Best of Broadcast: Dr. Brown Speaks at an Anti-Zionist Conference

The following program is recorded content created by the Truth Network. We're about to expose yet another video from Rabbi Tovia Singam. It's time for the Line of Fire with your host, biblical scholar and cultural commentator, Dr. Michael Brown. Your voice for moral sanity and spiritual clarity.

Call 866-34-TRUTH to get on the Line of Fire. And now, here's your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Hey friends, this is Michael Brown here delighted to be with us in a moment. I will be joined with my colleague, Jonathan McClatchy, now a resident biologist at the Discovery Institute.

He's been a biology professor and he leads the great website TalkAboutDoubts.com. You know, we've done a series, maybe 10, 11 videos so far. We could do hundreds if we had the time debunking these horrific counter-missionary videos from Rabbi Tovia Singer.

For those that know the word, for those that know Jewish tradition, other things, they're just so easy to demolish. But because there are lots of people on the internet with no background, especially Christians that pick up his stuff, that he does mess with the faith of some. That's why we're doing our best to say, hey, if you want answers, if you want truth, here they are. So we're going to get into a video. Jonathan brought it to my attention.

I'd seen it come across my feet. It's like, you gotta be kidding me. Then Jonathan got in the contest and said, let's just get together and do this. So Jonathan, welcome back to the line of fire. Always great to have you here. Great to be here. Thanks for having me. Yeah, it is.

It is a real joy. All right. So folks may not know, but over 30 years ago Tovia and I did what ended up being an impromptu debate at the house of a Russian messianic Jew. He had brought us both over there under false pretenses. We did this debate and he asked for those tapes to not be released. Then we did a subsequent debate that was hosted on Sid Roth's broadcast that blanketed New York, New Jersey.

And then we interacted a lot privately after that and then he cut me off, has refused to deal with me under any circumstance, has had many opportunities to debate me and has refused. But actually last year he was supposed to debate Jonathan McClatchy, which is interesting. Jonathan's not a Jewish believer.

And although he's a seasoned apologist, did not specialize in answering Jewish objections to Jesus. What, what happened with the debate? He was supposed to debate and then it got canceled.

Yeah, we were supposed to be debating in Indianapolis last summer in August. The debate was scheduled and everything. And then Tovia Singer had something come up. I think he wanted, or there was a, there was a problem with the venue, like their heating system wasn't working and so they, they wanted to postpone it until, or their, their, their air conditioning, I think it was, was broken, so they wanted to postpone it. And then Tovia Singer was expecting the birth of his grandson and so they wanted, he wanted to wait until after the birth of his grandson so he didn't miss that. And then his grandson was born and then he announced that he actually didn't want to do the debate after all.

So I was a little disappointed it didn't take place. But yeah, I still write various articles relating it to some of Tovia Singer's work. I've read his two volume set, Let's Get Biblical, and I am a frequent follower of his YouTube channel.

Yeah. And you know what's interesting is, is he's avoided debating people like me for over 30 years and there are others like me he's refused to debate. And then he'll find a Christian, maybe debating for the first time, a Christian leader or someone with no background in this, and hold these debates.

And then I heard he was going to debate you, I thought, I don't know that he realizes what he's asking for and my opinion, only opinion, is he dug a little deeper and found you were not the kind of person he wanted to debate. God knows. God knows.

But here's what we do know. He puts out these sensationalistic videos with these sensationalistic titles and you actually get into it and it's like, what are you talking about? So there's one, I didn't watch it, I saw it, you know, don't watch this unless you want to leave Christianity.

It's like, oh, this is going to be the new devastating argument. So he starts out, he gets into Isaiah 53 and we're going to play a clip in a moment. But his basic thesis is that if you read the other chapters, Isaiah 40 to 55, read the surrounding chapters, you'll find out Isaiah 53 is not about Yeshua at all. It's not about the suffering Messiah, it's about the people of Israel.

So let's listen to this clip. You know, James, a very good point. So as it turns out, it's very important if someone wants to remain a Christian to just read Isaiah 53.

That's what you want to do. Here's what you don't want to do if you want to be a Christian tomorrow. Don't read Isaiah 41, 42, 43.

Don't read the chapters that introduce it. Don't read the whole book of Isaiah. Because if you read the whole book of Isaiah, so I'm just going to point out the verses quickly, 41, 89, 42, 6, 43, 10, 44, 1, 21, 45, 4, 48, 20, you can see where this is going.

