Christmas Theology

This is The Dividing Line. The Apostle Peter commanded all Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us. Yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence. Your host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha and Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.

This is a live program and we invite your participation. And now with today's topic, here is James White.

Christmas, the Incarnation, and the Meaning of Isaiah 9:6-7

And welcome to The Dividing Line. My name is James White and today is the 23rd of December. If you are listening live, that is. If you're listening to the Archive broadcast, that may or may not be a true statement for you.

I suppose you could listen to this a year from now and it would be true a second time and it'd be true, well, basically once every year. But given that it is the 23rd of December, it is only a day away from Christmas Eve and then Christmas itself.

And I am aware of the fact that there are those who do not believe that Christians should celebrate the Christmas holiday. I am NOT one of those people. I believe that it is perfectly proper for us to celebrate the greatest gift that God has ever given and that is His Son given to redeem His people.

I think of Matthew 121 and the fact that Jesus is described as His name is described as indicating to us, He shall save His people from their sins. And that, of course, is a description of the work that Jesus Christ accomplishes.

And, of course, the Son was given to us and what we're going to do today is we're going to look into the Scriptures, look at an important section of Scripture regarding the incarnation of Jesus Christ, and then, as time allows, note some very common, sadly, denials of the reality of the incarnation of Jesus Christ, the reality of the Christmas season itself.

And I think you'll be a little bit surprised at some of the denials that are out there from various religious groups and one, especially, that's real big on celebrating Christmas. And yet, in its theology, there is a substantive problem in regards to the incarnation and the meaning of the incarnation and the reality of the incarnation.

Now, what are we talking about when we use the term incarnation? Well, obviously, when you think of the word itself in Latin, we're talking there about the taking of flesh. Obviously, the key passage, John 1 14, the word became flesh.

And obviously, when we're speaking of such a high doctrine as this, we are referring to the deity of Christ, that the one who took on flesh has eternally been God, that there has never been a time when the Son was not God.

And, of course, that means when we talk about the incarnation, we're talking about the entrance into human flesh of the God-man, that Jesus Christ was fully God and that he was fully man. This is the doctrine of the incarnation.

And it really is the basis, the only reason, for the celebration of Christmas as it is known today. And I agree with many who would say that the Christmas celebration of people in the world is far short of what should be a Christmas celebration.

And, in fact, within the church itself, the celebration is obviously sub-biblical. I believe that, obviously, we should be focused upon this tremendous truth of the incarnation. And yet, obviously, in many situations, if you were to raise the word incarnation, many of those who may very much enjoy celebrating Christmas would have no idea what you're talking about.

And, of course, that should not be. But what we want to do is to insert as much truth as we can into this Christmas celebration so that when we gather and consider what God has done in Jesus Christ, we will be reminded that even though the world itself mocks the belief in the deity of Christ, mocks the belief in the virgin birth, in the miracles of Christ, in the resurrection of Christ, in the return of Christ, that we as Christians in truly celebrating Christmas would be doing so in such a way as to remind everyone around us, ourselves included, what the Christmas season really does represent.

And so I'd like to focus today on the dividing line, on the prophecy of the coming of this Messiah that is found in the ninth chapter of the book of Isaiah. Isaiah chapter 9 contains one of those tremendous messianic prophecies that obviously goes far beyond what the prophet Isaiah himself could have possibly understood in regards to the revelation that was given to him, the word of the Lord that came to him.

And I am of course referring to the words of the prophet in Isaiah 9, 6, and 7, which I'll read for you now from the New American Standard Bible. For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us, and the government will rest on his shoulders, and his name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.

There will be no end to the increase of his government or of peace on the throne of David and over his kingdom to establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness from then on and forevermore the zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish this.

Now this passage written seven centuries before the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, before the incarnation, demonstrates to us the divine character of prophetic scripture. Sadly in our day today, I have to report to you that in a large portion of what is called Christian scholarship, there is no longer any idea, any acceptance of a truly supernatural, divine element to Old Testament prophecy.

You may ask, well, why is that? Why? How could it possibly be that anyone could study the Old Testament and not be amazed at something like Isaiah 9 .6? Well, a number of reasons. Generally, the reason that I would have to give for the majority of places of higher learning is the rejection of the idea that the Old Testament is a consistent whole, that it is a revelation from God.

