Were the Gospels Written in Hebrew?

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Is there such a thing as an original Hebrew Gospel? 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. Thank you for joining us on Thoroughly Jewish Thursday.

Michael Brown, absolutely delighted to be with you. Let me give you the phone number to call if you have any Jewish related question of any kind. If you're an Orthodox Jewish listener and you don't agree with me on faith in Jesus and want to talk about that.

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We finally just canceled. So it's gonna be a great trip. First time ever, all five star hotels. We've got a lot of special things planned along the way to supplement an amazing tour of a lifetime. So now's the time to get signed up.

Go to Ask Dr. Brown, askdrbrown.org. Right on the homepage, you'll see the information about the tour. Let us know if you have any further questions.

Can't wait to see you, God willing, in the land next year. Okay, before I go to your calls, I want to first revisit the subject of a Hebrew Gospel. You may see modern translations and they will say this is based on the original Hebrew Gospel or the original Aramaic Gospel.

Well, there is no such thing. We do not have an original Hebrew Gospel in our possession. We do not have an original Aramaic Gospel. However, there is very strong evidence that there were early Gospel writings that were in Hebrew, some would argue Aramaic as well, or Aramaic instead, but Hebrew would be the most widely accepted in terms of more recent scholarship. So we do have early church leaders up through Jerome, fourth century, and they're talking about the Jewish believers, we call them Messianic Jews today, and their Hebrew Gospel. In some cases, it's associated with Matthew. There's an early tradition that was was passed on by Papias and then Eusebius that talks about the sayings of Jesus that Matthew organized in Hebrew. Now, some argue that that actually meant Aramaic, but his original teachings were organized together, and then they were interpreted and understood. So the argument would be this. Not that Matthew that we have today, the Greek Matthew, was originally written in Hebrew and translated into Greek.

Some argue that, but it's really a minority view. It is more that either Matthew collected the original teachings of Jesus in Hebrew or Aramaic and then incorporated those in his Greek Gospel, or that he wrote something all in Hebrew originally, and then that was preserved in the early church. There may have been some other writings that were written in Hebrew that were preserved, but we do not have them.

We have references to them. We can reconstruct a line here or there, but we do not have the original Hebrew. Now, you could argue about how Jesus taught. Did Yeshua teach in Aramaic or in Hebrew? My understanding is both, but Aramaic would have been the primary teaching, the common language of the bulk of the people that were there, perhaps in religious debate with religious leaders in Jerusalem. It was in Hebrew.

Scholars debate this passionately to this moment. The majority view is that that Aramaic was his spoken language, that his teachings were mainly in Aramaic, but there could have been some in Hebrew. Some argue it was all Hebrew, some argue it was all Aramaic.

And again, it's at this point nothing we can prove demonstrably and categorically and absolutely either way. So where do we get this notion then of the original Hebrew Gospel that people are using? Well, some are just wrongly putting the word original there. They're taking later translations from the Greek into Hebrew and using those and saying, well, maybe they preserved an original Hebrew there. Maybe they're not all translations from Greek. Maybe part of this is an original Hebrew. But in part, in fact, we don't have any ancient manuscripts. I'm talking about the only manuscripts that we have of the Gospel in Hebrew are medieval, all right?

So you're talking a massive time span. And we understand the origins. No one's arguing that we have a lot of these Gospels in Hebrew. But the view has been through the centuries that the ones that we have, these medieval manuscripts, they are translations from the Greek into Hebrew, all right? Some have argued more recently that no, actually, that they preserved some original Hebrew in them.

That's why you have word plays, that's why you have things like that, because the theory was that the rabbis, in order to deal with missionaries and things like that, wanted to understand the New Testament in their best language, which was Hebrew, and therefore they were translated from Greek into Hebrew, and now, okay, now we can read it and understand it better. But some say, no, no, it has evidence that there's actually original Hebrew there. So that is an ongoing debate, especially Nehemia Gordon popularized a lot of that, and he's a solid scholar.

