Why Is the Protestant Bible Shorter than the Catholic Bible?

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That's 866-34-TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. We're gonna have a fascinating conversation today. I think you're gonna find it educational, eye-opening, and helpful, and hopefully it'll give you an even greater appreciation for the scriptures for the Word of God that the Lord has preserved for us.

This is Michael Brown. If you've got questions for me, for my guests I'm about to introduce, here's the number to call 866-34-TRUTH. 866-34-87884. If you come from a Catholic background or another Christian background, church background, that has what we call the apocryphal books within your Bible, and you differ with some of what's being presented, feel free to give us a call.

866-34-TRUTH. So, a few weeks back, I participated in an online debate against a Catholic apologist on the subject as purgatory biblical. When I was asked if we should debate as purgatory biblical and ancient, I said no, my concern is not with what different Church Fathers said but what Scripture says. So we agreed on the parameters of the debate.

Once the debate started with the Catholic apologist going first, William Albrecht, I was completely shocked when he began to talk about Church Fathers and their interpretation, which in his mind was fine because he was saying this is what they said about the Bible, but then some of his earliest evidence was to go to one of the books of the Maccabees and to say well this points to purgatory because they're praying for those who have departed and they're in like a punishment place and praying for their release and etc. and I said we agreed on Bible and he said well this part of the Bible, so that's when I understood that things were not clearly communicated to both sides in the same way. There was a misunderstanding.

Everyone involved thought they were doing the right thing. There was a misunderstanding and I said well we're gonna focus on Scripture. That's what I agreed to. If you're good with that, let's keep going. Partway through the debate he said well shall we debate whether 1st and 2nd Maccabees should be part of the canon or not? I said another time, not here.

I'm perfectly ready to but not now. Afterwards, author Steve Christie reached out to us his relevant book, Why Protestant Bibles are Smaller, a Defense of the Protestant Old Testament Canon. So I looked at his book, we began to interact, I thought well let's have this discussion on the air.

So again Steve Christie, his relevant book in terms of this subject, Why Protestant Bibles are Smaller, a Defense of the Protestant Old Testament Canon. Steve, welcome to the Line of Fire. Thanks for joining us today. Dr. Brown, thank you so much for having me on. It's a beautiful day. How are you?

Doing very well, thanks so much. So Steve, what got you interested in this subject in the first place? Yeah, well I was raised in a very loving Catholic family, had a great upbringing, graduated from a Catholic grade school, high school, and college. And after I first heard the gospel at the end of my college education, that they're saved by grace alone, their faith alone, by Christ alone, which is found in Scripture, one of the first things I was interested in was the topic of the Old Testament Canon. And I found out that Catholic Bibles and Protestant Bibles don't have the exact same book in it, and I wanted to research it more.

And probably 60% of my resources in my book actually came from Catholic sources, and I began writing the book and here we are today. All right, so Steve, if someone's listening and they would say, look, this has been settled by the Church, let's say you're Catholic, this has been settled by great scholars, learned men, this has been settled by great theologians, why should we even open the question? Why don't we just accept the fact that the Bible is, as we have it in the Catholic Bible, isn't that the way it's always been through Church history?

What would you say in response to that? Well, I'd have to say that it wasn't settled throughout Church history and wasn't even officially defined until the Council of Trent in 1546 in response to the Protestant Reformation, when the Reformers had questioned these books. That's not to say that throughout history Catholics hadn't embraced these books, but we can't even go back to the 4th century Church councils of Rome, Hippo, and Carthage, because not only did they not have the identical canon that Trent had in 1546, they didn't even agree with each other, plus the key is the fact that the Apostle Paul says in Romans chapter 3 verse 2 that God had entrusted the Jews with the oracles of God, meaning the Old Testament Scriptures, and historically the Jews never accepted these books specifically as Scripture in their canon.

All right, so let's break down a few things here. When you use the word canon, if you're explaining this to someone not familiar with the term, what is the canon of Scripture? Sure, the canon of Scripture is a set of books that are recognized as being inspired or God's read. There were a lot of other books that were written prior to the New Testament era, but they were not considered to be inspired or God's read, like the books of the Hebrew Bible, which Catholics called proto-canon. All right, and then when we speak of the Apocrypha, what does that mean? Yeah, well the Apocrypha is kind of a broad term, so everybody's kind of on the same page.

