Purim and the Death of Stalin

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So what does the Jewish holiday of Purim have to do with the death of Joseph Stalin? 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. Welcome, welcome to Thoroughly Jewish Thursday. It is the Jewish holiday of Purim, the biblical holiday of Purim. If you go to the book of Esther and read it, if you've never read it, you feel like you're reading a mystery novel and, whoa, and the turns and the twists and the divine intervention without any mention of God. Yeah, the book of the Bible that does not explicitly mention God but has the handwriting of God all over it. The book of Esther, Purim, we're in that right now. Yesterday, today, first day of Purim coincided with my birthday. Yeah, just worked out like that. But there's a fascinating story about how this ties in with the death of Joseph Stalin.

I'm going to tell you that today, but here is the number to call. If you have any Jewish related question of any kind related to the Hebrew language, related to messianic prophecy, related to Jewish tradition, related to the modern state of Israel, if it is Jewish related, related to anti-Semitism, give me a call, 866-348-7884, and I'll put out the invite. I mean, we may get someone to take this one in a hundred, one in a thousand times, but if you're a Jewish person and you believe I'm wrong in my faith in Jesus Yeshua as our Messiah and want to tell me why you think I'm wrong, obviously we don't have hours and hours to do it, but if you want to tell me why you think I'm wrong, phone lines are open for you as well. Also, we're going to play a clip on Monday.

We had a problem with the clip and we plan to play it later today, one of the worst arguments that I've heard, but addressing it because it's apparently getting a lot of attention on TikTok, one of the worst arguments I've heard that the New Testament was originally written in Aramaic, so we'll deal with that a little later in the broadcast as well. Okay, so Joseph Stalin, murderous leader of Russia, known for his tyrannical ways, known for starving his own people, murderous acts of many kinds. So in 1953, there was what was called the Doctor's Plot and it had been announced that there were nine doctors, six of whom were Jewish, and they had been found guilty of plotting against Stalin. They were allegedly spies, they were plotting against the government, they were going to be put to death, a couple of them had confessed, now it turns out afterwards we found out they confessed under torture, and then right after Purim, suddenly Stalin dies, heart failure is what's reported, he suddenly dies, and what happens to the Doctor's Plot?

Well, they dig deeper, find out the truth, that they've been falsely accused, and they go free. Other political prisoners, including Jews that were in prison because of their faith, they go free. So it's a major turning point, and it's happened sometimes in Jewish history where there's been a dramatic turnaround during Purim. Justice happened in the Book of Esther and the evil villain is gone. This would be the most notable story here in terms of Stalin and of course in the Bible with Haman. And Jews traditionally will have special celebrations, get dressed up in all kinds of fun outfits, but then there'll be the bad guy Haman, it's always food, and Esther Mordecai are the heroes, etc. So it's a fun time for children, etc. So let me tell you something interesting that ties in with this. We always want to bring you some information that you may not get elsewhere.

For those watching, we'll put a video up that'll give you a little picture here. But Hasidic Jews, and we'll play this video in the background but no audio, so if you're watching you'll see, otherwise you're just hearing me talk just the same. So Hasidic Jews are ultra-Orthodox Jews that look to their spiritual leader, the Grand Rabbi that they call Rebbe, Rebbe, R-E-B-B-E, and he is considered to be especially close to God, especially righteous, a real tzaddik, a real righteous man, and kind of their special connection to God.

So they all pray to God but they look to him for guidance, he's purportedly a miracle worker. You have different Hasidic groups in the world to this day, numbering in the multiplied hundreds of thousands. The one that has become the best known is the Lubavitcher group. They haven't been the biggest over the years, they have grown dramatically under the leadership of their last rabbi, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, who was known as the Lubavitcher Rebbe.

He lived from 1992 to 1994. I tell his story in my book, Resurrection, and then tell the story of his life and death, and then look at the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah. It's a really fascinating read.

The book is called Resurrection. So one of the things that the Rebbe will do is have these special times, it can be on Shabbat, Sabbath, it could be at a special holiday, where he will give a long talk, a discourse, weave in many different theories and ideas and things like that, and they'll sit and hang on his every word. And Lubavitcher Rebbe was famous for doing this for hours and hours and out multiplied hours and hours. And if it was Shabbat, you couldn't write it down, right, because you're not allowed to write on the Sabbath, and then you couldn't record it because you can't use electricity on the Sabbath. This is all according to Jewish tradition. So they would have different men that would memorize different portions of a speech, 20 minutes worth, 30 minutes worth, and then as soon as Sabbath or the Holy Day was over, they would then dictate it all, it would all get written out, and then everything would then be submitted to Rebbe, then he'd look at it and edit it, and then they'd publish it immediately, just kind of get like a whole book out almost overnight.

