What Is Midrash?

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What happened yesterday was there were outages, internet outages through the day in the area where the studio was because of which we had to play a repeat broadcast. So my apologies to everyone. Looking forward to a brand new show.

But here we are. Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to do a little teaching.

I'm going to explain some different things in terms of Jewish traditional interpretation of the text. And then I'm going to spend the rest of the broadcast answering questions that have been posted on Twitter. So don't post them now. They've already been posted. I'll be answering them as much as I can in the order in which they came. So it's going to be an informative, enjoyable broadcast.

Okay. What is Midrash? Maybe you've seen the term, or the Midrash says, or according to the Midrash, or here's the Midrashic interpretation. What does it mean? Well, it is traditional Jewish interpretation of Scripture, and it is homiletical.

It is expansive. It is often storytelling. In some cases, traditional Jews will believe that it's recounting accurate information. In other cases, it's fully recognized that these are just various traditions and stories, some of which can be in virtually a complete contrast with one another, but they're just different stories. They're often beautiful. They're often highly illustrative. They can be like parables that illustrate points and things like that.

But they're some of the most appealing and enjoyable interpretations, especially for someone that's not a traditional Jew, because most of traditional Jewish literature is really engaged with digging into the text from a legal viewpoint. What are the laws? What are the commandments?

How do they apply? How does this work out in our lives today? What's the Torah application? The great bulk of the Talmud, which is centrally studied by traditional Jews every day, is engaging in legal discussion, legal debate, and the like. However, the Talmud also contains this Midrashic material called haggadah, halakhah, that is, legal material, legal interpretation, haggadah, that is, homiletical interpretation.

There are some Midrashic books, the earliest ones, that are mainly legal, dealing, for example, with Leviticus, Numbers, Exodus, Deuteronomy, but the bulk of Midrashic literature is not legally related. It's not trying to figure out what's the law on this or on that. Rather, it is expansive, homiletical, and as I said, really, really interesting, often fascinating, but understand this is not based on an esoteric knowledge that the rabbis had to fill in all the blanks. In some cases, they would say that is the case, and in some cases I would agree, other cases I would differ, but by and large, think of this as beautiful storytelling, as good preaching, but not necessarily what the text is saying.

Let me give an example. When the Ten Commandments are given, there's a famous Midrash that says that it was offered to the nations of the world. For example, the Moabites. Hey, how would you like the Ten Commandments, the laws? We'd love them. We'd love the Torah.

What's in it? Well, it says don't commit adultery. They said, actually, we're going to pass. Why?

Because Moab and Ammon were born out of the incestuous relationship of Lot with his daughters, so that was another form of sexual immorality and adultery. Then they offer it to other nations. Yeah, yeah, we like it. We'll take it. What does it say? It says don't steal. You know, we're going to pass on that because we make our livelihood by stealing. And then it's offered to others. Yeah, we'll take the Torah. Great.

What does it say? Don't have any gods before me. Oh, well, actually, we have lots of gods.

We'll pass on that. Well, it's purely homiletical. It's purely storytelling. It's not meant to be historical. We know from Scripture that God did not do that. And religious Jews believe that God chose Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and their descendants to be entrusted with the Torah and the laws and the commandments. So it's interesting storytelling.

I'll give you another example. There are Targums, which are Aramaic translations and paraphrases and expansions of the biblical text. The earlier they are, they tend to be more tied to the biblical text, more carefully joined to the biblical text.

The later they are, the more expansive they become. So there is a Targum to the Pentateuch. It is a secondary one. It's not the one that is read weekly by traditional Jews along with the Hebrew text. It's a secondary Targum, but it's centuries later.

Because it's centuries later, that means it's more expansive. So I'm going to read to you Genesis 50, verse 1. Here's what the Hebrew Scriptures say. So Genesis 50, verse 1.

It's a very simple, straightforward verse. Joseph flung himself upon his father's face and wept over him and kissed him. Jacob has just died, and Joseph flings himself on his father's face.