Catholics call these books the Deuterocanon. These are seven extra books that are in Catholic Old Testament, that are not in Protestant Old Testament, such as Theoric and Wisdom, First and Second Maccabees, Baruch, and others, in some addition to the books of Daniel and Esther. And while these books are embraced later by Catholics and Eastern Orthodox, they are not embraced by Protestants, because again these are books that the Jews of antiquity did not consider to be part of their Old Testament canon. All right, so in other words, the first followers of Jesus, themselves Jews, embraced a certain set of books at that point that they understood to be Scripture. That's why the New Testament writers could speak about the Scriptures. That's why they can say the Scriptures cannot be broken or as it is written.

So they can quote poets, they can even quote something like the Book of Enoch, but they don't quote those things as Scriptures. So the question would be then, because Catholics and Protestants agree that the so-called Deuterocanonical books or the Apocryphal books, these seven books in question, were part of the Old Testament, not the New Testament, so that's agreed on. So then the question would be, were these received as Scripture by the early Jewish community, after which the apostles would just follow in that suit? And that's part of what came up briefly in the debate with William Albrecht when he suggests these books were always received by the Jewish community, and I said, of course, quite the contrary is true. So the first argument would come up is, okay, well hang on. When the Alexandrian Jewish scholars in the third and second centuries BC translated the Hebrew Bible into Greek, they also included these books that we refer to as the Apocrypha today into that that was their Old Testament. That's why it was all done together. Of course they always receive these as Scripture.

How do you respond to that? Well, what's interesting is that John Marnoni, who is a speaker and has a show on EWCN, stated that the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the Old Testament, was completed around 134 BC. It began around 250 BC with the Pentateuch or the Torah, but it was completed around 134. And this is significant because the vast majority of the Deuterocanonical or Apocrypha books were written much later. In fact, the only fragments of the Septuagint that we have between the second century BC to the first century AD are the books from the Hebrew Bible, such as Deuteronomy, Job, Psalms, you know, and a few others. The other thing too is when you actually take a look at the early church fathers whose lists are identical or nearly identical to Protestant Old Testament, you notice they have a list of books that they call the Old Testament canon, and it's because these were early church fathers who were more familiar with what was included in the Hebrew Bible.

Early church fathers like Melito and Origen, later Athanasius, as others. And the thing that I jotted down right before we got on air is that since the Jews were entrusted with the Old Testament Scriptures, like the Apostle Paul says, if these included the Apocrypha or the so-called Deuterocanon, it would have been part of their proto-canon or the kind of first tier, but it wasn't. So they're actually proving that the Jews of antiquity, even before the time of Christ, did not accept these books in their canon, otherwise they would have been mingled together in their quote-unquote proto-canon.

Mmm. You know, also if you think, for example, of Josephus, who's the leading Jewish historian of the first century, he mentions the same books that we have today in the Old Testament. They're put in a different order, and the 12 Minor Prophets are considered as one book, so the number is different, but it's the same 39 books. And then in rabbinic literature, when Scripture is being quoted, it's not the Apocrypha, just like in the New Testament, but it's only what we would consider the Hebrew Bible. So when the claim is made by Catholic apologists that Jews of antiquity did accept, say, 1st and 2nd Maccabees as Scriptures, let's put aside the Septuagint, because even so, the Septuagint, if it's a translation from Hebrew to Greek, aside from Ecclesiasticus ben Sira, which is a translated work, the others would likely have been originally written in Greek, so that would cancel it out anyway. But what argument would a Catholic apologist raise to say that Jews of antiquity did receive these books of Scripture?

What's their strongest argument? They'll bring up things like they assume that Jews of antiquity didn't have the same canons, and so therefore they assume that they might embrace books that aren't in Protestant Old Testament. They'll bring up things like the Cagae Recension, but this took place in Alexandria, not Israel, and it was only limited to one book, the book of Baruch, I believe, in the Greek editions, the Daniel, but again this was local, it was only a single book, and it doesn't necessarily mean that all Jews everywhere accepted these books. For example, you can find even in the Church Age, right after the Reformation, Catholics and even later versions of the Septuagint, accepting books that are not in Catholic Old Testaments today, and even rejecting some or all of the apocryphal books. The other thing is when Jesus specifically affirms the Old Testament book, he focuses on the canon of the Pharisees, and the canon of the Pharisees, as we know, were limited to the books that are in Protestant Old Testament today. Now in my book, I responded to Jimmy Akin from Catholic Answers, who's their senior apologist, that the Sadducees only embraced the five books of Moses, but this is based on the false assumption of Origen and later Epiphanius that it was only limited to those books because it was based on 2nd century AD information where it's conflated the Samaritans who only embraced those books with the Sadducees, but that information doesn't say that the Sadducees only embraced the five books of Moses. Yeah, let me just jump in there, we'll come right back.