This is what would happen in their community. So the seventh and last Rebbe, because he had no children, his wife had no children, died 1994, and the movement actually grew and expanded since then, although there are many challenges to it, and it may ultimately fracture over beliefs about Messiah and things like that. But in any case, he had just assumed the leadership he was new leading, was reluctant to take that position. It's 1953, it's Purim, and he's giving one of his talks. So it was nowhere as large as it grew over the years to many, many, many multiplied tens of thousands around the world, all right, not all of them fully observant, but even in the home base of the headquarters in Brooklyn, everything was smaller, but still, the followers are there, they're packed in, they're hanging on his every word, and he tells some odd story from Russia, and the story ends with a guy he's talking about saying hoorah, hoorah, hoorah, which if you break it down in Hebrew is to hoorah, that is he is evil, he is evil, he is evil. No one knew why he told the story, what the significance of it was, but it was shortly after that that word came about Stalin's death. So in their mind, he played a role in this, that somehow when he talked about these things and made these obscure references and talked about Russia and then said hoorah, hoorah, hoorah, as opposed to just like hoorah, hoorah, it was he is evil, he is evil, he is evil, what does it mean, who is he talking about? So in their mind, to this day, his devout followers believe that he did something mystical in the spirit, and as a result of that, Stalin died.

Okay, just wanted to tell you that story. It's interesting, it's Purim, and it's something I had only read about a few years ago. I went to the website Chabad, C-H-A-B-A-D dot org, the Chabad website, to read more, and I guess it was 40 years afterwards they published that talk that he gave and gave some details about it to say yeah, there was something going on. So that's just how much faith they have in their leader. That's just how much they look to him as some type of especially prophetically, mystically endowed human being, and he's like way ahead in another realm and able to do these things. It is very fascinating, and obviously when people like this recognize who Jesus is, it can be tremendously, tremendously powerful when they recognize the true messiah. So anyway, just wanted to share that with you.

Okay, 866-348-7884. Any Jewish related question of any kind, now is a great time to call. Let me talk to you about Purim though for a little while, and then we'll get into this this video and just refute the erroneous things that are on this video. So when you read the book of Esther, again it's very suspenseful, and there's a verse in a verse in Job the fifth chapter that really sums up a lot of what happens in Esther, which is that God takes the wise in their own craftiness, or he takes the crafty in their own craftiness. But again, his name is not mentioned anywhere in the book, and interestingly, in Quran, Dead Sea Scrolls, you can find at least a little fragment of every book of the Hebrew Bible, except Esther. Now, does that mean they didn't have as many scrolls of Esther there, and therefore over a period of time what was there deteriorated more?

Does it mean they just haven't found it in other locations? We don't know the answers to that. We know that Esther was recognized as scripture over the centuries. We know Martin Luther didn't like Esther, by the way, but it was recognized as scripture over the centuries, despite God not being mentioned.

But that's real life. What I mean is, God is often hidden, right? I know that we have communion with God. I know that we walk with the Lord. I know in many ways we sense his nearness. We're led by the Spirit. The Holy Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we're children of God. But in many seasons of our lives, there's not a lot of outward evidence of the activity of God.

Notice we walk by faith and not by sight. And there are those seasons where your head's spinning with wonder, like, I can't believe this. God did this, and this intervention, and this miracle, and this prophetic word, and this supernatural leading, and his presence is so near.

But that's not all the time. And in fact, those special seasons are special because they stand out in unique ways. Let me say again, we can have communion with God through the word, through the Spirit, through prayer, through worship.

We can meet with him in quality ways every day. But in terms of his active hand of intervention, we go through seasons where we don't see it. And yet, often when you look back, or when everything falls into place at the end, you realize there was a lot more intervention than I realized. I'm not making things up. I'm not trying to convince an atheist here. And we're not just trying to make things in to have the God of the gaps in our lives, but there was a gap we're just going to fill.

Oh, that must have been God. But the book of Esther is telling us, even when we don't see him, even when we don't feel him, even when you don't seem to see his hand at work, he is at work. He is planning. He is doing. He is never sitting idly by. And if your life is committed to him and you love him, then he'll cause all things to work for the good. And the more Satan tries to destroy us, the more God will bring blessing. Even if he kills us, that death becomes a platform for the expansion of the gospel. We'll be right back.

