Who Is Jesus? (Debate) — Michael L. Brown

Transcript: Debate Introduction and the Messianic Question

My name is Sid Roth, inviting you to witness a public debate between an Orthodox Jewish rabbi and a Messianic Jewish Ph .D. at issue, who is the Jewish Messiah? This debate has raged within the Jewish and Christian communities for almost 2 ,000 years.

Traditional Judaism says you can't be a true Jew and believe in Jesus as Messiah. Messianic Judaism says you can't be a true Jew unless you believe in Jesus as the Messiah. Emotions, as you can understand, run deep.

The stakes are high. Both communities say the choice will affect your eternal destiny. We urge you to think for yourself. It's your life that hangs in the balance. Taking the traditional Jewish position is Orthodox rabbi Dr. David Blumoff.

Rabbi Blumoff holds a doctorate in Hebrew literature from the Hebrew Theological College in the Jewish University of America in Skokie, Illinois. His doctoral thesis entitled The Gospel Truth gives more than 200 reasons why he believes Jesus is not the Jewish Messiah.

Defending the belief that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah will be Messianic Jewish author Dr. Michael Brown. Dr. Brown has a doctorate in Eastern Languages and Literatures from New York University. The debate is being held at Adelaide Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, Illinois.

Dr. Michael Brown will begin with his opening statements. I'm so glad that you're here tonight. I'm thrilled to have the opportunity to share with you the wonderful news of Jesus the Messiah. In my absence and stepping out of the room for a couple of minutes, all my notes disappeared, but because this is a deep theme in my heart, I'm happy to speak without them.

Brown's Testimony and His Conversion to Jesus

Twenty-three years ago, I had no interest in God, let alone in believing in Jesus. I was shooting heroin, playing drums in a rock band. After my bar mitzvah, I went straight down. Really, it was only against my will, against my desires, against my pride, against my stubbornness that I had an encounter with the love of God that I found out that Jesus, Yeshua, was in fact the Jewish Messiah.

I had a wonderful life transforming experience. I was turned away from all the things I was doing that I wanted to keep doing, but I knew they were sin in God's sight. I was wonderfully changed and delivered.

My parents were thrilled to see the change, but they had one problem. Well, you don't follow our traditions now. We want you to meet with the local rabbi. So in 1972, I met with the local rabbi. January 24th was our first meeting.

He and I became fast friends. He encouraged me to study Hebrew. He said, look, I need to bring you to other Jews who are equally zealous, but they're right. So I began to dialogue with the Lubavitch Hasidim in Brooklyn, New York, ultra-Orthodox Jews.

But the problem was the whole plan to get me to learn Hebrew and to study so as to convince me that what I believed was wrong, the whole plan backfired. Because the more I studied, the more I learned, the more I sought God, the more convinced I became.

And if you're open, open to God, open to the scriptures, open to the truth, I believe you'll hear clear evidence that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah. In fact, the reason that we have had so many problems through the centuries as Jews, the reasons that we have been exiled from our land and our temple has not been rebuilt, is because when the Messiah came, we missed him.

Messiah as King, Priest, and Prophet

You say that's a bold claim. Let me back it up. I do have some notes I just found here. What I want to say first is this. If you've ever read the Hebrew Bible, and that's really our source tonight, the Hebrew scriptures, you know that it doesn't just stop in the middle and say, stop, this is a Messianic prophecy.

There's some literature that's being given out saying 20 telltale signs of the Messiah. But if you read the scriptures, you will see in no place does it say the Messiah will come and do this and this and this.

In other words, you must interpret that these passages are Messianic. Well, what is the word Messiah actually mean? It comes from the Hebrew Mashiach. And it is parallel to the Greek word Christos, which we translate as Christ.

Messiah and Christ mean the same thing. They mean the anointed one. When you read the Hebrew Bible, who was it that was a Mashiach? Who was it that was anointed in Israel? You say, well, the king. The Messiah is to be a king.