Instead, most places today embrace the idea that the Old Testament is in point of fact a compilation of man's writings that is internally self-contradictory, that while it may contain the ruminations of men, the thinking of men, regarding the interaction of God, maybe the attributes of God or something like that, it does not actually embody a revelation that comes from God.

And yes, this sadly is even in certainly the quote-unquote mainline denominations, the mainline seminaries, and even in conservative seminaries, you will have an acceptance of various theories regarding the subject of the Old Testament that, in essence, relegate it to the same class as pretty much all all ancient texts of various and sundry religious peoples.

And so it is not seen as as the unique Word of God. The dating of various books is pushed way, way, way beyond what would make sense if Isaiah was who Isaiah claimed to be, so on and so forth. And so the result is that there is, sadly, an entire generation, in fact generations, of people coming out of the quote-unquote Christian seminaries in our land, who would look at a passage like this not as a supernatural revelation given by God seven centuries before the events of that glorious birth in Bethlehem, but instead would see it as a later redaction that was referring not to the coming Messiah, and that in reality only later generations, in fact later Christian generations, would take these words and say, ah, I see in these words something that I can apply to Jesus, and is it any wonder then that as a result we do not see the type of preaching on this passage that we used to see in centuries gone by when it was accepted for what it really is, and that is a supernatural prophecy.

Think about the words as they are found in Isaiah 9 6. I'd like to especially focus upon the first two phrases. For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us. Now, have you thought about that phrase?

We sing it all the time. In fact, I would later on like to play a section from some of the most beautiful music ever penned by man, the setting to music of these words by Handel, of course, in the Messiah.

But a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us. In the original Hebrew text, the word for child is yeled, the very same term that would be the birth of any child, and in fact the word born is related to that, and that's the very same phrase that you would find that would refer to the normal birth of a child.

I think what we have in that first phrase is the human side, the same thing that is picked up by the Apostle John in John 1 14 when he said the word became flesh. Even in the Greek Septuagint, Paideion is used and Genao is used, and these are terms that again do not direct us to any kind of understanding other than the fact that the one who is born here is truly a child.

Now, I admit I have been bothered at times by some of the myths that we have picked up from various songs that are not exactly theologically correct. For example, we've all heard the song that speaks of the little baby Jesus, no crying he makes.

Well, I can guarantee you if a child was born to us, that child cried. That is natural for a human baby to cry. It is important for the newborn child to cry to open up the lungs and to begin the respiratory process.

And so there is nothing in Scripture that tells us that the baby that was born to us wasn't really a baby. It was just God masquerading as a human. No, there's nothing in Scripture that would even begin to suggest such a concept to us.

The child was born. He didn't just appear in a manger. He wasn't beamed out of Mary's womb by some miraculous force. A child was born. There was a birth that took place. There were birth pains involved with the delivery of this child, just like every other child has entered into this world.

Now, why is that important? Well, some of the greatest heresies in the history of the church have been focused upon the denial of the humanity of Christ. I realized in our day and age that we are primarily focused upon defending the deity of Christ because there are so many that deny the deity of Christ.

But that was not the primary concern in the early church. The primary concern in the early church were those that denied the humanity of Christ. They were all too ready to accept a divine individual who may be like the the Greek gods entered into our world and performed miracles or things like that, but that was not the Christian message.

The Christian message was of the God-man, and you cannot deny either one of those two terms and still have biblical truth. Jesus Christ is the God-man. A child was born and yet he was born to us. You see, Christ came to bring redemption.

The cross was not some afterthought. There was a beautiful song I saw sung at a church that we went to many years ago in the Christmas musical. It was called the shadow of the cross. And what we did in preparing for the song is one of the lights, it was a very large church, one of the lights we put a lens on it and a red covering and a cutout so that there was a cradle on in the front of the church and this light would project the shadow of a cross across the stable and across the manger where the Christ child was laid.

And the idea that was communicated there, I think is found here in the original text of Isaiah chapter 9. Because it says a child we born to us. Sometimes we go shooting past that particular phrase but it's there both in the Greek and in the Hebrew.

A child we born to us. Who is us? Well, some would say well, it could only be the people of Israel and yet we know that this child who was born in Bethlehem all through his ministry spoke of the gospel going out, yes to the people of Israel, but as in the gospel of John he spoke of other sheep that he had and when he ascended into heaven, he commanded his disciples to go into all the world and we know that as we mentioned before Matthew 121 the angel said his name shall be called Jesus for he shall save his people from their sins and so a child will be born to us for us and it was the man Jesus Christ who died upon the cross.