Friends, it's interesting that many people go through their whole life and they know there's some differences between Catholic and Protestant Bibles, but don't know why, so we'll keep digging deeper. 866-34-TRUTH if you have comments or 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 friends for joining me. I'm speaking with author Steve Rabe. I have his book enjoying the contents of it.

It is called Why Protestant Bibles are Smaller, a Defense of the Protestant Old Testament Canon. As I was going through it, it raises the questions that I wanted to address and answers the questions in ways that I think are fair and honest and thorough. So Steve, right before the break I was asking you to explain why it is exactly. Did I not say Steve Christie?

I am so sorry if I gave my author's name, my guest name, out wrongly here. Sorry friends, but Steve Christie with an I E. Steve, right before the break you were giving what would be considered the strongest Catholic arguments for the Jewish canon, embracing the books that we now call the apocryphal books. But it seemed that you were struggling to come up with something that seemed decisive, compelling. Is that because there is nothing decisive or compelling? Well, it's not decisive and compelling based on my understanding of the canon from a Catholic background. But when I began to research it, even after I wrote the book, the claim that the Sadducees only embraced the five books of the Torah really aren't supported scripturally or historically because we know from both that they embraced the books of Jonah, Daniel, Psalms, Ezekiel, Job, and even in the antiquities of the Jew by Josephus, he said that the scriptures were laid up in the temple and then he quotes Joshua.

Well, Joshua wasn't part of the five books of Moses. Well, that would explain then, say, in Mark 14 where the high priest who would be Sadducee recognizes the reference from Daniel 7 when Jesus speaks about coming in the clouds with power. So what about in some of the the early church writings?

Let's get into fourth century, fifth century. Say someone like Jerome, you know, respected church leader, both Protestant and Catholic circles. Does he ever have lists of, you know, what's in the Old Testament? Did any of these early leaders or prominent leaders have lists like that where they explicitly do or don't list the apocryphal books as part of the Old Testament?

Yeah, what you find by the time you get to the fourth, fifth century is a breakdown of two different types of lists. Even Augustine who actually embraced these books and split them down between canonical books of the Hebrew Bible versus the ecclesiastical books which were part of the Old Testament canon. And as I said before, you know, people like Jerome, Melito, Origen, and others, they knew what was in the Hebrew Bible. They knew from antiquity the books that were accepted. The other thing is that modern-day Catholic apologists will talk about like different tiers of books like the Hebrew Bible is part of the first tier, the Judeo-Canon is part of the second tier.

The problem is you don't see this consistently. For example, Athanasius who's in the fourth century said that those that are read include some of the apocryphal books like Wisdom, Seer, Tobit, and Judas, but he doesn't include 1 and 2 Maccabees, and he actually adds the Didache and the Shepherd of Permas which are not in Catholic Old Testament today, and more specifically he says that the Old Testament books in this first tier are what doctrine alone are supposed to be based on, and this is what you see consistently right up to the fourth century and beyond. So when the Protestant Reformers said that the apocryphal books can be read for edification, for historical learning, and things like that, but one is not to consider them inspired like Scripture or to learn doctrine from them, and when people ask me about them I say I'd put them in between the Bible and a good book. In other words, there is history to them, there's a lot to learn from them, you know, a book like Ecclesiasticus, the Wisdom of Ben-Seer, that's filled with with good stuff, but it's not on the level of Scripture.

