumenthal's challenge. So what does he offer to explain how this text ties in with the destruction of the second temple? Because that's the that's the terminus ad quem. This is the time up to which these things are spoken of. Daniel is not told it was going to be a 490 year period. It's going to prepare you for the real the real sequence of redemption during which time these six things will happen.
No, these six things are going to happen in this 490 year period. It's the natural obvious reading of the text. So what what explanation is Rabbi Blumenthal offer then in terms of those six things happening in conjunction with this 409 period 490 year period?
He doesn't. He claims instead that, quote, it will be the suffering that follows the destruction of the second temple that will begin the ultimate process for the expiation of sin and for the establishment of everlasting righteousness. But the text doesn't say a word, not a word, not a syllable about this.
It says the opposite. It's this 490 year period that's so critical within which these things would take place. So Daniel was told that the seven year period of exile was not as important as the 490 year period, which was to follow before the end of which certain momentous things would take place. Rabbi Blumenthal wants us to believe that Daniel was told in detail about a period of time, 490 years, that in itself was not of particular importance. Rather, what was of importance was an unspecified, unmentioned period of time now approaching 2000 years of which not a syllable was spoken.
I mean, how can we possibly take that interpretation seriously? This would be like me telling the coach of a sports team. I know that you think that these next 10 games will be very important, but they're really not as big as you think. Instead, I'm telling you what will happen to the team in the next 10 years. It's going to be monumental. There'll be a new stadium built. The team will go from first to last and the team income will more than double. Within 10 years, everyone will know the name of your team.
But in reality, what I what I meant was this. What's really going to happen will have nothing to do with the next 10 years. Instead, the real pain will be a thousand years from now. Although I'm not telling you how or why or what.
Instead, I'm just talking to you in detail about the next 10 years. It would be complete double talk. But that's what Rabbi Blumenthal wants us to believe with Daniel nine. It's unfortunately double talk. The text says nothing of it, doesn't hint at it, doesn't suggest it.
These are things that we could take place in that 490 year period. Either they did or they didn't. Thank God they did. Let's hear what Trivita customers are saying. Dr. Braun, I can't wait to tell you that those supplements are absolutely amazing. My strength has gone up at least 15 pounds in everything I do. I mean, I can curl like I'll usually do curls with arms.
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I mean, I'm just really excited about it. Trivita wants you to experience wellness, too. Do something good for your heart and cardiovascular system. Learn how to get 25 percent off nitric oxide. Plus call 800 811 9628 or go to Trivita dot com. Use promo code Brown 25 in the shopping cart to receive 25 percent off your first order.
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Get 25 percent off nitric oxide. Plus call 800 811 9628 800 811 9628. 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. Welcome back to Jewish Thursday.
Michael Brown. So pleased to have this time with you. 866 three for truth, shout out to our co-sponsor Trivita. Thanks for producing such great wellness supplements. Part of my daily routine and thanks for donating so generously to the line of fire. We go back to the calls.
Let's go over to Tennessee. Bob, you are on the line of fire. Hey, Dr. Brown, I want to ask you the question, but before you respond, let me give you just a little bit of.
Feedback about why I'm asking him. OK, sure, I want my question is, is the word Muslim or Islam? Either in the Old Testament Hebrew scriptures or the New Testament Greek, and I know you're a Hebrew scholar. You know Hebrew like I know English. I don't know how fluent you are in Greek, but I call this, you know, you got a lot of these YouTube Muslim sites. You've also got some Christian sites where they've got the apologist on there and the Muslims want you to call in and debate.
If you're a Christian, why you think the Bible or the Christians true in other words? So I called in yesterday and I said, look, I know you believe all the prophets from Abraham all the way through Moses, David, even Jesus and his disciples were Muslims and they said, yeah, yeah, they were. And I said, well, why is either in the Old Testament Hebrew scriptures or the Greek that either the word Muslim or Islam is not mentioned? He said, oh, do you know anything about semantic languages? And I said, well, I think Hebrew semantic and probably the Semitic, the Semitic scholar. And he says, hey, twenty five times in the Old Testament, Muslim is used.
And he gave me one example. Dr. Brown, he gave me second Kings chapter twenty two, verse three. And it says now in the eighth year of King Ussiah, the king of Shikpan, the son of Uzziah, the son of Moshulam, the scribe to the house of the Lord.
And Dr. Brown, I looked up all twenty five. None of them were making any reference to Mohammed. The term Moshulam, as best I can say, was just it means a great one or a kind one or something like that. But they didn't ever get we didn't ever get to the New Testament. They said there were three verses in the New Testament that mentioned this one.
What's your bottom line answer on that? It's complete nonsense, complete, idiotic nonsense. And anyone reading Hebrew knows it's complete nonsense. So the the the the first thing that's interesting is is that the Islam in its in its essence, in the root, does not mean it's not a religion of peace. It means submission. Islam means submission, submission to Allah.
Right. And the the form is actually a sharp form like you have in Hebrew Shalom. Shalom. In Arabic, it comes in as an S form. So that's where you have Salama.
You would say Salaam alaykum in Hebrew, say Shalom alaykum. So in any case, the sounds are different. But to say that this is Muslim. No, it's it's it's a completely different form of of the word. It's it's it's absolutely unrelated. It's like saying my name is Mike because I talk in a mic. You know what I'm saying? Completely unrelated. Yeah. They've tried to argue that the name Mohammed occurs in the Old Testament.
