Is Zechariah 12 a Messianic Prophecy?

The following program is recorded content created by the Truth Network. Here's what we're going to do today. I'm going to open up with the teaching from the Book of Zechariah.

We're going to look at Zechariah the 12th chapter and explain why we understand this passage to be messianic. And then, for the rest of the broadcast, I'm going to be answering a bunch of fascinating questions that were posted on Facebook a few days earlier. So, don't post now.

Don't call now. In fact, as you are listening to this broadcast, I should be in Germany right now. First, in Bremen to work with my dear friend Yesupadam and his wife Monica, our dear friends, as God sent them to Germany from India to do missions work. So, dedicating a church building there, then flying from there to Tübingen with my great friends Jobst and Charlotte Bittner for a conference through the weekend. And then Monday, one night only in Latvia, and then flying back on Tuesday. So, we've got some special broadcasts prepared. I think you're really going to enjoy the programming as always.

We do our best, if it's a travel day, to make the show extra special because we're not able to take calls. Okay, Zechariah 12. Should we look at this as a messianic prophecy? What you'll notice is from the 11th chapter into the 14th chapter, there's a lot of imagery that is familiar in the New Testament about the shepherd that is betrayed. And smite the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered and they'll look to me whom they've pierced and end time pictures of all the nations coming to worship God in Jerusalem, the survivors of the nations that attack Israel.

What I want to do is just dive right in though to the 12th chapter and ask you, have the things described in this chapter happened yet? And I'm going to read from a Jewish translation on the Sefaria website, okay? This is the revised JPS, the revised Jewish publication society. A pronouncement. The word of God concerning Israel. So it's the word of Yahweh where it says capital G-O-D. The word of God concerning Israel.

The utterance of God who stretched out the skies and made firm the earth and created mortal's breath within them. Behold, I will make Jerusalem a bowl of reeling for the people all around. Judah shall be caught up in the siege upon Jerusalem when all the nations of the earth gather against her. Has that happened? Have all the nations of the earth gathered against Jerusalem?

No, this has not yet happened. And that day, God says, I will make Jerusalem a stone for all the people to lift. All who lift it shall injure themselves. And that day declares God, I will strike every horse with panic and its rider with madness, but I will watch over the house of Judah while I strike every horse of the peoples with blindness. Zechariah 14 also speaks of an end time war where God draws all nations against Jerusalem and then ultimately fights for his people. And the clans of Judah will say to themselves, the dwellers of Jerusalem are a task set for us by their God, God of hosts.

And that day I will make the clans of Judah like a flaming brazier among sticks and like a flaming torch among sheaves. They shall devour all the besieging peoples right and left and Jerusalem shall continue on its site in Jerusalem. God will give victory to the tents of Judah first so that the glory of the house of David and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem may not be too great for Judah.

So there's going to be a battle. Zechariah 14 articulates it more how pitched the battle will be and there will be Jewish suffering in the midst of it. And that day God will shield the inhabitants of Jerusalem and the feeblest of them shall be in that day like David and the house of David like a divine being or like God, like an angel of God at their head. And that day I will all but annihilate all the nations that come up or that came up against Jerusalem. And now I'm going to read in Hebrew and get into English a verse that is very familiar for those who deal with Messianic prophecy.

A verse that is very familiar for those reading the New Testament know it's quoted in John 19 part of it. ... So I'll read the Jewish translation I have in front of me and then I'll translate it a little differently but I will fill the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem with a spirit of pity and compassion. So it's literally I will pour out on the house of David on the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace, pity or grace and supplication. ... So how is this translated now in this Jewish translation?

... Thinking back to Josiah's death and the great national mourning. The land shall wail each family by itself, the family of the house of David by themselves. Then it goes on with the wailing, the grieving that will take place.

Then that leads into 13.1. In that day a fountain shall be opened to the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem for purging and lustration, to cleanse of sin and uncleanness. So back to verse 10....