We would differ on numerous points, but he's a solid scholar in terms of his approach to the literature. All right, what about an original Aramaic? Again, we don't have any ancient documents, like we have the Greek New Testament, thousands of early manuscripts, some within a century of the death and resurrection of Jesus.

We have those, parts of books of the New Testament, and then whole books, and then whole portions of the New Testament. So we have that in Greek. We don't have an Aramaic. What we do have is the Peshitta, which is a translation from the Greek into Aramaic. Now, some claim no, no, it has original teaching sayings, but the overwhelming scholarly consensus is that the Peshitta is a translation from the Greek into Aramaic for the Aramaic for the New Testament, and for the Old Testament from the Hebrew into Aramaic. So if you now say, well, I want to reconstruct the original Aramaic teaching of Jesus, so I'm going to use the Peshitta, what you're doing is this. He teaches in Aramaic, the gospel authors translate it into Greek, a later translator translates it from Greek into Aramaic.

That doesn't mean you have the original. Trust me, do this with a foreign language speaker. Give them a passage, or not something in scripture that's known, a paragraph from a news article, right? Ask them, okay, it's in English, let's say they're German speakers, translate it from English into German, right? Then go to another German speaker and say translate this from German into English. It will not be the same word for word as that original English.

It's just not going to happen. So it's the same thing here. So the Peshitta is useful as a textual witness. It's useful as an ancient witness, but it is not the way to reconstruct the original Hebrew and Aramaic words of Jesus. So once again, there is no such thing in our possession as the original Hebrew gospel, or the original Hebrew Matthew, or the original teachings of Jesus in Hebrew, or the original teachings of Jesus in Aramaic, or an original Aramaic gospel.

We do not have that in our possession. Yet there are enough references to an original Hebrew gospel, or to Matthew's writings in Hebrew. There are enough references in the early church to say there was something that circulated. Maybe it'd be discovered one day.

That would be awesome. That would be extraordinary if it was actually discovered. You say, well, I'd like to study this more. A book I found very helpful, and strongly argued, is by James R. Edwards, The Hebrew Gospel and the Development of the Synoptic Tradition. Again, here's the title of the book that I find helpful, The Hebrew Gospel and the Development of the Synoptic Tradition. At the very least, it will indicate to you just how pervasive these concepts were in the ancient world. How much the early church leaders attested to this, or referenced it. Some even saying that they had seen the book or books themselves firsthand, when in a library with Jewish Christians, or in their possession, they had these things. And you even have a reading here and there. We say Jerome, we'll say, okay, well, then the Hebrew version, it doesn't have these words here.

It has these words. It's all very, very interesting. And then arguments have been made based on some of the medieval manuscripts that they reflect earlier readings.

It's all interesting. It's worth pursuing and studying and wondering about. But until we actually have something ancient, right, we know the church father-runners, I don't know if there's going to be anything else uncovered. You know, if one of them knew writing was uncovered, where he's citing it left and right, we don't have that.

It's unlikely something new will be found in that regard. However, just like the Dead Sea Scrolls shocked the world, just like other discoveries, the last century discoveries of Ugaritic language and Eblaite language at different times of the 20th century shocked the world, something could happen. Something could be found. Now, if that was the case, it would be absolutely fascinating.

Okay, now, what do we do with this? This was not something that was preserved in the canon of Scripture, meaning that in the providence of God, this was not preserved in the ancient world, and more importantly, it was not circulated for the whole body. In other words, it only would have been one little part of the body that could have used these, and part of the argument for canonicity is not just that it had an apostolic connection or was recognized for its Orthodox teaching, but that it was something that was widely accepted as such as Scripture or as inspired or as apostolic by the early believers. The fact that something was just circulated one group only would indicate that God did not cause that to be preserved for the whole body, but it would be the most important ancient textual witness discovered regarding this subject in history. So, it could happen, but until then, when you hear someone say, well, we're going back to the original Hebrew of the New Testament or the original Aramaic, just stop, say, we don't have that. We don't have the original Hebrew or the original Aramaic. It's all a matter of reconstruction. It's all a matter of trying to figure out what the original said. We do not have that, so please don't tell me your translation is based on the original Hebrew of the New Testament or the original Aramaic of the New Testament.

