Dr. Brown and Rabbi Shmuley Debate: Is the New Testament Antisemitic?

The following is a pre-recorded program. That's 866-34-TRUTH.

That's 866-34-TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. You can get a really, really good feel of what happened, but you can watch the full debate for free by going to askdr.brown.org. Look at today's episode and you see a description there with a link to the debate or the same on our YouTube channel, Ask Dr. Brown, with today's episode. So if you're listening on radio, this is how you can check out the full debate for free online at askdr.brown.org or on our YouTube channel, Ask Dr. Brown. This is Rabbi Shmuley and I, New York City, 2019, debating the subject, Is the New Testament Antisemitic?

So we're going to take you into a lengthy excerpt of my opening comments in this very important debate on a very important subject. I was doing interviews on the streets of New York City today, from 16-year-old Orthodox, Modern Orthodox teenage girls to committed Christians. And not a single person that I spoke with actually believed that the New Testament was inherently antisemitic, which begs the question, how is it that a demented 19-year-old, John Earnest, a professing Christian who murders people in a synagogue in Poway, can quote verses from the New Testament in his manifesto? How is it that through the centuries professing Christians have dehumanized the Jews, demonized the Jews, sought to destroy the Jews and quoted from the New Testament in the process? It's because as gentile Christians, they ignored Paul's warnings in Romans 11, not to become arrogant and not to forget the Jewish roots of their faith.

It's because they cast off the teachings of Jesus who called his followers to bless, not to curse. So the question tonight, is the New Testament antisemitic? That would like be similar to asking, is the Torah antisemitic? Or were the Hebrew prophets antisemitic?

The answer is obviously not. The New Testament is a deeply Jewish book that tells the story of Jesus, Yeshua, the Messiah of Israel. It follows on the heels of Moses, Isaiah, the prophets of Israel, and the polemics it contains are those of an inner Jewish conflict. Sadly, my dear friend, Rabbi Shmuley, wants to edit the sacred text of Christians and challenge the foundational message of the New Testament, namely that it presents Jesus as the Messiah of Israel and then the Savior of the world. As reflected in his editorial this week in the Jerusalem Post, he actually thinks that the way to strengthen Jewish-Christian relations is by telling Christians that Matthew and John and Peter and Paul, all of them Jews, were wrong to believe in Jesus. Instead, the way forward, even in the midst of our differences about Jesus, Yeshua, is to put the New Testament back into its first century Jewish context. Jewish readers through the ages have been shocked when they read the New Testament for themselves. Rabbi Isaac Lichtenstein, Orthodox rabbi in Hungary, 19th century, he despised Christianity, believing that, quote, Christ himself was the plague and curse of the Jews, the origin and promoter of our sorrows and persecutions. With his own eyes, he witnessed so-called Christians committing murderous acts against his people, acts that they committed in the name of Christ.

Yet he also read passionate defenses of the Jewish people from other Christians, also in the name of Christ, and they denounced anti-Semitism. So this led him to pick up a copy of the New Testament. He had been given it and hurled it across the room 40 years earlier, and it lay on the floor covered with dust.

He picked it up, and he was in for a shock. He wrote this, I had thought the New Testament, remember this Orthodox Jewish rabbi in Hungary, I had thought the New Testament to be impure, a source of pride, of selfishness, of hatred, and of the worst kind of violence. But as I opened it, I found myself peculiarly and wonderfully taken possession of. A sudden glory, a light flashed through my soul.

I looked for thorns and found roses. I discovered pearls instead of pebbles, instead of hatred, love, instead of vengeance, forgiveness, instead of bondage, freedom, instead of pride, humility, conciliation, instead of enmity, instead of death, life, salvation, resurrection, heavenly treasure. And what about the Jewishness of the New Testament? He said, from every line in the New Testament, from every word, the Jewish spirit streamed forth. Now, you might say, oh, that's very nice, very nice, but what about the New Testament telling Jews you're of the Father the Devil? What about saying the Jews are of the synagogue of Satan, that the Jews killed Jesus, and that the Jews are guilty of deicide, killing God?

To quote Rabbi Shmueli in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus tells the Jews, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you, Jews, and given to a people that will produce its fruit, the Christians. John takes the metaphor terrifyingly further, calling the Jewish people a fruitless tree waiting to be axed, cut down and thrown into the fire, quoting Rabbi Shmueli. So, what are we to make of this?

Come on, let's be honest, let's put the cards on the table. So first, some of this is entirely inaccurate. For example, search the New Testament, read it from beginning to end, you'll never find the words, the Jews killed God, first thing. And the verses that Shmueli quoted from the Gospels are actually rebukes of corrupt Jewish leadership, in contrast with the Jewish crowds who revered Jesus. And second, most of the polemic in context is simply inner Jewish polemic, including prophetic rebuke for sinful leadership, exactly as we find in the pages of Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible. Catholic professor Urban C. von Waldo said this, that there are almost identical parallels between the language of John's Gospel and the language of the Dead Sea Scrolls, where rival Jewish groups are characterized as, quote, sons of darkness and sons of the pit who are under the dominion of Satan and do his works.