He wept over him and he kissed him. If I go to the main Targum that's read called Targum Uncolos, here's how it reads. Again, in English versus Aramaic.

It says, whoops, I went to the wrong page there. That's why it was identical. Then Joseph fell on the face of his father and wept over him and he kissed him. So almost identical, right? Almost identical word for word. Here is the later Targum called Pseudo-Jonathan or Jerusalem Targum, Targum Yerushalmi. Here's the later Targum.

It says this. Then Joseph laid his father down in a bed of ivory, overlaid with fine gold, affixed with precious stones, and held with fine linen cords. There they poured out foaming wine, and there they burned the best spices. There the men of the house of Esau and the men of the house of Ishmael were standing, and there the lion of Judah, the hero of his brothers, was standing. He answered and said to his fathers, this is the Targum. It's supposed to be a translation to Genesis chapter 50 verse 1. Come and let us mourn over our father, a tall cedar whose top reached to heaven, but its branches shaded over all the inhabitants of the earth, and its roots reached to the depths of the abyss. From him the twelve tribes arose. From him will arise kings and rulers and priests by their divisions to make offerings, and from him Levites will make music according to their divisions.

Then Joseph inclined over the face of his father and wept over him, and he kissed him. Isn't that remarkable? That's the Targum.

That's Midrash. It adds in all these additional accounts. It adds in these dollars. And he said, oh well, maybe this was a tradition that was accurately passed on. That's one of the details.

No, no. The later they are, the further away they are from the original source, the more expansive they become because the more the storytelling gets weaved in. Let's look at another example. Okay, let's go over to Ruth chapter 1. Ruth chapter 1. This time there's only one Targum to Ruth, but it is a later Targum, an expansive paraphrase which also includes much of the material that's found in Midrashic literature. So I'm going to read Ruth 1 to you. Verse 1 from the Hebrew, okay? In the days when the chieftains, or the judges, ruled, there was a famine in the land, and a man of Bethlehem and Judah, with his wife and two sons, went to reside in the country of Moab. Pretty straightforward, right? The Hebrew is straightforward. The only question is how do you render shof team? Is it judges, chieftains, right? Now, look at the Targum.

Are you ready? Ruth chapter 1, verse 1. In the days of the leader of leaders, there was a severe famine in the land of Israel. Ten severe famines were decreed from heaven to be in the world from the day of the creation of the world until the time when the king Messiah shall come, to reprove through them the inhabitants of the world. The first famine was in the days of Adam. The second famine was in the days of Lamech. The third famine was in the days of Abraham. The fourth famine was in the days of Isaac. The fifth famine was in the days of Jacob. The sixth famine was in the days of Boaz, who was called Ibzan the Righteous, who was from Bethlehem. The seventh famine was in the days of David, the king of Israel. The eighth famine was in the days of Elijah the prophet. The ninth famine was in the days of Elisha and Samaria, and the tenth famine will not be a famine of eating bread nor of drought of water, rather of hearing a word of prophecy from before the Lord.

And when this famine was severe in the land of Israel, a great man from Bethlehem of Judah went out and went to dwell in the field of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons." That's Midrash, friends. That is storytelling.

That is adding in other traditions and making it part of the biblical text. It's beautiful. It's interesting.

It's fascinating. But it has no authority behind it. That's Midrash. That's totally different than a legal ruling in Judaism. The Talmud says this.

The law codes say this. That's a completely different animal, and traditional Jews understand the difference between these. I'll give you one last example of Midrash.

I've been doing some writing and tying in with some Midrashic themes lately, so it's been on my mind. But hey, it's Early Jewish Thursday, I'll share it with you. So you know Deuteronomy 6, 4, Shema Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad, traditionally understood, Here O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one. Or Here O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Or He is the only Lord, depending on how it's understood. So it is Moses calling Israel to this proclamation that they have one God and one God only. There's a Midrash that says in Genesis 49, when Jacob was about to die, and he's going to bless his sons before he does, he senses something wrong. He senses some type of uncleanness, and he says, Is there idolatry among you?