So in Hebrew you have three times that you have a third person plural verb. So they will look to me, as I understand the Hebrew text having studied it intensively for many years and of course my rabbi friends we've gone around this, they will look to me, so they will look... I and many translators understand it to mean, whom they have pierced, they will look to me, whom they have pierced, so the identification of Yeshua the son with the father. They will look to me, they will look, they pierced, they will mourn. The same they, that's why I don't believe it's right to translate, they shall lament to me about those who are slain wailing over them as over favorite son. No, they shall lament to me, they shall look to me, whom they what? Whom they pierced and they shall mourn. The same ones who look are the same ones who pierced are the same ones who mourn. Now why is there Jewish mourning? There's an interesting Talmudic tradition that I want to bring to your attention.

It is in Tractate Sukkah 52a and the question is what is the reason for the mourning in Zechariah 12? And one tradition says, so this is recounted in the Talmud, one tradition says, well what they see is what's called the Yetzer Harah, the evil inclination which caused them to sin. And they sin through their lives and they see the Yetzer Harah, it's like, it's that?

We could have overcome this so easily and that's why they're mourning. You say, well that really has nothing to do with the context. Correct, it's just a homiletical rabbinic interpretation. Another interpretation is that it is the Messiah son of Joseph who dies in the last great war. There are rabbinic traditions and some of these seem to go back to times that could have been around the time of Jesus. Some would argue earlier, some would argue later, but that there was a second messianic figure and he was from the tribe of Joseph, but that he would die in the last great war and then would be raised from the dead by Messiah son of David.

Some of these traditions definitely seem to have developed later, well after New Testament times. But, there's a Talmudic tradition that says this, that the text is talking about Messiah son of Joseph who dies in the last great war and Israel mourns over his death. So, reading from the Talmud expanded translation of Adin Stanshalz, the Gemara asks, Grant it, according to the one who said that the lament is for Messiah ben Yosef who was killed, this would be the meaning of that which is written in that context, and they shall look unto me because they have thrust him through, and they shall mourn for him as one mourns for his only son. However, according to the one who said that the eulogy is for the evil inclination that was killed, does one need to conduct a eulogy for this? On the contrary, one should conduct a celebration.

Why then did they cry? So, that's part of this little snippet from the Talmudic discussion there. Interestingly, in traditional Judaism, the death of Messiah son of Joseph is not looked at as an atoning death.

That is not the primary way it is looked at. Rather, he dies courageously in battle and then is raised from the dead by Messiah son of David. However, there is the interpretation of a preacher, a rabbinic preacher, a darshan, that means preacher, Moshe Alsheikh, about 500 years ago, and he interprets Zechariah 12-10 as the death of Messiah son of Joseph, whose death provides a perfect atonement for Israel.

Isn't that fascinating? That's not what's in the Talmud, it's not what's in other Jewish sources, but this is revered Jewish preacher from about 500 years ago. I actually bought the whole set of his commentaries on the prophets to get the most recent critical edition to make sure that I was understanding the text correctly and the text had been preserved correctly in the different books that we had. So, he actually says that it is, speaking of the Messiah son of Joseph, whose death provides perfect atonement for Israel. So, of course, we say that it refers to the Messiah son of God and his earthly father, Joseph, whose death did provide perfect atonement. And the reason for the mourning, there is mourning, the Hebrew root saffad, can mean to mourn like you mourn at a funeral.

It can also be a mourning associated with grieving. It can even tie in with repentance. So, there is the mourning over the recognition that the one that we as Jewish people thought caused us so much trouble because of the hatred of professing Christians, because of the persecution of Christians through the centuries, the name of Jesus itself, the name of Yeshua, for many Jews is just a curse word, Yeshu, something negative, derogatory, something that I've seen Jews say and spit on the ground. Think of the recognition when they realize who the real Messiah is, not the one that was often presented in a distorted way through the church, but the real Messiah of Israel, just as in John 19, that this passage receives some level of fulfillment because he's pierced. You look to him then on the cross, well, ultimately, Israel, on a national level, this is what Jeremiah 31, 1 speaks about, On that day God will be God of all the families of Israel, or Paul writes about in Romans 11, 26, and all Israel will be saved. This is a picture of it here, national mourning, when it is recognized who the Messiah is, and we recognize that we have rejected him, and our ancestors pierced him by giving him over to the Romans, the Jewish leadership gave him over to the Romans to be killed, and we rejected him through the centuries thinking he was some foreign deity, or the head of a hostile Catholic church, or whoever he was, and just wanted to do us harm, some idol-worshipping deceiver. No, he's actually our Messiah when they see him for who he really is. It would be great repentance, I believe this happens, as the Lord is revealed at the end of the age, in response to Jewish prayer and crying out, and now the recognition of who he is is this massive repentance which leads to the 13th chapter. On that day a fountains open for cleansing, and resurrection.