In this light, he rightly reminds us that, quote, we must learn to listen to these statements with first century ears, not 20th century ones. For years, Shmueli has rightly urged us to recover the Jewishness of Jesus and the New Testament. But that means that the conflicts and disagreements we read about were largely inside the family, just like conflicts between Satmar and Lubavitch, because see them here in New York. And years passed when they attacked and condemned each other in the strongest of terms. Were they being anti-Semitic? And 2,000 years ago, when the Jewish historian who was writing for the Romans branded the Jewish Sicarii imposters and brigands, slaves, the dregs of society, and the bastard scum of the nation, was he being anti-Semitic? When the Jewish authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls condemned rival Jewish groups, were they being anti-Semitic? Then why is it anti-Semitic when Paul speaks against the Judeans who killed Jesus and persecuted the Jewish apostles? Or when Jesus rebuked hypocritical leaders as snakes or told a non-believing Jewish audience that they were of the father of the devil? Why is this anti-Semitic in the other writings or not? It's because we've taken the New Testament out of its first century Jewish context, put it back in context, and the charge of anti-Semitism disappears. Let's also remember that, according to the New Testament, both Jews and Gentiles who reject Jesus are in some way under the power of Satan.

Third, the words of Jesus in the New Testament are identical to the words of the prophets in the Tanakh. It's true that Jesus called some hypocritical Jewish leaders snakes and a brood of vipers. But earlier, Isaiah said of his entire nation, they hatched the eggs of vipers and spin a spider's web.

He labeled them sons of a sorceress, offspring of adulterers and prostitutes, a brood of rebels, the offspring of liars. He even said, but your iniquities have separated you from your God, your sins have hidden his face from you, your hands are stained with blood, your fingers were gilt, your lips have spoken lies, your tongue mowed as wicked things. In the Torah, God calls us stiff-necked as a people. Elsewhere in Isaiah, God commands the prophet to write down for all time that we are a rebellious people. In Ezekiel, the Lord tells the prophet that the Gentile nations will listen to you, but the Jews won't because they're too hard to suffer. In fact, if I read you ten rebukes from the prophets and ten rebukes from Yeshua, you wouldn't be able to tell them apart. And that's why Rabbi and Professor Dan Cohen-Sherbach wrote, like the prophets of the Hebrew Bible, Jesus can be seen as the conscience of Israel. In his confrontation with the leaders of the nation, Jesus echoed the words of the prophets by denouncing hypocrisy and injustice as a prophetic figure.

This image of Jesus should be recognizable to all Jews. Then fourth, it's not anti-Semitic to say that Jewish leaders were involved in the death of Jesus. Moses Maimonides wrote about, quote, Jesus of Nazareth, who aspired to be the Messiah and was executed by the court, meaning the Jewish court.

Otherwise none of the Sun had been. This is found in the Talmud as well. So why is it anti-Semitic for the New Testament to say that Jewish leaders rejected Jesus, but not anti-Semitic for rabbinic leaders to say the same thing in even harsher terms? Was it anti-Semitic for Jesus, a Torah-observant Jew who is being hailed as Messiah, to say that rejecting him would bring about the destruction of the second temple, but it wasn't anti-Semitic when Jeremiah prophesied the destruction of the first temple for rejecting his words and the words of the prophets? She really takes umbrage at the words of Jesus found in the Gospels, which accuse our leadership of killing prophets in previous generations. She really says that, quote, the Jews are accused of being something like serial killers, but Jesus is just recounting what the prophets said of all, and what rabbinic literature sometimes says about our people. So friends, what we have is a double standard in which the Tanakh can indict our people and we accept it, and rabbinic literature can indict our people and we accept it, but when the Jewish New Testament indicts our people, we call it anti-Semitism. Are we sure we're not reading the New Testament in the light of the ugliest parts of church history, rather than in its first century Jewish context?

Ironically, on a daily basis, online, we get tens of thousands of comments by the week. Ironically, I confront anti-Semites constantly, and they're not quoting the New Testament to me, they're quoting the Talmud to me. And they're saying the Talmud sanctions pedophilia, and the Talmud says that Gentiles are just made to be slaves of Jews, and the Talmud says Jesus is burning an excrement in hell. And I find myself having to deal with the Talmud day and night, and telling these anti-Semites you're taking things out of context, you're twisting, you're misunderstanding. But when I try to do the same thing with the New Testament and say, put it back in its context and rightly understand it, then I'm accused of twisting things. Let us be fair, and let us use an even standard throughout.

So what do we do? We recognize the Jewishness of the New Testament, the Jewishness of the message. We recognize in light of the ugly history of, quote, Christian anti-Semitism, that we must recover a first century Jewish understanding.

