Answers to Your Best Jewish Questions

The following is a prerecorded program. 6-6-3-4-Truth.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Flying back from Texas, you say, how am I doing them at the same time? Ah, no, it's not a miracle of modern technology, and it's not a special grace on me to be two places at the same time.

But we're prerecording the show one day early as opposed to airing live as we do almost all the rest of the time. Again, as I'm speaking, I'm about to leave for Texas. As you're listening and watching, I'm returning from Texas, but going to be on the air with my dear friend James Robison on Life Today, a program that will probably air sometime in June that will focus on my brand new book, Has God Failed You? Finding Faith When You're Not Even Sure God Is Real. By the way, the contents of that book really do tie in well with Early Jewish Thursday because of the issues we take up with the nature of the God of the Old Testament and even what would Job say. And then some of the brutal honesty of people wrestling with God in Jewish tradition and in the Bible.

We talk about that in the book as well. But all that to say, I won't be taking calls today, and I won't be responding to breaking news because, as I record this show, that breaking news has not yet happened. All right. In Israel, Prime Minister Netanyahu has given up trying to form a new government. It's not going to work. It looked pretty hopeless when the election results came in because of the nature of the split and who was willing to work with whom and what extreme elements you could get together on the same side. Well, he has now recognized that's not going to happen. So now opposition parties or others, you know, those came in behind Netanyahu and Likud. They have the opportunity to try to form a government. Is that possible?

That looks very sketchy as well. It could happen, but it looks unlikely. In which case, a fifth election. Think of all the money, the energy, the emotion expended on this. And while the government is effectively dealing with emergencies, it's crippled in so many other ways.

It's taxing and wearing on the people. And it's unprecedented in Israel's history to have this many elections in this shorter period of time. But that being the case, it seems unlikely, barring some type of unexpected developments, it seems unlikely that Netanyahu and Likud will be able to prevail again sufficiently enough so that there can be a coalition under Likud and Netanyahu. Now, from the viewpoint of a lot of American evangelicals, that's absolutely terrible because Netanyahu is the man. He's the courageous hero. He's the strong leader. He's the one who has stood up to international terror and so on. And obviously, there's a lot of good that he has done. But within Israel, there's tremendous amount of division about Netanyahu, even among believers. There are some who will vote Likud, his party, others that will vote other parties. And he's looked at very differently within Israel as opposed to outside of Israel. So yes, he has his loyal fans and supporters in Israel.

But it's very much different there than in the United States. All right. Let us go over to Twitter. And I'm going to start with Twitter questions that were posted. And let's see here.

Okay, Anthony asked this question. Do Messianic Jews believe in the Trinity? Most do.

Some do not. And they would be considered heretical by those who do. Now, that being said, the way things are formulated in the Nicene Creed or the Athanasian Creed, the philosophical statements that are made, the way things are framed, many Messianic Jews would have issues with that.

Many Messianic Jews would say that these relate to later developments and are presented against a certain Greek philosophical background or other philosophical backgrounds and are not really sensitive to Jewish understanding or presented in a biblically based way. And when you speak to a Jewish person about Trinity, they really think three gods. So some Messianic Jews would emphasize God's triunity. Others, and this is a phrase that I coined, others may have used it before me, but it's one that seemed right and that came to mind as I was describing things, I will speak of God's complex unity, that we emphasize His oneness. If there's one truth that's emphasized over and over again in the Bible, it's that there's one God and one God only. One of my Messianic Jewish colleagues has said that that must be the central truth emphasized in Scripture, that there's one God, one God only.

So we want to emphasize that loudly and clearly and then explain how He is complex in His unity. When I first spoke in Israel in 1986, first time Nancy and I went to Israel, so we got to go on a tour and then did speaking while I was there, I felt a warning, I felt a prophetic warning. You might say it was just common sense, common spiritual sense, but I felt a prophetic warning that within the Messianic movement, which in many ways in terms of modern congregational expression is in its infancy, we're just really going back to the 60s in its current congregational manifestation, otherwise going all the way back to the New Testament in terms of all the first believers being Jews who lived as Jews. So the vast majority lived as Jews and we're Jewish believers, put it like that. But in any case, I said that in the Messianic movement our day, that the first sign of apostasy would be denial of the deity of Jesus, denial of Yeshua's deity. So we're seeing that in increasing measure, in dangerous measure, and with that obviously a denial of God's training. But the vast majority of Messianic Jews hold to an Orthodox view of God being complex in His unity and God revealing Himself to us as Father, Son, and Spirit. Let's see.