Now remember, his name is Jacob, slash, Israel. And according to this, the sons say to him, Here O Israel, our father, listen to us, Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord alone. The Lord is our God, the Lord alone, Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad, that this is the children of Israel, the sons of Israel, saying to their father, Israel, Don't fear, there's no idolatry among us. Only the Lord is our God.

Again, beautiful Midrash, but nothing to do with the historical account. We come back. I'm going to dive into questions that have been posted on Twitter today, stay with me. 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. Welcome back, friends, to Thoroughly Jewish Thursday, this is Michael Brown, delighted to be with you. I'm going to begin answering questions that were posted on our Twitter account. For those of you that want to follow me on Twitter, it is drmichaellbrown.

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What we do on Facebook is different than what we do on YouTube, aside from our live stream each day. So wherever you connect, you will get ministered to. Oh, before I do that, let me remind you of this month's special offer. My book Has God Failed You? is designed to help those who are struggling in their faith. If you're having doubts, questions, not sure what you can believe, maybe you've lost your faith entirely, but you're still around gospel themes and circles. Maybe you have a loved one that doesn't believe the way they used to anymore, or they've turned away from the faith.

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Okay, over to Twitter. William asks, is it true that the disciples of Christ, the disciples that Christ chose were very young, like 14, 15 years old? One of my pastors believed that, though I forgot his theological reason behind it.

I personally don't think so. It's unlikely they were that young. He does call them children at one point, but that seems more to relate to their maturity and their responses more than anything else. We know that Peter is married, right? We know that Matthew has a profession and a house. We know that the other disciples are working in various, employ fishermen and things like that.

So it seems they have their own trades. In some cases, they're working with their parents, but that would not be uncommon to be working with their fathers, even when they're older. The other question would be, is God really going to entrust them with the leadership of the nation and the leadership of the body, so the spiritual leadership of the nation and the leadership of the body at the ages of 14, 15, and 16? That seems more unlikely, and therefore, I do not believe that they were that young. We don't have anything in scripture that says they were that young. Could some of them have been older teenagers? It could well be. That wouldn't surprise me as much. Some people are doing pastoral ministry at 18 or 19, and some by demand even younger, like a tribal region where there's no other leadership. But I doubt it.

I highly doubt they were 14, 15, 16. OK, Barry asked this, how would you interpret the prophet Jeremiah's word in Jeremiah chapter 30 verse 7 regarding Jacob's trouble? Is it exclusively for the past? Jeremiah prophesying to his people about the coming destruction from Babylon. So it's exclusively for the past and therefore of no relevance to the future. Is it something that was for the past, has happened again through history, and will be for the future as well, or is it entirely future? I thought about this a lot working on my Jeremiah commentary.

I really wrestled with this, so I want to dig in a little deeper on this one. Jeremiah chapter 30, we start in verse 1, the word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord thus said the Lord the God of Israel, write down in the scroll all the words that I've spoken to you, for days are coming, declares the Lord, but I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel and Judah, said the Lord, I will bring them back to the land I gave their fathers and they shall possess it. So in other words, they will be scattered. They will be driven out of the land. They will lose their homeland to foreigners who will take control, in this case the Babylonians, but I will restore them. And the first restoration takes place seventy years after the children of Judah are taken into captivity, the people of Israel. These are the words that the Lord spoke concerning Israel and Judah. Thus said the Lord, we have heard cries of panic, terror without relief. Ask and see, surely males do not bear young, why then do I see every man with his hands on his loins like a woman in labor? Why have all faces turned pale? Ah, that day is awesome.

There is none like it. It is a time of trouble for Jacob, but he shall be delivered from it. And that day, declares the Lord of hosts, I will break the oak from off your neck and I will rip off your bonds.