It's Dr. Michael Brown. What sacred words of confession hero Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord alone, or as more traditionally understood here, oh, Israel, the Lord, our God, the Lord is one. 866-34-TRUTH with any Jewish related question you have. Going to go to the phones very shortly.

By the way, today is getting ready for the show and getting out of the shower and just opening up the closet. We've got vitamins and yet looking at the Dr. Stengler health supplements, the different vitamins that have taken health supplements, different things. Make sure you go to vitaminmission.com.

I really want to see you healthy, thriving, physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, of course, spiritually above all, but let it be all together. So do what you can to live a healthy lifestyle and these supplements can really be a blessing. They're well produced. They've got the right quantities and made the safest ways they can be made. So check it out. Remember, you get a special discount, the Dr. Brown discount, and then Dr. Stengler in turn gives a donation to our ministry to help us reach even more people.

So vitaminmission.com. There are some scholars, a very, very, very, very small minority who claim that the New Testament was originally written in Aramaic. After all, that would have been the home language of Jesus and the disciples.

So the New Testament was originally written in Aramaic and we have it basically preserved in what's called the Peshitta, which virtually all of the scholars would say is a translation of the New Testament from Greek into Aramaic and then, of course, from the Hebrew Bible into Aramaic, into Syriac, specifically that part of the Aramaic family. And that, hey, the New Testament originally written in Aramaic, if you really want to understand it, you have to go back to that. So here's someone explaining this argument. This is one of the worst presentations I've heard of it, but because I was contacted, because I was asked about it, and it's getting a lot of views and it was a grad who contacted me, I said, okay, let's just take a couple of minutes to demolish the errors of this. And by the way, you're going to hear it straight through, not edited.

The bad editing is part of the original video. So let's take a listen. Did you know that the New Testament wasn't originally written in Greek? It was Aramaic. This is important. Give me just a minute and I will show you some proof.

I ask that you hear me out. It's important because the language of our Messiah was Aramaic. We know this because Paul also later mentions that he's fluent in other languages, but he was very well learned.

The disciples, however, were your average Joe within Israel. They were Aramaic speaking men. Now, when you have the version of Aramaic into Greek into English, and we're only going back as far as Greek, we're not going to get the full understanding and not knocking the King James, because I still use it from time to time, but have found, let's just say misconceptions in the King James version of the Old Testament. Same is true for the New Testament. Also, you know how the Old Testament will have Bible codes and it's God inspired? Well, the Greek doesn't have any kind of Bible code at all. I just found that strange.

Why would he do it in the Old Testament and not the New? Well, there is. In the original writings of the Aramaic of the gospel, there are Bible codes and it is amazing. It is very easy to read and understand in Aramaic to English. It gets very misconstrued from Aramaic to Greek to English. Anyway, just thought I would share that with you. Hope that you found this information useful.

Y'all bless. So, obviously what grieves me is that people take this seriously and they believe it and it becomes a thing and then it just gets kind of codified. People think it's true. All right, so there are Syriac Aramaic scholars that hold to Aramaic primacy and they'll give an argument a thousand times better than that. I want to be fair to them. Even though I completely reject it, they give an argument that's far better than what you just saw.

Again, I'm responding to this because of its popularity online. Number one, what does the King James Bible Old Testament have to do with any of this? The King James Old Testament is translating from the Hebrew, a few Aramaic verses and words, otherwise it's translating from the Hebrew into English. What in the world does that have to do with the New Testament? Nothing whatsoever.

All right, that's the first thing. Second thing, we have no original Aramaic version. We have no ancient manuscripts that go back to an original Aramaic.

We have none. The early church leaders often spoke about Matthew having his saying, the sayings of Jesus in Hebrew or possibly another documentary or two in Hebrew. Some would claim it's Aramaic, but Hebrew is the best way to understand that. So, you do have those traditions and of course there's scholars that say Jesus taught in Hebrew as well, but let's talk about Jesus taught in Hebrew as well, but let's say agree that his home language, the home language of the disciples would have been Aramaic. What we have preserved is over 5,000 ancient Greek manuscripts and some within a century of the death and resurrection of Jesus.

If you go back to the very, very earliest, it would be that early, okay? So, that's what we have in Greek. You say, no, no, but we have the Peshitta. The Peshitta is a translation into Syriac, again Syriac part of the larger Aramaic language family. So, you don't have an original Aramaic. The Aramaic that we have, the Syriac that we have, is a translation from the Greek. It bears marks of translation.