Will. What's the best book for study learning about the biblical feasts and their new covenant fulfillment? There are actually a few different books that are very useful. If you want to focus on the fall feasts, and I'm just going to give you a few titles here. Oh, that just threw things when I added in an extra name there.

Sorry. Mitch and Zahava Glaser. Mitch Glaser, my dear friend Mitch, and his wife Zahava. They've got a great book on the fall feasts of Israel. The fall feasts of Israel. So that focuses on Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Tabernacles. So the fall feasts of Israel. Another colleague and friend, another fine Messianic Jewish leader, Sam Nadler, N-A-D-L-E-R, has a great book on the Messiah in the feasts of Israel. Messiah in the feasts of Israel.

Again, there are quite a few books, but those would be a good place to start. Another would be Barney Kasdan, K-A-S-D-A-N, God's Appointed Times. God's Appointed Times.

So Mitch and Zahava Glaser focusing on the fall feasts. Sam Nadler, Messiah in the feasts of Israel, Barney Kasdan, God's Appointed Times. These are all Messianic Jewish leaders, teachers, solid background. You'll learn a lot going through those.

Let's see. Brian, also on Twitter, given the obvious New Testament references, how should we as Christians be first century, second temple, Jewish apocrypha? For example, Baruch and Enoch. These books would be regarded, for example, Enoch not as apocrypha, but pseudepigrapha. An apocryphal book would be like the Prayer of Manasseh, which is included in Catholic Bibles, and is intertestamental, written between the Old and New Testament.

Or 1 and 2 Maccabees. Those would be apocryphal. And then a book like Enoch would be pseudepigraphical.

So how should they be viewed? Let's talk first about the apocrypha. The apocrypha is nowhere cited in the New Testament as scripture. There may be teachings and references that are reflecting data found in the apocrypha, but none of the books of the apocrypha are ever explicitly quoted in the New Testament as scripture, or as it is written, or as the scripture says, or anything like that. Or associated with a biblical figure, you know, as Moses wrote or Isaiah said.

None of that. And we know that ultimately this was not considered part of the Jewish canon of scripture. The apocrypha should be read, some of it for important historical information, like 1 and 2 Maccabees, other parts just for excellent wise teaching, Ecclesiasticus, the wisdom of Ben Sira, things like that, worth reading. And they should be viewed as in between a good book and the Bible.

In other words, of great value, of historical value, and even considered inspired by many in the ancient world, but ultimately not on the same level of scripture. And if I'm correct, if I remember correctly, the reformation attitude towards these books was that they were worth reading, but that you could not base doctrine on them, that they did not carry the biblical weight of authority, but they were printed in between the Old and New Testament in early Bibles and Reformation times, and then ultimately removed from there, if my historical recollections are correct. When it comes to something like Enoch, it's quoted by Jude, but not as scripture. It's quoted by Jude meaning people were familiar with it, people used it, people read it, and this was true of early Jews who did not believe in Jesus, and early Jews who did believe in Jesus, as well as Gentile Christians, Enoch was widely read and highly respected, but ultimately did not become part of the canon of scripture, outside of the Ethiopic tradition in the church, did not become part of the canon of scripture in Judaism or Christianity. And certainly, while there may be portions that accurately preserve words of Enoch, hence Jude's quotation from Enoch, clearly, much of other parts of Enoch is written much, much, much later, and therefore written at a time that it would not have been considered part of the Hebrew Bible because it was written and composed afterwards. And we know that New Testament writers also quoted pagan poets, like Paul does in Acts 17 or in Titus 1. So, all that being said, the books should be read, we should be familiar with them. I actually have not read sufficiently in all the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, it's a lot of literature actually, and just recently I was realizing I need to refresh myself more on certain things that read things I have not really read before. So, worth reading in that regard, worth learning about, gives us insight into what was believed in the ancient world and things like that, but should not be confused with scripture. That's the big thing.