This is the fourth of four servant songs. No matter what you believe, it's axiomatic that the author Isaiah had in view that if you're reading Isaiah 53, you've read the chapters that introduce it. So if you are watching me right now, listening to my voice, if you want to remain a member of your church in good standing, do not read Isaiah 41, 8, 9. Don't read Isaiah 49, verse 3, where it says explicitly that Israel is God's servant. Don't read Isaiah 48, verse 20, Israel's God's servant. Just read Isaiah 53.

So this is like a helicopter theology where you just land in the 53rd chapter of a 66th chapter book. All right, Jonathan, you've written on this extensively. I've written, taught, debated Isaiah 53 for decades. When you hear that argument, what's your response?

Sure. So Tovia notes correctly that the servant in the book of Isaiah is sometimes identified as the nation of Israel, and he gives a number of examples, which are the same examples he also gives in his Let's Get Biblical, volume 1. I have an article where I go into this topic extensively on my website, JonathanMcClatchy.com, if anyone is interested in checking that out. I have an article entitled The Treasury of Isaiah 53, a Witness to Israel's Messiah, and I interact in that article extensively with some of Tovia Singer's analysis.

I won't go through all of the points that I raise there here, but let me just give you a brief sample. So one of the texts that Tovia likes to cite concerning Israel being the servant is Isaiah 41, verses 8 and 9, where we read, But you, Israel, my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, the offspring of Abraham, my friend, you whom I took from the ends of the earth and called from its furthest corners, saying to you, You are my servant. I have chosen you and cannot cast you off. Fear not, for I am with you. Be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you.

I will help you. I will upload you with my righteous right hand. And so this text reveals actually that far from being saved by Israel's afflictions, those nations who wage war against Israel will in fact be subject to destruction. And this point is borne out in other prophetic texts as well. Jeremiah 30, verse 11, for example, For I am with you to save you, declares the Lord. I will make a full end of all the nations among him I scatter to you. But of you I will not make a full end.

I will discipline you in just measure, and I will by no means leave you unpunished. Jeremiah 46, 20 is another example. Tovia also cites Isaiah 44, where we read, But now here, O Jacob, my servant Israel, whom I have chosen. And then in verse 21, it says, Remember these, so it's identified the servant is Israel.

But then verse 21 and following, it says, Remember these things, O Jacob and Israel, for you are my servant. I formed you. You are my servant to Israel. You will not be forgotten by me. I have blotted out your transgressions like a cloud, and your sins like mist. Return to me, for I have redeemed you. Sing, O heavens, for the Lord has done it.

Shout, O depths of the earth, break forth into singing, O mountains, O forests, and every tree in it. For the Lord has redeemed Jacob and will be glorified in Israel. And so we learn that instead of providing atonement for the nations, Israel herself requires salvation from her own sins. So on the interpretation that the servant is, in fact, Israel, this doesn't really comport particularly well with what we read in Isaiah 53, verses nine and 11.

So it says in verse nine that they made his grave with the wicked and with the rich man his dad, though he had done no violence and there was no deceit in his mouth. Or verse 11, out of the anguish of his soul, he shall see and be satisfied by his knowledge of the righteous one. My servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.

And so forth. As you, as you actually read the various texts that Tovia cites, we learn that, um, that in fact Israel is, uh, is judged for their own sins. They are, they're unrighteous before God. Um, Isaiah 45, four is another example he gives, for the sake of my servant Jacob and Israel my chosen, I call you by your name.

I name you that you do not know me. Um, but in verse, so in verses 17 and 20 and verse 21 and 22 of the same chapter though, we read the following statement. So verse 17 says, but Israel is saved by the Lord with everlasting salvation. You shall not be put to shame or confounded to all eternity. Or verse 21, declare and present your case.

Let them take counsel together. Who told this long ago? Who declared it of old? Was it not I, the Lord? And there is no other God besides me, a righteous God and a savior.

There is none besides me. Turn to me and be saved on the ends of the earth and the God, I am God and there is no other. So Israel is apparently no better than the other nations because Israel also is in need of salvation by God. Um, and so it's example after example, as you read the context, you discovered that actually these, these examples that Toby likes to cite backfire against his argument by showing that Israel cannot really be the servant spoken of in Isaiah 53.