That's what's going to happen with Mass and Jewish repentance at the end of the age. Not by dieting, but by radical lifestyle transformation, getting rid of the bad, unhealthy things, eating only healthy foods. I've kept it up by God's grace now for nine years, going from three headaches a week to no headaches in nine years, blood pressure as high as 149 over 103, now maybe 105 over 70 on average. I mean, radical transformation, and I encourage you to look at your life, look at your diet, ask are you going in the right direction, or do you need to make some changes. I also want to help you on a very practical level. I have added into my life as well some great supplements from our co-sponsor, Triveda. In fact, that's why we work with them, because I have personally benefited from these as well. I want to commend to you three in particular, nitric oxide, which helps with blood flow, oxygen, energy level, mild health, which helps with skeletal structure, muscle, which is really important as you get older, and nopalea, which deals with chronic inflammation. In fact, I've learned that that's the number one killer worldwide, chronic inflammation. I take these three supplements every single day as I travel around the world, I travel with these, and I want to encourage you strongly check them out for yourselves, 800-771-5584, get your free online health consultation, 800-771-5584, or go to triveda.com, use the code BROWN25, you will get a 25% discount on your entire order, whatever size it is, and 100% of your first order will go to support the line of fire and more than a tithe of all subsequent orders.

I use these, I commend them to you, 800-771-5584. The Truth Network presents Life 101, the basic rules for getting by and moving ahead in life. There are thousands of financial books out there, yet overall our personal finances are in pretty bad shape. That proves one thing, the latest advice and the latest book on the newest financial twist is not really working.

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It is thoroughly Jewish Thursday, Michael Brown. Delighted to be with you. You're just tuning in now.

I should be in Germany as you are listening to this. I already solicited questions on Facebook. If you want to participate with us on social media, then aside from getting our email, always start there. Go to askdrbrown.org, askdrbrown.org or on the app. Just sign up to get our email so we can keep you posted on what's happening in newest articles, videos, if I'm coming to your area to speak, all kinds of things like that, new resources.

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A-S-K-D-R-Brown, where we have over 3,000 videos waiting for you. All right. So let's go over to Facebook, and I'll start with a question of Ubayit. Why are Jews the most hard workers?

Reason? Why not other people like UK, USA, etc.? Well, many Jews are hard working. Not all Jews are hard working. Many non-Jews are hard working. Not all non-Jews are hard working.

So it varies from person to person, but to the extent that Jews are hard working, there'd be a few reasons for it. One is that often we've had a lot of odds against us. We've been in environments where we've been deprived from best jobs. We've been in environments where there's been racial segregation or religious segregation and things like that, because of which we've had to work harder to get ahead.

That's one reason. Another reason is, with all of our travels, we've often been immigrants in other countries. And the only way that you can get on an equal playing field as an immigrant, you often have to work harder. And then there is the Jewish study ethic. So from religious Judaism coming into Judaism at large, where Jews will have a higher percentage of their population getting high levels of education, and that can translate out to better jobs, and therefore it's not necessarily working harder, but working smarter that can bring in extra money. But otherwise, you've got hard working Jews, you've got lazy Jews, you've got hard working Gentiles, you've got lazy Gentiles.

I wouldn't make the generalization about hard working. But successful, yeah, there's been more success proportionally, and I believe for some of these reasons, as well as God's hand on us for His purposes. Mark, when studying the Jewish life of Jesus in the first century, which sources do you find the most helpful, and which do you think are too anachronistic, drawing too heavily from later rabbinic periods and writings?

So, this is an ongoing debate, right? We know, for example, that the writings of the Dead Sea Scrolls predate the time of Jesus, and some of them would be contemporary with Him. So, those are perfectly safe to use, because you're talking about that same ancient world, that same ancient location in the land of Israel by and large, and documents that either predate Yeshua, or are contemporary with Him, some a little bit roughly after.