Yes, but that is only part of the story. The priest, the high priest was also a Mashiach, an anointed one. Not only that, not only the king and the priest, but also the prophet was called anointed of the Lord.

And when we go through the Hebrew Bible, we will see very clearly that Jesus came as a priest and he will come again as a king. And he came as a prophet and he fulfills the relevant prophecies of the Hebrew Bible that first had to be fulfilled.

Let me say this. He was born where the prophet said he would be born. He was born when the prophets said he would be born. Do you know that the Hebrew Bible teaches that the Messiah had to come before the second temple was destroyed over 1900 years ago?

Do you know that Jewish tradition points to the fact that the Jews were waiting for the Messiah to come at that time? He came where he was supposed to come. He came when he was supposed to come. Not only that, he lived the life he was supposed to live.

He healed the sick and opened the blind eyes and reached out to the oppressed and the hurting. Not only that, he died the way the prophet said he would die. Not only that, he rose from the dead the way the prophet said he would.

Not only that, he was rejected by his people Israel just as the prophet said. Not only that, he has been a light to the nation so that hundreds of millions of people around the world worship the God of Israel because of him.

Not only that, he is gathering back his Jewish people to himself so that now around the world there are many tens of thousands of Jews just like me, some former rabbis, some ultra-Orthodox Jews that have come to find the Messiah, Jesus, Yeshua.

I want to open these things up to you point by point. Micah the fifth chapter tells us that he who will be ruler in Israel will come forth from Bethlehem. Is this a messianic prophecy? The ancient Jewish tradition, the ancient translation of the Hebrew Bible into the language of the people which was then Aramaic says this is a prophecy of King Messiah.

The major medieval rabbis said this is a prophecy of King Messiah and I will gladly give more documentation on any of these points from the Hebrew or from the rabbinic commentaries if there's any question on anything I'm saying.

Not only that, the prophet Malachi writing about 400 years before the time of Jesus said that the Lord would send his messenger to the temple, the one that they were seeking would come to that temple that was destroyed over 1 ,900 years ago.

The prophet Haggai writing about 500 years before Jesus came into the world said this, that God would make the glory of that temple greater than the glory of Solomon's temple. That first temple had the presence of God dwelling there.

The second temple didn't and God said the glory of the second temple would be greater than the glory of the first and God would establish his peace there. Not only that, the prophet Daniel said that before the second temple was destroyed that everlasting righteousness would be established and final atonement would be made and an anointed one, a Mashiach, would be cut off.

Isn't it amazing? The Talmud also says that there would be 2 ,000 years of desolation, namely from Adam to Abraham and 2 ,000 years of Torah, of law, namely from Abraham to the Messiah and then 2 ,000 years of the Messiah which would have been beginning 2 ,000 years ago.

The Talmud says but because of our sins these years have passed and we've missed out. Friends, it's not that the Messiah did not come when the prophet said he would come, rather he came and because he was missed and rejected by his people all these tragic things have taken place.

Not only that, the prophets told us that when the kingdom of God came, when this anointed one came, that the eyes of the blind would be opened, that the lame would walk and leap and jump and we read the accounts of the New Testament and how the crowds came.

You say, do we know that these things happened? Let me say, out of all ancient books written, that which is the best attested historically, that which has the most evidence backing it up historically is not the Hebrew Bible and it's not the great writings of the Greek and Latin authors, it is the New Testament.

The crowds came because of the healings, the miracles, the wonderful things that he did, the wonderful things that he's still doing around the world today. But the Bible also had some very serious news.

The Suffering Servant and the Two Comings of Messiah

I have been asked where does the Bible say that the Messiah will come twice? Where does the Bible say that there will be two comings? Well, it says in the prophet Isaiah in the end of the 52nd chapter, Behold, my servant will act wisely.

He will be exalted, lifted up, and very high. The ancient rabbis said that this is a prophecy of the Messiah who will be more exalted than Abraham, higher than Moses, and more lifted up than the ministering angels.