That means, with the best of Greek scholarship, that many times the Greek word Judaios should be translated as Jewish leader, or Judean, and not just Jew. Let's make sure that readers today hear things the way readers did in the first century. And then, if, like Rabbi Shmueli, you believe that Christianity is a beautiful religion, realize its beauty comes from this book. And then, even if, in the midst of our conflict, there are intense differences, let's remember that Jesus said to love your enemies, and Paul said to shower kindness on your enemies, so if we follow the spirit of the New Testament, even if someone was our theological opponent, we bless them and not curse them. And then, lastly, I hope that Rabbi Shmueli and I tonight can demonstrate that in the midst of intense and fierce theological differences, we stand as one in calling for Jews and Christians to combat anti-Semitism, an ugly, viral disease that must be stopped.

Thank you so much. Alright, I'm going to jump in here and interrupt myself. We come back, we turn things over to Rabbi Shmueli Boteach, always eloquent.

And also, my dear friend. Thank you for joining us on the Line of Fire as we take you into my 2019 debate with my dear friend and colleague and passionate debating opponent, Rabbi Shmueli Boteach. The subject is the New Testament anti-Semitic. Now, a good chunk of Rabbi Shmueli's opening comments.

My friends, I hold in my hand the Christian Bible. This is the Hebrew Bible, what Christians call the Old Testament, a little bit derogatory as if it's old and discarded, and this is the New Testament. When Mike quotes passages from the prophets who criticize the Jewish people, they are spread liberally throughout the entire width of this large book. When we speak about castigations, condemnations, attacks on the Jews, for example, being the children of Satan, there are 450 in this small book.

They average two per page. So since we are in the midst of the nine days, the period of mourning for the destruction of the temple at the hands of the Romans, the Romans who had gladiatorial combat with two men disemboweling each other for sport and entertainment. The Romans who crucified so many people after the Spartacus rebellion that it lined the entire Appian way. The Romans who crucified 250,000 Jews in ancient Judea, mostly under Pontius Pilate, who was the great mass murderer, the Stalin of the ancient world. Given that we Jews experienced the destruction of our temple at the hands of the Romans, I want to read you a small synopsis of the New Testament, and I want you to tell me, given that there are essentially two groups discussed in the New Testament, the Romans, the occupiers, and the Jews who are being occupied, who is this referring to? Okay, who is this referring to? Vipers and poisonous snakes, hard-hearted hypocrites, thieves and robbers, the blind leading the blind, people who reject God's commandments and reject God's purpose, people who plotted on multiple occasions to kill God incarnate in flesh, and eventually did, people who said that God's blood should be on them and on their children forever, Matthew 27, people who said that they are filled with yeast and arrogance, people who have no love for God in their hearts, people who don't know Jesus nor his father, and finally, people who are descendants of their father, the devil. Are we speaking of the Romans or the Jews? Anyone want to guess?

Come on, help me here. Are we speaking of the Romans, the ancient occupier, murderous, bloody, brutal Rome, or the Jews? And if I were to tell you that someone would demonize the modern state of Israel and say that Israel a majestic democracy, Israel with women's rights, Israel with LGBT rights, Israel with freedom of conscience, freedom of worship, freedom of congregation, if I were to tell you that the UN or someone else passed 5,000 resolutions against Israel and said the Palestinians with no freedoms and no women's rights, and Iran stones women to death and threatens to annihilate Israel, and if I told you that Israel's the bad guys, would you say that the UN is fair?

Would you say that it's fair? It's not just me who believes that my Christian brothers and sisters, today Israel's foremost allies, and God bless you all who are evangelical Christians who stand up for Israel, it's not just me who believes that there has to be a reinvestigation, a reinterpretation, a reexamination of Christian scripture. It's led to terrible consequences. My friend Mike Brown wrote, quote, Like it or not, Israel's history suggests that judgment has been the norm. In God's sight, it's not just the Adolf Hitlers of the world who are unrighteous. Rather, by his standards, most human beings, including most Jews, are unrighteous. Firstly, the comparison to Hitler is utterly unacceptable. We Jews are a righteous people.

We're tired of hearing that we deserve what we get. The Holocaust was not because we don't believe in Jesus. The Holocaust was because humanity and Germany turned to barbarity.

But Mike goes on. The Messiah did not, while the Messiah came to bring peace, as a people, we the Jews missed the opportunity to receive him as our king, and we have been suffering the consequences ever since. Why the justification for anti-Semitism? Should we fault Jesus, our righteous prophet and savior? Or should we fault those of our forefathers who failed to listen to him? That's why this debate matters. Because I believe that Mike does love the Jewish people.

But then why is he writing that? You can't continue to excuse the decimation of the Jewish people. Let me prove to you for a quick moment that portions of the New Testament were edited to make the Jews look murderous. In Acts chapter 9 verse 23, the story is told about the Apostle Paul. After many days had passed, the Jews conspired to kill Paul. But Paul, Saul, learned of their plot, and one night his disciples took him and lowered him in a basket through a window in the wall. So who's trying to kill Paul? The murderous Jews.