Those are very safe to use for background and parallel. Writings, pseudepigraphical and apocryphal writings, that we can safely date to that era, first, second century B.C., first century A.D., or as we'd say as Jews, B.C.E. and C.E., before the Common Era and Common Era.

So, those can often be safe to use as well. When it comes to rabbinic traditions, that has to be sifted carefully, because some of the rabbinic traditions can be saved from Babylon four or five hundred years after the time of Jesus. To what extent do they reflect traditions that have been passed down faithfully from the land of Israel through the centuries?

To what extent do they reflect later developments in the ongoing life of the Jewish people? There was a Professor Samuel Sandel many years ago, who wrote a famous article called, Parallelomania, where you could just find a parallel here. You know, it would be like this, like, wow, I found an amazing saying from Abe Lincoln, and it really parallels what Gandhi says, so we get a lot more insight in Gandhi by going to Lincoln. Well, not if Gandhi didn't know Lincoln said it. In other words, if Gandhi shaped his life after the saying of Abe Lincoln, well, that would give us insight. But otherwise, it could just be, I mean, you've got love your neighbors yourself, or what's hateful to your neighbor. You have in different ancient world religions, right?

What makes it special is when Yeshua says, love one another is I have loved you, that brings it to a new level and dimension. But the best sources, the best commentaries will do their best to sift this through. I'm involved with a project that when it comes out will be very helpful in this regard. If you just want one volume that will do a good job of sifting sources, Craig Keener's IVP Bible background commentary to the New Testament would use these sources as we would say sagaciously, so with wisdom.

The re-printing, or excuse me, the translation from German into English of the Strach Billerbeck multi-volume commentary on the New Testament, Kommentar zum Neumann Testament aus Talmud in Midrash by Strach and Billerbeck, now translated into English and published by Lexham Press, has a great introduction to it by contemporary Jewish scholar David Instone Brewer, where he says here's how to use it, here's the right way to use it, here are principles in using it. So I'm giving you a large answer and ultimately the best commentaries will do their best to sort these things through. Bruce, I've heard a debate whether Terah was 70 or 130 when Abram was born.

Which do you find most plausible? If 130, why would Abram think it impossible that he himself could have a child at 100? I understand Terach's childbearing to be earlier in terms of principle fathering to be earlier probably beginning at 70. So I believe that's the right way to read the text.

And it is a fair question. If Abram's father didn't give birth to any children until he was 130, right, why would Abraham be concerned that he couldn't give birth to a child at 75 or 80 or 90? Of course the other issue was that it seems it was not necessarily Abraham but his wife, Sarah. Because as far as we understand the text, if it's Christ... Hey friends, this is Dr. Michael Brown. I want to invite you to join our support team.

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Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks for joining us on the Line of Fire on this Thoroughly Jewish Thursday. I want to go back to questions that have been posted on Facebook.

I already solicited these so don't post a question now. But I'm going to go back to questions and let's see, we'll start with David. I've always heard that the Last Supper, what is often called the Lord's Supper, Eucharist Communion, finds its roots in the Passover meal of the Jewish tradition. How did this feast become reduced to a bite-sized portion of bread in a sip or dip of wine or grape juice which bears no resemblance to a feast? David, one of my dear colleagues refers to our contemporary practice as the Lord's Snack instead of the Lord's Supper. So originally, this was part of a feast that believers would have together.

It would be called a love feast. So in other words, in the midst of a communal meal where after service, maybe there are 15 people at one home, and now they're going to have a meal together after their time of worship and teaching of the Word, that in the midst of that, they would drink the wine and have the bread in commemoration of the death of Yeshua. So it certainly comes out of the Passover meal, but then it develops into its own meal. It's not all the different cups of wine that developed at the Passover meal or other things that went into what's called the Seder, as that developed over time. It was a much more simple recognition of the body and the blood, so remembering the body and the blood through the bread and through the wine. But it was part of a meal. Over time, as customs changed, as you were not having a communal meal together, as you were doing something in a corporate service, if perhaps under different circumstances it was not as easy to be having meals together, then it developed.

I can't tell you exactly when. I'm not as strong in church history as I am in other areas. The custom we have now of just, I don't know how ancient that is, of just having a tiny little piece of bread, normally matzah, and then the grape juice, in most cases, in some cases we'll still have wine. But it's perfectly valid.