Yes, he will be highly exalted, but not only that, it then says, That just as many as were astonished as you, yes, his very appearance would be marred and destroyed, the unhuman semblance. He will be exalted, but first he will suffer.

And the prophet went on to say this, Surely he's carried our pains, he's borne our griefs. But it says, We esteem him stricken, smitten with God, and afflicted. There's an interesting passage in the Zohar, the major book of Jewish mysticism in the section called Pinchas, where it says, Why is it that sometimes a righteous man suffers, and it seems he is innocently suffering?

And the answer given is this, sometimes when God wants to bring healing to the world, he smites one just man, one righteous man, and through that healing comes to the world. And it says, How do we know that?

From the very passage that I just read, it says, He was wounded for our transgressions. The idea of the Messiah's suffering is a Jewish concept, it is a biblical concept. He must first suffer before he is exalted.

In a moment, I'll explain why. Not only, though, did the prophet say that he would suffer and be rejected by his own people, but remarkably, in one of the most incredible messianic prophecies in all of the Bible, the prophet Isaiah said in the 42nd chapter that God's servant would actually bring the light and word of God to the Gentiles, to the nations.

I've been in India, I've been in Korea, I've been in Finland, I've been in Mexico, I've been in these countries from one end of the globe to the other, and met people, former Hindus, former atheists, former Muslims, former terrorists, former gross sinners, former murderers, you name it.

They have wonderfully come to love the God of Israel and pray for the people of Israel, and had a miraculous conversion through Jesus the Messiah. What an awesome thing! If he's not the Messiah, someone's going to have to do better than that.

If he's not the Messiah, someone's going to have to do better than bringing hundreds of millions of people into the knowledge of the God of Israel, turning from sin, turning from idols, to worship the one true God.

We're going to have to do better than that. It says there in a prophecy that the ancient Aramaic Jewish translation said was a messianic prophecy. My servant the Messiah would be a light to the nation.

And then when you get to Isaiah 49, remarkable. The servant of the Lord is identified as Israel, and then he is called to regather Israel back to God. You say, is the servant of the Lord Israel or not?

He is ideal Israel. Let me explain. When you have the Olympics, and a man from America wins the medal, you're reading the newspaper, America won a medal. And he stands on the podium to receive his medal, and they play the American national anthem.

The Messiah fulfills what God gave Israel to do. The Messiah is the ideal Israelite. And it says in Isaiah 49 that the servant of the Lord, the Messiah says, I've spent my strength for naught. In other words, Israel won't turn, Israel won't listen to me.

And God says, no, I have more than that. It's not just that you are going to restore Israel, but you are going to be a light to all the nations. And it says in Isaiah 52, he will be highly exalted, but first he will suffer, and the nations of the world will listen to his voice.

Not only that, the scripture declared after, in the Exar Me 'eretz Chaim, after he was cut off from the land of the living, that he would see the light of life, he'd be raised from the dead. It's an amazing thing that his followers in the first century, all were willing to lay down their lives for him.

Not because he died and was buried in some hopeless tomb, but because he rose from the dead. And it says in the Psalms that he will be exalted to the right hand of God, and all the nations will be his inheritance.

It has happened. The most awesome, impossible fulfillment to take place has happened and is happening in front of our eyes. As around the globe, people in China, people in Africa, by the hundreds of thousands, come to love and worship the God of Israel through Jesus.

Atonement Through Messiah the Priest

Now, why did the Messiah have to die? Please understand this. If you can grasp this, a light will go on. The Messiah was not just to be a king. If he was just to be a king, he'd come and set up his kingdom, and we'd still be lost in our sins.

We'd still be hopeless, because the problem is on the inside of us. The problem is we have been alienated from God. We have broken His commandments. Every single one that's ever lived has broken the commandments of God outside of the Messiah.

What happened was the Messiah was not just to be a king, but he was to be a priest. David was an example of a royal priest. He was king, but he also performed priestly functions. And the Bible says his sons were Kohanim.