So are you comfortable with that, or do you find that the statement goes too far in one direction or another? Well even like the word Scripture, you see that even some of the early church fathers, as early as the second century, tend to use the word Scripture differently than the way of the New Testament writers. When the New Testament writers use it, they're clearly talking about the books in the Old Testament canon that are considered God-breathed, because you take irony as a science in the late second century, he actually used the Shepherd of Hermas and specifically called it Scripture, and the Epistle of Barnabas, also in the second century, also referred to 1 Enoch and specifically called it Scripture. That's why we have to go back to the New Testament itself, which was written by the earliest Jewish writers, so we can glean and discern what books actually belonged in the Old Testament, and even from the words of Jesus himself, such as in Matthew 23 and Luke 11. Are there any dangers with reading the Apocrypha, or could there be any wrong doctrines that we come up with as a result of it? Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up, because one of the misconceptions is that Protestants consider everything that's in these books to be garbage, and it's not that we consider that, we actually consider that to be of historical value, like 1 and 2 Maccabees talk about the rain and fall of Alexander the Great and the tyranny under Antiochus Epiphanes, but we just do not consider them to be at the same level as Scripture, and neither did the early Jewish believers in Christ did. So there's value to it, but some of the things that are taught in it, such as praying to the dead and salvation through the giving of alms, and even some historical things like saying that you can split open a fish and rub the fish's guts directly on your eyes to cure blindness, as a medicinal method of curing blindness and then burning the fish guts to scare away demons is a medicinal value, that's what Tobit said. Or historical errors like Nebuchadnezzar being the king of the Assyrians, which Judas talks about when in reality he was king of Babylon.

Got it. Yes, so friends, again, these are books that were widely read in the ancient Jewish and early Christian world, but not as Scripture, so it's perfectly fine to read them, learn inspiring information in the books of Maccabees and the courageous Jewish freedom fighters and other things that are of interest, you know, beautiful prayer, your prayer of Manasseh, those kinds of things. As long as you understand it's not God's Word, it's not Scripture, and it's never, as much as I've had Catholic friends challenge me on the air, is never a single instance in the New Testament where any apocryphal book is quoted as Scripture in standard ways as it is written, as the Scriptures say.

Would you concur with that? Yeah, as a matter of fact, that's one of the things that I detailed in the appendix 1 of my book. There's about 300 of these terms that you just talked about, it is written, Scriptures say, etc., and out of these 300 times these terms, 100% of them come from books that are strictly in the Hebrew Bible, not one of them come from any of the books that are in the Apocrypha. And about 75% of these books are actually used from the Hebrew Bible or used this way in the New Testament, and the ones that aren't, like Lamentations, Judges, and Obadiah, and others, they're attached to books like Jeremiah, Ruth, and Hosea that do use one of these terms, and we got to remember, like you said earlier, some of these books were grouped together, but they had the exact same books that are in our Protestant Old Testament today. They number 22 or 24 books, which again, Josephus says these are the books that were laid up at the temple, and the only way you can get the 22 books, combining these books, if you include all of the books that are found in Protestant Old Testament today, none of the Apocrypha.

Yeah, exactly, and there's really no scholarly debate about that whatsoever. Again, the name of the book is Why Protestant Bibles are Smaller, a Defense of the Protestant Old Testament Canon. Steve, I have this technique, if I want people to remember a name, I get it wrong the first time, then everyone pays attention the second, so I guess Steve Christie, hey, I just want to change topics really quickly because on your bio it mentions the book Not Really of Us, Why Do Children of Christian Parents Abandon the Faith? I have not seen this yet, looked at it, I don't know about the contents, but the title intrigues me.

We've got about two, three minutes. Could you tell me why you wrote this book and just give us the briefest overview? Right, the reason I wrote this book for it, because we're living in an age where so many people that are being brought up in the church are walking away from it. In fact, it was somewhere around two-thirds of a few years ago when I actually wrote my first book, and I wanted to look into it, and I based it on the parable of the four soils in Matthew chapter 13, and it's a title taken from 1 John chapter 2 verse 19, where it says they went out from us because they were not really of us, and what I'm finding even talking with kids that are growing up in the church is that the reason that they walk away from the faith is because they never really owned it to begin with. They believed it because their parents and their church fathers or their church leaders told them that it was true, but they walked away because, and they walked away from a lot of different reasons, but the main point that they come away from is they say they never really truly believed to begin with. Yes, so just like in ancient Israel, every generation had to have their own experience with God, otherwise they'd fall away.

Hey friends, check out these books, Steve Christie, C-H-R-I-S-T-I-E, not Y at the end, but I-E, and the two books that we've mentioned, again, the new, the one I had not heard of, not really of us, Why Do Children of Christian Parents Abandon the Faith?, and the one we've been talking about, and it's super practical, but it's laid out in a nice and thorough way that you'll find really helpful, whatever your background, I think you'll find it helpful, Why Protestant Bibles are Smaller, A Defense of the Protestant Old Testament Canon. Hey Steve, thanks for joining us on the air today, appreciate it, much success in your work in ministry. Well thank you, God bless you, God bless Nancy, and thank Dylan for setting this up, and just wanted to say to you shalom.