You'll soon discover how many times the Jews are described as murderous in the New Testament. But the real story told by Paul himself in 2 Corinthians chapter 11 is this. In Damascus, the governor under King Aridus, ally of Rome, had the city of the Damascenes guarded in order to arrest me, Paul. But I was lowered in a basket from a window in the wall and slipped through his hands.

Do you understand what's happening here? The Romans and their allies are trying to kill Paul because Jesus' followers are claiming that Jesus is the Jewish king, which is a capital offense to Rome. You have to worship the emperor. But in Acts, it is changed. It's no longer the Romans who are trying to kill Paul. It is the Jews. And if that's not anti-Semitism, a blood libel, then I don't know what is. The Vatican itself wrote, quote, some New Testament references, hostile or less favorable to Jews, have their historical context. This is the Vatican. In conflicts between the nascent church and the Jewish community, certain controversies reflect Christian-Jewish relations long after the times of Jesus.

Translation, they inserted these verses 40, 50 years after the death of Jesus to destroy the Jews and exonerate the Romans. Now why would they do that? Simple.

Logic. The Jews fought a war against the Romans, a very courageous war, but they lost. They lost big. You don't fight the Romans. The Romans came and killed everyone they could find. The Christians have one little problem. They are worshipping a dead Jew. That's a big problem. The Jews are now the most hated people in the whole empire and the Jews are actually worshipping a Jew.

Three solutions. Number one, Romans, we're like you. We hate them too. They're children of the devil.

We can't stand them. Number two, he wasn't really a Jew. He's a Christian. It took 2,000 years for people to begin to explore the Jewishness of Jesus. Before that, Jesus had become a Christian. He was treated as a Christian. For any of you who are offended, was it Ilhan Omar or Ashita Tlaib who recently said that Jesus was a Palestinian? Jesus was a Jew.

Get used to it. Solution number three, tell the Romans, you know what? You think that you have a problem with them in this world?

We have a problem with them in the next world. They're going to hell. Their religion doesn't even save.

It was replaced. That's why Jesus died on the cross. And that's what led, and this is the saddest part, the first few hundred years of Christianity are so rife with such hatred of the Jewish people by the founders of the church that it is shocking beyond belief. And Mike does a very good job at recounting a lot of that in our handstayed with blood. But with one difference.

And Mike, you'll have to tell me if I'm right or wrong here. In the original version of your book, you had a line that says that the Jews have suffered. I want to find it. You wrote that the Jews have been punished by a counterfeit church, the counterfeit message.

That's pretty strong stuff. I want to find the exact quote, forgive me. And then I searched for it in the new edition and I couldn't find it.

I don't know if it was taken out or not. But the message in the New Testament, the verses that say we kill Jesus, they're counterfeit. The part that says we're children of the devil, they're counterfeit. The part that says that Judaism is an obsolete religion, counterfeit. The part that says the Jews were unchosen by God, counterfeit. All the rest, Jesus was a Jew, he came for the lost sheep of Israel. He told the Canaanite woman, I can't even excise a dybbuk from your daughter because I came for the lost sheep of Israel and it's not for me to take the bread of the children and throw it to the dogs.

Jesus was very focused on saving the Jewish people. The part that says the truth, Luke chapter 13, verse 31, that the Pharisees tried to save Jesus, that part's true because not all the editing of the New Testament was complete. And finally, my friends, Luke chapter 13, verse 1, where Jesus says, do you know what's going to happen to all of you if you don't follow the word of God? He says Pilate just took a group of Galileans, he slaughtered them all, and then he was so sadistic, he actually mixed their blood with the blood of the animal sacrifices in the temple. This is Jesus talking. And we're supposed to be told that that same Pilate later is this righteous, incredible man trying to save the Jews from these, save Jesus from these devilish, murderous Jews. Our hands are stained with blood.

It will not change until my dear friend Mike Brown and my dear friend Mitch Glaser and all my friends at Chosen People Ministries, and we're all going out to dinner afterward because we're friends, until they get up and say, we utterly renounce and repudiate now and forever a belief that Jews who don't believe in Jesus are going to hell, until that is stated emphatically and clearly, and the hatred God forbid, even if it's not wanted, might just be this. I get to interrupt Rabbi Shmueli now. I interrupted myself the first segment. We jump in here. We come back. We're going to give you into our rebuttals one to another. Thanks, friends, for joining us on The Line of Fire.

This is Michael Brown. This is a special debate week. So, on Thoroughly Jewish Thursday, it's a thoroughly Jewish debate, Rabbi Shmueli Botach and I. Debating is the New Testament anti-Semitic. So, we're going to get you now into a good chunk of our rebuttals.