Yeah. So what's really interesting is when you look, even the rabbinic commentators and it's fascinating people that don't know Jewish tradition, they'll believe this rabbi, but this rabbi often contradicts or ignores Jewish tradition, especially when it undermines his argument. So for example, Radaq, one of the so-called big three rabbinic commentators, he says the servant in Isaiah 42 is the Messiah, the Targum, which is the ancient Jewish translation paraphrase of the Hebrew Bible into Aramaic. It identifies the servant there as the Messiah, or for example, Isaiah 49 and 50 rabbinic commentary say that's the prophet Isaiah himself or prophets in general. And then there are many rabbinic traditions that say the servant and Isaiah 52, 13 through 15 is the Messiah. So in point of fact, you have rabbinic tradition saying Toby Singer is wrong, that there are two servants, there is the nation Israel as a whole, and there is the Messiah, the servant of the Lord. And then, as you said Jonathan, but then as you go through other verses, Israel as the servant is guilty of sin, Israel the servant is in exile because of sin, Israel is in darkness and in need of a redeemer. The Messiah as servant does not suffer for his sins, Israel suffers for its own sins, the Messiah suffers for the sins of the people, dies on their behalf, and through his wounds healing comes. The one servant is in need of redemption, the other servant is the redeemer. The one servant is blind and dumb, the other servant comes to open the eyes of the blind and to set the captives free. One is captive in bondage, the other comes to set the captives free. So what we are shouting out is read the context, everybody read the context is our best friend.

So what Toby Singer said, don't read the context, no no, it's quite the opposite, we're shouting to the whole world, read the context because the more you read it you realize, oh, if Israel is the servant, why is there a need for another servant because Israel as a nation falls into sin, even the righteous remnant is unable to save the nation, but there is one among the people, Isaiah 53 6, where God puts the guilt and sin of the people on him and he suffers on our behalf that we become righteous. So, as always, the fatal flaw in the videos, they're pretty easy to find, when we come back, we're going to continue exposing this latest flaw in the medicine. Is brain health important to you or someone you love? Then please take a few moments and let me present a most amazing product formulated by leading physicians from Mayo Clinic and Johns Hopkins Medical.

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Welcome to Carefully Jewish Thursday. You want to check out an amazing website if you have questions, if you're struggling. Maybe you're a follower of Jesus but you're going through a hard time. Maybe you don't know what to believe but you would like to believe. Go to TalkAboutDoubts.com. TalkAboutDoubts.com.

We'll tell you more about that a little later in the broadcast. We're just taking time for the sake of those who get led astray, for those who are uneducated, ignorant of certain things, or just find certain arguments powerful and they don't know where to go for resources. We're taking apart another deeply flawed video of Rabbi Tovias Singer where he makes the claim that if you just knew these arguments, you'd leave Christianity in a moment. It's sad because people get picked off by this. They're counter missionaries, I know, fine rabbis, scholars. We've interacted for years and I don't see them coming up with these kind of cheap, worthless arguments but in any case, they're out there. Tovias is active on the internet so of course we want to help people find the truth. He talks about Daniel 7 verses 13 and 14 that rather than being some type of proof of the gospel message, the Christian message, it's actually self-refuting.

So let's listen to what he has to say. I just would add to this, Christians, if they thought about this, let's say for a moment, if Daniel 7, 13 is speaking about the Messiah, for those who don't know, Daniel 7 is in Aramaic. If Daniel 7 is about the Messiah, that means Jesus can't be the Messiah. Could there be a greater proof that the core tenant of the Christian religion is flawed than Daniel 7 because Daniel 7, 13 and 14, if it is speaking about the Messiah, it says there explicitly, 13 and 14, chapter 7, that all nations will serve him and that his sovereignty will be from one end of the world to the other as we find in Zachariah chapter 9 verse 10. Not the coming in on a donkey into Jerusalem, that everyone else was in the gospels, but verse 10. So most of the world does not believe in Christianity, most of the world, so it didn't happen. So can there be a greater proof that Jesus is not the Messiah than Daniel 7, 13 if we can see it at all? Okay, again, Jonathan, over to you.

How do you respond to his argument? Yeah, so Rabbi Tovias Singer takes the Son of Man in Daniel 7 verse 13 and 14 to be the Messiah, which actually seems to be, I think, a minority view among contemporary Jewish rabbis. Most Jewish rabbis I've interacted with would take the Son of Man figure to be a personification of the nation of Israel.

That seems to be the mainstream view these days. But Rabbi Tovias Singer takes the view, and I agree with him, that this text is actually, in fact, about the Messiah. But he argues that nonetheless this refutes Christianity, because we don't see Jesus having established global dominion, et cetera, as in Daniel 7 verse 14, that him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him.