Shalom, alright, good word to end things here. Alright friends, here's what we are about to do. Are you ready?

Are you ready? Phone lines are wide open, I mean wide open, like we do on Friday. Any subject, anything you want to talk to me about, anything whatsoever that ties in, even remotely, with material we cover on the line of fire, 866-344-866-348-7884.

Look forward to talking to you on the other side of the break. It's the line of fire with your host Dr. Michael Brown. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-344-TRUTH.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Welcome, welcome to the line of fire. We have opened up our phone lines wide, and we'll do that for the next, oh, 25-26 minutes, get to as many of your questions on all topics that we can.

866-344-TRUTH. Can you just allow me one moment though to speak from my heart. Right before the show today got word that a dear member for many, many years, probably 20 years, dear member of our congregation, one of the most faithful men, he and his wife, incredibly faithful, one of their children went through our ministry school, just learned that he passed away from complications related to COVID, and it's a terrible loss obviously for the family, for his wife, many years, their kids, grandkids, all the friends, co-workers in the congregation. I know that there is joy in the midst of this because he's out of pain and suffering, and this is a real strong faith family, so they know he's with the Lord, but I had a guest on for the first half hour talking about an important subject.

I wanted to go ahead with that on a certain level. Life goes on no matter what, but I wanted to express my sadness, the pain of a loss in this world. It must have been maybe into late 60s, similar age to me I imagine, so when you see someone go home and it's early, it's not like someone 93 years old and weak and ready to go, it's painful to see, but we know that we're only passing through this world, and it's another reminder to live lives that count. It's also another reminder to seize today. We don't know about tomorrow, but we have today, so let's live it in a way that at the end of the day we don't have regrets. If that means having fun with your family and letting them know how much you love them, if that means spending the day in prayer, if that means sharing the gospel with your neighbors, if that means just doing your job with diligence and honoring the Lord in every situation you have, live today in such a way that at the end of the day you have no regrets, and you do that each day, you will end up in the places you're supposed to be. If you're obedient today, tomorrow will fall into place, and then you won't be looking back decades later thinking of all the years that were wasted and all the could haves and should haves, so glorify God while you have breath, and may His comfort be with with those who are in mourning, those who are still suffering the pain of loss of a family member, and may God's healing and comfort emerge in an amazing way in the midst of the pain that our nation and the world have experienced in these recent years. All right, 866-34-TRUTH, and to the phones we go.

We start with Brett in Raleigh, North Carolina. Thanks for calling the line of fire. Hey, Dr. Brown, I got a question for you. When I was in seminary, I held a minority view of the Imago day, the image of God and man being, you know, destroyed by the fall, or forfeited, and so I've always been intrigued and or kind of confused about Genesis 5, why the Holy Spirit would repeat almost exactly, I mean, I don't know, I was the New Testament guy, but would repeat almost exactly the creation account in the beginning, and then say, and Adam begat after his own image and likeness, which is almost a copy of that also. And the second question is, for those who believe that man maintains the Imago day after the fall, I ask people, okay, so the image of God is going to be in hell forever, and those who aren't elect or who have never been born again, and they look at me strangely, but that's a great, I mean... No, the answer would be that that's true, that would be the implication. So you bring up a great question and an even more fascinating passage of Scripture. Let me read it, Genesis 5, beginning of verse 1, this is the record of Adam's lie, when God created man, he created, so Adam, Adam, right, when he created, he made him in the likeness of God, male and female, he created them, when they were created he blessed them and called them man, Adam.

When Adam had lived 130 years, he begat a son in his likeness after his image, and he named him Seth. So what this is telling me is that human beings still have the image of God, yet in a fallen way. On the one hand, if we did not have the image of God in any way, we would not have any morality, we would not have any conscience, there would be no law of God on our hearts, the world would have completely... But that's an assumption, okay, so James says, every good and perfect gift comes from God. There needs to be a theology, there are no salts of the earth people. If people are good, only because the Holy Spirit's restraining them, the evil in them. Well no, that's not true, because John 1 says that this is the light that lights everyone that comes into the world. In Genesis the 20th chapter, God doesn't let Abimelech sleep with Sarah because he said that he saw his heart, so there was some integrity that was there. Human beings in themselves will never seek after God, but human beings make choices every single day to say no to evil and yes to good, and that's simply because we're created in the image of God, yet fallen, so we do things that we know are wrong... That's a reach, because... Well give me one... whoops, give me one scripture, give me one scripture that says differently, just one. James, every good and perfect gift comes from God, and he does everything for the glory of his own name. Whoa, whoa, hang on, that has nothing... wait, wait, wait, hang on, hang on. Where does that say anything about human beings not being created in the image of God, about human beings not having the law of God written in our hearts, about human beings not being capable of doing any kind of earthly good?