We should not confuse any of these books with the Bible itself. Right back with more of your Thirdly Jewish Thursday questions. It's The Line of Fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks for joining us on Thirdly Jewish Thursday.

This is Michael Brown. I am not taking live calls today, but I did ask yesterday for questions to be posted on Facebook and Twitter, and I'm responding to those, so don't post now, but this is another good reason to stay connected with us on social media. So, are you connected? If you're on Facebook, use Facebook regularly, then by all means, like our page, AskDrBrown, we post new videos every day, we post new articles every day, and you can watch the broadcast, the radio broadcast. You can actually watch it and see me waving and smiling at you right now.

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How's that? So, that's askdrbrown.org, click on donate. Okay, gonna go over to Facebook and look at some of the questions that have been posted there.

Deborah asked this on Facebook. In 1 Chronicles 21, when God destroyed 70,000 people after David sinned by doing the census, how is that just? David himself said that these people did nothing to deserve this. By the way, I grant that God can do no evil and is justified in everything he does, but two friends recently mentioned this, and I want to understand this incident.

Your friends did a good job in raising this, and I don't know if they're sincere seekers or if they're more skeptics or even mockers, but it's a very, very fair question. So, in the incident, David sins by numbering the people. You say, why was that wrong? God had the children of Israel take numbers and do censuses when they came out of Egypt, and then at the end of 40 years, wilderness wanderings and things like that.

What's wrong with it? Well, there were aspects of census taking that were considered dangerous spiritually for other reasons. That's a whole other thing to explore.

It's actually a fascinating discussion. But when Joab, the commander-in-chief, basically the army leader, was urging David not to do this, there was something about carnal security. Let's see how strong we are, let's see how big we are, let's see how mighty we are, which is not trusting God, which was not looking to God, which was a self-sufficient way of functioning and in itself full of pride. And David, after he did it, was smitten, and then the Lord sent a prophetic messenger with a warning for him and said, okay, here's a rebuke, you're guilty, you're going to be judged. You never should have done this, you should have known better, you're going to be judged.

And you can pick. You can have X number of years of famine, you can be attacked by your enemies, or you can have three days of plague and judgment sent by God, and David said, look, let me fall into God's hands rather than the hands of my enemies, and opted for that. And then during the plague, he interceded and God stopped it. So, number one, first obvious lesson, is that the sins of a national leader can affect the whole nation, right? What Adolf Hitler did with Germany, obviously much of Germany was behind him, but ultimately where he took things was a direction that very few would have supported if they knew it up front. And it led to the destruction of the nation, it led to terrible suffering for millions of people, millions murdered, but even for the German people as a whole.

Hitler's actions as leader brought about the death of millions of his own people, and destruction of major cities, and the division for decades between East and West Germany. So, national leaders can make decisions based on which terrible suffering comes to the people as a whole. You say, yeah, but here God brought the judgment, how is that right?

Well, here's the question. Even though David speaking generically says they did nothing to deserve the speaking of the people as a whole, maybe God just judged people that were worthy of death. Maybe God just judged people that in his mercy he had not smitten, in his mercy he had not taken out, but they should have been judged, and now it's like, okay, here's an opportunity to bring just judgment on wicked people. In other words, we don't know that, therefore we trust God, the same God who reveals himself as merciful and long-suffering and compassionate, and we see how forgiving he was towards David rather than destroying him when he deserved destruction. That same God meted out this judgment, so perhaps he only judged people who themselves were guilty. Again, David can't make a statement about everyone, they didn't deserve this, they're just sheep. No, many of those sheep were guilty sinners themselves.

Perhaps the judgment fell on those who were most guilty. We don't know, right? So, we just have to leave it there. Alright, Ben, what are your thoughts on E.P. Sanders' work on Palestinian Judaism, specifically covenantal gnomism, and whether the Pharisees saw their keeping of the law as earning individual salvation?

So, E.P. Sanders' work on Palestinian Judaism and Paul and the law, this was watershed work beginning in the 1980s. In fact, let's see the exact year, if I can find the right year, that E.P.