We're doing the same thing. It's the same remembrance. But if you want to say the ideal form would be in the midst of a communal meal among believers, this is weaved in as part of it. Laban, or Laban, explained to me about human sacrifice, Jephthah, and how will I avoid sacrifice of Messiah being of that kind. So God clearly rejects human sacrifice. In the Bible, he clearly categorically rejects it and sends a loud message to Abraham when he stops him from sacrificing his own son in obedience to the voice of God. God rejects human sacrifice. It's one of the reasons that the people of Judah were judged in 586 BC because they practiced the sins of Manasseh, the most heinous of which was sacrificing their own children in the fire. God deplores that. Now you say, what about Jephthah in Judges 11 and 12? So he comes back from a great victory and he makes a vow, whatever comes out of my tent, I'm going to sacrifice to God.

There's going to be a chicken that walks out of his tent, a little goat that walks out of his tent. Well, it's his daughter who walks out celebrating and dancing and he says, well, I made a vow, I have to keep it. Nowhere does it say God was pleased with this, God honored this, God blessed him, God rejoiced in the sacrifice of his daughter. There are some who try to argue that what the sacrifice amounted to was that she could never marry and she had to mourn all the days of her life. That would be a nice reading of the text.

I don't know that we can justify that, but it certainly is not recorded as a good thing. This is one of the horrors in the book of Judges and indications that Jephthah himself was not the most consecrated or wise man, yet God used him. The death of the Messiah is not human sacrifice. The death of the Messiah is the righteous one laying down his life on our behalf.

Here, think of it like this, that the only possible way that there's a pilot, he's on a plane, the plane's dangerously out of gas, it's a cargo plane, it's dangerously running out of gas. If he's going to try to save his life and get into an airport, it's too dangerous, he may kill a whole lot of other people in the process, so he decides, okay, the only way to save this community, by a populist community, is if I take my own life, if I crash this plane, it's the only way I could save everybody else. Or think of it like this, think of a Catholic community in Rome, and they are besieged by terrorists, and 10,000 children are brought into this stadium, and their guns to their heads, and they're all going to die unless the Pope surrenders himself and says, take my life, take my life instead, let them go free. The Messiah, the perfectly righteous one, even in keeping with Jewish tradition that says the death of the righteous atones, says to the Father, I will pay for the sins of the world, through my perfect righteousness, I will take on myself all the unrighteousness of the world so that people can be forgiven. It is the atoning power of the death of the righteous as opposed to human sacrifice. If you want to read more about that, then you can read volume two of Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus. I've got a five volume series, volume two of Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus, objection 3.15.

Yeah, I remember that one well. Or in The Real Kosher Jesus, The Real Kosher Jesus, which is my number one single book to give to a Jewish seeker, or to a Christian who wants to find out more about the Jewish roots of their New Testament faith. Real Kosher Jesus, I have a whole chapter there about the atoning power of the death of the righteous. Silas, does God have a separate salvation plan for the Jews after the rapture or during the tribulation, or must it all be in Christ? Because many people believe that millennial rule is for the Jews and it comes back just before the antichrist destroys Jerusalem.

I don't believe in a pre-trib rapture. I certainly affirm that there is one way of salvation for all, and that is through the Messiah. Now, through Jesus the Messiah. Jew, Gentile, only one way of salvation for all, which is why we labor, which is why we do what we know how to do in outreach, in prayer, in producing materials, to give our people understanding as to who Jesus Yeshua really is with the hope that they will also believe in Him. That's what I've done for 51 years, knowing that there is no salvation, there is no other name by which we must be saved other than the name of Jesus Yeshua.

Not just a religious formula, but the truth of who He is, the truth of His death and resurrection, and how only through Him can we come into right relationship with God. Paul writes in Galatians 2 that if righteousness came by the law, the Messiah died in vain. So by the law is the knowledge of sin, the law in itself perfect shows us how far we fall, in which case we know we need mercy through the Messiah, and it will be right like that to the end of the age. Now, the question is, if our understanding is correct that there is a millennial kingdom, a thousand year reign of Jesus on the earth, and the Jewish nation is the lead nation, does that mean that you are saved automatically entering into the millennium? Zechariah 14 says the survivors of the nations that attacked Jerusalem will now come to Jerusalem every year to worship the Lord of Hosts.