It was his flesh that felt the the nails. He was a God-man that never changed. We don't believe as some of those early heretics in the church did that when Christ was nailed to the cross the quote-unquote Godward side of him in some sense was disassociated from the one suffering on the cross.

That certainly would not be a biblical belief at all. But he was truly a man. He truly hungered. He truly experienced thirst. He truly experienced exhaustion, physical weariness. And why is that so vital?

Because without that there is no redemption. Without that there is no salvation. Without that there is no atonement. He was made like us so that he might suffer and he might bear in his body the penalty of the sins that was due to his people.

And so the first thing to remember is that that child who was born was a child, was truly born, and he entered into this world for a purpose and that purpose was the redemption of his own people. I hope as you consider, as you consider the Christmas season as it is upon us, that in all the busyness, in all the rush, you will think about what it means that Christ was truly man.

That it was a historical fact that he entered into human flesh, into our world. But then look at that next phrase. A son will be given to us. A son will be given to us. Do you see the difference between the two phrases?

A son will be given. Nathan is the Hebrew term. Didymi, the Greek term used in the Septuagint. A son will be given to us. Same phrase, to us. They're obviously meant to be parallel passages. This is an example of what we have in Hebrew, of Hebrew parallelism.

And so surely the son of the second phrase is the child of the first. And yes, the being born is the parallel to being given. But Hebrew parallelism does not necessarily mean that everything in the second phrase is meant to be taken as a simple restatement of the first.

A son will be given to us. It is not, I believe, a mere coincidence that the New Testament speaks of the Father's giving of the Son. And I think we do see here, and yes, I accept the fact that we're dealing here with looking at this passage with New Testament eyes, with biblical eyes, with Christian eyes, seeing Isaiah 9 .6 as part of the totality of Scripture.

But I do not think that we are doing anything wrong to the passage to look at this and go, a son will be given to us complements the first phrase, but here we have the divine person. The Son himself, though I don't believe the Old Testament gives us specific terms of Father, Son, and Spirit as we have in the Incarnation, but since it is talking about the Incarnation here, this Son who is given to us is the Son who is given by the Father.

Who else can give a son but a Father? And here there is a giving, and in the background of that giving there has to be a giver. And does that not cause us to think of John chapter 3? For God so loved the world that he did what?

That he gave. He gave his unique what? Son. I think that we are on solid ground to see what is being said here. And in point of fact, when we look at the Greek of John 3 .16, and we look at the Greek Septuagint of Isaiah 9 .6, we see that the same verb is used for giving, not in the same form because the time frames are different, but it's the same word.

And we find that, of course, it is the same word for Son. And so I think that there is a parallel between these two, and that we see in Isaiah 9 .6 in a revelation given by prophecy, seven centuries before the Incarnation, an indication that we can see, and I think it's fair for us to see, in the light of the New Testament revelation.

The humanity of the one who is to be born, as well as this indication of the deity, the divinity of the one who is given again to us. To us. Now, there's no question that Isaiah chapter 9 does present to us the deity of Christ.

You can see that as we look farther in the verse. He is called the mighty God, the El Gabor in the Hebrew language, a term that is used of Yahweh himself in Isaiah 1021. So we're not being unfair with the passage to recognize that it plums the very depths of the Incarnation itself seven centuries before the events it's describing.

And now, if you are like me, and you have heard the thinking of the world, you may, like me, struggle just a little bit to really grasp hold of what it means to believe that this prophecy existed for seven centuries, that this truth was revealed by God seven centuries before the events, and that there was a revelation of the very nature of the Incarnation itself right there in the scriptures.

And why do I say, if you're like me, you struggle with that? Because we live in a naturalistic society. We live in a society that, in essence, tries to form our thinking into such a way as so that we struggle mightily with the miraculous.

We struggle mightily with recognizing the supernatural. It's all around us, and we have to, in essence, work at having a mindset that properly understands what the scriptures are saying to us, and we have to resist the temptation to rip from the text these truths and its supernatural nature, just so that it fits more easily with the way we have been taught to think in our culture today.

Isaiah 9 6 goes on to say, the government will rest upon the shoulders of this one who is born and given. That is, he is going to be a king. He is going to have authority. What kind of authority? Well, authority in all realms, spiritual and in the physical.