Sanders first published his famous Paul and Palestinian Judaism. So, here we go. I'm looking at the 40th anniversary edition, which came out in 2017. Alright, so if the 40th anniversary edition comes out in 2017, you can see how old this was. Alright, so you're actually going back here to 1977.

I said the 80s, it's actually before the 80s when this comes out. So, I know it's a question you're asking because of the influence of this and then the studies that have followed this in terms of Pauline studies. Jacob Neusner, who was the most prolific and influential Jewish scholar of the last generation, died a few years ago and was the author or editor of a thousand books. Yes, a thousand books. He'd normally write a book a week.

Just mind-boggling, mind-boggling stuff. In any case, in any case, he savaged, he savaged Sanders' work, and the two of them were at battle with one another for years. But, Jacob Neusner said about covenantal gnomism, Neusner said that what Sanders wrote was like, of course, everybody knows that. Everybody knows that.

What's new about that? Meaning that the Jewish nation, the people of Israel, were called by God's grace, delivered from Egypt by God's grace, and now were given his laws and commandments as a nation to stay in right covenantal relationship with him, as opposed to keeping the law so as to achieve individual salvation. On the one hand, that's true. And there's certainly grace within Pharisaical teaching as well. And there's emphasis on God's mercy, and the thrust of things is certainly on the nation as a whole being in right covenantal standing with God. So as an individual Jew, you're doing your part as part of the body of Israel to be in right relationship with this God who mercifully brought you from Egypt and shows you mercy every day. At the same time, there's no question that human beings as human beings are thinking about, am I right with God?

Are my sins forgiven? And there's no question that legalistic tendencies certainly existed, and that Paul himself is addressing some of those. So I would say that Saunders rightly understood aspects of Judaism that New Testament scholars may have previously missed because they misunderstood some of Paul's polemic or some of Yeshua's criticisms of the Pharisees and things like that. They kind of thought that was the norm and the all, as opposed to hypocritical extremes and tendencies being rebuked. So on the one hand, there was a corrective from Saunders. On the other hand, there was an aspect of perhaps not realizing the degree to which individual legalism could set in. And you can see that in a religious Jewish community today with the fervent desire leading up to Yom Kippur to be in a state of repentance and purity, and for your good deeds to outweigh your bad deeds, so that when you stand before God, that your name will be written in the Book of Life for another year.

And that there would be favor not just on the nation, but on you as an individual. And even for Tishrei, the month in which these holidays occurred, Rosh Hashanah and then Yom Kippur, or Yom Teruah, the day of the sounding of the shofar, and then Day of Atonement, that the astrological symbol for that month is scales. Weights, balance, scales, because your life is being weighed in the balance.

So it's kind of a both and. There was a right corrective in Saunders' work, but then other things were missed. Stephen Lesterholm has done some really good analyses on this where he kind of weighs out the good and the bad.

And I think if you read some of the relevant books by Stephen Lesterholm, you'll get some good perspectives on this as well. Okay, we'll be right back with more of your questions on Thoroughly Jerusalem. It's the Line of Fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown.

Get into the Line of Fire now by calling 866-34-TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thank you so much for joining us on this Thoroughly Jewish Thursday. This is Michael Brown, your Thoroughly Jewish host, talking about our Thoroughly Jewish Messiah, Jesus Yeshua.

My joy to be with you. Today we're devoting the whole show to answering your social media questions, Jewish-related questions that were posted on Facebook and on Twitter. So don't post now.

Don't call in now. If you want updates on what's happening in the Israeli elections, we dealt with that at the beginning of the broadcast. You can catch that later on our website, AskDrBrown.org, or on YouTube, AskDrBrown, or Facebook, AskDrBrown. Let's go over to your Facebook questions, starting with Mark. Mark asks this. With Israel running new animal sacrifices and also performing them, preparing for the new temple one day, how do you feel God views these practices continuing since he wants them to realize Jesus already made the final sacrifice? Do you feel that God honors it in some sort of way still because it's covenant people, or is it not viewed at all by him, and is he silent? Hopefully that made sense. Okay.