Strangers shall no longer make slaves to them, instead they shall serve the Lord their God, the King, whom I will raise up for them. All right, so you could argue that this is entirely future, because the Messianic king has not yet reigned over the nation of Israel. Israel has been in bondage to many foreigners and many other nations and many other rulers, and therefore it is highly unlikely that there will be an application of this only in the past. However, it's completely untenable to think that this refers only to the future, when Jeremiah is speaking of something about to happen in his day, an imminent destruction.

There's no way he was prophesying past that. My understanding is, in its first application, it refers to the Babylonian exile and the return from exile. But it's something that happens again in history, as the Jewish people suffer terrible dispersion and pain, even the horrors of the Holocaust. But the ultimate promise is they will be restored to the land in a lasting way, and they will serve their king, the Messiah. So it has past application, going back to Jeremiah's day, it has ongoing application through history, and it has future application at the end of the age. As I dug into the text in depth, and it would bore some of you and be hard for me to communicate on radio for everyone in a constructive way, but I can say as I really dug into it, it seemed clear to me that it was layered, speaking of the past and the future as well.

All right, back to your Twitter questions. Why do you think, this is from Carrie, why do you think the Lord wanted to stick with the leadership model of the judges, rather than appoint a king when judges seem to be few and far between, and some may have lacked some morals on their own, what can we learn about his preference in leadership styles in the Old Testament? So God knew the tendencies of humanity to look to a person rather than to him. And the goal, the ideal, was that he would be the king over the nation. God would be the king of the nation of Israel, and they would look to him alone as their king. Other than that, they would look to earthly kings, national leaders, who would often lead them astray, who would even lead them into idolatry. So that's why God worked with the judges as long as he did, but it was also an inevitability that they were going to have a king, and God foresaw that and foreknew that, and that's why he legislates kings in Deuteronomy 17, and that's why he then brings the Messiah through the promised line of David. Cason asked this, do you think Ecclesiastes is Solomonic?

If so, why do many conservative Old Testament scholars find the linguistic evidence against it persuasive? If you told me that something was written by William Shakespeare using words like, well, think of contemporary English words that have only existed in the last few generations. That William Shakespeare is talking about atom bombs, and William Shakespeare is talking about the United States of America. William Shakespeare is talking about planes and jets and trains.

Well, you know, it's not William Shakespeare, because those things did not exist in his day, either the words or the concepts as well. So there are developments in language. When you go back and look at the original King James with its spelling, it's very different than what we're used to. So if you say here, here's the original King James, and it spells music, M-U-S-I-C, no, that's not original. Or it spells color, C-O-L-O-R, as opposed to O-U-R, no, that's not original, because that's not the old spelling. Same with grammatical forms. If you didn't have the and thou and ye and stuff like that, you'd know it's not authentic.

It's not the original. So the language, the linguistic markers in Ecclesiastes point to later Hebrew. Most scholars believe they point to later Hebrew. Some have argued that it's actually more like Phoenician, which would be ancient Hebrew.

So there is a debate, but many just say the linguistic evidence points to something later, and therefore we understand that on the surface of this, this is someone speaking as if he were Solomon telling the story of Solomon, but an argument can still be made for Solomonic authorship. We'll be right back. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown.

Get on the line of fire by calling 866-34-TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Hey, friends, welcome back to Thoroughly Jewish Thursday. I'm going to ask a question I've been asking a lot lately. Are you getting my email updates? Are you getting a notice one day a week with a list of all the articles we published that week, five, maybe six, a list of them and a summary of each article, and you just click on the link and can read it? Or another email that says, hey, here's our Wednesday watch list, here are all the new videos that we posted through the week, summary of those videos and click to watch them. Or hey, here's our new resource offer, a new material that we've just made available.

If you're not getting those, don't miss a one. Are you getting a notice when I come to speak in your area? Or if we plan to do some special ministry that you can get involved with, go to AskDrBrown.org. And then just click for the email updates, sign up, and when you do, we want to send you as a gift, a free mini book, an e-book, How to Pray for America. All right, Thoroughly Jewish Thursday, we go back to your Jewish related questions on Twitter. This is Zach.