And that, of course, we absolutely demolished. I did a debate with secure Hussein in England March 20th last year in London. And you can watch it if you just go to our YouTube channel, The Line of Fire, and just search for Mohammed. You'll see the debate I did with with this Muslim apologist. He had been challenging me, calling me out to do it for years. Was very gracious and civil and humble afterwards.
And as we've had some friendly interaction since, but he was calling me out leading up to it. So you ought to watch that. It'll encourage you. So go to the line of fire on YouTube and just search for Mohammed Mohammed debate. And you'll see my debate with secure Hussein. We demolished the idea that Mohammed is found there.
But to try to find Muslim. No, of course not. And that form of one submitted. No, absolutely not.
Yeah. So the Hebrew for Mishalom, that would mean someone that is whole. It has nothing to do with submission that the root. Shalom in Hebrew does not have to do with submission. It has to do with wholeness.
It has to do with peace, has to do with wellness. So is is a different semantic meaning a different concept there. So what they told you is complete nonsense. And to my knowledge, not even a common argument that Muslims race. It's just trash one.
And just one final comment. Don't you think that if, you know, the new test comes along six hundred years before the Quran, the Old Testament, the fourteen hundred years, probably something like that. If if this thing was true, why in the world wouldn't it be more plain? I like to say, well, we're in the Trinity plan. I get that. But look, I'm not a lay person, but I've studied about forty five years.
I'm seventy seven years old. I don't know the languages, but I study the Bible. And I've never seen anything like Islam or Muslim in any of the twelve English translations.
So here's here's the way out. Well, the Bible, we have it was changed. See, that's that's the only way out that the Bible, the way we have it, got changed to take out the references to Mohammed or to tell the history differently.
So it's all based on hearsay. In other words, we have ancient manuscripts and copies and copies of manuscripts that that tell us. And then the Bible translated into many different languages and quoted different sources that we can really know. We may not be able to say with 100 percent certainty every single word, every single verse that we can tell you the original. But overwhelmingly, we have that evidence, whereas the Koran is based on Mohammed learning from Jewish and Christian teachers and getting confused about some things and then weaving in myths with fact and so on. That's why the Koran has this garbled idea of what happened in Jewish history or Mrs. Midrash, which is like storytelling and Jew in or apocalyptic or excuse me, apocryphal or pseudepigraphical books, so books outside of the Bible, the traditions outside about Mohammed learn those apparently confuse them all. And that's why the Koran reads the way it does. So you're 100 percent right in your reading and in your reasoning as well.
We go with the eyewitnesses, not someone who wasn't there getting alleged revelation 600 years later. Hey, thank you for the call, sir. God bless. Thank you, Michael.
All right. Let us go over to San Diego. Alvin, welcome to the line of fire.
Hey, Dr. Brown. Glory. I'm on here.
You're on? Awesome. Longtime listener and first time caller. Seriously? Yeah. So hey, just out of curiosity, since we've got a 30 minute prerecorded show that that is on in San Diego, but our live daily show is not on in San Diego. So how do you listen normally?
I'm either on the app listening to the podcast or on YouTube. Got it. OK. Yeah.
I mean, that's the vast majority of those that do listen, but just wanted to ask. Go ahead, sir. No, thank you for asking. Hey, I just want to put a plug in for for fire school real quick. I was overseas for a decade in a closed country with a group of your graduates from fire school and just had an awesome time doing the work of God with the team there that a lot of them were graduates from the fire school.
And I just want to say thank you. Oh, was one of them by chance from Malta? No. No. OK. So let's just see. So a different team and different. OK, because we had teams in different close countries. I won't ask questions, though, but wonderful.
That's OK. We were we were educators working in academics education. Got it. Got it.
OK. Got it. China is a big country, isn't it? Yes. Very big.
Very big. All clear. Yeah. So my question is about the Hebrew Hebrew root word Abad.
Yeah. And I think to the call screener, I said it was my question was on Psalm one hundred verse two, but it's also Joshua twenty four fifteen. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. So my my question is, why do some translations translated as serve and other ones as worship? Because they're they're related words.
I understand there can be spiritual service, but I'm just curious about why some translations would would go with worship and some would serve. Yeah. So it's I and bait dollar Abad. And there is semantic overlap. Now, on the one hand, an avid is a servant.
Yeah. Servant or slave. Avoda can either be work labor. So what a servant does or worship, for example, the Talmudic expression for idolatrous worship is avada zara, which is false worship, foreign worship.
OK, yeah. And then, for example, a passage like Exodus thirty three, it says by the time it deny Aloha and you will serve the Lord your God or worship the Lord your God. Or is there even a clear semantic distinction?
So there is overlap in those. If you were saying it in Hebrew, as for me and my house, we will serve, we will worship. There wouldn't really be a major distinction.
I wouldn't hear that and think, well, what do you mean? Because worship is service and service is worship. So it's we do have to decide how we translate, because we're going into another language where we don't have that that overlap in meaning.
But if if I'm just reading it in Hebrew, I'm not having to make that choice because both meanings are found there. But it does remind us that worship is not just raising the hands and praising the Lord. It's a life given over to God as his servants who are his worshipers. And his worshipers are his servants.
There's that that beautiful connection there. So Eved, yeah, that's a servant, but Avodah could either be worship or it could be service. And the verb can easily have overlap to it.
And in the cases that you mentioned, that'd be a perfect example. When he said it's in my house, we will worship, serve, both add, both add. Hey, thank you for the call and the good word. God bless. Thank you. God bless you.
All right. Hey, friends, fire school of ministry dot com. All the classes are online. Fire School of Ministry dot com. Check it out.
