Separating Fact from Fiction in Alleged Jewish Traditions

We're going to separate fact from fiction on today's Thoroughly Jewish Thursday broadcast. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Hey friends, welcome to yet another Thoroughly Jewish Thursday broadcast.

I'm not taking calls today. We're going to get into some interesting internet rumors, see if they're fact or fiction. Are they rumors?

Are they true? And then we're going to answer a bunch of questions that I solicited. I already solicited them on Twitter. In fact, I solicited them yesterday and said post them. Sooner you post, better chance I'll answer them on today's broadcast. So we won't be taking calls, but all of you with questions, you'll be able to call in tomorrow. Also, oh, a little over an hour from now, so hour 15 from now, 4 15 Eastern time, right back on our Ask Dr. Brown YouTube channel, we'll be doing our exclusive weekly YouTube chat.

So feel free to post your YouTube, your questions for me, Jewish related questions on YouTube later today. Okay, let's get into a myth. Is it a myth? Is it true?

Is it an internet rumor? Is it an amazing tradition that's being passed on? Let's start with one of these. Then I'm going to start answering your Twitter questions. Then I'll kind of come back and do at least one more of these.

Okay. So the fact that when the disciples came in to the tomb where Jesus had been resurrected, they found the cloths that he had been wrapped in, they found them folded, right? So was there a reason for this? Remember, it's around the time of Passover. So you'll see this every year on Passover Easter.

This circulates. So one website says this, Simon Peter arrived and went inside. He also noted the linen wrappings lying there while the cloth that had covered Jesus' head was folded up and lying to the side. Was that important? Absolutely. Is it really significant?

Yes. In order to understand the significance of the folded napkin, we need to understand a little bit about Hebrew tradition of that day. The folded napkin had to do with the master and servant and every Jewish boy knew this tradition. When the servant set the dinner table for the master, he made sure that it was exactly the way the master wanted it. The table was furnished perfectly and then the servant would wait just out of sight until the master had finished eating. The servant would not dare touch the table until the master was finished. Now if the master was finished eating, he would rise from the table, wipe his fingers and mouth, clean his beard, and wad off the napkin and toss it onto the table. The servant would then know to clear the table. From those days, the wad at napkin meant, I'm finished. If the master got up from the table, folded his napkin and laid it beside his plate, the servant would not dare touch the table because the folded napkin meant, I'm coming back. Let us be reminded daily during this post-Easter season, Jesus Christ is not finished.

He's coming back for his faithful servants within his church and lays out a pastor that shared that view. Okay, it's beautiful, isn't it? Wow.

Never knew that. Is it true? No.

No. You say, how can you be so sure? I have searched. I have checked with other Jewish scholars. None of us have ever heard of that custom. None of us can find a stitch of support for it in ancient Jewish literature that would shed light on customs in that day.

I do not know a single living soul who can provide me who can provide me with legitimate references. Oh no, but I've heard it. It doesn't matter what you heard. It doesn't matter how beautiful it is. It doesn't matter what gets passed on.

Here. Oh, there's this amazing story about... We'll pick somebody. Ronald Reagan, when he was a boy and he did this and that, and that's why he became the man he became. The only problem is it never happened. I'm just making something up here.

The only problem is you can check with every biographer of Ronald Reagan, every family member of Ronald Reagan, everyone that knew Ronald Reagan back at that time, whatever the story, you could look for everything possible. It never happened. You say, no, no, no, but this is like a beautiful... I understand that may be beautiful, but I know of zero backing for it.

Zero. I am 99.9999999999% sure that it is a myth. Someone heard it, learned it, came up with it, thought this, it gets passed on. And it just becomes now, especially the internet boom overnight.

It's just, it's as if it's true. You say, but I've seen Messianic Jews quote it. And did they quote the original sources?

Did they quote the... Look it up here. You'll find it in the Mishnah here. You'll find it in this Halakhic Midrash here. You'll find it in the Talmud here. You'll find it referenced in the writings from Qumran. You'll find it in this pseudographical writing.

You'll... No, doesn't exist. Well, it's been passed on through... Oh, passed on for several thousand years. Nobody ever wrote it down ever till now. You said, well, why don't you 100%? Because I have not checked every imaginable possible source that exists.

And perhaps there's something out there that neither I nor any scholar that I know on the planet has ever seen, but it's... I call it 100%. Sorry to disappoint.

Sorry. All right, let's go over to Twitter. Questions here.

I'm going to start with this one from Nick Bartz. Do Jews purposefully destroy healthy societies or is it some kind of lemming-like programming that is beyond their control? Hey, let me answer that ridiculous anti-Semitic question with a question of my own. Do people on Twitter destroy their own integrity and credibility by their own choice or do they lemming-like follow anti-Semitic lies?