Me saying, no, of course it is not anti-Semitic, and him making an argument that it is anti-Semitic. We're going to go back and forth in our rebuttals now. You can watch the full debate for free online at startyourbrown.org. Just look at today's description or YouTube, the same, A.S.K. Dear Brown, S. Dr. Brown, in the description of today's show.

We've got a link where you can watch the debate in full. Be edified and be blessed. Okay, we get into our rebuttals. Wonderful example of two things you just saw. One, every truthful statement Shmueli said 100% supports my position, as I'll show you. Every statement that goes against it is fiction, including this idea that the New Testament was radically edited to get the favor of the Romans. The Romans were slaughtering Christians in the most terrific ways and continued to slaughter Christians. There is zero, zero scholarly support for any of the reconstructions that were just offered. So you heard the figment of my friend's imagination. And if you want to go point for point academically, we'll do it.

Here's the reality. Millions, tens of millions, even hundreds of millions of Christians around the world love the Jewish people because of what's written in this book that my friend wants to edit. We don't need to edit it. It tells us the truth and it tells us of God's ongoing covenant love with the Jewish people. And it does not teach that God has forever discarded the Jews and thrown them away. Instead, as I quoted, Paul says the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable. The Jewish people remain loved by God and Paul even speaks of the day of Israel's national salvation just as the prophets do.

Rabbi Shmueli, you've had time to prepare. Just give me three verses, just three in the entire New Testament where the Jews are called the children of Satan. Tell you what, one verse where all Jews are called the children of Satan.

You hear the 450 thing, throw it out. The reality is quite the opposite. Yeah, why does the New Testament talk so much about sinning Jewish leaders? Because there were Jewish leaders who sinned just like we have throughout the Hebrew Bible.

Here, I could give you — how about this? God's words to Israel, Torah. Say to the Israelite people, you're a stiff necked people. If I were to go in your midst for one moment, I'd destroy you. But it's God. Is God anti-Semitic? How about this? Moses, while I know how defiant and stiff necked you are, even now while I'm still alive in your midst, you've been defiant toward the Lord.

How much more than when I'm dead? Moses, who is it that follows Jesus in the New Testament? Jews, all Jews, all the disciples are Jews. How are you going to say it's anti-Semitic when it's about a Jewish Messiah followed by Jews? Who gets criticized? The Jews who rejected the Messiah and they should be criticized for that.

Because He appeared in glory, worked miracles, healed the sick, rose from the dead Himself. And even after that, Peter says, you did it in ignorance. Turn back because God wants to have mercy on you. Even Matthew 27, 25 is misquoted. You have a Jewish crowd — does it say all the Jews? You have a Jewish crowd who says, we take the responsibility.

His blood be on us and our children. In other words, we take the responsibility. It's not saying all generations as A. And B, it's not saying all Jews. As for the New Testament picture of Pilate, how could a man so cruel and sadistic say, okay, who do you want me to give to you? He's tweaking the Jewish leaders because he knows. It says he knows that they're against Jesus. He's after them.

He's playing games with them. It's a consistent picture of Pilate. If we simply go back to what I was saying, it's really, really simple. A Jewish book about the Jewish Messiah and the conflicts are inner Jewish conflicts. I could read you quotes from opponents of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, okay? From one of the leading rabbis in Israel who died a few years ago, calling him the madman in Brooklyn that drives the whole world crazy and saying that Lubavitch is the religion closest to Judaism. And I could read you things from the misnogdom, those who oppose the Hasidic movement.

And then I could read you things, I mean, back and forth, I mean, ugly attacks. Things that go beyond what's written in the New Testament in terms of attacking one another, but it's an inner Jewish battle. And people understand it. Just like in the family when you're in your own home, you might speak to one another in ways that are more spirited than you would when you're outside, among others. This is a book about inner Jewish conflict, and what's recorded is true.

What's recorded is accurate. We had leaders, including a corrupt high priest that Rabbi Shmueli has spoken about as a corrupt high priest. And we had these leaders who worked together because they did not believe in Jesus. They did not believe he was the Messiah. They thought it was going to be a threat in the eyes of Rome if he was proclaimed as king. Whatever their reasons were, they rejected him, and that's their sin and their guilt of it.

And I'm not going to deny that. And the crowds, the crowds revered Jesus. And even Matthew 21, it's quoted there that Jesus says the kingdom is going to be taken from you, the corrupt leadership, and given to a people bearing its fruit.

And what does it say? The leaders heard this and knew he was talking about them, but they were afraid to do anything because the Jewish crowds thought that Jesus was a prophet. Read the New Testament for yourself. Read it for yourself. It says all people outside of Jesus are under the power of Satan. Ephesians 2, 1 John 5.

Read it for yourself. I can give you verse after verse to support that. It does not single out the Jews except for special promises.

Paul writes in Romans 9 that the covenant promises belong to the Jewish people. And that's why he said, I could die and be cut off from the Messiah myself. I could perish if I could see any of my people safe. So, Shmueli, it is love that compels me to speak the truth. I want everyone to know about Jesus. Grads from our school go all around the world as missionaries. They share the gospel with Muslims, with Hindus, with Atheists.