It indicates that it is not an original. So, Jesus taught in Aramaic, it was translated into Greek, and the Peshitta is a translation into Aramaic, but it is not an original. As for this notion about Bible codes, you have Bible codes in the Old Testament, but not in the Greek New Testament, bogus from beginning to end. If you want to follow the Bible codes evidence and you think, ah, there are secret codes that are hidden throughout the Old Testament, well, rabbis, Orthodox rabbis will tell you, yeah, those same secret codes tell you that Jesus is a false prophet. Those same secret codes support rabbinic Judaism and refute Christianity. So, if you want to follow the codes, you could make them say all kinds of different things. No, God did not plant secret codes in the Hebrew Bible.

That's the first fallacy. The second fallacy is, well, there are no codes in the Greek New Testament. You could make an argument for codes in the Greek New Testament if you wanted to. One of the great mathematicians, Greek scholars, a century ago, Avin Panin, so here's a guy begins to study from a mathematical viewpoint and finds in the Greek manuscripts, wow, all these numerical codes that can only be explained by divine inspiration. This must be a proof of the inspiration of the New Testament in Greek.

So, people can come up with their arguments in any different direction. My own view is that you should not look for Bible codes because God has communicated his message to us in the words that are spoken. Just like there's no secret code now if you go back and listen to the show and count every third letter or every seventh letter or every hundredth letter. Let's say it ends up saying Jesus is Lord, Jesus is Lord several times. That's an amazing coincidence.

There was no special inspiration on me that put this out. Now you discover the secret code. Plus, spelling changed over the centuries. So, spelling from the earliest writings of the Hebrew Bible to the end, the spelling changed. Same words, but spelling changed. So, if you're counting letters, the way it's originally written is later, it's different than the way it was ultimately written. So, the counting letters thing doesn't work.

So, bogus, bogus, bogus. Could it be that one day we'll find some of the original Hebrew writings, maybe part of Matthew that was originally in Hebrew or the Saints of Jesus preserved in Hebrew or maybe some preserved in Aramaic? Could be. That would be wonderful.

That would be amazing. But God's desire was to get the message out to the entire world. That was his desire. And the most widely used language at that time that could reach especially the Gentile world, but much of the Jewish world as well, was Greek. And then in its common form, Koine.

Now, just to mention this little teaching moment here, then we're going to go to the phones and take your Jewish-related calls. Koine simply means common. It was the language of the people, the language of commerce, and things like that. So, when Paul talks about the Holy Spirit being a deposit using a Greek word that ties back to a Hebrew word, if in Koine Greek you're using it, yeah, I'll give you my cow as a deposit that I'm going to buy this field from you. That was just the regular language of the people, Roman world with access, travel that it expanded, and the empire made it safer to go out.

So, it was just a great time to get the message out. So, that's it, the Koine Greek. The Peshitta that I mentioned is the Syriac translation from Greek, not the original Aramaic, from Greek into Aramaic slash Syriac.

Peshitta means simple. And then the Vulgate, the Latin translation, Vulgate is also related to simple common. In other words, these were translations that were doing their best to get the Scriptures to the people in the common language.

And again, the one that was the most widespread Koine Greek. Okay, now listen, for every thousand people that watch a bogus video like that, maybe one or ten or a hundred will watch a truthful video. That's just the way it goes. The lie, was it Churchill said something like by the time the truth gets its pants on in the morning, you know, a lie is spread halfway around the world. But we get the truth out nonetheless, knowing that the truth ultimately triumphs. You say, it doesn't matter? Does it really matter at all?

Well, if your confidence in the Bible that you're holding is undermined, yeah, it does matter. If you think, well, I can't really know what this says, I'm going to have to go to someone else who can tell me what it really says and give me the original meaning of the words that we don't even have, yeah, that's when it can become dangerous. Okay, we come back straight to your calls, right here on the line of fire, as we celebrate Purim.

Who knows what God will do behind the scenes that will become public very, very soon. This is how we rise up. 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. RealMessiah.com. RealMessiah.com.

The moment you have a free minute, go there. Check it out. Our completely revamped Jewish outreach, Jewish ministry, Jewish information website. It's got many of my debates with rabbis there for free viewing. It's got answers to the most common objections to Jesus being the Messiah. Probably about a hundred different questions.

We've got short written answers, in many cases, short video clip answers as well. There's tons of resources there and they're free because your support, they're free. Visit RealMessiah.com.