What a ridiculous question. So you mean Jews like Moses and Isaiah, Jesus and Paul who destroy healthy societies? Those ones you're talking about? Or Jews like famous scientists that come up with cures for polio or vaccines that save millions of lives? Or conservative thinkers like Dennis Prager or Jewish philanthropists that behind the scenes underwrite causes of compassion around the world? Are those Jews the ones you're talking about? No, I'm talking about the Jews who destroy every society. It's just this anti-Semitic garbage just spread out. The fact is Jews are like everybody else. Good points, bad points. My joke is Jews are like everybody else, but more so.

Our strengths seem to be more exaggerated, our weaknesses more exaggerated. So it depends which Jew you're talking about. Outstanding Jews of the 1800s that had wonderful impacts on their society or Karl Marx who threw off his Jewishness. Depends which Jew you're talking about. I was going to pass that by, but since you posted it publicly, it deserves an answer with public ridicule.

All right, let's go to Fred. I recently heard a Jewish rabbi who indicated different Jewish views on the afterlife to include many believe in none. Can you summarize what most believe? Traditional Jews, so those who believe the Bible to be God's word and believe in the authority of rabbinic tradition, they absolutely believe in an afterlife. The emphasis being a future resurrection of the dead to be with God and to follow his laws and commandments and study them forever.

They do believe also in a messianic era which will not be an eternal era, but where the Messiah will set up his kingdom and rule and reign over the people of the world with Israel as the lead nation in a time of peace and righteousness. But there will be a final resurrection and there will be eternal life for the righteous. Now traditional Jews believe that there might be some who are so righteous that they immediately go into God's presence, but others upon death will go through a time of purging which can last up to 11 months, after which they will go into God's presence. But the great focus is on the final resurrection. Some believe there are some who are so wicked that they will eternally perish, but the idea of eternal hell is not really held to and taught in Judaism.

And even the righteous of all the nations will have a part in the world to come. But the majority of Jews worldwide today are not traditional Jews, not religious Jews, and many more secular Jews do not believe in a world to come. Many believe there is no afterlife. The less religious, the less prone they are to believe in an afterlife, just like your average atheist, right? It's not going to believe in an afterlife, obviously not, because this physical world is all you have, so many secular Jews believe the same way. But there's not as much emphasis put on the afterlife, the world to come, in Jewish teaching as there is in Christian teaching.

Let's see, just looking for the ones posted earliest first. Okay, T.J. under God. For those who condemn Jews because, quote, the Jews killed Christ, do they not realize that tens of thousands of Jews followed and supported Jesus? And it was the religious leaders motivated by fear of Rome who pushed Pilate to kill him. T.J. would to God that people had that realization.

Would to God that they understood that masses of Jews followed Jesus and recognized him as a prophet, that it was the national leadership that rejected him and brought judgment on the nation as a whole. The fact is, first and foremost, God gave Jesus for our sins. God sent Jesus to die for us. That's number one. Number two, Jesus says, John 10, no one takes my life.

I lay it down. Number three, it was our sins that nailed them to the cross. Number four, Jesus handed him over to the Romans. Number five, the Romans crucified him.

But God gave him. Jesus laid his life down. Our sins nailed them to the cross. Jewish leaders turned him over to the Romans. The Romans crucified him.

That's reality. You say, but the Bible says the Jews killed Christ. In 1 Thessalonians 2, Paul is speaking about those Jews who in the past, and Judeans in particular, killed the prophets, rejected the Messiah, persecuting us now. There was that same bad stream of Judean Jews that sinned in the past, sinning now. He's not indicting all Jews of all ages. It's one of the great anti-Semitic libels that's led to the bloodshed of many, many Jews through the centuries.

Let's see. Sir Goose, with the recent time of Yom Kippur just passed, what would you say to Jewish believers in Christ who still practice this day? What would you say to those Jewish people who practice it and don't know Christ, what Christ has done for them? To Jewish believers who practice it, they normally practice it in two ways. They practice it in terms of fasting and praying for our people, so using that day as a day to intercede, and they use it as a day of holy introspection, knowing that they're already forgiven through the cross, through the Messiah's death, but they use it as a day of introspection and a day of prayer and intercession for our people. As for those who practice it and don't know what Messiah's done, it's a day that we really pray for them, for their eyes to be open, to recognize that with all the confessing, all the repenting, all the crying out, that they still don't have forgiveness, and pray that God would convict them more deeply of their sin, to recognize their guilt before God, and then open their eyes to the beauty and power and grace of Messiah's atoning death, and He died so that we could live. So it's a great day to pray and proceed for the lost sheep and the lost sheep of the house of Israel. We'll be right back. Thanks for joining us on Thoroughly Jewish Thursday on the Line of Fire.