They share the gospel with everything. I will not withhold the good news of Jesus the Messiah from our Jewish people. At the same time, I will stand with you to the death to prevent anti-Semitism and to say, if you're going to touch my friend Shmueli, you've got to get through me first.

Thank you. I'm not saying, I don't know what Mike is referring to when he says, I wonder if we take seriously the intensity and the scope of the horrible judgments that have already fallen upon us in the past, and they will happen again if we follow a similar course of behavior. You have to explain that.

You wrote it, not me. What are those horrible, horrible things that have happened to the Jews because they rejected Jesus? Come on, my friends.

I know Mike is a loving man, and I have deep respect for him. But isn't that the essence of anti-Semitism, to say that the Jews are punished for adhering to the Jewish God and the Torah, and they're being punished for rejecting Jesus? Come on. I thought we moved past all this stuff. The verse that I was looking for, I found. There is nothing that I said tonight about interpolations in the New Testament that came later, or the need for Christian Evangelicals who love Israel and the Jewish people to reinterpret those verses.

Nothing is as severe as what Mike himself wrote. Our Jewish people have been persecuted, abused, expelled, and even killed for rejecting, listen carefully, a counterfeit message of a counterfeit Christ preached by a counterfeit church. And there is blood on the hands of that church. Nothing I have said comes close to that.

Nothing. Now, as far as Mike's saying, where is the verse? Where the Jews are referred to as, Mike's a great biblical scholar. John chapter 8, verse 39, Jesus says to the Jews, Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot accept my word.

You are from your father, the devil, and you choose to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. And I ask all of you, the Prince of Peace, Jesus, a Jew murdered by Rome, do you really believe he said that? Do you think he called his fellow Jews the devil? There are 40 antisemitic verses in Mark, 60 in Luke, 80 in Matthew, 140 in Acts of the Apostles, and 130 in John. And John, unfortunately, is the worst.

Here's just some examples. Mark chapter 3, the Pharisees are said to have begun to destroy Jesus. Chapter 14, the chief priests and council condemn Jesus as deserving death. Matthew chapter 3, the Pharisees and Sadducees are called poisonous snakes.

In chapter 12, they're called evil poisonous snakes. Chapter 15, the Pharisees are called blind guys who lead the blind. Chapter 26, the chief priests and council condemn Jesus as deserving death. Chapter 27, the people demand that Jesus, not Barabbas the murderer, be crucified. Luke chapter 4, members of the synagogue in Nazareth trying to kill Jesus. Chapter 7, the Pharisees are said to have rejected the purposes of God.

Chapter 22, the chief priests and council condemn Jesus as deserving death. Book of John chapter 5, the Jews are said to have persecuted Jesus and wanted to kill him. Chapter 5, it is said that God's word and God's love is not in the Jews. Chapter 7, it is said that none of the Jews do what is written in the Torah. Chapter 8, the Jews are descendants of their father the devil. Chapter 10, the Jews are thieves and robbers.

Chapter 10, the Jews are depicted as those who steal and kill and destroy. Acts chapter 2, Peter tells the men of Israel they crucified Jesus. Chapter 2 again, Peter tells the men of Israel that they crucified Jesus.

He repeats it. Chapter 3, Peter tells the men of Israel that they killed the originator of life. Not the Romans, not Pilate, the Jews themselves. Of course, Jesus himself had called Peter a liar and promised him that he would deny him three times.

And Peter said, I would never do that, and he does exactly that. So Peter's testimony as to the Jewish murder of Jesus is not to be believed according to the words of Jesus himself. Chapter 13, it is said that Jews cannot be forgiven by means of the Torah. Chapter 18, Paul said — Paul told the Jews, your blood will be on your own heads. Chapter 21, the Jews are depicted as seizing Paul and trying to kill him. Chapter 23, Jews are said to have plotted to eat nothing until they kill Paul. Chapter 23, Paul is said to have been nearly killed by the Jews. Chapter 25, Jews are said to have plotted to kill Paul.

Chapter 28, Paul is said to have condemned the Jews for never understanding God. In the words of Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, who I actually spoke to today, he wrote that very important book, Hitler's Willing Executioners, and then A Moral Reckoning, quote, the anti-Semitism of the Christian Bible is not incidental to it, but constitutive of its story of Jesus, both his life and death, and its message about God. It is not just that the Christian Bible contains a few unfortunate anti-Semitic remarks. It is not just that the anti-Semitism is liberally spread throughout the text.

And it is not just that the anti-Semitism is not casual in character, but ferocious. Rather, the Christian Bible presents its Christian faithful with a relentless and withering assault on Jews and Judaism. The structure of the gospels in particular is anti-Semitic. The Jews are presented as the ontological enemy of Jesus, and therefore of goodness. They are the impediment in the book's story. The story's narrative structure, its force, its many warnings, and inducements depend on the castigation of the Jews as the essential and dramatic villains who oppose, reject, and assault Jews. For Christians to understand evil in this world, a Satan must oppose God.