Dominion is the everlasting dominion which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed. And so if the Messiah hasn't established, if Jesus hasn't established global dominion like he's supposed to in Daniel 7 verse 14, and of course other messianic prophetic texts, then he is disqualified, so the argument goes, from being the Jewish Messiah. The problem with the argument, though, is that if it's at least a plausible reading of the Hebrew Scriptures, that there are two comings of the Messiah in view, then the fact that Jesus hasn't fulfilled the entire messianic mission can only be taken as relatively weak evidence against his messianic identity, when we compare it to the numerous points of specific fulfillment that Jesus has of the messianic prophetic Scriptures. So when we read the Hebrew Bible, we see that there are some texts that deal with the Messiah's suffering. We see that, for example, in Isaiah 53 that we just visited, and there are other texts that deal with the Messiah coming in in glory, like we see in Daniel 7 as well as other texts. And so this, of course, gave rise to the idea among ancient Jewish thinkers that there were perhaps two messiahs. You've got Messiah ben Joseph and Messiah ben David. And another plausible interpretation is, well, maybe there are just two comings. Maybe in the first coming of the Messiah, he comes to suffer as per Isaiah 53 and other Scriptures, and maybe in the second coming, he comes in glory riding on the clouds. And if that's at least a plausible reading of the Hebrew Scriptures, then it can't really be taken as a decisive piece of evidence against his messianic identity.

It would only be relatively weak evidence. And when we have such strong support from numerous messianic texts that he has fulfilled, together with the fact that Jesus proved his messianic identity by returning from the dead, that I think provides us with strong justification for thinking that he will indeed return to fulfill the rest of the messianic mission. Any further thoughts on that, Dr. Brent?

Yeah, absolutely. Of course, amen to everything you just said. First, Rabbi Singer certainly knows that the Talmud itself raises the question in the tractate Sanhedrin beginning at the end of 96B as to, is the son of David, is he coming in the clouds of heaven as per Daniel 7? Or is he coming meek and lowly riding on a donkey as per Zechariah 9? And the answer is that if we're worthy, he'll come in the clouds of heaven. And if we're unworthy, he'll come meek and lowly riding on a donkey. The only problem is the Bible doesn't say either or, the Bible says both and.

They're both going to happen. So how do we understand it? Well, his first coming and his second coming. And as you said, you have all these prophecies about his first coming, and I can make a very strong case that scripture indicated that he had to come before the second temple was destroyed, and that we see from other passages that he would die, that he would be rejected, and that he would rise again, so you say, okay, well, who suffered, was rejected by his own people, died, rose again before the destruction of the temple, and who, according to the scriptures, has become a light to nations around the world, there are more people professing to be followers of Jesus than any other religious faith on the entire world, and through him they've come to know the God of Israel, so who is that person? Well then, who's the only possible candidate to fulfill the rest? And you have passages like Isaiah 42, he will not falter or be discouraged till he establishes justice on the earth, in his teaching the islands will put their hope.

So this is a process, this is an ongoing process. The last thing that I find so ironic, and as you mentioned, rabbinic Judaism comes up with the idea of two messiahs, the suffering messiah, the son of Joseph, and the ruling and reigning messiah, the son of David, or there's a priestly messiah and a royal messiah, so it has two messiahs, whereas the Bible only speaks of one, and we say it's one with two phases of his work, two comings, but the thing that's the most ironic is that we're drawn to this very passage because of Yeshua himself quoting it in the gospels, most prominently in Mark the 14th chapter, where he says explicitly that you'll see the son of man coming in the clouds, meaning in the future. So he himself is telling us when this is going to happen in the future. So when Rabbi Simeon says, don't read this unless you want to forsake your Christian faith, once again it's the exact opposite, read it to confirm your faith. We've got about a minute and a half for any closing thoughts you have.

Yeah, I think that's exactly right. There are different approaches that one can take to understanding the Hebrew Scriptures. You can understand it as there will be two messiahs, you can understand it that the manner in which the messiah will come will depend on the state of the nation of Israel before God, and another plausible interpretation is that there are in fact two comings, and given that it's a plausible interpretation, I think this is only relatively weak evidence against Jesus' messianic identity. Yeah, and you know what I love is that you're a research scholar, you do debates, but you wouldn't be called a polemicist in that regard, you're just kind of dispassionately weighing the evidence. Whereas I've been debating rabbis and interacting for over 50 years, and in my mind it's more kind of demolition, like this is the most ridiculous self-refuting argument. Like you said, the earlier ones, don't read the context, and you actually say read the context because it backfires against their position, but I love the way you so dispassionately say it's at best relatively weak, and I'm saying it, you completely shoot yourself in the foot with just the difference in our personalities and approaches, but friends, all that to say that you'll find Jonathan to be a faithful guide because he's not coming with an axe to grind or a point to prove, and in fact we'll talk about that on the other side of the break, because you remain as thinking man as I do, and for decades I've taken in, let's look at the arguments, just as you do, go to the website to visit TalkAboutDoubts.com or JonathanAndClapSheets.com, we'll be right back.