Love your work, Dr. Brown. Thank you. I had a question about Genesis 3.8. I've heard that it can be translated something like the voice of the Lord working in the spirit, half a less. That is Jesus the word in the spirit, or is that not an accurate reflection of the Hebrew?

That's definitely reading into more than it says, all right? Now the fact is the Hebrew word for wind is the same as the word for breath or spirit, ruach. The same with pneuma in Greek.

So it's the context that determines what it means, right? So Genesis chapter three, verse eight, and I'm going to read first from the Hebrew. So they heard the voice of the Lord Elohim, the voice of the Lord God, walking back and forth in the garden, at the ruach of the day. So they sowed together, excuse me, wrong, wrong verse there.

I was just, okay. So the man and his wife, ha-adam, they hid themselves from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. I was just looking to see the new JPS there.

That's what I was looking at. So the way the new JPS translates is they heard the sound. So it's the voice or the sound of the Lord God, of Yahweh Elohim, moving about.

So it's literally going back and forth in the garden at the breezy time of the day, the ruach chayon. It's not speaking about the Spirit. It's not at the Spirit of the day or in the Spirit.

Absolutely not. It's at the weather, it's at the windy time of the day. Or read it from the NIV, which is going to be very similar. It says this, just scrolling down, then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God, so kol could mean voice or sound, as he was walking in the garden at the cool of the day. So it sees him walking in the garden, new JPS sees it as the voice of the Lord going back and forth at the sound of the Lord, in the cool of the day. So the breezy time of the day is the cool of the day, but it is definitely not in the Spirit. That is wrong. Whoever said that was not rightly understanding the Hebrew.

It's not debatable there. In terms of the ruach meaning in the Spirit, it doesn't. Reverend Martin Anthony asks, I read once, Messianic rabbi, that the garments worn by the high priest never got stained with dirt or blood, and when it was time, they were passed on down from generation to generation, fitting the next high priest perfectly. So that would just be a fanciful tradition. There is zero historical or textual support for that. Zero historical or textual support. No, it doesn't talk about how to wash them, how to clean them, right?

And it doesn't talk about how to fit them properly for each new person. So based on that, someone could come up with a fanciful tradition. Remember, if you were listening from the beginning, we talked about midrash, these often fanciful traditions.

But no, no, no. There is no historical or textual support for that whatsoever. All right, seventh vial, what is the Jewish perception of what Ezekiel's temple is? What do they believe the Lord is saying in Ezekiel 44 about their service in said temple? Okay, so a traditional Jew has very little struggle with Ezekiel 40 to 48.

Why? They believe that in the messianic era, that the Messiah will regather the exiles from Israel, will rebuild the temple, will establish Torah law for all Jews to live under, will destroy the wicked who seek to destroy Israel, and will bring peace on earth so that all of the nations on the earth will stream to Jerusalem to learn about the God of Israel, and will be obedient to his laws for Gentiles, while the Jewish people are required to obey all of the laws of the Torah in their traditional light and interpretation. That's what a traditional Jew expects. So with the rebuilt temple, there will be rebuilt temple worship. There will be sacrifices again, I should say renewed temple worship and sacrifices. All these things will happen in the third temple according to Judaism. Therefore, it's no surprise in Zechariah 14 when it speaks about all the nations of the earth coming to worship the God of Israel at Tabernacles, the Feast of Tabernacles, and when it speaks about the sacrificial vessels, the vessels that are used for sacrifices because sacrifice will be restored. So Ezekiel 40 through 48 lays that out in meticulous detail with boundaries, with regulations, and it's recognized in traditional Judaism that there will be some changes because the situation of the world will change. There are even Jewish traditions that say in the world to come, the only sacrifices that will be offered will be thanksgiving offerings because God will no longer remember the sin of his people, and therefore you won't need to have the Day of Atonement in the same way.