I'm not giving the phone number out because I'm answering questions that were posted yesterday on Twitter. I said post them, and then I'll answer them on today's broadcast, and I'm referring to some widely believed traditions that we often hear in the Christian or Messianic Jewish world and asking, are they fact or fiction? Are they true, or are they false? Is it true that many traditional Jews believe in two Messiahs, a ruling and reigning Messiah and a suffering Messiah?

The answer is yes, it is true. The first explicit reference to this Messiah, son of Joseph, the suffering Messiah, is in the Talmud, in the Tractate Sukkah. So let me tell you, the entire Talmud is mentioned. So this is through the final compilation of the Talmud about 500 years after the time of Jesus, the Babylonian Talmud.

There's only one reference to it. Otherwise, the Messiah, the Messiah, the Messiah is the Messiah, son of David. Now, the authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the community there, probably Essenes, they spoke of the Messiah's plural of Aaron and Israel. There were beliefs in two Messiahs, a priestly Messiah and a Davidic Messiah, but that priestly Messiah was not a suffering Messiah in those traditions. Yet the Messiah, son of Joseph, according to the Jewish tradition, will fight the wars of the Lord and then suffer and die in the last great war.

The Messiah will then raise him from the dead. You say, does Jewish tradition see his suffering as atoning? Several do.

Most do not. But there are a few that see his suffering as atoning suffering. And other Jewish traditions speak of Messiah, son of Joseph, in heaven, carrying the weight and burden of the Jewish people day by day, and without his sufferings, like he carries some of our sufferings, we could not endure.

Yes, the idea that there's a suffering Messiah and a ruling and reigning Messiah that's not a nutrient myth. That is true. It's well-known.

Many, many books written on the subject. All right, back to Twitter questions. Casey, do you think the pre-tribulation rapture view is antisemitic? No, I don't. But there is a theology that puts the curses on the Jews that plays into this.

Let me explain. The rise of dispensationalism in the 1800s, the pre-trib rapture view, brought with it prayers for the restoration of the Jewish people to Israel. And you can read books written by pre-trib teachers in the early 1900s, and they're talking about the physical restoration of the Jewish people back to the land.

So in those ways, it was very philosimitic. It saw that God had not forsaken the Jewish people. In fact, it saw the church age as a parenthetical age. God dealing with Israel. Israel rejects the Messiah and the kingdom. Now God deals with the nations.

That's the church age. And then when the church is taken out, God deals with the nations. Excuse me, God deals with Israel again, and the kingdom comes to Israel, and the Jewish people will be saved. So in that way, it's philosimitic. And some of Israel's best friends today are evangelical Christians who believe in a pre-trib rapture.

But there's another side to it which is a concerning side. Again, we have to believe whatever scripture says. I don't believe in a pre-trib rapture because I don't see it taught in the Bible, all right? Not because of the implications of it. I just don't see it taught in the Bible. But I did my first few years in the Lord, and when I studied it more deeply, I concluded it wasn't there.

You want to dig more on that? Watch the debate with the Bible? If you want to dig more on that, watch the debate with Pastor Derek Walker, Does the Bible Teach a Pre-Tribulation Rapture?

It's on the Ask Dr. Brown YouTube channel, on the Ask Dr. Brown Facebook page, linked of course on the AskDrBrown.org website. And get both sides. Get both sides. If you want just my side with Professor Craig Keener, get our book, Not Afraid of the Antichrist, Why We Don't Believe in a Pre-Tribulation Rapture. But here are the two big problems with the pre-tribulation view. One, it's saying that we are praying for all the Jewish people to come back to the land where they will be slaughtered.

That's one problem to it. We're praying for them to all come back to the land, and then there's going to be something worse than the Holocaust that takes place. Two-thirds will be slaughtered. That's actually similar to the Holocaust, two-thirds of European Jews, but some would say the overall suffering will be even worse then.

So that creates a bit of a problem. Oh, we're praying for you to come back to the land so you can all be slaughtered one day. The other problem is, hang on, the church gets to feast in heaven for seven years.

Why? Well, because the church is not appointed to wrath, but the Jews are. So the church enjoys the blessings in heaven while the Jews get slaughtered on the earth. That's problematic to me. Number one, I don't see the scriptural.

Number two, that's problematic for the reasons. But inherently, I don't see it as anti-Semitic. I see it as a theological error that can be anti-Semitic, but it's more of a theological error in keeping with the idea that Jews get cursed, the Christians get blessed. So there are problems with it, but most pre-trib Christians pray for Israel, believe there's a blessed future for Israel, believe we should stand with Israel.