They're not automatically saved. So that's a whole other debate within the millennial kingdom, how does that work, etc. We have already been glorified and we are with the Lord in our resurrected bodies.

But right until the return of Jesus, salvation comes one way and one way only, and that is through the cross. Dave, I recently heard that to portray Jacob as a liar and or a cheater isn't necessarily accurate. It was Jacob that was tricked by his father-in-law and any payment he received later on was a reward for the extra seven years of service he provided.

Any thoughts on that? Furthermore, it doesn't seem to be any condemnation of Jacob in any of the acts. Oh, of course he was a deceiver. Of course he lied.

I mean, the text is quite blatant on that. When Labanau double-crosses him, that's kind of him reaping what he sows. That's him getting a taste of his own medicine. He absolutely lies. So the name Yaakov probably went back to an original Yaakov El or Yaakov Ya, something like that, meaning God will protect, Yahweh will protect. It's also a play on words for ankle, ekev, ankle, Yaakov. He was grabbing his brother Esau's ankle, so Yaakov is a play on words of ekev.

And then there's another root, akav, which is to lie, to deceive, and that's why Esau says, hey, look, he's rightly named Yaakov because that's what he does. He deceives. So for sure he lies when he goes along with his mother Rebecca with the plan to deceive Isaac, and he says, I'm Isaac. He says, just go read Genesis 27. He lies blatantly. As a result of that, he has to flee to Paddan Aram because Esau's going to kill him. And then in Paddan Aram, he gets all twisted around back and forth, right?

And then he has to use his cunning, etc. So it's implicit in the text. Not everything is found in terms of an outright condemnation.

Sometimes the condemnation is look at what this cost, look at how this went, or look at how polygamy goes and unfolds in the Hebrew Bible, you know, negative case after negative case. So no, he wasn't always only a liar or a deceiver, but did he lie and deceive at some key times in his life? Yes, for sure.

Let's see. Al Messiah. Prophet give fitting reply to Tobiah singer, cruel and aggressive challenger of the Christian faith.

Ah, yeah. As, as others have responded and told you on our real Messiah website, real Messiah.com, you can see, I think it's the first 11 or 12 videos that we have demolishing the misinformation of Rabbi Tobiah singer. He has become prominent by devoting himself day and night to attacking the faith of Christians. Decades ago, he was more involved in working with Jews that believed in Jesus or different religions to try to pull them back to Judaism. It shifted at a certain point where a lot of what he does is attack the faith of Christians. We debated in the early nineties. He's refused to debate me ever since. So we're talking now well over 30 years.

I would gladly debate him any time. But in the meantime, one by one, we're not trying to go through every one of his videos. That'd be hundreds. But just look at some of the more popular ones and demolishing the misinformation. So it's there. Be encouraged. We're also getting them out with Hebrew captions.

So be encouraged. The information is there. You can also sign up for, so you pay for my class on countering the counter missionaries. You can find that on the real Messiah website as well, realmessiah.com or on askdr.brown.org in the store in our video series. So that comes with a several hundred page study guide. And a lot of the material that we refute in there relates to his teaching.

So there have been solid answers for many, many years. Fear not. And of course, the word of God stands on its own. If you want to partner with us and help us reach more Jewish people with the good news of the Messiah, we invite your partnership. Go to askdrbrown.org if you're interested in doing that.

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Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. What a joy to be with you on thoroughly Jewish Thursday. I hope you're enjoying the broadcast. We're not taking calls today, as this is an international travel day for me. So, actually, after radio, so last night's radio show that you heard live, straight from there to the airport to fly to Germany. Then today in Bremen, Germany. Then the weekend in Tübingen, God willing. And then Monday in Latvia and then back home on Tuesday. So, we'll give you a report when we come back.

All right, so let's see. Don, I keep getting confusing information on whether Matthew was first written in Hebrew or Greek. As best as we can tell, Matthew's gospel that we have now was originally written in Greek and not translated from Hebrew into Greek. However, there are traditions that indicate that there was an original Hebrew Matthew. Some say Aramaic, but let's simply say Hebrew. That there was originally a Hebrew Matthew. At the very least, a collection of the Lord's sayings in Hebrew or Aramaic. But others would say there's a good amount of evidence that there was an original Hebrew Matthew.