There are different traditions about that. But traditional Jews would have little trouble expecting that there will be temple service with priests and Levites functioning, with sacrifices being offered, with all this taking place in Jerusalem, whereas Christians would have a harder time with that, saying the blood of Jesus pays for all sin, the sacrifice on the cross is once for all, and needs not ever be repeated, and therefore there's no purpose in blood sacrifices in the future. So from the Christian perspective, some say, well Ezekiel 40 through 48 was just an ideal temple. It was to be realized when the exiles returned from Babylon, when they didn't repent adequately, it was never put in motion.

Others would say, no, no, it will happen in the future, but these things are representative. And just as the Old Testament sacrifices pointed forward to the Messiah, these sacrifices will point back to the Messiah, as Israel teaches the nations about God. Others say, no, no, there will be sacrifices, but they do not take the place of the sacrifice on the cross. In other words, they have to do more with ritual cleansing, ritual purging, that's another meaning of atonement, not actual forgiveness of sins.

So there's a difference there. They'll have a function, but they don't compete with or replace the sacrifice on the cross, which is the ultimate and only way that God forgave sin through history. The blood sacrifices never took that place.

That's another argument. Another argument from the Christian perspective is, no, no, this is just symbolic of worship. That it's not meant to be taken literally, this is all symbolic of worship and adoration of God. That's all it's doing, and it's in priestly terms. So those are some of the Christian slash Messianic Jewish responses to the question of a third temple. Again, those that say it's symbolic, and not to be literally understood, don't believe in a millennial kingdom at all, they just say that we go from here into the eternal age, amillennialism, etc. For a traditional Jew, though, there are problems still.

Why? Because the regulations here don't line up with the Torah regulations. The dimensions of the temple are different than the dimensions of the tabernacle slash temple. The third temple is different than the first or the second temple or the tabernacle.

So how does that work? And based on the vision, it seemed that Ezekiel was to be directly involved, as if this should have happened, with the return from exile. This is even a text used by some traditional rabbis to prove the resurrection of the dead, because it speaks of Ezekiel's participation in the temple.

That must yet mean future. So even for a traditional Jew, there are some problems. There are actually other problems as well. So how it's interpreted is challenging for everyone. The concept is not challenging for a traditional Jew, that there will be a third temple with sacrifices. But the specifics of it do bring challenge.

Therefore, I suggest everyone treats this subject with carefulness rather than being dogmatic, because there are questions for everyone in terms of how this will ultimately be realized. All right. I've got time for another question here. Chad.

Hi, Dr. Brown. I often sit on the front row at CFNI when you come to speak, often. Next time I'm here, God willing—well, tomorrow. No, no, actually, tomorrow I'm out next semester. If you're there, say hi.

This is Chad from Twitter. I often sit on the front row at CFNI when you come to speak. Thank you for your ministry. You're very welcome. Are you familiar with and do you have any thoughts on Michael Harsons' views, many of which are covered in his book The Unseen Realm?

Yes. Go to AskDrBrown.org. Type in Heiser. Dr. Heiser has been my guest a number of times. I've been his guest and his show as well. We finally got to hang out last June face to face and have some fun interacting. We did a mini debate on whether a hot dog was a sandwich or not. That was just folks with a new TV channel said, hey, could you do this for us? So we did.

It's a lot of fun. But anyway, yeah, just watch those videos. I agree with a lot of Dr. Heiser's perspectives, but not all of them. I agree with a lot, but not all.

So it would be a breakdown of specific questions. For sure, there is an unseen realm that is of great importance in scripture with angels, demons, and with God himself. And for sure, the nations of the world worship some of these angels or demons as deities. These are some of the false gods and powers of the nations and ultimately they are not God at all.

There's only one true God. But how much we should interpret in terms of the divine counsel, what we should understand in terms of Nephilim and things like that, that's more nuanced and we have some areas of agreement and some areas of potential debate. Okay, I'm going to come right back with more of your questions here on Thoroughly Jewish Thursday. And one of our, if you're new to the broadcast, by all means, connect with us online, AskDrBrown.org.