Not at all. I mean, you're... to be candid, no offense meant at all, sir, because you're obviously a serious student of Scripture, but that's quite a reach to quote that, and it's simply saying if something is good and perfect, it comes from God. Wonderful. So Adam's created in the image of God, now his son is created in his image, so what does that mean? The image of God, and yet through man. So it's it's still there, that the light that lights every person that comes into the world, John 1, Romans 2, the law written on the heart even of non-believing Gentiles to know the difference between right and wrong. That's why God judges us, right, for our response to good and evil, and yet fallen, that we know what's right and do the opposite.

We know what's right, and yet do the opposite and condemn those who do the same. So that's... I don't understand, but that's revelation to me of who God is, just like it's written, it is His Word, okay? It's the, you know, it's the bar of God written on their heart, it's not their Word, and it's... so I'm going to be able to take... I'm going to be able to tell God I... it was me, I made, I made the right choice, I was the one who was doing good. Yeah, but you can't save yourself, right?

Of course, God, of course God's gonna judge people for their actions, for their deeds, of course, of course you could say he's gonna say, well done, or he's gonna say, guilty. But we can't save ourselves, we can't go from death to life, but within the within the sphere of our overall life we make choices. Before I was saved, I was making choices, I did certain crazy things, but stopped at others.

People do do that all the time. Again, here, look in Genesis, the 20th chapter, all right? And this is what God says, says to Abimelech the king in the dream, pagan king, yes, I know that you have done this in the integrity of your heart, and it was I who kept you from sinning against me. In other words, because not knowing any better, he took Sarah to be part of his harem, to be part of his wife, he did it in the integrity of his heart, God saw that and didn't let him sin by sleeping with her. So God restrained, but he restrained based on a choice Abimelech had made. So why did why did God say in the integrity of your heart? Because, in other words, God didn't say it the way you want to say it. Because he didn't take another man's wife, because he knew it was another man's wife. He did it out of the deceiver.

Ah, but if he knew it was another man's wife, he wouldn't have taken him, because he had that level of integrity. Who knows? No, no, no, God said so. God said so. So here's my show.

I'm gonna get to some other calls, but Brett, here's the issue. Whatever verse I present you, you will reject based on a presupposition of what it means to be, quote, created an image of God, or a certain Calvinistic view that would be, in my view, an extreme Calvinistic view, that a human being is incapable of doing anything good whatsoever outside of God's hand. I would say human beings do good all the time, but they can't save themselves. It's doing good within the pit of lostness and alienation and separation from God. So I just encourage you to reconsider, and I want to read one more verse for everyone here. John chapter 1, and this is not just the breath of life.

Look at this. All things were made through him, the Logos, Jesus, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. So the life of God in every human being is the light of men, and yet it is fallen and compromised.

So the image of God, yet in a fallen state. So chew on it, all right? You've obviously thought about this over the years. Chew on it some more, maybe we can talk another day. But thank you, sir, for calling in and for the spirited dialogue. I appreciate it. 866-34-TRUTH. Let's go to Jacob in Concord, North Carolina. Welcome to the line of fire. Hi, Dr. Brown.

This is the first time calling in. My question is about the languages that Jesus and his disciples would have spoke. I know that a lot of people will say it's Aramaic, but you can find that argued both ways online with very compelling arguments.

But I came across the video from a guy from the logo, he helped on the Logos software, and he mentioned from John chapter 3 where it's the be born again, and the play on words there from above, how that would have had to been in Greek. So my question really was, how much Greek maybe do you think Jesus spoke, and if he spoke Greek at all with his disciples? He would have spoken Aramaic if that was the native language that they would have grown up with in Galilee. There may have been some Hebrew used in certain occasions.

Scholars in recent years have pointed out that Hebrew was more widespread in the land of Israel at that time than some had accepted. Certainly the colloquialisms, everything would have been everyday speech, certainly would be Aramaic. There are scholars who will argue that many verses in the Gospels only make sense if the language spoken was Hebrew. Others say it only makes sense if it was Aramaic. The most minority view would be only Greek. But you could have a situation with Nicodemus, someone else coming in, maybe a more learned discussion where it could have been in Hebrew or Greek.