You have a Jewish friend with questions seeking, send them over there. They will be in rich, newly revamped, super accessible. Check it out. Your earliest opportunity.

RealMessiah.com. And then tell 10 of your friends. Post it on social media. Tell everybody to go there. All right, we head over to the phones and let us start with Jeremy in Arkansas.

Welcome to the line of fire. Hi, Dr. Michael Brown. Can you hear me?

Yes, I can. Thanks. All right, I wanted to, first of all, I wanted to wish you happy birthday for yesterday. Thank you. And thank you for everything you do in your ministry. My birthday is actually today, and I turned 40.

It's always on St. Patrick's Day, but it happens to be Emperor, just like your birthday. Happy birthday, man. Thank you. I wanted to mention, this is related to what you mentioned about the Stalin miracle.

Yeah. About, okay, I remembered something that Derek Prince, he said in one of his teachings that it was the older, maybe 70s teaching, something like that, I couldn't name exactly what it is. But he mentioned, it was about prayer and how basically changing the nation with prayer and fasting. And he was talking about one of the things that he felt like a divine burden to pray, and this is not in his flesh or anything like that.

You got to be careful and have a sensitive relationship with God in this. But he actually, it occurred to him that communism was antithetical to the purposes of God. And like about a couple of weeks before that, he said he just got basically a burden to pray that God would deal with that communism and Stalin.

Not specifically that he would kill him or anything like that, he wasn't praying with that intent, but two weeks later he died. Now, I looked it up actually a week ago about that. I didn't know anything about that miracle, and you're mentioning it again just now, but I found out about that a week ago, and I did some research.

Based on Stalin's autopsy, that he actually, apparently he died of a, he had a massive stroke that happened on the day, first day of Purim, which he died later on from that. I just, I don't know, I just thought that would be helpful to add to what you were saying. Absolutely, and again, it's very interesting. Obviously, people have been praying for decades, Lord your kingdom come, in the midst of the onslaught of communism, just as we are in many, many other ways in the world today, and praying, Lord your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. But sometimes there are, there's another thing that's added in, so we can kind of put a date on it, or we can connect it, or we get that burden to pray. So look at it like this, you know, when we're praying for large things, massive world purposes, there's actually going to be one person praying one day and everything changes.

We understand that. That's why you have national fasting, and national prayer, and national repentance, to see national results. But I always liken it to chopping down a massive tree, which of course I've never done in my life, but theoretically, right, if you swing properly, every blow does something. The first blow, and the second, and the tenth, and the fiftieth, however big the tree is. So we're talking about some massive strongholds in the earth, it could be years and years of prayer of millions of people, but then those praying right at the end, you know, that's like the axe is the final thing, and that's when you get to see the result.

And it seems that, based on your story, that Derek Prince's prayers, or some of those prayers towards the end as the tree is chopped down, God's desire is that the wicked will repent and live, but if they don't repent, they die either in this world, or the world to come. Hey Jeremy, thank you very much for the call, appreciate it. 866-34-TRUTH. Let's go to John in St. Mary's, Georgia. Welcome to The Line of Fire. Hello Dr. Brown, thank you so much for your ministry. I also wish you a belated happy birthday.

Thank you. My question revolves around John 1 51, where Jesus calls Nathaniel, and at the end of that exchange, he says, verily, amen, amen, I tell you, you will see heaven open, and the angels of God going up and coming down on the Son of Man. And I've been recently re-reading the Scriptures through the Passion, and it's kind of highlighted to me. I'm just curious, I mean, I typically think of the trans—not a transfiguration, but that—but none of the Peter or John, or nobody who was there, said anything about angels, that you hear the voice of God, the heavens opened up, but no angels.

So I'm just curious if you know of any place that there's some, any insight. Right, it's a great question, and you're right, often as we re-read things, we see things we didn't see before. Of course, the Passion is a paraphrase, so that's giving you words of Scripture and then additional thoughts or different ways of looking at them and things like that, that may trigger you to then go back and dig even more in a closer translation. But Nathaniel wasn't there on the Mount of Transfiguration either way, right? So he's not there. Oh yeah, you're right, that's a good point.

Exactly. So the possibilities, obviously it's alluding back to Genesis 28 and Bethel, when that is Jacob's own experience. Jacob's ladder, yes sir. Right, he has that dream, the angels ascending and descending. So when he says you'll see it, does he mean it literally, right? In which case, could it be, for example, the culmination when he ascends to heaven and there are two angels that are there, and they say, hey, this Jesus that went up, you know, he's going to come back the same way. So in Acts 1, could it be any reference to the angels appearing at the tomb?