Yeah, it made perfect sense. Number one, Israel as a whole is not, or the religious Jewish world in Israel, is not offering animal sacrifices right now. There were a couple of instances, you know, Passover-related, pre-COVID, something done by where the temple used to stand, but there was no temple, and therefore no sacrifices in terms of on a national level. However, there is a very small group of religious Jews that has been preparing for many, many years, and preparing all of the various vessels that would go in the temple, you know, the altar, the things like that, and then the priestly garments, and so on.

They've been working on that for many, many years, and have been poised and ready and teaching and planning, okay, when this happens, then we do X, Y, Z. How does God look at that? From my understanding, with grief, with love, and with love and appreciation for the zeal, Paul's words in Romans 10 about the Jewish people having a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. So, on the one hand, looks at them with appreciation, because they're zealously trying to honor God, and they want to see the temple rebuilt, and they're praying for that fervently, and they believe that'll be a sign of God's favor, and the messianic error being ushered in, and so on. And yet with pain, because they have missed the Messiah. The reason the temple has been destroyed this long is because God has made a better way and brought judgment on the old system. And that is part of the reason that we've been scattered around the world, part of it, not all of it, but part of the reason we've been scattered around the world, a rejection of the Messiah. So, I believe that always God is at work and drawing people to himself, but in my view, this will pave the way for further Jewish deception before hearts and minds are opened and with that faith in Jesus, the Messiah.

Alright, let's go to Anda's question. So, there's a lot of talk about the quote end times, because of all the strife in the U.S. We're definitely seeing end time milestones, but I'm starting to wonder if America's even a factor in end time prophecy. I'm starting to understand that the Old Testament points to the New Testament, and the New Testament points to the Old Testament. If this is true, I wonder if the Israelites have more of a role in the ushering in end time prophecies.

Of course, Christians and the world will be affected in general, but I wonder if America is such a high opinion of ourselves, we literally think that the end times have to do with us, or maybe it has a lot more to do with Israel. I hope my question makes sense. I'd love your thoughts on this. By the way, I appreciate these two questions back to back, both saying I hope the question makes sense.

Oh, you're both perfectly clear. You're 100% right, Anda, that often in America, we think that the world revolves around us. And somehow Bible prophecy revolves around us. Now, on the one hand, that's a bit of a harsh statement, because Americans are just saying, hey, look, the Bible speaks of increasing wickedness, and things are going mad all around us, and the world is collapsing all around us, and this must be the end. So it's not about America.

It's just America's situation is symptomatic of the world as a whole. On the other hand, where is American biblical prophecy? We're not.

We're not explicitly mentioned. And how about this? It's possible that America, as we know it, will cease to be a nation, can be divided into different nations, fragmented, or who knows what, long before Jesus returns. Show me why that's not possible in the Bible. Show me that. Now, I don't think that's going to happen, but it could.

It could. So, absolutely, things revolve around Israel. Absolutely. Things revolve around the Great Commission going to the whole world, and the Jewish people turning to God.

Absolutely. Now, we have been in the end times since Jesus died and rose from the dead. When Peter preaches in Acts the second chapter, and he begins to quote from the prophet Joel, he says, in the last days God says, I'll pour out my Spirit on all flesh. Well, go back and read it in Joel 2.28 in Hebrew.

It says, V'achrei hain esh'pochet ruchi al kol basar, and after this I'll pour out my Spirit on all flesh. It doesn't say in the last days. Well, check it out in the Septuagint, the Greek translation.

It doesn't say in the last days. Peter added that to say what Joel prophesied is happening now, because these are the last days. In Romans 13, the end of that chapter, Paul says that the night, as far as spent, the day's almost here. In 1 Corinthians 10, he says the ends of the world have come upon us. In Hebrews, the first chapter, it speaks of God speaking through his Son in these last days.

James Jacob, the fifth chapter, talks about wicked people heaping up riches to themselves in the last days. 1 Peter 1 says the gospel has been preached to us in the last days. 1 John 2 says it's the last hour. Now, preterists say, oh, you see, that means that it was the last hour before the destruction of the temple, and that's it. It was the last days of that hour. No, no, no, absolutely not.