His sons were priests. An amazing thing. Why is this important? Because the priest's role was to make atonement for the sins of the people. And the Messiah came as the ideal high priest and laid his life down as a ransom for the sins of mankind.

He had to do that. If he was not a priest, he could not bring salvation. He could not bring reconciliation. He could not bring us a new heart. He could not bring us cleanness of mind and soul. You say, well, the idea of the Messiah dying for our sins, isn't that wrong?

No, do you know that the Talmud teaches, mitatan tzadikim techapeir, the death of the righteous makes atonement? Do you know that the Talmud even teaches that when the high priest would die, that his death served as an atonement for the murderer who was in exile and he would then be free from exile?

It's found in Makkot 11b. These are things that are inherent in Jewish tradition. And in a wonderful prophecy in the book of Zechariah, there's a man named Yehoshua, who was also called Yeshua over 25 times in the Hebrew Bible.

Yeshua, Jesus, in the Hebrew Bible. And you know what it says about him? This man, Yehoshua, who was a priest, is a symbol of the Messiah, a symbol of the one who is called the Branch, which is universally recognized by the rabbis as a messianic title.

And you know what it says about him? That he will sit as a priest ruling on his throne, the Mashiach, not just a king, but the priest offering himself for our sins, the ideal righteous one saying, God, may the sins of the world fall on me.

May I be the ideal sacrifice that the law and the prophets point to. And it says in the prophet Isaiah, And by his wounds we are healed. I experienced it personally. Jews around the world, the chief rabbi of Bulgaria in the last generation, Rabbi Daniel Tzion, he experienced the love of God and Jesus, the Messiah, and was wonderfully transformed and won many other Jews to the truth.

And I'd encourage you to do what the psalmist said, Taste and see that the Lord is good. The Messiah came to the place he was supposed to come. He came before the second temple was destroyed. And friends, if he's not the Messiah, we have no Messiah.

Because he had to come and fulfill his mission before the second temple was destroyed. And Jewish tradition preserved in the Talmud tells us that for the last 40 years before the temple was destroyed, God no longer accepted the Jewish sacrifices on the day of atonement.

Why? Because the ideal sacrifice had been made. Since that time, there have been no more sacrifices that can be offered at the temple. Since that time, the temple has still not been rebuilt. If Jesus is not the Messiah, then we will never have a Messiah.

Because he had to come before the destruction of the second temple. He had to die. He had to rise from the dead. He had to be rejected by his people. And the knowledge of Messiah has to go around the world.

And then the wonderful day will come when the Jewish people, according to the prophet Zechariah, will look back to him. It says, V 'hibitu elayet asher dakaro They will look to me, God says, whom they have pierced.

The Jewish people will recognize, my God, the one that we thought was the cause of all of our suffering. The one that we so rejected and misunderstood. He was actually our Messiah and King. And when they welcome him back with the words, Baruch haba b'shem Adonai Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

At that point, he will return and establish his kingdom. And all the other prophecies that you read about in this literature, that's when they'll be fulfilled. We have the definite proof that he has done everything he had to do up to now.

Therefore, I'm confident he'll do the rest. Those who reject him are still waiting, still hoping, still wondering. The Talmud says that if we are worthy, the Messiah will come on the clouds of heaven.

If we're not worthy, he'll come meek and lowly riding on a donkey. They missed it, friends. It's not either or. The prophet said he will come riding meek and lowly on a donkey. And he did. And the prophet said he will come on the clouds of heaven.

And he will. He did the first. He will do the rest. I am sure if you open your hearts, I believe the word of God will become clear to you. And Jesus said, you will know the truth. And the truth will set you free.

Nachmanides, who was forced to debate this issue during the Inquisition times, made a remarkable statement. He said, woe to such a world if the Messiah has already come. What is the Jewish Messiah? The Jewish Messiah is well defined in the Old Testament.