We simply don't have it. So, the original Hebrew Matthew may have been similar to our Greek Matthew, but as best as we can tell, when I say we, there's debate about all this, right? But as best as many Matthew commentators can tell, the Greek that we have now does not reflect that it was a translation from the Hebrew, rather its own work in Greek. So, perhaps at one point in life, Matthew wrote a gospel in Hebrew and then later wrote it in Greek. But we do not have an original Hebrew gospel. You say, oh no, no, I've read translations based on the original Hebrew Matthew. We do not have the original Hebrew Matthew. Now, are there some remnants of an original Hebrew Matthew that get preserved in later Hebrew manuscripts from centuries later that are primarily translations from the Greek?

Are there remnants? So, others would argue for that. Maybe the best-known spokesman of some of this is Nehemiah Gordon and his teaching on a Hebrew Matthew. But we do not have an original Hebrew Matthew from the ancient world, okay? And we cannot say, well, this is definitely the original Hebrew Matthew.

We cannot say that. There's speculation about a passage here or a passage there, some debate over it. But it seems certain that there was an original Hebrew Matthew, not just a collection of the Lord's sayings in Hebrew or Aramaic, but a Hebrew Matthew.

But we don't have it. What has been preserved for us by God is the Greek Matthew. So, Matthew as we have it is written in Greek, but there may have been a Hebrew original that varied at some point. All right. Janae, what do you say about Gentiles following Torah?

Thank you for those who replied on my behalf. There is no obligation whatsoever for a Gentile Christian to follow the law of Moses. There is no obligation. You are under a new and better covenant which is reflected in the teachings of the New Testament. What about a Jewish believer? There is more debate as to whether a Jewish believer has an obligation to continue Jewish identity as part of their calling or whether it's a matter of if you got saved and you were living a Jewish life or continue to live it but now in the life of the Spirit.

If you got saved and you weren't living a Jewish life, don't try to put something on yourself. That can be debated. But for sure, none of us are justified by keeping the law of Moses. We understand that.

Even those who say we should keep it, almost all would agree on that. And for sure, there is no obligation on Gentile Christians to observe the law of Moses. You are not holier if you do. God doesn't love you more if you keep the dietary laws or if you don't wear two different types of garment together.

He doesn't love you anymore. He doesn't look at you as any more spiritual. You say, but I like keeping kosher. I think if they did in ancient Israel, why should not? That's fine. You're free to. But there's no obligation to.

And if you try to do things that God gave distinctively to Israel, right? Well, I'm going to wear a fringe because they have the hem of their garment. We don't have a hem. We're going to wear a fringe. It just looks weird. If you're doing it to witness to a Jewish person, it just looks weird to them.

You look like a hybrid. It is off-putting. It hurts our genuine Jewish witness to our own people because they think, what are these people? Why are they trying to be Jews?

What is that? It's just being candid with you. All right. Anthony, how do they turn to white people when all biblical and historic facts say different? Well, sir, that's not the case. All biblical and historic facts do not say different.

Absolutely, categorically not. We know that there are Jews of all different colors. That there are Asian Jews. That there are black Jews. That there are white Jews. That there are Middle Eastern Jews.

The best data is I can see it. The ancient Israelites would have been brown-skinned people. Then as we were scattered around the earth, we can trace very clearly where my ancestry, in terms of Ashkenazi Jews, where we come from, more and more DNA studies plus historical records. The historical records have been preserved. We've known the journeys and archaeological records support this.

Then DNA just confirms it. So, what happened was, we know in the book of Acts that there's a Jewish community in Italy and in Rome, right? And after the destruction of the temple in the year 70, that the Romans shipped tens of thousands of Jews to Rome as slaves. Sent them there as slaves to Rome. And then ultimately gaining freedom, larger Jewish community is established there.

Well, now you intermarry. Why do you think Jews, why do you think African Jews look different than original Middle Eastern Jews? And why do you think white Jews look different than original Middle Eastern Jews?

Because of intermarriage, right? So, as the Jewish people scattered throughout the world, we have the historical records. We have archaeological records. We have records with linguistic development.