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Welcome back friends to a fairly Jewish social shalom, shalom to each of you. I'm joined by my colleague Jonathan McClatchy, our research scholar, scholar-biologist with the Discovery Institute. Jonathan, just take a moment to tell us about the Discovery Institute and your work there.

Sure. So Discovery Institute is a nonprofit organization. They fund research into and promote the public understanding of intelligent design, which is a study of patterns in nature, which bear the hallmarks of conscious activity. And so the intelligent design argument is that there are certain features of nature, both in the physical and life sciences that point to an intelligent creator as being responsible for their origin. So for example, the information content of the cell and every other realm of experience when you find information content encoded in digital form, language conventions and information processing storage retrieval apparatus and irreducible complex machines and complex arrangements of parts and so forth.

We habitually associate those with conscious activity. And so the existence of such phenomena in the biological realm is not particularly surprising if we suppose that a mind is involved, but becomes wildly surprising on the falsity of that hypothesis or so I would contend. And so in light of that vastly top heavy likelihood ratio, it confirms a design perspective. And so that's the essence of the intelligent design argument. And of course, it can be applied to the physical sciences as well. You probably heard of the fine tuning of the laws and consulates of our universe, as well as the prior environmental fitness of nature, those features of chemistry and so forth that seem to be designed so as to make nature conducive to life, in particular advanced life.

And that I think makes better sense on a theistic perspective than on a naturalistic perspective. So I've been working there full time since June of this year. I was previously a professor at Sadler College in Boston, as you mentioned, in Massachusetts. And yeah, so I do a lot of writing for evolutionnews.org, which is the official blog of the Discovery Institute. You can find the podcast idthefuture.com. I'm a regular guest on that as well, talking about evidence of design in the natural world.

So yeah, there's a little bit of background about the Discovery Institute. Wonderful. And even though you've experienced forgiveness of sins in the Lord, you enjoy fellowship with the Lord, you didn't come to the Lord through a mystical experience, but through analyzing of evidence. Again, could you just give us the brief explanation of how it is that you conclude it, the truth of the gospel?

Sure. So I actually grew up in a Christian home. So I actually became a Christian quite young, when I was around seven years old. So I didn't undertake a lot of that kind of intellectual analysis at that age. But when I went to university, I was confronted with various worldview perspectives.

I had good friends who were Muslims, I had a close friend who was a Jehovah's Witness, I had a good friend who was a Daoist, and I knew a lot of atheists. And I became very interested in the question of how can we robustly determine the validity or otherwise of religious claims. And so I became very interested in religious epistemology, which is the discipline within philosophy that explores how we know what we believe we know.

And so I'm a very staunch evidentialist, I'm a Christian, because I am persuaded by the public evidence that Christianity is actually true. So there's essentially five major lines of argument that I would use for Christianity. One would be the case for the resurrection of Jesus. Another one would be the conversion of Saul of Tarsus. Another would be the argument from messianic prophecy.

Another would be the C.S. Lewis-Tralema argument, and the final one would be the argument from contemporary miracles. And I believe that those arguments, particularly taken in aggregate, provide a very compelling justification for thinking that Christianity is in fact true. Right, so it's not a matter of turn your mind off, it's a matter of examine the facts, examine the evidence. And that's what we encourage folks to do.

And that's the frustration that we can have as people have studied and dug into these things when you'll see some sensationalistic video from Rabbi Singer with a sensationalistic title and very bombastic claims as if he's like changing the world and all these Christians are finding the truth through him, etc. And it's like, oh, this is so easy to answer. This is so easy.