We don't have that, but it's a fascinating study to pursue, and there were ancient writings in Hebrew, possibly Aramaic as well, that were preserved by some of the early believers, the Jewish believers, that could have given verbatim how Jesus said it in Hebrew or Aramaic. All right, we come back, we go straight to the phones with your questions. Stay right here. Brown. Get on the line of fire by calling 866-34-TRUTH.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Praise the Lord, all nations. Yes, welcome to Thoroughly Jewish Thursday, 866-34-TRUTH. I walked into the office today and there was a box waiting for me of my latest shipment of the Stengler health supplements, key things that I take to supplement the super healthy lifestyle that I live by the grace of God. You can take advantage of these too, get a special discount, and also a donation will be made to our ministry with every order you place.

Go to vitaminmission.com and Drs. Stengler, Mark and Angela, God willing, will be joining us on our trip to Israel. They're already signed up and eager to go and we plan to have an Ask Dr. Brown night just after the tour, hanging out at night after dinner. You get to ask me all kinds of questions. We're going to do a Drs.

Stengler night, ask the doctors health, nutrition issues, all kinds of things. That's going to be a neat freebie. All right, 866-34-TRUTH. Let's go to the phones.

Adam in Montreal, Canada. Welcome to the line of fire. Hey Dr. Brown, how are you today? Doing very well, thank you.

Okay, great. Yeah, just have a couple questions for you, Jewish related, of course. One of them's from Isaiah 14, verse number 12, where it speaks of the fall of Lucifer, and it says, how are you fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning. In Hebrew, when I looked it up, it says Hillel ben Shachar. So it's Hillel ben Shachar, yeah.

Ben Shachar, gotcha, okay. When I looked at one of the commentaries, it mentioned that, and I don't know how they came to this conclusion, but I was curious, they mentioned it also something about a crescent moon, that it can translate to crescent moon somehow, is that true? No, it's shining one, son of the dawn, is what it says in Hebrew.

Hillel is shining one, ben Shachar is son of the dawn. And lucifer in Latin simply means light bearer. This was not originally read as referring to Satan. Lucifer was not originally a title of Satan, that became a title of Satan based on a recognition that this passage spoke of him. So the Jewish interpretation would basically be that the king of Babylon slash Assyria, who will be cut down by God, was so highly exalted that he fashioned himself to be like the morning star, you know, Venus, planet Venus looks like a shining star, something like that. That would be the most prominent Jewish interpretation. Christian interpretation normally sees that behind this oracle about the fall of the king of Babylon is actually the fall of Satan himself, and that's how I read it and understand it, that his fall is now being likened to the fall of another proud being that thought that he could exalt himself above God and was therefore cut down. You don't happen to remember which Jewish commentator made the, there are some references as I'm just looking now.

Yeah, I don't remember exactly who it was, but I did come across it. If you type in like Isaiah 14, 12 crescent moon, it might be, I don't know if it's from Aramaic maybe. Yeah, yeah, so yeah, the other place, okay, that's not, it's not the most prominent translation there. Yeah, the Aramaic, the Targum translated to English here, you were shining among the sun's amends, the star of Venus among the stars, but since we did this, I'm just, Abravanel, it's kind of a lengthy commentary there, references it, but I was just glancing at a few others, and we'll just take one second because we can, and crescent moon, yeah, the ones that I'm seeing, I'm not seeing it in the major Jewish commentaries, and it's certainly not the most common, common, the NET notes mention Venus or the crescent moon, and there's only one that I saw so far in the Jewish commentaries I was looking at that makes a comparison in terms of when it's seen, it can have a certain appearance, but it's, the main one would be that it'd be like Venus in the morning, that, you know, the so-called morning star, and that's what it's being likened to, and then the pride is just the pride of the king, but spiritually behind the scenes, I do believe it is speaking about the fall of Satan, hence Lucifer becomes the name for Satan. Gotcha, gotcha, perfectly clear. The last thing I wanted to mention, I know that you're obviously a Jew from New York, is there, I know right now, like I've heard you talk about anti-semitism in America, is there anti-semitism going on in the United States right now, particularly in New York, where most of the Jews are, are they experiencing any form of this?