So I think they haven't fully thought through the implications of that. Peppermintom. Peppermint mom.

Peppermint mom. Oh, how easy. Let's make it more difficult. Peppermint mom asks, what is the prophetic significance of RBG's death on a Jewish holy day? So there are two sides to this. There are two sides to this.

One, the fact that it is attention getting. It is Yom Teruah, the day of the trumpet blast, the shofar blast. The Jewish tradition is Rosh Hashanah, the beginning of the year. And this trumpet blast is a call to repentance and a wake up call. So to die in the time between that shofar blast being heard in Israel and then being heard in different parts of America, you know, with the time differential, that's like an oh my God moment. I mean, I remember exactly where I was. I was there in Nashville, Tennessee, with my friend Ward Simpson. We were in the green room.

It's called the back room, getting ready for me to go on Mike Huckabee's TV broadcast. And someone says, have you heard Ruth Bader Ginsburg died? What? At that moment, what?

So it's massively attention getting. Now, if you thought that Ruth Bader Ginsburg was an extraordinarily courageous saintly woman fighting for women's rights and was there for a righteous woman, even though she was not a religious Jew, then you would see the significant because of the idea that when a Jew dies at a time like this, it means that they were a tzaddik, they were a righteous person, so that she would be a tzaddikah, a righteous woman, and this would be the proof of it. Obviously, while I admire her tenacity and appreciate much of what she did for women, I categorically differ with many other Jewish decisions she made in that part of the legacy that she left. Okay. Bropologist, my question is, any chance of you dialoguing with Ben Shapiro regarding why believe Jesus is the Messiah?

Bropologist, many, many, many have asked this question. I'm sure they've asked it of Ben as well. I know folks that work closely with Ben. I mean, we know each other a little, but I know folks that work closely with him every day.

And I reached out to him a few years ago. I shot him an email, and I said, hey, you probably don't want to do this, but I get asked about this constantly. How would you feel about a public dialogue or debate on Jews who believe Jesus is the Messiah? Is Jesus the Jewish Messiah?

What should Jews believe about the Messiah? And he wrote me back immediately, respectfully, thanking me and saying, you know, no thanks. I don't enjoy religious debates. I don't think that Ben in the least bit for a split second is afraid of the topic in terms of the content or that he'd be afraid to dialogue with me or debate me. So I don't think for a split second that he'd be ducking this. But for whatever reason, up to now, up to now, he hasn't wanted to do it.

Now, either it's what he said. He does not enjoy religious debates. I mean, maybe he'll talk with an atheist about things, but by and large, he's not getting into those debates. He's more having dialogue. You say, well, why not have dialogue with you as a Messianic Jew? I don't know.

Don't know. But I feel confident it's not that he's ducking it or he's afraid to, OK, or that he doesn't want to give me a platform. By God's grace, I have a platform. He's got an amazing platform. So he'd be putting me on his platform in that regard.

I don't think that's it. If I had to speculate, maybe he, because he works so closely with evangelical Christians and respects them, he does not want to have a discussion that could seem divisive in that regard. Maybe. But maybe it's just simply like, nah, rather not. Look, he has enough notoriety now.

He probably gets a thousand people a day that you should debate this when you should discuss this, you should dialogue with this. But it could happen one day. If it's the Lord's will, I'm confident that I'd love to do it. I think it'd be awesome.

I think it'd be very, very instructive and helpful. But for whatever reason, not at the moment. Let's see.

Gidon Ariel. Here's a Jewish related question. Do believers in Jesus who give Jews space to not believe in him have a theological New Testament leg to stand on? Sir, if you mean give space not to believe in terms of, hey, I can't force you, put you under pressure, try to coerce you, base my love on how you respond, or you work this out between you and God. Well, that's the New Testament way. You don't force the faith down somebody's throat. You don't base, well, I'm not going to be a friend if you don't believe, or I won't love you.

No. So anything with coercion, pressure, aside from the Holy Spirit putting people under pressure to change their hearts, no, we stand against that. We stand against the forced work of the church in the past, you know, forcing conversions. If you mean give Jews space to say, hey, if you don't believe in Jesus, that's fine. You can have eternal life just the same. You can reject him as the Messiah, but by obedience to the Torah and keeping Jewish tradition, have eternal life, you can go be with the Lord forever just the same as me, even if you reject Jesus. Do they have a theological leg to stand on the New Testament? No, of course not.

No, no, no. Jesus came for his own Jewish people first. If there was another way to be saved, you wouldn't have died on the cross.