So different ones get to see him. So it doesn't record Nathaniel specifically doing that, but they see the angels at the tomb. We know that an angel strengthens Jesus in Gethsemane.

Was that something that they may have seen? Has the angel strengthened him? We have in John 12, the voice of God speaks, and something that's under, and something that's an angel, and Jesus hears the voice of the Father. So that would be a mistaken application for angels. But those are the ones off the top of my head in the Gospels, where angels are mentioned. Of course, Mark 1 tells us that the angels strengthened Jesus in the wilderness, but that would not have been something during his time of testing, that would not have been something that they saw. So either he means it metaphorically, you're going to see supernatural aid and help on my behalf in the years ahead, which they saw day in, day out, for three years, or it's referring to a few specific events, and being at the tomb, being in his ascension, those would be the most notable to me. Yeah, I was just, I was actually, as you were speaking, just thinking that all of the, if we believe that all the signs and wonders are things that come from heaven, all those answers to prayer, then the angels, the messengers, as they're referred to, I think, in the Old Testament, who bring God's Word, who, you know, hasten to perform His Word at the utterance of His Word, that we don't need to see the angels to see the miracles. Right, you see the results of it. It's like I said, if it's metaphorical, you're not literally seeing angels, you're seeing supernatural aid, you're seeing this constant flurry of divine activity around Jesus, so the angels are serving and helping and bringing these things to pass.

Or, if meant literally, you do have some examples of the disciples, different ones, literally seeing angels involved in front of their own eyes. Yeah, thank you, sir, for the question and the observations. 866-34-TRUTH.

Let us go over to Mary in Lafayette, Indiana. Welcome to the Long Fire. Hi, Dr. Ron, and forgive me if you've touched on this before, I don't catch every one of your shows, but I heard a preacher the other day talk about Ezekiel 37, the Valley of the Dry Bones, and he said that a lot of Jewish people believe that has to do with the Holocaust. I have never heard that before, and I find that really intriguing. I'm dying to know what you think about that. Yeah, and I haven't done a show specifically commenting on that. You do? No, no, no, no, I said I have not. I have not, right, so.

Okay. Number one, obviously the only ones that could make application to the Holocaust would be Jews that have lived since the Holocaust, meaning through Jewish history that it's not been interpreted with regard to the Holocaust, but with regard to the Jewish people in exile, being restored back to the land physically, and then being spiritually rejuvenated. So, when you have the Jews coming out of Babylonian exile, some years after Ezekiel gave the prophecy, that would have been the first application, okay, where we were in exile, it's as if we were dead, we've been brought back to the land, and now we're being restored in the land.

But the fullness of it is still unfolding. So, in that sense, you can make application, and when you have, literally, you have literally the piles of bones in the concentration camps, let alone all of those cremated and the ashes buried and whatever they would do, you know, to dispose of whatever they could, get rid of the evidence. But when you have these piles of bones, and it looks like it's over for the Jewish world, especially in Europe, there's an attempt to exterminate the Jewish people, and now, literally, just a few years later, World War II ends in 45, the Jewish state announced in 47, officially birthed in 48.

So, there's an obvious application. You would think, wow, once again, not Ezekiel's original prophecy or original intent, but part of the ultimate fulfillment. Once again, out of the ashes, out of the dry bones, literally out of the ashes, literally out of the dry bones, now the Jewish people restored back to the land, but there's still more fulfillment. There's still the full coming of the Jewish people out of exile from around the world. There's whatever suffering is ahead for the world and the Jewish people, and then ultimately, spiritual revival, spiritual rejuvenation of the Jewish people back in the land, and that's what we look at as the culmination when all Israel is saved.

But the application is just too obvious to pass by. Yeah, so does that make sense to you? Yes, yes, it's just excellent. Thank you so much. I knew you'd have the answer. Well, hey, listen, when our website is AskDrBrown.org, we better have some answers, right? Thank you, Mary, for the call and for the enthusiasm. I've got time for a few more calls, so you're holding. I'm going to do my best to get to you on the other side of the break. Remember to visit RealMessiah.com, and it's free.

All the content there is free. Share it with your friends, and if you're blessed, stand with us. Help us get the message out to even more people. Go to AskDrBrown.org. Click on Donate. If we've poured into you, help us to pour into many, many more. If you've been blessed, share that blessing with others.