It's not even you have to think about it. It's sad that people get duped. So in this sensationalistic video, just watch, don't watch this unless you want to lose your Christian faith, he makes a claim about anti-Semitism in the Gospels that basically there's an evolutionary development that from Mark to the earliest to John to the latest, they become increasingly anti-Jewish. Let's listen to what he has to say. Jacob hosted a conversation I had with Bart Ehrman, no less. And he agreed with me that the passion narrative in all four Gospels is a fiction quite clearly. That it is allegorical and it is, in effect, a political allegory, blaming, attempting to blame collectively, astonishingly, collectively the Jews for the death of Jesus while simultaneously exonerating the Romans for what was clearly a Roman execution, crucifixion, a distinctly Roman form of execution. And the story, all four Gospels, what they all share in common are certain similarities, the betrayal of Judas, the conviction by the Sanhedrin, Pilate declaring Jesus to be innocent in all four Gospels, and a Jewish crowd chanting for Jesus, insisting, violently insisting on Jesus's death. Even in Matthew's Gospel, as if we needed the point, the crowd, I guess in unison, collectively says his blood is on us and on our children. Professor Ehrman agreed with me that that's a political fiction designed to blame the Jews and exonerate the Romans for what is pretty clearly a Roman execution. Right, because as we can mark that, pun intended, the earlier, so all the four Gospels seek to exonerate Rome, Pontius Pilate, and seek to hold the Jews uniquely guilty for Jesus's crucifixion. And as you pointed out in Matthew 27, 25, the Jews say crucifying, we take it upon ourselves and our children. And it's only in Matthew's passion narrative that we're introduced to Mrs. Pontius Pilate, who also thinks that Jesus is completely innocent, but that you could see the plot devices you pointed out, James, because of the four Gospels, the mark, the earliest, is least anti-Semitic.

All of them, it's a nightmare. All four, the Jews just do terribly. If you, the viewer, like Jews and want to remain a Philo-Semite, do not read the Gospels. Don't read the passion narratives.

We don't do well. But Mark is the least bad, and John is the worst of all. All right, so Jonathan, over to you. As someone who's studied the Gospels quite intensively for years now, what's your response? Yeah, so the individual that he is interacting with in this clip brings up Bar-Ehrman, who raises this particular point. He raises it in his book Jesus Interrupted, that there is this increasing anti-Semitism. Mark is the earliest Gospel written, that's a consensus scholarly view, which I agree with, and that Matthew and Luke came later, and then John is the latest of the Gospels to be composed. And the argument is that in the earliest Gospel, Mark, it is the least anti-Semitic, whereas John, which is the latest Gospel, is the most pro-Roman and the most anti-Jewish. And so you have this evolutionary development, this trajectory, if you will, towards increasing anti-Semitism.

And when you actually inspect the accounts, this argument just collapses. Let's go through the relevant texts. So let's start with Mark. So Mark, as I mentioned, is the earliest Gospel written, but as we'll find, Mark actually doesn't fit this pattern at all. Mark, like all the other Gospels, describes the plot of the Jewish leaders, and the chief priest to kill Jesus. Mark, also like all of the Synoptics, records the plot of the chief priests and the bribe given to Judas to betray Jesus. Mark, like the other Gospels, tells us that those who arrested Jesus in Gethsemane were sent from the chief priests. Mark also tells us that Jesus was tried by night before the high priest. Mark tells us that the Jewish leaders delivered him to Pilate in Mark 15-9 and Mark 15-14.

Pilate tries to get the Jewish crowd to allow him to release Jesus, but how does that fact square with Bart Ehrman's claim, and apparently Tobias Singer's claim, that in Mark, Bart Ehrman says it's basically Pilate and the Jewish leaders pretty much agreeing that this needs to be done. Now, what about Matthew? Well, the statement, his blood be on us and our children, which comes from the Jewish crowd, it's a very striking statement, but Matthew comes before Luke and John and they don't have that statement, right?

So the contrast counts when Ehrman wants to show development from Mark to Matthew, but then it's conveniently forgotten when he moves on to Luke and John. What about Luke then? Well, Luke doesn't have the dramatic hand washing scene found in Matthew where Pilate washes his hands of this man.

Luke 23-27 has a great crowd of Jewish people weeping and mourning as Jesus is led out to be crucified, right? How is this more anti-Jewish than Matthew's account? Well, what about John? Well, besides lacking the dramatic scene in Matthew, John also lacks the odd Roman centurion, but isn't John as the last author writing supposed to be the most pro-Roman, right? So John doesn't include the Roman centurion that says, surely this was a righteous man.

In Mark, the Jewish leaders mock Jesus on the cross, but this mockery is not recorded in John. Well, why not if John's gospel is further along the trajectory of anti-Jewish sentiment? So there's all kinds of problems with this approach to examining the gospels. I would maintain that in fact all evolutionary developmental theories concerning the gospels are essentially bunk and this is just one example of those. When you actually read the text for yourself, the argument does not survive an initial cursory inspection of the relevant passages. You know, there's a story, Jonathan, of a could be apocryphal story of the famed German professor Hegel, and he went and presented his, he had just given a lecture about his theory of historical development and things like that, and one of his students said, Hey Hegel, the historical evidence is against your position, and according to the story, which again, this may be apocryphal, Professor Hegel replied, so much for history.