And of course, the Lord Jesus had to struggle in teaching his disciples that the reign of Christ over the world that is visible is one that comes after his work as the suffering Messiah. But the government will rest, and his name will be called, and remember, of course, a name in Hebrew says much more about the person.

Remember, Jacob was the supplanter. Edom had red hair. I mean, they used names to actually describe something about the character of the individual. And so, his name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.

Now, what do those phrases mean? Well, some believe that Wonderful and Counselor, I guess that means we're going to be taking a break now. I didn't know that, but we're gonna be taking a break. We have one phone caller online, and we'll be right back after this.

Isaiah 9:6, the Deity of Christ, and the Names of the Messiah

And welcome back to The Dividing Line. My name is James White, and I'm the last one to know about when breaks are coming. Thankfully, I can hear the music and roll with the punches and hopefully remember where in the world I was when we're talking about Isaiah chapter 9 verse 6, the description of Christ as Wonderful Counselor, the one who is able to give us the wisdom that he is described as having in the book of Colossians.

He is called the El Gabor, the Mighty God. And as I mentioned before, that cannot simply be dismissed. It is interesting to note that Jehovah's Witnesses do admit that Isaiah 9 6 is about Christ, and that he is called a Mighty God, but not the Almighty God.

But they neglect to note, or most are simply ignorant of the fact, that the very same phrase, El Gabor, is used in Isaiah 10 21 of Jehovah himself. But, of course, they would simply say, well, okay, well, he's a Mighty God, too, but unless Jesus is called Almighty God, then he's, I guess, a secondary God or something like that.

But we do clearly have here an indication of the deity of Christ. And then the phrase that causes a lot of people a lot of confusion is the phrase Eternal Father, because they assume that you have Trinitarian names in the Old Testament, that you have here the the phrase Father, and that this then confuses Christ with the Father, even though it was said above a son will be given to us.

But I think the easiest way to understand what is being said here is that he is the Father in the same way that the Old Testament describes that use of the word Father, and that is, it's in regards to the one who creates.

When the term Father is used of Jehovah, it is normally in regards to the context of God as Creator. And so the Hebrew phrase Aviyad that is used there, it's actually just one word, actually translated as Eternal Father, would refer to the fact that Christ is Eternal, and he is the one from whom all things came, just as the Father is the source.

So in this way, the Son is described as the one who has eternally existed and is the one through whom all things were made. I think this is a parallel to Colossians chapter 1, verses 15 and following.

And then he is described as the Prince of Peace, the Prince of Peace, the one who brings peace, the one who can command peace. And I think that we cannot help but recognize Romans 5 1, the Jesus Christ is described there as the one through whom, and only through whom, we have peace with God.

He is the Prince of Peace. These are obviously very high titles, and to understand them does require an understanding of what Christ has done. It does require a New Testament, a pair of New Testament eyes, I guess you might say, to fill out what these phrases mean.

But that is the nature of prophecy itself. And so they are important words. They are words that certainly communicate much to us. Well, we're going to take some phone calls. We're gonna start with, if we can, with Johnny on line one.

Johnny, are you there? Yes, I'm right here. Jim, can you hear me? I certainly can, sir. I can't hear you. Okay, well, hello. I'm not sure why you can't hear me. I can't hear you. Alrighty, well, why don't we put Johnny back on hold until we can figure out how to get me together with Johnny, and we've managed to work it out last week, so I know there's a way to do it.

How about trying Dave? Maybe Dave can hear me. Dave, can you hear me? Yes, I can hear you. Can you hear me? I can hear you just fine. I can barely hear you, but I can hear you. Alrighty, well, we'll try to adjust things.

Uh-oh, you just faded out on me. I'll tell you, today's a rough day. We're having problems all around today for some strange reason, but we sort of thought Saturdays would be a little bit easier because we wouldn't be having network congestion.

So you can't hear me at all, Dave? I can hear you now. Can you hear me now? Okay, good. Alrighty, well, we'll work on getting Johnny back on here in a second, too. So what can I help you with, Dave?

Well, I get. You're talking about what the dual nature of Christ. Is that it?

Well, we've been talking about the Incarnation, and we've been talking about Isaiah 9 6 and its testimony to the to the Incarnation of Christ and the fact that I think we do have the the dual nature of Christ found in those first phrases, that a child will be born to us, the Son will be given to us.