Oh yeah, Adam, if you just search online for rising anti-semitism, United States, yeah, there have been rising number of hate crimes targeting Jews, it's been for some years now, then of course you've had the terrible synagogue shootings, this is all within recent years, Pittsburgh and Poway, yeah, so this has been something that has been rising, and especially in New York, you have more instances of religious Jews on the streets just getting attacked, harassed, someone just going to punch them out, or a crowd attacking, so yeah, it is a concern, rising tensions in America, rising anger in America, then you have a large number, especially of religious Jews, shootings have taken place in New Jersey as well, so if you just look up violent crimes against Jews or rising anti-semitism in America, slash New York, you'll get quite a few examples, sadly, it is on the rise, and worldwide for many years now, the anti-semitism worldwide has rivaled where anti-semitism was before the Holocaust, eight six six, three four truth, let's go to Melissa in Indiana, welcome to the line of fire. Yes, hi, thank you, I have a question about Matthew 1835, but it's the parable of the unforgiving servant, yeah, now is that, is that, was that directed, I've heard, I've been told that that was directed toward, just toward the time that it's not actually four, after the cross, what are, what are your thoughts about it, and if it is for us today, would that be a final judgment from the father? Right, it's absolutely for us today, the only ones that would dare try to take these words away are the ones that try to take other words of Jesus away, one of the great errors of modern hyper-grace teachers is that they say the words of Jesus before the cross don't apply to us today, I mean, it's a really dangerous, ugly, unbiblical, even heretical teaching that the words of Jesus and the gospels don't apply to us unless they're spoken after the cross, this would be another example, because the argument would be, well, then it's, we're somehow saved by our works, or something like that, but no, this is, this is a parable to illustrate a point, Jesus tells us elsewhere, I mean, it's a repeated teaching that if we don't forgive, the father won't forgive us, it doesn't mean in terms of our state of forgiveness as far as coming to the Lord and being saved, it means that our ongoing relationship with him, our fellowship with him, so when Jesus says if you don't forgive from the heart that you'll be thrown, in that analogy there, into debtors prison and you'll just be tormented there, if you get to the point of hardness of heart by unforgiveness, that you ultimately reject God, right, that you refuse him, you refuse the lordship of Jesus, you choose bitterness and hatred and anger, well, yeah, you are not saved, and you are not a child of God, if you cast off the lordship of Jesus, you will cast off your salvation, but I believe what he's talking about is illustrating a point of God putting you under severe conviction, giving you over to the tormentors there until you pay every last bit, is saying that you will not enjoy fellowship with God, if you refuse to forgive, so we're not talking about the ultimate denial of Jesus as Lord, get out of my life, I don't want you, but as a believer, if God's dealing with you, you need to forgive, you need to forgive, you need to release that person, you keep refusing, your fellowship with God will be broken, your intimacy with God will be impacted, and you will suffer deep conviction, God will not let you sit in that, I don't know if you've ever come under deep conviction as a believer when your attitude was wrong, but God knows how to turn the screws on us internally and bring us to a place of misery, it's like, okay, I give up, I repent, and that's what I believe he's speaking of there in Matthew 18, but absolutely, categorically applies to us today, very powerfully, one of the most important words Jesus ever spoke on the subject of forgiveness. So that would not be a final judgment from the Father then if a person were to repent?