AskDrBrown.org. We'll be right back. Thanks, friends, for joining us on 30 Jewish Thursday on the Line of Fire. Now, I know I just sent you the Real Messiah website, but a reminder, April 14th, what's coming? Come on, it's Purim. It's the Book of Esther. Make sure you read the Book of Esther again this week.

Purim 4-14, so 4-14 coming next month, April 14th, but Esther 4-14, you remain silent this time, Esther. Help may come from another place, but who knows? Maybe you came into the kingdom for such a time as this. What we know is we're here, and God put us here. Therefore, we are here for such a time as this, to raise our voice as witnesses, to push back with holy love and truth and boldness against the canceling culture, to say we will not be silenced, marginalized.

We're here. We love Jesus. We love you, and we are not ashamed. Go to notashamedofjesus.org. Find out about National Not Ashamed of Jesus Day, April 14th. We're encouraging every one of you to get involved. Pastors, share this with your congregants. Youth leaders, share this. Student groups, get the word out. Employees at work, get the word out. Do your best to spread the word.

Use your social media platforms. I believe this is something that's going to be of great value and blessing in the days ahead. All right, let us go back to the phones.

We'll start in Chicago with Diego. Welcome to the line of fire. Hi, Dr. Brown. Hey. Dr. Brown, the name Yahu Salaam was the original way that it was said, and it had Yahweh's name in there? No, no, no, no, no, never, never. Never had Yahu Salaam was not the proper way? No, no, no, never had a Yah sound. But didn't it never have the Yah?

No, sir, never. It would have had an Uru beginning if it came from Akkadian or something like that. It would have had something like Uru at the beginning, which would mean something like foundation of, so foundation of Shalem, foundation of peace. I mean, there are many, many different ideas as to the etymology, but it comes in, ultimately we have it in Hebrew as Yeru, Shalem.

There was never a Yah sound at the beginning, ever, under any circumstances. Okay, the word Jew is so. Wasn't that word made up in the 1700s? Will we know a yada?

No, no, no, no. Yehudi we have in the Bible. We have that over 2500 years old. We have it in the book of Jeremiah. We have it in Ezra and Nehemiah, Yehudi, some of the tribe of Judah, and then ultimately a Judean, a Jew, right?

Yehuda, and then Yehudi. Nothing made up in the 1700s. Yeah, Jew was made up in the 1700s, right? The word Jew, that's what I said before that.

No, no, of course not. The word Jew, there was no J. No, but J is before the 1700s anyway.

Right. Yada means, like, I would praise Yahweh? No, no, yada just means to praise, to confess. It does not have anything to do with Yahweh.

It doesn't have the yah in the beginning? No, no, that's, no, no, okay. No, Diego, let me explain something. What you're doing with all sincerity is every word in English that has D you think has to do with Diego.

Day, dog, done, detail, ah, because it has a D at the beginning has to do with Diego. No, the spelling would be different. You would have, you would have another Hebrew letter. If it was Yah, you'd have a heh in there. It would be Y-H-D-H. Instead, no, the Y is just part of the root.

You have many. The Hebrew word for hand is yad. That has nothing to do with Yahweh, okay? Okay, like, for example, the name, uh, Diego, it means it comes from Yaakov. Yeah, right, which has nothing to do with Yahweh. It has zero to do with Yahweh. It doesn't mean I would, uh, Yahweh will protect in the original? No, no, Yaakov, it could mean he will protect, or it could mean he will deceive, uh, either of, either of those two.

The one is found in the Bible, he will protect, is found most likely in what's called Amorite. But the, yeah, every, every Hebrew verb, third person, masculine, imperfect, starts with the Ya sound. It has nothing to do with Yahweh, any more than the D in Diego has to do with dog, okay? Or the D in Diego has to do with Detroit, is, is, Ya is spelled differently.

You have to have other letters there. Yaakov, this, if, if it was, Yaakov had to do with Yahweh, it would be Yaakov, Ya, something like that. You have the Ya at the end saying he will protect, or Yaakov, Ya, something like that. But the Ya at the beginning is 100% compliant. Listen, it's just, it's as simple as the fact that it's Michael Brown talking to you today. There's no dispute. It has zero to do with Yahweh whatsoever. So, tons of words. And here, if, if I say in Hebrew, he will write, that's Yich Tov, all right?

If I say he will deceive, biblical Hebrew would be Yaakov because it's different vowels, but the spelling has zero to do with Yahweh whatsoever. Zero. It's, it's as unrelated as that I am unrelated to Muhammad Ali, okay?