Blumoff's Opening Critique of Jesus as Messiah

The Jewish Messiah, we find in Isaiah 2 .3, where it says, Behold, who I am, I'm a rabbi. He meets you and takes a Torah. Though he said, boy, I'll go ahead. Many nations will stream into Jerusalem to recognize our God in the temple.

No nation will take war, will learn war anymore. And, of course, the plowshare was turned from the sword. The animals will lie down together, the wolf and the sheep. All of these were beautiful concepts of what the Jewish Messiah was.

I don't argue about the definition of a Messiah. But we, I think, agree in most cases what the Messiah should bring, because we both look at Isaiah and we both look at all the other prophets who have prophesied and given us a definition of what to look for in the coming of a Messiah.

But we have to understand one thing. At the time, 2 ,000 years ago, the Jews were not the only people looking for a Messiah. Many of the world religions, the pagans at the time, also had their concept of a Messiah, diametrically opposed to the Messiah of the Jews.

What was some of theirs? Let us think about it for a moment. We had the Egyptians. The Egyptians had their trinity religion of Isis, Osiris, and Horus, where Isis is the mother of God and she gives birth to the savior of the world, son of God, and the eating of the host, and a cross which was like an ankh.

Everything that seems to be today Christianity. In fact, the truth of the matter is that the forerunner of Christianity was not Judaism, but was Mithraism. Mithraism was another famous religion, very popular in the Roman Empire, also a trinity religion.

And Mithriday was December 25th, of course, when the church took over. They changed the name and it became Christmas. Nothing else was changed. In fact, we find many sayings of Mithra that are the exact word-by-word sayings of Jesus.

The only difference is they took out one name and replaced it with another. So we had two concepts of a religion. And then came along Matthew. And Matthew wanted to convince the Jewish people that Jesus was the Messiah.

So he developed a genealogy from King David, because anywhere you look in the Tanakh, in the Bible, you will find that the Messiah has to be directly descendant of King David. Zerah, it has to be the seed.

He developed this genealogy, you see. And I will accept it at face value, suppose it is true. But then comes along Luke and has a completely different genealogy. Now, one of them is telling the gospel truth and the other cannot be, because they are telling two different things.

And this goes on throughout all the gospels, by the way. You have contradictions galore. That will come next. He tried to gap, Matthew, you see, tried to gap the two thinking so they can convince the Jews and convince the pagan Mithra religion and the Christians.

Christians were the believers in the trinity religion of Egypt, Isis, Osiris, and Horus. But he couldn't do it. Because he had the seed of David coming down all the way to Joseph. And Joseph doesn't do anything to impregnate Mary.

And so it does not, the baby that is born is not the descendant of King David. Now, all these things that we were expecting for a Messiah, those who believe that Jesus was the Messiah say, well, there's going to be a second coming.

All right. Let's talk about the second coming. Firstly, the Jews never had a tradition of a second coming. They always said there'll come a time this will happen, no more wars, then we'll know what happened and that was the Messiah.

Nowhere in the prophets did it say so. And then let's look at the New Testament, Matthew 16, 28. There will be some of those who are standing here, this is Jesus saying this, who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.

In other words, they will not die until they see him coming again, but it's been 2 ,000 years and he hasn't come and I'm sure they're dead by now. Matthew 34, verily I say to you, talking to the 12 disciples alone, that this generation shall not pass until these things be fulfilled.

And the generation certainly passed after 2 ,000 years. Mark 14, 62. Jesus is speaking to the priests. Ye shall see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power and coming in the clouds of heaven.

Yet these priests were dead for at least 1 ,900 years. From Corinthians 25, and we have a lot more. I'm not going to go through them all. We see that Paul also believed that Jesus would return in Paul's lifetime.

But he says, every man shall praise God. But in Hebrews 9, 25 and 26, but he says, but now is the end of the world. But it's been 2 ,000 years later and the world hasn't ended. According to John in Revelations 1 .7, Jesus will be seen by everyone.

Yet in Hebrews 9, 28, only those looking for him. So again, we have some contradictions, but there are many of those. Matthew develops a genealogy without the seed of David. Luke, as I mentioned, has another genealogy.