Go there and explore all the free materials we have waiting for you. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get on the line of fire by calling 866-34-TRUTH.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks so much for joining us on our special broadcast of Thoroughly Jewish Thursday. We are audio only, which doesn't affect everyone listening on radio and podcasts. But for those watching, just know my face is smiling, as always, on this Thoroughly Jewish Thursday broadcast.

I'm answering questions that were posted on Twitter. And again, I want to encourage you, if you struggled with explaining to people how the God of the Old Testament can be good and kind and merciful, in light of some of the harsh things that are there, do check out my book, Has God Failed You? Finding Faith When You're Not Even Sure God Is Real. Go to AskDrBrown.org. You see it right on the homepage with a special video that I want to give you a link to to watch. There are too many prepositions there. I know you need to restate.

You know what I'm saying. Go and check this out. And when you order the book, I'm going to give you instant access to a video message I recently preached on why so many Christians are leaving the faith. Kevin, I'm a year and a half into learning Greek, and I'm now a couple weeks into learning Hebrew using Furtado's beginning biblical Hebrew. So I'm curious if you, as a Hebrew language expert, have any particular tips for getting a grasp of Hebrew. Okay, part of it is like any other language. A little, a lot. A little, a lot.

A little, a lot. Keep working at it every day. Keep reading through things, whatever syllables you can pronounce, whatever the letters you've learned, the words you've learned. Just keep reading over and over. A little every day.

A little every day. And then, especially for Hebrew, because the letters are more foreign to you than the Greek. At least Greek has a lot of commonality. And the words have more overlap, like akuo in Greek, I hear. Okay, that's, you know, that's an easy one to remember, right?

Or here you have more things like ekbalo, you know, the cast out, we'll think of throwing a ball. You know, you can do that more with Greek. Some of them you relate it to English, others that just, you can have these little plays on where it's a little easier to do it with Greek than with Hebrew, because it's more foreign, the vocabulary, that Greek is related to English in ways that Hebrew is not related to English. So because things are more foreign, you really want to learn the letters and the pronunciation as best as you can, and then keep reading over and over so you develop more fluency in reading.

And then you really want to do your best to learn how to parse verbs. It's similar with Greek, similar with Greek. Greek is much more complex. And I say that as a non-expert of Greek, but you have so many more tenses, and it's so much stricter in giving you timeframes and things like that. But you know in Greek that the final form of the verb hardly resembles the root as well.

The same in Hebrew. But to the extent that you're familiar with parsing and the rules, with weak verbs and things like that, you won't stumble as much, and then just stay with it. So keep going with your Greek, hopefully you're well enough in that you can sort these out, and then really master the basics so that you can read it more fluently, you get a better feel for it, and then avoid reading a translation until you have no choice. In other words, keep trying to figure out using a dictionary before you go to a translation. So once you start reading the Bible, don't read it with the English next to it.

It's too easy a crutch. Read it as best as you can without the English, and then when you need it, go to the English. This will just force you to learn better. And then there are things called a reader's edition. Different publishers put these out, and what it will do is any word that occurs 50 times or more will not be referenced at the bottom of the page.

But if it's less than 50 times, it'll be found at the bottom of the page. And in other words, it's less common vocabulary. So that gives you a little help instead of having to turn to the dictionary all the time. So if you need a crutch, that's a good crutch.

That's a useful crutch. Oh, and remember, Hebrew is like any other language, it's a language. Don't believe all the stuff about nine trillion hidden meanings in the text, but I trust you know that by now. Giles, two questions in regards to Psalm 51 5. Do you see this as proof that David was born guilty of sin?