Certainly not. Rather, we have been in the last days, the end times, since Jesus died and rose from the dead. Obviously, we're getting closer to the end of the end times, but things certainly don't revolve around America. And we must look much more broadly. The gospel being preached in all the world, Matthew 24, 14, and fullness of the Gentiles coming in, Romans 11, 25, and that culminates with all Israel being saved, which I believe is in conjunction with Messiah's return. Alright, let's go to May.

Staying on Facebook, then we'll go back to Twitter. Genesis 1, 26, 27, what does it mean that God created male and female in His image? Mormons would tell you that we have a physical body because God has a physical body and we're made in His image. I don't think this is what it means, yet I never really understood this passage myself and therefore am never able to explain it to anyone else. So what does God mean when it says we're made in His image? Are we all made in His image or is that just for Adam and Eve? Now, what's interesting is in the New Testament, Colossians 1, it says of Jesus that He is the image of the invisible God. So it's not telling you that God was bearded or looked like a Middle Eastern Jew, right? Or that God even had a gender, but rather Yeshua is the earthly representation of the invisible God. He is the visible representation of the invisible God, and He said, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father. He didn't mean physical appearance.

He didn't mean that. But what does it mean in Genesis 1, where God says, Naseh Adam, but salmenu kidmutenu. Let us make man in our image according to our likeness. Now, salem, image, could mean a physical image. In other words, it could be that God, when you look at God existing in visible form, that God, if we were to see Him, that He wouldn't just be like a mist or a vapor. When He's described in the Bible, He is described in bodily form. It could mean that, in terms of having a spiritual body, not a physical body, but a spiritual body, it could mean that we are made in that image, and then according to His likeness, that could work. In other words, when elsewhere in the Bible we're told, don't make the image of any earthly thing, don't worship that, or don't make any likeness, it is talking about physical images. So, in itself, that language could refer to that God in His spiritual body, which has substance and essence, does not look like a giraffe or an elephant or gorilla, but looks like us, which is why He made us in His image.

It could mean that. However, as emphasized in Scripture, it's on our spiritual nature and on our intellectual and moral nature that we of all of His creation can love and can hate, that we of all of His creation can reason morally and make moral choices, and can relate to God in an intimate level in a way that, say, a human being cannot relate to a horse or a dog or a cat or a mouse, the same way that God does not relate to those created things in that way, but He can relate to us. So, the emphasis would be more on our spiritual being. You can't say it couldn't mean the other if God does have a form, right? Numbers 12 tells us that Moses saw the form of the Lord, the tuna of the Lord. But what's also interesting is, if you look in Genesis, the fifth chapter, it says this, this is the record of Adam's line, When God created man, He made him in the likeness of God. Male and female, He created them. So that would also mean that aspects of male and female are both in God, that those qualities of who we are and our uniqueness and differences are both in God.

Obviously, not talking about physical nature, but spiritual, emotional nature of who we are. And when they were created, He blessed them and called them Adam, called them man. When Adam lived 130 years, he begot his son in his likeness, after his image, and he named him Seth. So, what does that mean? What does that mean? Well, that human beings are created in God's image, and yet are now fallen, so human beings are now reproduced in the human image. So, you can explore what that means, but let that be part of the key for you.

Let's see. Kelsey, why is a Jew who puts her, his faith in the one true living God, Yahweh, who is the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, not saved? Abraham was saved by putting his faith in Jesus, the Messiah. So, great question, and obviously God is the God of every individual Jew.

God knows a person's heart, what they are believing, etc. But, why were the Jews in Jesus' day, then after His death and resurrection, in the days of the apostles, why were they held responsible for the rejection of the Messiah? Why didn't He just say, hey, you believe in the one true God, that's enough? No, because He said that if you reject Me, you're rejecting the one true God.

He said if you believe Moses, you would believe Me. The one true God sent His Son into the world to die for our sins, and if we reject the one He sent into the world, we are rejecting Him. Of course, many, many traditional Jews have no idea who Jesus really is, really was. What they know about Him is based on other traditions and on bad treatment by the Church. And because of that, there is much misunderstanding, which is why we do our best to communicate the true message. You have to believe if someone is truly, earnestly seeking the God of Israel, God will reveal Jesus to the Messiah. Again, God's the God of each individual Jew.