And the Gospel and the Acts goes to the Jews first, because it's a Jewish message, and then a message for the whole world. It's the Line of Fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get into the Line of Fire now by calling 866-34-TRUTH.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Yes, that Jewish music that you hear reminds us, it is thoroughly Jewish Thursday, not taking calls today, but, oh, what, about 40 minutes from now, 45 minutes from now, we will be doing our exclusive weekly YouTube chat. So join me at AskDr. Brown, ASKDearBrown, on YouTube, 4.15 Eastern Time. And if you wanted to ask a question during the show you couldn't, because you can't call in, then go ahead and post it on YouTube, and we'll answer it then.

How's that? And of course, phone lines open tomorrow, God willing. So that's the plan, all right? Join me on YouTube or call in tomorrow. And saying that, I was about to give out the phone number.

We're talking about habit, yeah. So I'm answering questions that were posted yesterday on Twitter, getting to as many as I can in the order that they were posted. So I'm just looking those X number of hours ago and just trying to do that, okay? But I want to first deal with the subject I've heard, is it internet myth, is it truth, which is when Jesus said about his coming, no one knows the day or the hour, that he didn't actually mean so much date setting and speculation about counting days and things, but rather, he was referring to the fact that Yom Teruah, the day of the sounding of the trumpet, Rosh Hashanah in Jewish tradition, the new year, that he was referring to the fact that no man knows the day or the hour of that, and his coming is tied in with that, because you had to wait. It was the one holiday because it comes at the first day of the year, excuse me, the first day of the month, right? The first day of the seventh month, the one that is like Passover is the 14th day of the first month, and Yom Kippur the 10th day of the seventh month, and Sukkot Tabernacle is the 15th day of the seventh month, right? Or Shavuot, Pentecost Feast of Weeks falling 50 days after day in Passover. So this is the one which is the beginning of the month, and you don't know exactly when the beginning of the month is until you've got to sight the moon properly, and no one knows the day or the hour. That was the Jewish way of referring to Yom Teruah is that fact or fiction.

Fiction! Say, how can you be so sure? I saw Messianic Jew talking about Jewish tradition and this, and I've seen top Christian teachers talking about it. Hey, with all respect, I cannot find a single ancient source. I cannot find a single Jewish tradition in Jewish law codes, in traditional commentaries, anything anywhere that would have any authority in Judaism over a period of 1,500 years.

I cannot find any reference to Yom Teruah, the day of the shofar blast, the sending of the trumpet, first day of the seventh month, anywhere where this tradition is associated with it that they said no one knows the day or the hour. Now, you say to me, are you fluent in all rabbinic tradition over a 1,500 year period? No!

No, no, no. It's a massive amount. There's a massive amount. There's what's called Yama Talmud, the Sea of the Talmud, because the rabbinic literature is so vast and massive and expansive.

You say to me, well then, how can you speak with such authority? Okay, number one, you can look for specific things. You can look for everything you can find. I have whole books just on Jewish tradition and the Jewish holy days, so you can research there, right? In other words, you're not looking everywhere, but you're looking at key places.

But that's not enough. So, I reached out to rabbinic scholars who know this stuff like the back of their hand. It's been their entire life, almost out of the womb, learning these things.

And I asked them, and none of them ever heard this reference, none of them ever in their lives or in anything they studied in any of their studies through all of their lives ever heard this referred to, Yom Chua Rosh Hashanah, as this is the time when the holiday when no one knows the day or the hour. So, let me just put this out, okay? You've held to this view.

You've even taught it. Show me the rabbinic sources. Show me the rabbinic literature. Don't quote to me from another book of another Christian teacher, a Messianic Jewish teacher. No, no, no. It's not in the Bible.

I can guarantee you that. I can guarantee you it's not in the Bible. Oh, the other thing, I studied every major Matthew commentary I could find when this phrase comes up or whenever this is mentioned in the Gospels.

I studied every major commentary I could find and everything with Jewish background, whole compilations of just five volumes, just Jewish background to New Testament, five volumes in German. I went through all of that and found nothing to corroborate this whatsoever. So, if you think you've got the sources, please show me. Send them to me.

Write to our website. Say, here. Here's the sources in the Talmud, in the Mishnah, in the Mishneh Torah, in the Shulchan Aruch, in Rashi's commentary, in Sifrei and Michilta. Find it for me, okay? Find it for me and show me. And then I'll publicly get up and share those sources. All right, back to Twitter. You say, you're just bursting my bubbles. No, we've gone through three traditions today, two are internet myths. One's true, so there we go.