Absolutely not, it's the intensity of conviction, again, a parable is meant to convey a point, a parable is meant to get a message across, not to say that each thing means this, means that, now let me just say again though, Melissa, if someone got to a point under deep conviction of God, where year after year they said, get out of my life, I don't want you in my life, he doesn't force us to stay, and if that was the case, then we'd be given over to final judgment because of it, but the sin would be rejecting of the Lord, the sin would be refusal to bow the knee to Jesus, but Matthew 18 and the parable of the unforgiving servant who's been forgiven so much, boy is that important for us, it's important to grasp it. When people have sometimes said, I seem very gracious towards others, well God's very gracious towards me, I want to extend to others the mercy and grace, never lower his standard, never compromise his ethic, but I want to extend to others the same mercy and grace that God has extended to me, and I'm sure I only do a fraction of that at my best, hey thank you for calling, let's keep that clear, the parable of Matthew 18 absolutely applies to us as believers, let us take it too hard, we'll be right back, thanks for the call. 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. Oh yes, welcome to Thoroughly Jewish Thursday. You know what's one of the highlights for me being in Israel, oh we've got a line open, 866-34-TRUTH, 866-34-87-884, going back to the phones momentarily, but one of the highlights for me in our Israel tour, when I've done these over the years, for many years I refused to do them, I said if I go to Israel it's just to minister, then a friend convinced me and they've just been such a wonderful experience for everyone together that we've done a number over the years, but sometimes just with schedule the tour will start and then I'll meet up a little bit later, like they'll get started and then I'm finishing a project and then I meet up and then we'll do teaching at a certain place and then have our meals together, etc. And it worked out last time that I got to Jerusalem earlier, where we were in Jerusalem, I got to the wall ahead of the group to meet up, what's called the Wailing Wall or the Western Wall, but within Israel the Kotel or the Wall, and every time, I don't know how many times I've been there by myself and just to pray and with others, but just walking up there's this overwhelming feeling every single time and being there this last time waiting for the group to come and then seeing their reaction and then going with the brothers because men on one side, women on another to pray, there's just something that deeply touches my heart and I love to pray side by side with a religious Jew, they're in their own world praying, but it reminds me again of the great sincerity, of the passion that's in the heart of so many traditional Jews, of their earnest crying out to God and I just join, God open our eyes to see your truth, the person on my left, the person on my right, open our eyes to see your truth, reveal Messiah, so hopefully you'll get to join us when we do that. A caller said they did not see the baptism of John and the Jewish culture, were unable to stay on the line, but just to respond quickly, if you look in Jewish culture of the day, immersion was commonly practiced, it was practiced by different Jewish groups there, if you come with Israel to Israel, whether it's just there on your own, you have a tour guide, they'll show you, you're outside of what would have been the ancient temple complex, they'll show, okay here's another baptismal pool or immersion pool and you walk down steps on one side, the pool in the middle, walk out steps on the other, it was commonly practiced, there are some groups that richly immersed every day, some especially before going into the temple, that would be the main time it would happen, some as a special act of repentance, so that's what John tied in with, get immersed, repent of sins, get immersed, so it was very much part of the culture of the day in the Jewish world.

All right, we go to Justin in Newark, New Jersey, welcome to the line of fire. Hi, can you hear me? Yes I can. Hi, big fan, I had two questions, the first one's kind of contingent on the second, so my question is, do you believe in mosaic authorship of Torah? Yes I do, there are supplements that were equally inspired, there are passages like Genesis 12, the Canaanite was then in the land, or Numbers 12, Moses was the meekest man on the earth, or the death of Moses, there may be certain additions that were put in over a period of time as laws developed, but the essential mosaic authorship, yes I believe in that. Okay, I mean I want to believe that, like Moses wrote the Torah except the last I think eight verses written by Joshua, like Martin Luther said, but my question to you is, what is your defense of mosaic authorship? I've had, like I recently went through a philosophy course of religions at my university, and they taught me the, you know, the J-E-D-P, the documentary hypothesis, but I didn't have a defense of mosaic authorship, I wanted to hear yours. Right, so this is something that was a big, big issue to me early on as a believer, because everyone I studied with was not a believer, and many were quite skeptical and critical, and by the time I met any religious Jews that held to mosaic authorship and were also involved in academia, I mean that was a lot, a lot, lot longer. So my reasons are, number one, J-E-D-P is just theory, remains just theory. There are probably less scholars who hold to it today than when I started my studies 50 years ago.