If someone consciously rejects Jesus the Messiah, how can they be right with the God He sent? All right, we'll be back. Boy, I love answering your questions. I really love answering your questions.

So thanks for posting them and hopefully our answers are helpful to you and draw you more into the Word and closer to the Lord so you can bear more fruit for Him. All right, I got an issue with my phone here. I had turned the volume on.

I'm just going to do this on live radio and internet and all that. I had turned the volume on earlier to make sure that I heard a call coming in. I thought I just turned it off, but I didn't. So in the last segment, if you're looking at your phone because you heard a signal, no, that was mine. My apologies. All right, we're answering your social media Jewish-related questions. Michael asked this.

Hi, Dr. Brown. How do you personally interpret the Genesis account of creation? Can you use this or the genealogies to justify a strict young earth position or is there wiggle room? I do not believe that a simple and forthright reading of Genesis 1 on the genealogies indicates that you must be young earth. I understand the young earth arguments and I think there are many strong arguments that are presented and there are fine biblical scholars and fine scientists who hold to a young earth position. And there are fine biblical scholars and fine scientists who hold to an old earth position.

I am agnostic on the age of the universe and the earth simply because I do not have the scientific background to debate the issue. However, for decades I've read Genesis 1 as I believe God intended us to read it, which is teaching us about Him, teaching us about who He is, teaching us about His nature, teaching us about how He brings light out of darkness and order out of chaos and brings structure and life to the world. And that I do not believe it's there to teach us about science. So that's how I've read it. As for the genealogies, there are interesting insights about the genealogies that they are structured in certain ways and lengths of life certain ways to be conveying other messages than just strict genealogies and that a strict reading of the genealogies presents various chronological problems.

It's also possible that genealogies are written to say that if it says so and so lived excellent reviewers and begat so and so, what it means is begat this one person who generations later gave birth to this next famous person and that's where it's picked up. So I do not believe, strictly speak, and I'm not looking for a wiggle room, I'm just trying to understand the text rightly. Wherever it leads, that's fine with me, okay?

Wherever it leads. But I do not see this as strictly pointing in the direction of young earth, although there are brilliant biblical scholars, brilliant scientists who are young earth creationists, and I respect their learning, okay? So I'm not dissing that at all. But there's a book I started reading recently. Is it Ben Stanhope?

Yeah, that's it. Really interesting. It's a bit polemical, just to warn you, and here and there technical. But it's Ben Stanhope, S-T-A-N-H-O-P-E, misinterpreting Genesis, how the Creation Museum misinterprets the ancient Near Eastern context of the Bible. Ben Stanhope, misinterpreting Genesis. So again, there's some polemicizing in it and attacking certain positions, but a lot of excellent scholarship behind it, and he raises lots of really interesting points about what the biblical author is intending. I don't agree with a lot of what he says about dating of certain parts of the Pentateuch and things like that. Nonetheless, definitely a book worth reading and thinking about.

And we'll do one more question, Kelly, and then we'll go over to Twitter. In Isaiah 54, 16, it says that God created the destroyer to cause ruin. In 2 Samuel 24, 1, it says that the Lord was angry.

He incited David. But in 2 Chronicles 21, 1, it says, Now Satan stood up against Israel and incited David. Is the destroyer a separate angel? I noticed a few places where God sends a destructive angel in the Bible.

Is it all relating to the same angel? So number one, 2 Samuel 24, written centuries before 1 Chronicles. So at the time that 2 Samuel was written, there was much less emphasis on the work of Satan in the unseen realm, because that would have led to more idolatry, and the whole emphasis was on God and his sovereignty. And then, post-Babylonian exile, and centuries after that, when 1 and 2 Chronicles were written, a lot of that idolatry had been dealt with, so there's more revelation about Satan and his work behind the scenes after that. Hence the different accounts there. But the destroying angel could refer to Satan. It could refer to a different angel in different contexts.

It's not necessarily always speaking about the same agent. All right, let's go back over to Twitter. And all right, Dunamis Minds Clothing posted a whole bunch of questions here. Obviously I can't, a whole bunch.