For the authors of the Christian Bible to understand Jesus on earth, they needed a terrestrial Satan, and so they invent and present a Satan in the person of the Jews. Yeah, I know. Time flies, and I wish we could get you more of the debate. We're getting a big chunk on the air. We come back, we go right into our closing statements. 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 us on the Line of Fire. Now we go to closing statements from me and then from Rabbi Shmuley Boteach. When we come back, I'll tell you something really interesting that happened this night at the end of this debate.

We've done so many, but this one ended in a unique way. What I keep pushing is the promises of the New Testament. And see, here's what you're missing, Shmuley. There's another path here, and there's so much just to respond to. Let me just quickly, how many of you consider yourselves here Christians, followers of Jesus? Just raise your hands. How many of you... Only a few? Okay, put your hands down.

How many of you really want to see Jewish people come to faith in Jesus and think it's important? Okay, it looks like there are a whole bunch of dinosaurs here. And like the dinosaur Paul and the dinosaur Matthew. So I'm in good dinosaur company. By the way, may I say, I'm not going to interrupt you. I just want to say, I happen to love dinosaurs.

I don't know why you take it as a pejorative. My kids, all my boys grew up... I remember Mendy knew what a long-neck-o-saurus was. Is there a long-neck-o-saurus? I love dinosaurs. When I read the words in the Jerusalem Post to be calling me a dinosaur, I could feel the love and the warmth. I did it. I was imagining a T-Rex. In fact, you called me T-Rex the other day to be affectionate.

But look, here's the path that my friend is missing. And I do want us to unite together and to call for Jews and Christians together as one to stand against the rising tide of anti-Semitism. Because it's rising in ugly ways. And every day, every day, by the minute online, I get attacked because I'm a Jew. There are so-called Christians who so hate the Jews that because I speak the truth about the Talmud and say I'm not a Talmudic Jew, I have a whole volume of 300 pages, volume five of answering Jewish objections to Jesus, why I'm not a Talmudic Jew. But these are lies about the Talmud. When I say that, I've been told I'm a fake Jew, I'm a Mossad agent, I'm a Zionist shill, and I work for Chabad. This is what I've been told because I'll tell the truth about this.

Zionist is now a dirty word among people. So, we want to unite together, but I want to show you the path you're missing. No one is going to hell because they're a Jew, because they're anything. It's ultimately something between us and God where we accept His mercy, which then transforms our lives, or we reject His mercy. But I fervently hope you're righteous enough to get in.

I just think any of us are. I believe what Isaiah said, that our righteousness is like filthy rags. That's why we need the Messiah. And out of love, we tell them, but I'm not the judge of anybody here. That's between you and God. And our message is, look at the love of God displayed on the cross. We sinned, we rebelled, God sent His Son to die in our place. That's love. No matter how you construe that, you cannot make that into hate.

That's love. And when Paul was upset with the Galatians, it's because as Gentiles, they thought they had to keep the law of Moses to be saved. They were Gentiles. But what did he say in 1 Corinthians 7? If you're called to salvation and you're circumcised, don't become uncircumcised. What does it say in Acts 21?

That he took a vow to show that he was not teaching Jews to forsake Moses or the customs of Israel, but rather, he was telling Gentiles you don't have to come under the law. We simply relate to Torah in a different way. We relate without temple sacrifices.

We relate in a different way. Of course ethical behavior matters. Read the New Testament.

You want ethics? Read the Sermon on the Mount. If Christians had lived by what was written in the New Testament, they would have been blessing Jewish people. They would have been praying for Jewish people. And even while they preached Jesus to Jewish people, they laid down their lives to save Jewish people. So allow me just to get a few words in, in fairness here.

So just a few things that are really important to hear. The idea of reward and punishment, read Leviticus 26, read Deuteronomy 28, then read the books of the prophets. It's there over and over. I didn't put that in there. God put it in the Torah.

Don't make that a Christian thing. But the fact is Christians around the world love God because He loved them. Because when they encountered His love and what Jesus did for them, all they could do is love back. And what's the reward that they're suffering now? At the hands of radical Muslims around the world. They're getting slaughtered.

In India right now there's a movement to make it a Hindu nation. My best friend, one of my best friends in the world, my best friend in India, three of his young men have been martyred for the fact. I washed the feet of martyrs widows in India. One of the young men from our ministry school, martyred by Al Qaeda a few years ago. And what did his family do? What did the other team do? The other team went right back and kept preaching the gospel and serving poor Muslims.

That we're going to respond with love back. That's the path that I want you to consider, Shmuley. I've been, as I said, overseas and out of the United States over 200 times. I've been to India 26 straight years.

It's just one place. I've been in jungles in India. I've been in outlying places in Africa.