In fact, it's something I haven't even followed for the longest time, I felt no need to. So that's number one, there remains no literary evidence for it, it's all reconstructed. Number two, as Kenneth Kitchen, the famous Egyptologist, demonstrated decades ago, we have nothing else in the ancient Near East of all the major literature that has been preserved that has a weaving together of disparate documents like this over a period of centuries into one.

So this itself would be anomalous, this would be contrary to the evidence of the ancient world. Number three, while we don't have attestation about who wrote Genesis, we have constant references to Moses writing things down. In Exodus, Moses wrote, Moses wrote. In Leviticus, over and over, Moses is writing. You have at the end of Deuteronomy that attests to Moses writing, then the beginning of Joshua references the book of the law, and throughout the entire Old Testament there's a constant reference back to the sefer Torah, or sefer Torah Moshe, the book of the law, the book of the law of Moses, or the book of teaching, book of teaching of Moses, and then constant references to Moses to the rest of the Hebrew Bible. So everybody's presupposing it, everybody's referencing it, but you'd have to argue is it's all basically being rewritten that each new generation has to now discover this book that nobody knew about before. So it doesn't cover every single verse, again it doesn't cover Genesis explicitly, except we have no other, throughout the entire ancient Jewish tradition, ancient Israelite tradition, we never have any other part of the Pentateuch attributed to anyone other than Moses ever, and then is in development of the canon there's never a debate about this going back to Moses. So the internal evidence says Moses, end of subject, there's no debate.

The internal evidence says nothing other than that. The literary critiques, things like that, the alleged contradictions, a lot of that is just standard duplicate accounts that you're used to, explaining the same thing different ways at different times, plays on words. As far as different styles, most of those can be fairly easily explained as different literature. For example, if you read my book Israel's Divine Healer, or read my article on Rafah and the Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, and then pick up my book How Saved Are We, you'll think these are two different human beings who wrote this.

You'll do a vocabulary analysis, grammatical analysis, well it's just one I'm writing academically and the other I'm writing on a popular level. So there are top conservative scholars, brilliant, learned conservative scholars, absolutely fluent in the ancient Near Eastern sources, who completely reject JEDP. I'm honestly surprised it's still around, just because there's been nothing to support it, it's just become something locked in. So if you'll read any of the standard work by top conservative Old Testament scholars, or surveys that they've done, you'll get good strong arguments for the essential mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. And again, I don't think Deuteronomy 34 was written by Joshua, because it seems to be dating later, that even up until this time no one like Moses has arisen in Israel. And we don't have to know who wrote the other supplements, but I believe a good argument can be made, not just internally within the Torah, but based on how the rest of the Hebrew Bible in all these different time periods is all referencing back to the laws of Moses or the book of the Torah. So there's something that was there, it could have expanded more than we know, but there was something foundational that was there presupposed to the entire Hebrew Bible.

So those would be my strongest arguments. Okay, if I could just add one more thing, how would you defend like the level, like the different kinds of languages used between say the Song of the Sea in Exodus 15, and like the rest of Exodus? You just said it, you just explained it, because it's poetry, it's song. Of course it's different. When I've written poems, you know, fun poems for birthdays, my writing poems is a million times different than my writing Israel's Divine Healer, or writing Jezebel's War with America, it's a song. And it doesn't even, so they sang it together, it was a spontaneous song, or Moses pens it and they write it.

So of course it's going to be different, it's going to have different style. And here's the other thing, there's no question that over the centuries, as the Hebrew Bible was being written out, copied, that spelling conventions changed. For example, if you look at the spelling of the word color in America, so you go back far enough, it was C-O-L-O-U-R, or labor with O-U-R, like we have in England today, right?

But we spell it without the U. So the same thing, you look back at the original King James spelling, you know, music was spelled with CK at the end, not just C. So spelling certainly changed, conventions changed. So you will have, just like Judges 5, preserves an ancient song, and some of the spelling, grammar, different.