In other words, I have a theory of history, and if the historical facts don't fit it, so much for history. And it's also interesting, although for sure you have conflicts in John between the Jews, which normally means the Jewish leaders in particular, contextually, for example, John 9, the Jewish parents of the blind man, the Jewish blind man, are distinguished from the Jews meaning the Jewish leaders. But it's interesting that John 4.22, that's in John, the most overt statement in the gospels, salvation is from the Jews. That's in John's gospel, allegedly the most anti-Semitic of all of them. All right, friends, we want to talk, get into this a little bit further, and then talk about dealing with doubts, dealing with questions, the website you go to is talkaboutdoubts.com, and it's not just a place for, I have a question, there are lots of websites for questions, but this is really for you, if you're really struggling, you're really trying to figure this out.

If you're a Muslim and you've read the New Testament and you're really trying to work this out, or you're a Christian and you've been presented an argument you've never heard before and you're struggling your faith, this is a place where you can actually connect directly with other scholars, other professors, other apologists who are going to take it by the hand and say, let's get through this, and they've seen great proof, not by looking through the evidence, but by looking at. Are you or a cherished loved one finding it harder to remember names, stay focused, or maintain a positive outlook on life? Well, you're not alone. I'm Dr. Paul, and I have a critical health alert. Did you know that approximately two out of three Americans age 50 and older experience some level of cognitive impairment affecting their daily lives?

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Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks once more for joining us on the Line of Fire. If you're not receiving my emails, stop right now. Don't laugh through driving.

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So let us stand with you together in Jesus' name. We make a difference. So I responded to a video by Jeff Durbin, a colleague, we are not close, we have interacted here and there, but a respected colleague who is very, very close with James White who is a dear friend of mine and James and Jeff are super close, you know, been side by side working together. So James is an esteemed colleague and friend and Jeff an esteemed colleague although I only know him a little. So I interacted with him privately about a video he put out and some statements he made I differed with and some footage he played from Israel that I thought was not helpful. Very respectfully he just interacted privately and he is just, it was so in the midst of some things that he is dealing with, some really important things that he was dealing with and facing that he was unable to get into a protracted discussion or anything.

So we just left it there but I said I am going to put a video out and then of course let him know about it. So as a result of this, number one, what I did was I went through every scripture, every scripture, Romans and other key verses where Paul was talking about Jew circumcised and asked who he was talking about, who he was talking about and it was clear passage after passage after passage in the New Testament that he is speaking about the Jewish people as a whole, not just believers but Jewish people as a whole, not Christians who lived as followers of the Messiah but Jewish people as a whole and in one passage it is possible he was saying even a Gentile who lives like this they are like a real Jew in God's sight but throughout all of his writings, verse after verse after verse after verse after verse after verse when he said Jew circumcised he meant Jewish people in general, clearly 100%, I mean there is no ambiguity in it whatsoever. And then verses about Israel, I mean we went verse after verse after verse, of course I looked at them all in the Greek to make sure there is no ambiguity or anything like that and it is pretty straightforward actually. No insult to Jeff, no insult to my brother at all but pretty straightforward when you actually go through it and then read the context before and after.

You may differ with me but I will debate anybody any time on this. So there are times where Jew occurs in the Gospel or in Acts where it especially means Jewish leaders, many scholars recognize that but very clearly it does not mean anyone who follows Jesus is therefore a spiritual Jew, that is not how the word is used throughout the New Testament. So I dealt with that and then I said listen, there is some footage of some ultra-orthodox Jews spitting on Christians and at a time when there is so much anti-Semitism and misunderstanding, I do not see that as helpful to show, I mean what is it proving that you have some extremist Jews that hate Christians, we know that but is it not worthy that these incidents were denounced by Prime Minister Netanyahu himself, that they were denounced by chief rabbis and other religious Jews and that this was not the case and in fact many of them have a complete misconception of who Jesus is, the only Jesus they know in their mind was a sorcerer and an evil person, that is all I know about him, these false reports and in addition to that church history which sometimes butchered persecuted Jews, gave Jews the choice of baptism or death and in many Jewish eyes led straight to the Holocaust, well that is what they know so when they are spitting in anger it is wrong, it is unjustified, that is why it is denounced by Jewish leadership, secular and religious but I took issue with that. Anyway, as a result we get this long comment, a marketer of the word of God, is it not? You see this tendency, I can show you time after time, the moment you differ with someone, you are now doing it for profit, the moment you differ with someone, you are now a marketer of the word of God. You know the thing that is funny, for example when I read a new book and then our ministry says hey you can get the book through us, we are going to do a pre-order, signed, numbered copies or anytime I go out and speak and we sell books or anytime you go to our website and order a book, you can order a thousand books, I don't get a dime of that, it doesn't come to me, not a penny, not a royalty, nothing, zero. That goes right back out into ministry, absolutely. For many years when I wrote books, I signed all my royalties over to the ministry because I wanted to make sure that I never wrote to make money and it was only after being lovingly rebuked by a friend who found out I had no retirement fund or anything, he said Michael you started taking royalties and putting money aside, it wasn't that long ago. These ideas strike me so utterly bizarre but in any case, here is a quote, so shameful to see and hearing what I am witnessing of this man Michael Brown who is a book writer that uses the name of God Almighty to promote his own name and trade with the word. So I guess you can't write a Christian book and put your name on it, is that it? Using his own pagan writings to discuss and twist a matter he does not agree with in the written holy scriptures. What pagan writings are they talking about? All the scriptures that I quoted?