Do you see any significance in the use of yacham instead of hara? So here David is famously saying, I was born in iniquity, and sin did my mother conceive me. So there are some who argue that this has nothing to do with original sin whatsoever, not a hint of it. Rather, this is saying that David was born in immorality, that in other words, his mother committed adultery or had sex before marriage or whatever. And that's how David was born. And when he says I was born in iniquity and sin did my mother conceive me, that's what he's referring to. And I'm repeating the pattern.

That's what he's saying. It seems, though, in context, that he's confessing the depth of his own sin, and the recognition of his own guilt. And therefore, therefore, is talking about this is how I was born. I was born sinful. I was born polluted.

That makes more contextual sense. Plus, we have no evidence outside of this that David was born in immorality. As to the meaning of hara, so he's not necessarily born guilty of sin, but born in sin, born sinful by nature, as opposed to guilty of sin. He's not saying I was guilty of sin at birth, but polluted by sin at birth. Why does it say hara to conceive? Because he's saying right from the moment I was conceived, I had a sinful nature.

So that's the significance of that. The moment I was conceived, I had a sinful nature. Luke, did first century Jews consider the Old Testament kind of closed, would they have been open to more writing prophets? By the end of the first century, it seems fairly clear that there was agreement that the canon was closed. You can even argue by the early century that it was clear that the canon was closed, based on document preservation, based on quotations in the New Testament, etc., based on quotations in the strata of the earliest rabbinic literature as scripture. According to Jewish tradition in the Council of Jamnia, in the year 90, the official decision was made on the canon of scripture. So that would be the end of the first century. To the extent that that's an accurate tradition, then that would settle that question. But I think you can make a case that it was even settled before then. Were they looking for more writing prophets?

No. There was rather a debate as to which books belonged that were extant, and the last of the prophets would have been understood to be Malachi several centuries earlier. So no, it was believed that there was not ongoing prophetic witness that was added to scripture. That was canonical. There were other books that were included, and some were later, and the dating of Daniel is always disputed.

But no, not to my knowledge. There are some rabbinic texts that seem more open to prophecy at that time, but not in the sense of prophetic words being added to scripture. Albert, since God appeared to Abraham, Jacob in a form, why do Jews think God can't present himself as Yeshua? They don't believe the same way that we believe that God literally appeared to Abraham in Genesis 18. They would say it was three angels bearing the presence of God, or representing God.

Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael. They do not believe it was the Lord and two angels, which is clearly what the text is saying. Genesis 32, it says Jacob wrestled with a man. Hosea 12 says he was a malach, an angel. Jacob says, I've seen God face to face, and he calls the place Peniel, face of God. So traditional Judaism would say that the angel carried the presence of God, or something like that.

Some even see it as Esau's angel, Samael. These are again just Jewish traditions and interpretations. They would also make a difference between God appearing in a theophany, or God appearing say in the cloud, on Sinai, in the fire, and things like that, then an incarnation in which he literally became a human being. So within Judaism that idea of an incarnation is really frowned on, although I'm quite sure we can make an excellent case for it based on scripture. Galant, what was an Old Testament Jewish understanding of judgment, hell, the eternal nature of the soul, what an ancient Jews think happened after they died, did they have any notion of the Messiah affecting the dead, either dead before or after his coming.

The emphasis in the Hebrew Bible is on this world. Those that died were set to sleep with their ancestors. There seemed to be somewhat of a foggy notion of life beyond the grave that then developed into a clear notion of resurrection, future resurrection from the dead in Daniel 12.2.

Some would say that was there from the start. It seems that God gave revelation over time about the state of the dead and the final resurrection of the dead, some to everlasting righteousness and blessings, some to everlasting shame and contempt. As to the idea of the eternal nature of the soul, that was not widely held in Old Testament times in the way of the later Greek concept, but rather the resurrection of the dead to either salvation or damnation. As to the role of the Messiah in that, there are some Old Testament texts that would hint in that direction, but nothing specific. Z, Christ, Jewish name, Jesus, Jewish name, Yeshua, Yeshua HaMashiach, Jesus, the Messiah. God bless.