So that's to be expected because of the nature of the literary genre, that's one thing. And because probably that being a piece that was passed on a certain way, that spelling changes didn't happen so much that other grammatical conventions didn't change. So for sure the Hebrew language changes over the centuries. For sure some of the spelling conventions change, but do we have the same words that were being passed out?

Yeah, no reason to argue against it. Check out, if you want to dig, start with this book by Kenneth Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament. On the Reliability of the Old Testament.

Kitchen's most famous work, The Third Intermediate Period, is the work on the subject. I'm not an Egyptologist at all. I started to take hieroglyphics in grad school, I was doing my doctoral thesis, I thought, what am I? I don't have time to learn this now. So I started the class and that was it. So that's how far I am from being an Egyptologist. But Kitchen is a terrific ancient Near Eastern scholar, and it's a couple decades old, but a good place to start on the reliability of the Old Testament.

My faith would not be shaken in the least if it could be demonstrated that Moses wrote much of the Pentateuch but not all, but I have no reason to question essential Mosaic authorship remains the best explanation to me. All right, hey, thank you very much for the call and for asking these questions. 866-344, we come back, Neil, Harvey, Michael, you are next right here on Thoroughly Jewish Thursday on the Line of Fire. It's the Line of Fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get on the Line of Fire by calling 866-344.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks for joining us on Thoroughly Jewish Thursday on the Line of Fire. President Biden is in Israel Middle East.

First trip he's made of this kind. There's an op-ed in the Jerusalem post despite his love for Israel, Biden still has different priorities. A love fest aside, look at the statements made showed the distance between the sides priorities and views on the visit. So great public comments, love for Israel, America standing with you, my love for Israel the president said is deep-rooted as long as we're the United States you will never ever be alone.

Prime Minister Lapid, current prime minister, called by one of the best friends Israel's ever had among myriad statements of gratitude for the close ties between the U.S. and Israel and yet they've got some differences in terms of priorities and action points. Do you get my emails? Are you aware when we put out the latest video say rebutting Rabbi Tovias Singer, another countermissionary rabbi?

No? You get my latest article where we're talking about latest craze in the society and how we address it as believers. Then take a moment go to my website askdrbrown.org askdrbrown.org sign up for the emails we'll put you in our welcome tour. Trust me you will enjoy hearing from us you'll be blessed edified and informed. All right we go back to the phones this time to Neil in Wisconsin.