But Luke has his descendant from Jehoiach, the king who was cursed by God. And God said his descendants will not be on the throne. So his descendants will not be the Messiah. So Luke, therefore, cannot be relied upon.

And now, I'm glad that my opponent mentioned Isaiah 52 and 53. Certainly, one can think that if you read this, it might mean a Messiah. Okay, let's accept that it might mean that. But it says there that he shut up the mouth of king.

What king? Did Jesus shut up? And then let's look at some more of that particular segment of Isaiah. Surely our sickness did he bear. Now, Matthew translates it the way the Hebrew is supposed to be sickness.

He translates it correctly. Some of the others do not. Smitten of God. Not the Jews, not the Romans, but smitten of God. He did open his mouth to part. Now, it says there that the man opened not his mouth.

This Messiah will come and open not his mouth. If he is to be the Messiah that we're talking about here. But he did open his mouth. He talked back to Pilate. He talked back to the high priest. And he said to the daughters of Israel, weep not for me.

You'll find this in Luke 23 and John 19. And he made his grave with the wicked. Now, he was supposed to have been crucified with two thieves. But didn't say he made his grave with them. In fact, he was supposed to have his own grave alone by himself.

Matthew 27, 60. Although, it continues in Isaiah, he had done no violence. He drove out the moneylenders with a whip. That's violence. Neither was he deceitful in his mouth. He said, I come not to change the letter of the law.

And then he proceeds to do just that. He tells the Jews, well, there's cripples you can carry on the Sabbath. That's all right. Tells the Jews that they can eat whatever they want. And so they can give up their kashrut.

And all these things are things that are very deceitful. And then finally, it says, yet it pleased the Lord to see him crushed by disease. To see if his soul will offer restitution, that he might see his seed and prolong his days.

That he might see his zera, his seed, and prolong his days. Not his disciple, but his zera, his own seed. Now, we know that Jesus in the story did not have any children. And prolong his days, he died at 31 years old.

Or 33 by some report. And so we have to assume, therefore, that this Isaiah was not in fact talking about Jesus. And then in Daniel 9, this is another chapter that the people who believe in Jesus say, this was prophesied by Daniel.

Now, we know that Daniel did talk about the coming of the Messiah. He says in Aramaic, I will bring it in its eras and a half an era. And nobody knows when it begins. And nobody knows what the length of an era is.

So it's open to interpretation, whoever wants it. But in Daniel 9, 24, it says, 70 weeks shall be decreed upon your people and your holy city to end all sin and to bring everlasting righteousness to seal vision and prophets.

Now, certainly sin has not been ended when he came. And certainly vision and prophets did not stop. And to anoint his holy of holies, the temple was not rebuilt as yet. So it just didn't happen. And if it didn't happen the first time, and we know that there's no second time, it will not happen that way.

Blumoff's Historical Challenge to the Gospel Narratives

Now, let's talk about how the, my time is running. Talk about the historicity of the gospel story. My opponent mentioned the fact that it's the best historical work. In fact, it's just the opposite. The four gospels, Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John, together with all the apocryphal gospels, tell different stories, contradictions to mores, traditions, laws, jurisprudence that took place in the land of Israel.

It's like somebody making up a story. Let me tell you, for example, suppose I were to make up a story of a man, let's call him John Christie, who lived in Washington, D .C. And during the story, he said, we drive on the left side of the street, on July 4th, we have Christmas trees, and on December 25th, we have firecrackers.

And he talks about, for example, that George Washington said to Hamilton, take it easy, man. These are things that you know could have happened in the story. And then they go on to say that he walks into the Senate.

I know there's sometimes only four or five senators. But he walks into the Senate and drives out all the senators without the use of a gun, and nobody says anything. Is that possible? And then all the Senate and all the Supreme Court and the president take him in the middle of the night, say you're guilty, give him to the Russians to be killed.