Okay, that guy Matt. On what basis did Jews neglect observing the Old Testament law? Aren't they required to keep every bit of it? Even if the Temple is no longer here, what about stoning adulterers or other laws that are no longer observed?

So, great question, Matt. Christians believe in the Old Testament and the New, correct? Traditional Jews believe in the Old Testament and rabbinic tradition. They believe that God gave them an oral law just as much as they believe God gave them a written law. They believe God gave Moses traditions orally on Mount Sinai that explained the oral law, the written law, and gave principles of interpretation of the written law. And they believe those have been passed down and developed in each generation and then put in writing ultimately and they continue to be developed as new questions come up and rabbis have to give rulings on new issues and then that becomes written and then this becomes part of it.

So, it's an ongoing stream of tradition. So, as the church historian James Parks once observed, this may be an exact quote, but it's close, that Judaism is no more the religion of the Old Testament than Catholicism is the religion of the New Testament. If you ask a Roman Catholic, why do you do that? It's not in the Bible. Oh, well, we have it by church tradition and we consider this to be authoritative. So, that's how it is with rabbinic Judaism. So, one thing is you can't do certain things. A traditional Jew, from the moment he wakes up in the morning to the moment he goes to sleep, a devoted traditional Jew, his whole concentration is on keeping the commandments.

He's human being like anybody else, but I'm saying if he's living out his faith, his whole concentration, traditional Jewish woman, that's the whole concentration, keeping the commandments, keeping the law, honoring the Lord, doing this, doing the most minute things. Here, when I spent Yom Kippur, Day of Atonement, with Lubavitch Hasidim, ultra-orthodox Jews in Brooklyn, New York, in 1975. At that time, this falls around October, I suffered from hay fever. Used to get it then in the fall, then it shifted to the spring, it's pretty well gone.

But anyway, back then I had it in the fall. So, I'm at the house, so even though it wasn't a Saturday, it's considered a holy Sabbath, Yom Kippur, it's a day when you don't do any physical labor. So, I'm grabbing some tissues to put in my pocket to walk across the street to the synagogue, and the gentleman with whom I'm staying says, oh, you can't carry, it's a Sabbath, you can't carry. You're telling me, tissues are pretty light, tissues are very light, I can't carry. Now, I didn't get facetious with them, it's like, I can't? They said, no, but don't worry, they're pre-ripped tissues in the bathroom in the synagogue.

Pre-ripped? Yeah, because it's considered work to tear. This is the detail with which a traditional Jew seeks to live his life pleasing God, every last little detail. So, he would joyfully be part of offering blood sacrifices, but without a temple, you can't do it.

Without a functioning Sanhedrin, you don't have a death penalty. So, in the absence of these things, other traditions have been developed. Now, I would challenge many of those traditions, have a whole volume, Volume 5, of answering Jewish objections to Jesus, where I respectfully challenge the authority of those traditions.

Many of them are beautiful, others are neutral, others I differ with. It's the authority of those traditions that I challenge more than anything. But Jewish tradition has developed certain things, just like someone could say to us, well, why don't you stone adulterers? That's Old Testament law. Well, New Testament tells us if it's in the in the body, in the church, and they commit adultery, refuse to repent, we excommunicate them. So, we've had our traditions based on the teaching of Jesus and by the Spirit, what's been given to us, and Judaism has its traditions. Julius, concerning church history, what has been the Christian attitude or disposition towards Jews? Often it's been anything but Christian. Read my book, the new edition, Our Hands Are Stained with Blood, the tragic story of the church and the Jewish people.

It's a painful story. Christians have often treated Jews as lower class, as bestial, they have been demonized, they have been looked at as the worst of unbelievers, they have been looked at as just worldly sinners. It's tragic to see how much demonizing of the Jewish people was done by the church. You take the worst denunciations of the prophets and the worst denunciations of Jesus and then those are taken as if that describes all Jews, as opposed to the hypocritical leaders and others that were being targeted. Now, thankfully, there have been many Christians that have had compassion on the Jewish people and their suffering, that have prayed for them and sacrificed for them and lived beautiful lives for them. But tragically, ultimately, if not, your average Jew in history was more used to the attitude of the Nazis wanting to exterminate them or drive them out, as opposed to the attitude of the righteous Gentiles who were willing to lay their lives down for them. Jews through history, through church history, have been much more used to Christian hostility, that is not truly Christian, than Christian love, which truly is. Again, if you haven't read Our Hands Are Stained with Blood, the tragic story of the church and the Jewish people, I really urge you to read it.