But for sure, the everyday normal life Jesus would have spoken, language he would have spoken to his disciples, Aramaic's the best bet. It's The Line of Fire with your host, activist, author, international speaker, and theologian, Dr. Michael Brown. Your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Get into The Line of Fire now by calling 866-34-TRUTH.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks friends for joining us on The Line of Fire. Hey Jim, on Facebook, thanks for your kind words.

Appreciate it very much. Jacob, one more thing. If you look in Acts 1, for example, it says, this is about a field that was purchased after Judas' death, and it says, it became known to all the inhabitants in Jerusalem so that the field was called in their own language HaKel Damah, that is, field of blood. So in their own language it's telling us that's what they were speaking, but that's Aramaic. When you have the ah at the end, in Hebrew when you say the, you put it ha in front of the word.

So Melech, king, HaMelech, the king. In Aramaic you put an ah at the end, so Malcha is the king. So the field HaKel Damah, of the blood, that is Aramaic. You have, for example, when Jesus raises the girl from the dead, Talitha Kumi, that's Aramaic. When he hangs on the cross, Eli Eli, lama Shabbat Tani, that's Aramaic with Hebrew for El Eli there. Now there are others who say, but look, look in Matthew 1, you will call his name Yeshua because he will save his people from their sins. That wouldn't be a play on words in Aramaic, but it would be a play, it certainly wouldn't be a play on words in Greek, but it would be a play on words in Hebrew.

Call him Yeshua because Yoshia, he will save his people from their sins. So people will come with their different arguments to say, well this must be Hebrew background, Aramaic background, Greek background, and their various arguments that are raised. But although we accept now that Hebrew was much more widespread in the first century, then then scholars and previous generations had accepted the everyday language of Yeshua and his disciples, the thing that that would have been spoken as he's taking them along and spending time with them and pouring into them. Best understanding is that it would have been in Aramaic, and that would be my understanding for most of his teaching, unless it was a unique setting.

I mean there are even books written to Jesus speak Greek. There's debate about how much Greek would have been spoken, especially in a village setting like that. Was there more debate that took place in Hebrew among the religious leaders? That can be debated in Jerusalem. Was there more use of Hebrew in Jerusalem than in outlying areas?

All these things can be actively debated and are debated among scholars. But the idea that Greek was the language they were only speaking? No, certainly not. Certainly not.

And perhaps the scholar that you mentioned on that video may have just been referring to that particular dialogue with Nicodemus as an example of where Greek might have been spoken. All right, let's get over to Kenneth in Tampa, Florida. Thanks for calling the line of fire. Yes, good afternoon, Dr. Brown. I met you down there at Sherash David in Tampa one time. Great!

Back in 2011, I think that was. All right. Anyway, I've been involved the last almost two years on a international radio link-up over the internet. It's called radiorelampago.com.

That's lightning in Spanish. And my interest has always been, as yours is, to reach people that don't understand how God could be in a physical body. And where did this physical body come from? And because I have, you know, my Jewish family and the people I've known through my life that are Jewish, I've always tried to reach them. And, you know, I was wondering, you know, as I grew up I was surrounded by a lot of Jehovah Witnesses as well. So I used to go to them, and I've talked to you about this before, but I went back to the Genesis and looked at the whole story about what Satan was told, you know, that what Eve's seed, and the seed that was in Eve, what that would do to him, that his head would be crushed. And obviously that seed, where did the seed come from that Eve had in her if she was evil, you know? And then I looked at 1 Timothy 2 13 and said that only Eve was a transgressor, not Adam. I thought Adam was evil because he ate the fruit, and then the Bible says he's not a transgressor. Well, no, he certainly, yeah, Kenneth, he most certainly is a transgressor, and Romans 5 explicitly speaks of his transgression.