This is not mysterious. To this moment, to this second, not a single Hebrew Israelite ever, first and foremost, top of the list, guerilla Hebrew, whom I debated, but others I interacted with, has provided one scintilla of recognized academic historic scholarship, archaeological scholarship, genetic scholarship, linguistic scholarship that supports the bogus 12 tribes charge. That, for example, Mexico is the tribe of Issachar. Mexico is Issachar, or Haiti is Levi, or the vast majority of African American Jews are the tribe of Judah. Bogus. There are definitely black Jews in America, without question.

Some even argue as many as 200,000. There is a legitimate, genuine black Jewish history that should be uncovered and understood. One of my friends, a Messianic Jew, African American scholar, historian, is doing his best to tell that story from an internal history. But we know that with intermarriage, so a Jewish man marries an Italian woman, more Jewish men marry more Italian women, more than this happens, you stay in a place long enough, right? Now your kids start to look more and more Italian, or they start to look more and more African, or they start to look more and more Asian. But you can still trace it back through genetics. So we have the historical records, and then genetics can trace it back. By the way, when I talked to a geneticist about some of the arguments that were used in my debate with Guerrilla Hebrew, and he said all my rebuttals to him were completely correct, that he was completely mistaken, what he was saying.

I spoke to another historian who works a lot with genetics, and he referred to Guerrilla's arguments as quote, intellectual sewage. Alright, so I'm just giving you facts here. Right, so that's our history, from Middle Eastern, to African, to Asian, to Caucasian, through intermarriage with the surrounding peoples who convert into Judaism and become part of our families. So that's why even within Africa, you have African Jews that look different because they're from different parts of Africa, different heritage, etc.

Alright, let's see. Natalie, what's the best way to approach educating a westernized evangelical Gentile church about the significance of Israel and the very Jewish roots of our faith? Thanks for the amazing time in Israel. Alright, hang on, let me just click on your picture there.

Alright, Natalie, great, yeah, it was wonderful to have you. I would recommend that they read my book, Our Hands Are Stained with Blood. If you could get one book into their hands, it would open up to them the persecution of Jews by the church as the church lost sight of its Jewish roots and will reaffirm God's ongoing promises to Israel and will show clearly the Jewish roots of the faith.

So if you can get someone to read it, God's used that book, and I'm grateful to him for this, he's used that book to change many, many hearts of Christian leaders over the years. Marcelo, what should I look for in shawarma? I've only had once and I have to get it again. I'm not the one, I'm not the expert on shawarma. But what you want to try to do though is go to some city that has a substantial Israeli or Middle Eastern population, could be Arabic population, could be Israeli.

And if you walk into one of their places, you get pretty legitimate shawarma. Oh, boy, let's see. A lot more questions than I have time for. Melinda, do Messianic Jews celebrate the Sabbath?

Why or why not? Messianic Jews can be described in one of two ways. A Messianic Jew can be any Jew who believes in Jesus, in which case some celebrate the Seventh-day Sabbath and some don't. Some are more at home in the church environment and would be like other Christians with very different approaches to the Sabbath. Another way to define a Messianic Jew is someone who is part of a Messianic Jewish congregation.

That's the more narrow one. And a Messianic Jew in that case by very definition celebrates the Sabbath. So we would all agree, Jewish believers in Jesus, that it is not a salvation issue. In other words, that we're damned to hell if we don't celebrate it or we're under a death penalty. But many would say this was a sign God gave to Israel.

Messiah Yeshua brings it to its fullness. We find rest in Messiah and now the Sabbath itself has more and more meaning. And it's also a way for us to identify with our people and tell the rest of the Jewish world you can be Jewish and follow Jesus. And in fact, many Messianic Jews raise their kids as Messianic Jews. Some make Aliyah to Israel.

And now it's second generation, third generation, fourth generation, fifth generation. And it is by and large by keeping a Jewish lifestyle that has helped preserve that and pass that on through the centuries. So Messianic Jews who are part of Messianic congregations all celebrate the Sabbath. Messianic Jews who are part of a larger church world, some do celebrate seven-day Sabbaths, some do not. Hey, remember again to visit realmessiah.com. Check out all of our free Jewish outreach resources there. May the Lord bless you.