But let's start with this one. How did the Israelites go into Egypt-Africa with 70 souls and come out hundreds of years later as a mixed multitude and look European? Okay, so obviously, the ancient Israelites did not look European. The ancient Israelites, as best as we can tell, would have been brown-skinned people, that they would not have been what would be categorized as Negroid, which would be other parts of Africa, and even within Egyptian culture, Nubian, as opposed to the larger Egyptian culture. They certainly were not Caucasus, which would be reflected in later European culture. So they would have looked closer to African than to European at that time. But they went into Egypt as Middle Eastern people.

All right, and this is just a classification that we use. They came out of Egypt as Middle Eastern people, but with many Egyptians and others among them, a mixed multitude. So there was much racial mixture already in Israel at that time. Then, over the centuries, as the Jewish people were scattered around the world, the people of Israel, scattered around the world, if they intermarried with the nations around them, which they did, and joined in the religions and cultures of the nations around them, they were lost to history. Where they've ended up is lost to history. However, if they intermarried with the surrounding peoples, and those peoples joined in the faith of Israel, converted to Judaism, began to live as ancient Israelites or Jews, and then more and more intermarried into the faith of Israel, then you end up with Chinese Jews, and Indian Jews, and African Jews, and European Jews. That's how it happened.

Let me say it again. If the people of Israel intermarried with the peoples in the surrounding nations where they were scattered, joined their culture, joined their religion, within a period of generations, all Israelite Jewish connection would be lost, because they'd just be absorbed with everybody else. Here, look at it like this. Let's say that you're a—we'll just make this totally racial for a second. Let's say that you're a black man, and you marry a white woman, so your children will be mixed-color skin. Let's say your kids all marry white spouses, and their kids all marry white spouses, and their kids all marry white spouses. In a period of time, any of the black heritage is not even going to be visible physically anymore. And conversely, if a white man married a black woman, and then all of their kids married blacks, and all of their kids married blacks then, then the white ethnicity, or the white skin color, would be gone. So it's the same way, even more so religiously, that if you marry out of your religion, out of your culture, that within generations, that's totally gone. So the reason we have Jews like me, Caucasian Jews like me, or black Jews like one of my dear friends, or Indian Jews, Chinese Jews, is because of people marrying into, as we're scattered around the world, right, living in different parts of the world, others convert into our religion, join with us, and now we take on the ethnic racial characteristics of the people there, while maintaining our faith. Let's see here. Matthew, will the Assyrian exiles, Israel, be restored when Jesus comes back?

That's a great question. There are prophetic passages that seem to point in that direction. Certainly when the prophets were writing, they knew that many of the people of the northern tribes had joined the people of Judah. That they were part of the kingdom of Judah, and when the Jewish people went into exile, they were remnants of all twelve tribes. Notice in James Jacob 1, he writes to the twelve tribes scattered abroad. It's talking about Jewish believers, but from all the different tribes of Israel represented. On the other hand, much in terms of the northern tribes, they've been lost to history, as I just said.

Exiled in 721, from Samaria and northern Israel, and then lost to history. Yet there was certainly a hope, at the time of the ancient prophets, when this was just centuries afterwards, that all of those people would one day be regathered. Now, part of this has happened, as different remnants of Israelites, Jews all around the world, have been discovered and are back in Israel today.

And yet there could be something still larger, where God knows where many people are. You know, there are many Hispanics that have Jewish roots. Now, this is not going all the way back to Israel, I'm not saying northern Israel, but many of them have Jewish roots that they were forced to convert, but continued to live secretly as Jews, and then lost track of that, and then it's been recovered. So, who knows about identities of different peoples that might still be coming together.

Many from Africa, in particular, that may have Israelite origin. So, we shall see. There may be some great surprises at the end, and the two sticks of Joseph and Judah, so northern Israel and southern Israel, coming back together.

There may be further surprises known only to the Lord. Alright, friends, we're out of time. I hope you found this informative. Remember, you can watch the whole broadcast on our website, AskDrBrown.org, or on Facebook, AskDrBrown on Facebook, or YouTube, AskDrBrown there. Do you get my emails? Do you get my emails every week? If not, take a moment right now, just literally take a few seconds. Go to AskDrBrown.org, click on the emails, you'll just see sign up, name, email address. We'll be in touch.