So along those lines, what's what's your question? Well, go ahead with whatever you had. It doesn't have to be necessarily right on the the exact same topic. It's okay. I understand. Well, basically we were just attaching this to the the celebration of Christmas, the fact that that's really what we are celebrating.

Yeah, that's very few people who actually celebrate the Christmas holiday actually, in point of fact, understand what it is that Christians really believe took place in the Incarnation of Christ. They don't know what Incarnation means.

They don't know who Christ was. And so in essence, I think celebration should be based upon truth. And so Christmas celebration should be focused upon understanding who Christ truly was. Would you agree with that?

Yes, I would. And I imagine back there, though, you're having a bit of a white Christmas, perhaps?

Yeah, you could say that. Lots of snow on the ground, very cold. A couple of nights ago, I think we had a minus 34 degree wind chill. Well, all righty. How many inches? If you like your face to fall off when you're walking outside, sure.

No, thank you. You could walk outside, right? Well, in fact, my air conditioner is cycling behind me, keeping the office somewhere around 76 degrees right now, so...

Oh, I do have one comment to make, since you brought up the topic of Christmas. I remember, I think it was last week, and I was just trying to find some reason. I guess there was just some middle to do so, only we have to be careful what our mind holiday is.

Well, there's no question about that. And in fact, just a few years ago, I remember receiving an article from someone regarding how Christians shouldn't do this, and the alleged pagan origins, and all the rest of this stuff, and I feel, obviously, if a person is convinced in their own mind that they cannot celebrate the birth of Christ because they are convinced that it is, in point of fact, offering worship to a false god, or something like that, then they should not celebrate it.

The problem is that, in essence, I've rarely encountered anyone who gave me the freedom to believe what I believe, and to worship as I would worship on this subject. Generally, people who adopt that position become somewhat evangelists, and, in essence, try to say that the celebration of Christmas is wrong for everyone.

I think if a person was involved in pagan idolatrous worship, then certainly that would probably cause them a problem in engaging in anything that would remind them of that. And so, if they had had a idolatrous celebration on December 25th, I can understand why they wouldn't want to have a Christmas celebration after becoming Christian.

But I don't know what I've ever met who opposed the Christmas holiday was in that particular role, or in that particular place, and sadly, I've encountered many for whom it becomes, in essence, a well, I'm a more spiritual person than you are because I don't do this type of thing.

And it is hard to get through those folks. It is very difficult. All righty? All righty. Okay. Thanks for calling, Dave. Bye-bye. 866 -550 -3915 is the number that Johnny has called, and I'm really gonna hope that we can get Johnny on the air this time.

Johnny, can you hear me? I can barely hear you. Barely hear me. Well, that's better than not hear me at all.

My question, and it's a pleasure to talk to you again. Hi. My question is about, I was listening on the Walter Martin, if you've ever been there.

I'm aware of it. I've not been able to be there, no. Oh, okay. Well, in their listening library right now,.

They have a show. It was called The Long John. But one of the things that sometime back, maybe not sometime back, maybe about context, or... Right. Speaking in the past, being Messianic.

I don't know where he's, if, are you saying that Walter Martin was saying that the Jews did not interpret these verses as Messianic? Is that what Walter Martin was saying?

No, he was saying that they did prior to... Okay, okay. Well,.

That's because you had a lot, and I don't know what his source would be, but you had many competing streams of belief and of interpretation of Scripture in Judaism. They still do. And they still do, of course, exactly.

And so as a result, you had those who saw the Messiah as solely a military conqueror. They saw him solely as a one who had established the Davidic kingdom. And you can see that influence upon the Apostles in the Gospels, because they're looking for a Messiah who, in essence, will deliver them from the dominion of Rome and establish the Jewish nation as the supreme nation in all the world.

But then you did have the more, shall we say, spiritual interpretations. And that spectrum continued out into all sorts of speculative writings during the intertestamental period. So my assumption would be that Walter Martin was referring to some sort of intertestamental writing that could be interpreted as.

Well, he only said that certain rabbis. He said that there were certain rabbis, rabbinicals, who did interpret those verses.

To be referring to the Messiah. Okay. Well, I'm not sure what rabbis he'd be referring to. He didn't say. Yeah, and it's really hard to comment without knowing what his sources were. But I do not know the rabbinic interpretation of Isaiah 9 .6 in the intertestamental period.

That might be an interesting study to engage in, but it's not something that I'm aware of. And if he didn't give any sources, it's really difficult to track those things down.