It was Eve that was deceived, that she was the first to be deceived, which was Paul's point there, not that not that Adam didn't sin at all. But if I was dealing with Jewish people, Kenneth, I would also do this. I would also say, well, let's look at Genesis 18 when the Lord appears to Abraham. Now traditional Jewish teaching would say those were three angels, each on different missions as representatives of the Lord, so he was appearing through his messengers. I would first ask them, well, if those were angels and they sat with them and Abraham watched their feet and they ate and drank, where did the angels get their bodies from? And then I'd push further and say if you want to read the text strictly, and honestly, from Genesis 18 1 into Genesis 19 1, you'll see it was the Lord himself with two angels who appeared to Abraham, and then Abraham and the Lord have an extended conversation back and forth, and then the Lord leaves Abraham and the two angels go over to Sodom in Genesis 19 1. So I would say where did the Lord's physical body come from there? In the Old Testament when he was manifest. So the only way that these questions can be asked in a compelling way to try to negate the New Testament for a Jew, you have to also negate what's written in the Old Testament. And Kenneth, if you don't have my book, The Real Kosher Jesus, in the third part of the book, first part is dealing with Jesus in the New Testament, the second part dealing with Paul, then the third part, Seven Secrets of the Real Messiah, the Hidden Messiah, you'll find that really helpful about how the eternal transcendent God can manifest himself walk among us in this world.

Oh hey, thank you for the call and may the Lord's truth get out to reach as many people as possible. Hey, quick note for you. Do you get my emails? Wave at me if you do, okay?

A little hard to see because you're not the same room with me, but if you didn't, wave your hand because you don't get my emails. Can I encourage you, as soon as you have a moment free, go to my website AskDrBrown.org AskDrBrown.org and just click to sign up for emails. Just put in your name, your email address, immediately we'll send you a free mini e-book that condenses that material from The Real Kosher Jesus, Seven Secrets of the Real Messiah. It's free, it's our gift to you. Trust me, it's an eye-opener. And then we'll send you more info, my testimony from LSD to PhD, the three R's of our ministry and the resources we have where we can serve you, and then you'll hear from me a couple times a week with latest articles, special resources, latest videos and things like that.

So sign up today and this way we can pour into you on a weekly basis and right out of the gate get you some really neat free resources. And you never know these days when social media may crack down, when we may not be able to do what we do. Some years ago one of the top Christian radio leaders in America said to me, Mike, keep doing what you're doing while you can. We don't know how long we'll have this liberty.

By God's grace we'll have it until Jesus returns, but you just never know. When we get cut off in certain ways, or if you follow us on Facebook or Twitter or Instagram or YouTube and suddenly we get cut off, we're unable to communicate, this way you won't miss a beat because we can still send you email. So connect today and AskDrBrown.org. Let's go over to Joe in Rancho Cucamonga, California. Welcome to the line of fire. How you doing, Dr. Brown? Doing well, thanks. You know, I was reading on the Maccabean Revolt, and I don't know, have you ever heard of Chuck Missler?

Sure. He was talking about like that book was mentioned in the book of Matthew. I was trying to look it up here exactly where, but that was a pretty accurate description of what went on was there in captivity in Babylon, right?

You've heard that before? Some of the stuff they did there was accurate. Right, well, in terms of the books of Maccabees, those are talking about a later period. The books of Maccabees focus on what happened in the days under the Greek Empire. So the Jewish people, the northern tribes were exiled by the Assyrians in 722 BC, then the southern tribes of Judah, there were two exiles, but the biggest one 586 BC, the temple destroyed, then many came back to the land under the Persian Empire, then the Persians were displaced by the Greeks, so now the books of Maccabees are focusing on a time period about 360, excuse me, about 160 years before the birth of Jesus, so it's a few centuries after the Babylonian captivity.

There are other writings in apocryphal books that do mention those things, but yeah, so the Maccabees, as Chuck Missler would well know, were dealing with later periods of time, and this is when these freedom fighters, these Jewish freedom fighters said, okay, enough with these Greeks defiling our temple, sacrificing a pig on the altar of the temple in Jerusalem, telling us we can't circumcise our children, etc, etc, so they fought back, there was a rebellion, it was courageous, these were the freedom fighters whose victory we celebrate every year during the festival of Chanukah, the festival of dedication, speaking of the rededication and cleansing of the temple, and many would look at some of the events recounted in the book of Daniel as referring to those events that took place with the Maccabees. In any case, in any case, this is what led to the second Jewish Commonwealth and freedom until the Jewish people came under the subjugation of the Romans. Hey, thank you for the question. We are out of time. Join me tomorrow, friends, there are always life and death issues we want to talk to you about here on the line of fire, and it's our goal to equip you, build you up, to strengthen you, to encourage you, and in the midst of whatever you're going through to remind you that Jesus really is Lord, that he really is trustworthy, that if you give him your heart and soul and lean on him, that he will prove himself faithful in the long haul. If you don't know him, cry out to God with all your being, I've got to know you, and he will work in your life to make himself known. Another program powered by the Truth Network.