Verse after verse after verse after verse to the point almost of boredom like same thing again and again and again. You know why he must reread his own book? Because what he says does not come from the Holy Spirit, the fact that I addressed something in a book and then said, here let me refer to this, I have written this before, let me refer to it again, that means that the Holy Spirit is not speaking for me.

Well, what if the Holy Spirit led me to write the book or helped me to write the book or anointed me in writing the book and what if what is written in the book is true and scriptural? Michael Brown writes books because he cannot understand the word of God and which by the way is not enough for his personal beliefs and therefore now in his blindness publicly contradicts not only Apostle Paul but Jesus as well. I just leave the scriptures here where Jesus himself refers to the false Jews and rebukes them. So of course, quotes Revelation 3, 9 which we read through endlessly, which refers to either Gentiles who claim to be Jews and were not and were opposed in the gospel or exposed or Jews who because they were opposed in the preaching of the gospel, Jesus calls the synagogue of Satan and says you're not really acting like Jews. What's that got to do with the rest of the Jewish population? Isaiah 5, all these verses where God rebukes Israel in the Old Testament as his beloved people and gives them promises of restoration but do they matter? No. So all the times when God judges Israel in the Old Testament but then says but I speak to you with love, even when I rebuke you, I love you and yes, I poured out my wrath on you but that's going to end.

That was only for a short time. My restoration and my love and favor are going to be forever and on and on and on. None of that matters. Which is the classic anti-Semitic view? The curses are for the Jews. The blessings are for the Christians. The bad stuff is for Israel.

The good stuff is for the church. God says to the Jewish people, I will scatter you in my wrath. That's the Jews, Israel, evil and I will regather you with my love.

Oh, that's the church, Christians, beautiful. Talk about an anti-Semitic reading of the word. By the way, I have one video of Michael Brown where a crowd of Jews are harassing him as well and spit on what he's saying. Did you forget Michael when you used to preach there?

Who forgot? Who forgot someone saying in Hebrew on the camera, they don't believe in Yeshua or Yeshua as they call them and spitting on the ground? Yeah, I was praying for that guy as he did and wondering, I wonder how God's going to save him? Yes, there are religious Jews that hate Christians, absolutely. They're not saved. They don't know the Lord, but that is not your average Israeli person and that is not your average Israeli, even religious Jew walking around spitting on Christians.

If that was the case, tourism would end overnight. Anyway, may the Lord have mercy. Do I have time here? Let's see.

What's this one? When I talk with a Palestinian. He is no doctor. He is a quack. His information is wrong.

Okay. How about this one? A pompous. Well, I can't read the second word. This is when I speak plainly about Andy Stanley's wrong views about homosexual practice and the wrong examples that he said for his church by bringing in men who are in relationship married, quote, married to other men and take him to task for having them speak at his church.

You are a pompous blank. Pick and choose those parts of the Bible that agree with your cultural beliefs. What hypocrisy. And how do you know God won't bless gay marriage? There are people that think God blesses that idiot sinner Trump. Who's to know?

Clean up your own house. Well, may the Lord bless this person as well. When you resort to name calling, you pretty much disqualify yourself out of the gate. When you resort to ridiculous, broad, sweeping, angry statements, you pretty much disqualify yourself out of the gate. So for those who have a valid criticism or valid concern or a valid issue, do your best just a word of wisdom here.

Do your best to present it in a way that will actually get a hearing rather than in such a way that we're down to the door being shut. Now, again, we have thousands of such comments along with much more hateful ones and gestures. And we pray God's blessing on those who have received the text for those who are in sin. And for those that curse us and bless you from the heart. In Jesus' name. Another program powered by the Truth Network. Truth Network.