It is as unrelated as Diego is to Detroit. Just trust, trust me on this. Anyone that knows Hebrew, even two weeks' worth, even two weeks' worth, and I don't set it to be demeaning. In no way do I say it to be demeaning. I'm simply saying it's, it's a 100% false understanding. So hopefully I've dispelled you of that, hopefully. All right, thanks for the call. Let's go over to Dylan, unrelated to Diego, in San Augustine, Florida. Hello Dr. Brown, how you doing? Doing well, thank you. Good, and happy birthday.

My father's birthday was yesterday. Oh, neat. Yeah, I just had this one question, you know, because I heard about, you said about the, you think the Gospels were not written in Aramaic or Hebrew or possibly, but, and you mentioned... It's possible that there were portions, it's possible there was a collection of the sayings of Jesus passed on in Hebrew, that Matthew did that, maybe Aramaic but most likely Hebrew, and then there may have been another document that was passed on in Hebrew that the Jewish believers had, and like Jerome even said he saw and things like that. Yeah, I think Matthew probably was, because it seemed to be addressing a Jewish crowd, but my question was about the 5,000, just like, what were your thoughts about it, because I mean, I'm 17 currently right now, I'm just trying to study in the field of textual criticism, because I'm a newly believer, I just became a Christian not too long ago. Yeah, but the miniatures of that, like, actually, majority of them are actually not really with any textual value at all. Like, you said century, actually, we only have two from the second century that are only just like little tiny tiny teeny tiny fragments that can't really be read. I think one of them just has like John 18, you know, just a few verses. In the first century, we do have the Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus with also an exception to other books, like historical fictions like the book of Tobit and Judith and all that.

Yeah, so here's what you need to know. That is, massively, in some cases, 10 to 1, and some 100 to 1, and some 1,000 to 1, more attestation of any ancient books from that time. In other words, whatever we have of ancient histories, or the writings of Josephus, or some other historical document, they're preserved with a handful of manuscripts, many of them 500 years later, 800 years later. What you're having in the New Testament is this massive mountain of evidence. It's an embarrassment of riches.

In other words, it's kind of like you're looking for gold, right, and after 20 years of digging, you've gotten five nuggets of gold, and then you open up another mine and in a week, you have 10,000 nuggets of gold. That's what's been preserved. So they're all of textual value. Now, some are written by more careful scribes, more professional scribes. Some seem to be more freely copied, but you look at copies, compare copies to copies to copies, and you find that out of the alleged 300,000 discrepancies in the 5,000 manuscripts, that the vast majority are utterly immaterial.

It would be like spelling Dr. D-R or D-R dot or D-O-C-T-O-R. Have you ever read the book by F.F. Bruce, The New Testament Manuscripts? Are they reliable? Not yet, but I have seen that book recently on Amazon. I was thinking about purchasing it.

Oh, it's Dylan. I got it as a fairly new believer over 45 years ago, and then F.F. Bruce updated it several times.

I think N.T. Wright may even have a further update on it, but it is a super clear read. Bruce was a brilliant, highly respected New Testament scholar. He was actually respected in Old Testament work as well, just brilliant, but was able to communicate things in a way that he lays out a massive amount of evidence in very, very clear form. So rather than the way critics or skeptics might look at things, Dylan — and it's good to be aware of that, we don't want to stick our head in the sand — but rather than looking at it that way, when you look at the evidence the other way, you're kind of stunned. Number one, how much the New Testament stands out from other ancient books.

I mean, again, it's the comparison I just gave with Digging for Gold. It's stunning how much evidence God's provided us, and then the reliability of the evidence. That's why, if you look at 20 or 30 different top English translations, you'll have a few discrepancies in terms of which major textual family is followed, and you'll have a few of those, very, very minor overall. And then when you look at the whole, the discrepancies are incredibly minor, and what you're left with is saying, wow, God really preserved the Word for us in amazing ways.

I mean, that's the conclusion you come to. It's like, whoa, there's nothing that comes anywhere near this in the ancient world in terms of manuscripts in Greek and Latin, and then the preservation of the Hebrew Bible. That's amazing also. And there's a book on that by Walter Kaiser, but Dylan, definitely get the book. And once you read it, if you have other questions, give us a buzz. You are on the right path. God bless you folks. Back with your questions. Anyone we miss today will try to get you first tomorrow. Another program powered by the Truth Network.