I've been in from Juarez, Mexico to, I mean, you name it, to Seoul, Korea. And been overwhelmed by Christian love for the Jewish people. It's because they rightly understand the New Testament.

And here's what we agree on. If we come to this right interpretation. And remember, Jesus is not coming back to Jerusalem according to the New Testament until the Jewish people welcome him. And according to Romans 11, that the great culmination of the age is what? Nations turning to the God of Israel and Israel turning back to God.

So the promises remain. But Shmuley, I would love to see, I can't tell you how many times I've thought of this. In India, in these other countries, if I had you with me, they know me, they pray for me, if I'm doing a debate, they're praying that God would use me in the debate to reach the rabbis and all this. If you came with me, you would experience the greatest treatment of your entire life. You would be embarrassed by how much they love you. And no one is going to, they differ with you, they pray for you privately, but they would respect you, they would honor you, they would consider it one of their greatest honors that you set foot in one of the houses. And I mentioned this in a previous debate, my closing remark here.

I just want a little equal time, just a slight equal time. You see, Mike is Jewish after all. So I mentioned this in one of our debates in 2004, I think. My first trip to India in 1993, we get to a guy's house, his wife had not slept all night, she was so excited because Jews were coming to her home. And the husband meets me at the door, he said, you are the second Jew to come into my house, the first was Jesus Christ. That's the message.

And amidst those differences, there's a deep love and bond that connects us. And I honestly wrote Kosher Jesus, as I said at the beginning of the book, in the introduction. I said, I knew I would take flak from the Jewish community. To be honest, I didn't realize how much I would take. It was a very difficult year when it came out, 2011, for me and my family.

Very difficult. I think, Mike, you followed it. Even you were probably surprised by the ferocity of the attacks on me.

I was spending almost every day responding to vicious, vicious attacks. But I honestly wrote the book because I felt that even as we Jews understand Jesus in a completely different light to how our Christian brothers and sisters do, we reject the deity of Jesus and the divinity of Jesus, we reject the messiahship of Jesus. But I saw Jesus as a patriot who fought the Romans because of how brutal they were to his people. And that there are many fragments in the New Testament that express that love and that connection and that devotion, and I wanted to develop that. So, in conclusion, I want to acknowledge that this is a new era for Jews and Christians. It's a new era based on a common idea, and it's very flattering.

The idea being that Christians say, believe, and affirm that the Jews are God's chosen people who were given a biblical claim to the land of Israel and that they deserve to live in peace in that land. Thank you. And I finally want to tell Mike directly and specifically that you and I have now known each other for almost 20 years, and we've shared many stages together, but it's been a bunch of years that we haven't.

I want to tell you how much I enjoyed this evening. I think that discussing substantive ideas is exactly what the world needs. I think we end up speaking about so much garbage in today's culture and society.

Whether it's dumb movies, I like going to movies, but this didn't talk about them for hours. The presidential debates and the stuff that we see in the political arena can be really petty, and the news cycle changes almost every day, so you know it's kind of transient. But the subjects that we're discussing, even if it's heated, they're eternal.

They're actually really important. They cut to the core of our belief system and our convictions and our values, and that's why it matters that you came out tonight. You might disagree with me completely, and as I said before, you have the right to be wrong. I respect that, but don't believe for one moment that I take it for granted that you all come and listen and give up a beautiful New York evening where you could be in the park or doing something nice, or going to a movie and instead hearing a strong debate. And Mike, I thank you for being my debate partner. I'm always impressed that in our debates you never get riled up, you never take offense, you stay very focused on the issues. That says a lot about your being a scholar who really cares about the material, and it makes a difference that we disagree.

What does make a difference is that we are two fellow Jews, we are two fellow Americans, and we are two people to whom faith is the center of our lives, and we want to make the world a godlier place and a better place. Thank you. Thank you, gentlemen.

Thank you very much. Thanks for joining us, friends. I hope you've been blessed by this interchange between Rabbi Shmuley and me on the question of the New Testament anti-Semitic. So, Rabbi Shmuley and I have done many debates, I think it's more than 20, major face-to-face debates with audiences of a thousand or more, key media coverage on different ones we've done that were kind of events. We've debated on radio, we've debated on TV, we've debated in America, Canada, England, and in the process become dear friends.

I mean, really dear, heart-to-heart friends, and I love his family dearly as well. What happened at the end of this debate, because of our uniting together as Jews standing against anti-Semitism, and him saying, well, the New Testament's anti-Semitic, and you have to repudiate that, and me saying, it's not that we repudiate anti-Semitism, there was kind of a sense of us joining arm-in-arm together to fight against lies against the Jewish people, to fight against slander and libel against the Jewish people. And at the end, we got a standing ovation of a sense of our unifying around this cause. So, if you're able to watch the full debate, we've got the links up at astarktoground.org and YouTube. I think you'll be blessed and edified as you do, and as always, I'm confident that the truth will triumph in you.