Welcome to the line of fire. Thank you Dr. Brown good afternoon brother. I like you I'm a Jew follows Jesus I just want to preface it by that. I've been listening it's totally engrossing conversation and you have a gift as a teacher and I apologize I'm trying to tickle your ear but as a young Jewish boy you know studying Torah for Bar Mitzvah Moses if we look at Moses in the physical his first 40 years of his life he was raised as Egyptian royalty. He ate the finest food I'm sure he was engaged in Egyptian scholarship so when he had to flee and become a shepherd in his 40s this was not this was a man who was educated and the leader who you know earmarked for future Egyptian royalty so the fact that he could with God's help accomplish what he did is that leads to my question I want to ask you about since you unveiled something today I didn't know I didn't know that in the New Testament there's no Aramaic you know original Hebrew or Aramaic I've been pondering in my soul about the I ams and the first one is you know is an exodus the burning bush tell who shall I tell these people who sent me I am what I am what is the Hebrew for that doctor yeah so it's it's a glorious glorious and it's uh mysterious and it's clear but it's beyond clear so the first thing is uh the Hebrew means I am or I will be right yeah so yeah yeah not a just an h ahiya from the root which is to be so ahiya is either I am or would normally be understood as I will be all right so in the context there where God says I will be with you I will be with you right I will so in the context he's saying I will be a yeah I will be tell them he sent you but then he explains yeah a share a here which is either I am who I am I am that I am or I will be who I will be or I will be what I will be or you could potentially even translate it I am who I will be but that would be the least likely and it's from this it's from this root hi-yah that we didn't get to name yahweh we get named yahweh and and that's ultimately because the the y was originally a v sound but that's that's a whole whole other matter so uh if if you look in an exodus the third chapter all right where where this uh comes up initially what he's saying is I am going to be with you I am the one who will be with you right for yomer kiyahi yemach visibility so he says and I will be so I'm going to say it literally in Hebrew for your mayor and he said key for a here I will be emach with you and then this will be the sign for you so say to them that a here sent you so the one who will be with you is the one who sent you but then when you just take that uh in terms of a self-expression of God because he's not just future he's present so I am who I am and I am the one who will be with you and I will be and I am are the same in Hebrew that's why it's it's clear but it's beautiful and mysterious and yeah go ahead forgive me forgive me no no go ahead please um so then if we dove to go right over to Ezekiel I am so that they might know that I am the Lord and in our English Bibles it's you know of course the Lord is capitalized and then I go right over to John's gospel or you know John and what Jesus does that drives the rabbis crazy it says before Moses before Abraham was I am right so it's not as you see here's what you have to understand the verb to be in the present tense can be understood in Hebrew so in in Hebrew I am the Lord is simply on the Adonai there is no hayah there is no verb hayah it is simply in Hebrew it's literally I the Lord meaning I am the Lord you do have other passages where like here in Exodus 3 where God reveals himself as I am slash I will be you have it especially in uh in Isaiah and the Septuagint Ego Amy I I myself am so God speaking of himself that he's the only God I myself am so in Hebrew Ani who I I am he then is is emphasized in Greek I myself am that one so in John 8 58 where Jesus uses those same words Ego Amy it would seem he's echoing the language of Isaiah I myself am God I am and and yes that did jar them because even if he was just claiming some type of pre-existence he would have said before Abraham was I was right I existed before I was here before everyone I was but he says no before Abraham was I am so it's definitely jarring and making that connection hey thank you sir for the question and the kind words uh let us go to Harvey in Hanford uh California time is short so please dive right in yes uh I had a couple of questions after watching the documentary Marching to Zion um a couple of questions are um one is is uh the the part where John Hagee talks about a rebuilt temple I don't see anywhere in scripture where it talks about a rebuilt temple you know actually okay so first thing it's it's a really bad documentary it's even to dupe the rabbis into participating and then to get extreme examples of like a humanist rabbi talking about circumcision it's unethical what he did was wrong uh Stephen Anderson it's it's poor scholarship uh in my book Christian anti-semitism I actually take some time to expose the trashiness of the documentary so my book Christian anti-semitism deals with that but you can make a strong argument for a rebuilt temple based on Ezekiel 40 through 48 prophecies that never took place or were never fulfilled or Zechariah 14 the nations of the world coming to worship at the temple in Jerusalem uh I'm not sure what happened to our sound here if we're still connected I'm going to keep talking as if we are connected but I've just lost all hearing of our feed here so I'll keep speaking in case we are still on the air so so Harvey some would argue well those are millennial passages that the temple will be rebuilt in the millennial kingdom uh but you could make an argument uh you could make an argument that uh uh Matthew 24 when Jesus speaks about his second coming that is referring to his second coming with a temple standing so that there will be a rebuilt temple or second Thessalonians 2 that the antichrist will set himself up as god in the temple of god uh but you can't guarantee it in other words that is an area of discussion will there be a real a rebuilt temple before Jesus returns will there be a temple a physical temple in the millennial kingdom all right Harvey with my apologies I cannot hear the feed coming in so even though we're still on the air I can hear you come back if you can follow up sir we'll take your call tomorrow even though we don't do consecutive days normally we'll try to get you tomorrow if you can call in otherwise try to give us a call in another day so we can continue the discussion all right because there's there's more that you have to ask and say and I'm sure you want to reply to what I've said but we've just had an error in our feed here and not sure what happened but to everyone else glad this just happened at the end of the show so I could get your calls my apologies Harvey but please call so we can follow up and continue with our discussion I do want to hear questions that you had after watching that documentary by the way even Christian leaders that are quoted are not necessarily representative of all Christian Zionists with that there's a blessing of the Lord other program powered by the truth network