It's been our most translated book and was in print continuously for 27 years before we put out the second expanded edition. Let's see, Darth Calculus. Hang on, let me back up to this one. Rachel, is it right for Gentile believers to criticize suppressed Jewish believers for keeping the feast, choosing to wear tallit, bar mitzvahs, etc., if the Jewish believers are acting from a heart of genuine worship and not from religious road? Yes, it is. No, it is not right for Gentile believers to criticize suppressed them. If these Jewish believers are Yeshua-centered and are walking in freedom and believe that in solidarity with their people that these are customs that should be followed and that God never changed the feast in the holy days, it is wrong for Gentile believers to criticize them. And conversely, for a Jewish believer to criticize a Christian who worships on Sunday and celebrates that day as Resurrection Day and said to the side as the Sabbath, God never commanded the seventh-day Sabbath on the Gentile Christian church. It is wrong for each to criticize in southern that respect.

Romans 14 is the operative rule written in particular, in particular, written in the context of Jewish and Gentile believers working out their faith together, side by side. We'll be right back. Thanks so much for joining us on Thoroughly Jewish Thursday. Michael Brown, not taking your calls. Let me just tell you exactly what we've done today. Yesterday, Wednesday, right before radio, I went on Twitter.

And that, I know, is a little easier for us to control. Number-wise, if I go on our Facebook page, the flooded responses are too overwhelming. But I said, hey, if you have a Jewish-related question, I'm going to answer it on tomorrow's show. And then, after radio, I went right back to Twitter and answered the questions then. So, whoever posted the first, like, four hours earlier, that was the first we got. Three hours earlier, and if we got to two hours, so that's what we're doing.

And we're putting them up on the screen. So, Darth, Darth Calculus, you may have had the very first question. My mom was born into a Jewish family, but my dad wasn't. Am I also Jewish by birth? I was under the impression that was passed down maternally and the tribe was paternal. If so, do I have a tribe? Number one, according to Jewish tradition, you're Jewish because your mother's Jewish.

That simple. Jewish tradition says, if your mother's Jewish, you're Jewish. Period. Now, is that the biblical mentality? You can make a case that it's passed on paternally rather than maternally. Reform Jews, so liberal Jews, will often say, if either your mother or father are Jewish, you're Jewish. My best approach is, if your mother or father are Jewish and you've been raised with a consciousness of being a Jew, then you should consider yourself a Jew. Now, traditional Judaism debates, if a Jew becomes a follower of Jesus, are they still Jewish or have they converted to another religion?

That's another debate. But yes, any traditional Jew on the planet, if you say, my mother's Jewish, they say, well, then you're Jewish. OK, do you have a tribe?

Yeah, but who knows what it is? Unless you have a last name like Cohen or Levi, which case you've got a good likelihood of being a Levi or specifically a kohane, a priest. And that can also be confirmed by DNA or likelihood. You know, there's some question about a Davidic ancestry and being able to trace one's back and DNA. And otherwise, we really don't know what tribe we're from. We don't know. And it could theoretically be any of the 12, because before the 10 northern tribes were destroyed, many of them had already come south and been part of the Kingdom of Judah and then others in temerity, others lost to history, but then others just becoming part of the larger Jewish community. So we don't know.

I don't know what tribe I'm from, but I'm 90 percent Ashkenazi Jew, 10 percent Sephardi Jew. That part I know. Chosen ministries. What does the word ezer mean in the original ancient Hebrew text? So ezer from the root azar is to help. So a helper. So in Genesis 2, God's going to give the man Adam an ezer kenegdo. It's a helper like his opposite.

So a helper that would be the right counterpart. Spaceman Overlord. By the way, is that your original name?

Or is that perhaps a Twitter handle? A little funny here. Spaceman Overlord.

A little funny here. Spaceman Overlord. Same with Tarth Calculus. Okay, what is the best Old Testament commentary you know of that comprehends the Jewish context? Ooh. Ooh, that's a hard one.

That's a hard one. Okay, number one, the Jewish context you mean than the ancient Israelite context. So many fine commentary series today, Christian and Jewish, write with the understanding of the ancient Israelite context. So be it a critical series like Anchor Bible, be it a more conservative series like New International Commentary and the Old Testament, or slightly less conservative Word biblical commentary or critical commentary like Hermeneia.

I mean, there's so many. They would be looking at the Old Testament in light of the ancient Near Eastern context and ancient Israelite context. Now, just like I do in my Jeremiah commentary in the New Edition of the Expositives Bible commentary, or as I do in my Job commentary, as I'm doing now in the Isaiah commentary that I'm just in the early stages on. But if I was looking for Old Testament commentary written by Jews that also tie in with Jewish tradition, then I would get the New Jewish Publication Society series. Now, it's not the whole Bible. It's the five books of Moses. It's some select books like Esther. It's the Haftarot, the supplemental readings from the scriptures and the synagogues. But if I was reading one where I wanted to get the ancient context and then also Jewish traditional interpretation, then that would be the place I would go, the new JPS commentary series. But again, it's not on the whole Bible. And I try to do that in my own commentaries, like Jeremiah, Job and Isaiah to also to bring in Christian interpretation and Jewish interpretation. Stephen, what is the last day, the great day of the Feast of Tabernacles, the seventh day or eighth day?