So, well, then let's look at it from now. I'm not very well learned in Judaism, so I just have to ask you that you're the scholar who's looked at Isaiah 9 and Isaiah 53.

Well, realize today there is a There is today a Viewpoint of post-christianity, a very strong anti-christian reaction amongst Jewish interpretations so that within a couple of centuries you have established within Jewish writings a very strong Reaction against Christianity and therefore all the passages that were used on the subject of Christ by the New Testament writers were given non-christian interpretations by the by Judaism following the time of Christ and so You can go down to your local Jewish bookstore and pick up books.

I have one in my Library entitled I'll let's see. I'll take God you take Jesus or something along those lines. They're actually anti-christian apologetics works designed to be given to Jewish young people who would be encountering say Jews for Jesus or Campus crusade on a university campus or whatever and in general Those will utilize pretty much the same interpretations that Isaiah 53 is talking primarily about Isaiah or talking about the people of the context very clearly but they'll make those types of assertions when they look at Isaiah 7 and Isaiah 9 they try to historicize them.

And of course Isaiah 7 does have the historical situation in mind in in in the fulfillment their Immediate fulfillment than the later fulfillment and so they'll point those immediate fulfillments and deny the possibility even though their own system recognizes that this is a possibility that Prophecy can have a near fulfillment and at a greater fulfillment.

They their whole concept of Messiah is wrapped up in that. And so there's it's very inconsistent. I did in fact moderate a debate between dr. Michael Brown and a rabbi Shochet back in 1995 at Arizona State University and it was truly fascinating to Observe the rabbis Anti-christian rhetoric, which really I Remember writing in my in my notes during his presentation.

I said the Pharisees are alive and well, nothing had changed. I mean it was it was it was just like what was recorded in the New Testament. It was truly incredible. It's fascinating I'm not sure if I have any at all to be honest.

Okay, cuz I am curious one of the see I asked him about several verses. I didn't call the debate. Um, I just called on the phone to ask him what he pointed. He took a higher critical view of this verse that that it's not I can't verify this that believe.

Well, unfortunately that viewpoint is very prevalent. I've said many times that conservatives gave the Old Testament up to the liberals a couple generations ago. And that you can hardly get any Decent material on the Old Testament outside of just a few Individuals Who are still writing.

But sadly the vast majority of stuff that we get in Christian bookstores is Embraces certain anti-super naturalistic presuppositions that do view the Old Testament as a mishmash of Redacted sources that really have no particular Connection with one another and certainly are not Inspired in the sense of being historically accurate or anything else.

I understand that but I'm talking specifically about the Jewish concept. In other words, right?

Well, I was always except them. I mean I also heard of it. No, that's that's a new thing that the whole modernistic idea of viewing the scriptures the way they're viewed both in Much of Judaism today as well as in liberal Christian thought is was pretty much unknown prior to say the 17th century and The idea that so well, you know, these really aren't the words of Daniel they didn't really exist.

That's that's that type of redaction criticism Is is not something that was a part of the ancient faith of the Jews at all. Now, of course. You have to differentiate between the faith of the Jewish people prior to Christ than after Christ because anything after Christ is deeply influenced by the reaction against Christianity.

Well when you say Jews remember did you you would have super conservative Pietistic Jews who would not but The vast majority of Jews wouldn't even really know about it and the lessons are not really practicing.

But those who like the rabbi the vast majority of Rabbis would have been trained in their quote-unquote seminary training. In the same way that you have in the majority of quote-unquote Christian seminaries in the higher critical viewpoint.

That would view the old so yes. Sadly, and this I think says a lot most Old Testament scholars and Jewish scholars would see the Old Testament the same way.

But so you leave in the book of Daniel as being written also. Certainly, you know, certainly there are. I mean.

I can't give you a specific name, but a the the the Jews who truly believe that Torah is given by God. And that it is a divine revelation. You have super conservative Jews. Just as you have still have super conservative Christians.

Who who have not of course.

Okay, that makes a lot of sense. What about the other thing that I got this little pamphlet by John Weldon and John Ankerberg? Uh-huh, he said these are the truth about such-and-such and He was talking about the the Bible and the truth about it.

And he brought up one of the the sections in there was about the book of death said that the book of read.

Well, I think there's plenty of evidence That the book of Daniel is What it claims to be the if you really start digging into why people? relegate it to a later period. Fundamentally, all the objections are based upon the assertion that you cannot have predictive prophecy.