Thanks. It's actually a question that is a little bit debated. You know, was there an eighth day that was added on? So if I was confused about this subject and I was trying to just, can I go to one source, just one place that would answer the question, then I would go to Craig Keener's IVP Bible background commentary.

Obviously, commentary's on John. We'll get into this. But I would go to that. I have that on Lagos.

I own the physical copy as well. In fact, I called it up on Lagos and I'm just frozen here. It's not coming up for some reason. Obviously not coming up because we're doing a live radio show and it's just looking at me, looking at the logo. Ah, here it comes.

Here it comes. That may take a while before it lets me access. But that's my go-to place when I'm looking for Jewish background on the New Testament in one volume, because all the major scholarly New Testament commentaries will get into that.

But if I want to get one volume that gets into all of it. Now, here's another place that I might go while some of the software's loading. I would go to Chabad.org.

Chabad is a traditional Jewish website, Hasidic Jewish website, followers of the late, the Babat Shechabim Menachem Mendel Schneerson. And I would put out last day of Sukkot. All right. So I'm searching their website and Sukkot calendar, how to celebrate Sukkot and Chol Hamoed, intermediate festival days, Sukkot and Simchat Torah. And let's just see here.

Okay. As soon as the Silent Day of Yom Kippur is behind us, we focus on the traditions of the upcoming holiday of Sukkot. These four days between Yom Kippur and Sukkot are characterized by frenetic activity. So you got to build the sukkah and all of that.

And then it's going through each day. So you've got the first day of Sukkot, second day of Sukkot. This is Jewish tradition. Third day of Sukkot, fifth day of Sukkot.

And come on, let's get to the end here. Seventh day of Sukkot. Right.

And this is then considered to be the last day. The question is, is there anything supplemental? And that Shmini Atzeret, all right, Shmini Atzeret, Simchat Torah. This is now the additional celebration that's spoken of.

So you can just look that up. Shmini Atzeret, Simchat Torah. Last day of Sukkot.

What follows is only information relevant to preparations for the holiday of Shmini Atzeret. And so on and on. Anyway, look it up.

You'll find the info there. Okay. Now that I've got that I've got Logos open up, I didn't need to take so much time of our time. You know, I kind of answered this like I was doing a YouTube chat where I say, hey, let's let's discover this together, as opposed to live radio. You're like, come on, get to the point, man.

I want to get to more questions. So I'll pull up what Craig Keener says in a moment. But Ryan S., even if the old law followed by Jesus isn't divine, as argued in one of your books, this is their tremendous value in following it in a reasonable way, given that it creates cohesion for the Jewish people. In other words, without it, we assimilated into oblivion.

Thanks, Ryan. Great question. Number one, God knows how to keep us. So God may have used laws and traditions to keep us just like he used Catholic monks to preserve copies of scripture. But I don't believe in monasticism or Catholicism.

Right. In the same way, God used the Jewish community to preserve the Hebrew Bible and God used the traditions to preserve our people. But in the Lord, we have to sort out what works best. In other words, some of the traditions are contrary to life in the spirit and contrary to the gospel.

So that has to be worked out. It could well be that this is something that we find very helpful to keep and observe or if it's been our lifestyle and we live in a community like that. But we don't want to do it just to put on some outward garment to make ourselves look more Jewish to others.

It has to be really part of our life, something helpful, useful, edifying. And again, it's got to be an individual choice. For me to do it would be somewhat superficial. In other words, it would be putting on something that's not really who I am. And in addition to that, it would be something that in certain ways would be contrary to my understanding of life in the spirit. And with that, with a few seconds left in the broadcast, I finally get the software to respond, having typed also in a wrong box, and it freezes on me right here. So I can't tell you what Craig Keener says on John 7, 37 and 38. Yeah, with all the setup and the mystery and the waiting.

But here's the good news. 15 minutes from now, we'll be back on YouTube. And I'm going to tell you right there on YouTube what Craig Keener says about John 7, 37 and 38. So join me with your live questions of all kinds, all background. YouTube will be doing a chat starting in 15 minutes and ask Dr. Brown, ASK, Dr. Brown. Be blessed and keep lifting up. Yeshua.