Now, would you believe that story? I would. And this is exactly what they're trying to tell you. Happened. Israel was no vacuum. They had law. They had a way of life. They had a jurisprudence. They had mores.

They had customs. And the people who wrote these did not live in the land. That can be very easily proven by their language. They didn't know Hebrew. They didn't even know Aramaic. Pum talia instead of pum talia.

Many things of this nature. Let us go through some of them. Everyone who studies the Old Testament knows that you have to have some witnesses. And they, the Jews, then developed an entire jurisprudence that did this way.

A man did not, a man was not asked if you were guilty or innocent. You had no say in the matter. If a set of witnesses would come and they would testify as to the man's guilt, and then they would wait 40 days in order that the people should investigate these witnesses and see if other people would come.

They had to give a warning. This didn't happen here. And no case was allowed to be tried in the middle of the night. And it happened here in the middle of the night. And they hated Pilate. Pilate, who hated Jews, and Jews had mutual feelings with Pilate, towards Pilate.

And yet they give him over to Pilate to be killed. And Pilate, by the way, violated the biggest Roman law in finding the codex of the Roman laws. Where it says, if the crowd says, save this person and do that, don't listen to the crowd.

You're not allowed to. And if someone is guilty of sedition, you execute him. And if you don't, we're going to take you and chains and send you back to Rome to be killed. And that was Roman law. Therefore, Pilate, who never, ever give a gift and to allow a man who says, give unto Caesar, in other words, a friend of Caesar, to be killed, while this Barnabas should be saved, who was guilty, according to John, of sedition against the government.

There are a lot more. I have hundreds of them. But it only leads, I'm down to two minutes. So I can't go through them all. Let me then tell you about another. One second, please. In, sorry, there were many, as I mentioned before, there were many Trinity religions.

And in fact, there were 16 of them who were crucified before the coming of Jesus. So definitely there's no question in people's mind who studied this, that the entire episode was not based upon the Jewish, quote, Jewish concept of Messiah, but upon the world concept of Messiah.

Now in Jeremiah 16, 19 to 20, it says, to you shall nations come from all parts of the world and will say, our fathers, these are non-Jews, who will come when the Messiah comes and will say, our fathers led us with falsehood.

And now they're coming to become Jewish, to follow the Jewish religion. And if that were the case, what was the falsehood that their fathers were teaching them? In Zechariah 8, 23, 10 men will come from each nation to take hold of a Jew to go worship God.

And so it was stated, so it was stated that our Messiah has not come. Certainly it has not. The beginnings of it are here today, by the way, because from all parts of the world, the Jews have come back to Israel.

And unless the Philistines give it back, we will definitely continue with the ongoing messianic era that we are in now without Jesus. Thank you.

Brown's Rebuttal on Scripture, Tradition, and the Messiah

Surprised as well as disappointed by the misrepresentation of the Bible, as well as Jewish tradition, as well as facts of Hebrew and Aramaic language that just took place. I'm sorry that I have to address things like this, but some things strike me as so blatant.

The idea that the writers of the gospels were outside of the land and didn't know Hebrew and didn't know Aramaic and allegedly misquoted the Aramaic. The fact is the rabbi misquoted the Aramaic. He's ignorant of the Palestinian dialect of that day.

Ask any Aramaic scholar in the world what the colloquial was. It was as the New Testament has, Tali Takum, not Tali Takum. I'm surprised that the rabbi could say they didn't know Hebrew, whereas the foremost Jewish professors at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem say the only way that you can understand the gospels is to go back to the original Hebrew sources or Aramaic sources that everyone knows was the common language of the day.

And that the only way to understand the Greek of the New Testament is to know that it was being written by Jews whose first language was Aramaic or Hebrew. The rabbi himself told us that Matthew accurately translated the Hebrew of Isaiah 53.

How, if he didn't know the Hebrew? I'm disappointed in that Isaiah 2 was quoted as a messianic prophecy without admitting that it doesn't say a word about the Messiah. My whole point is that the traditional Jew comes back and says, this is what the Messiah will do, x, y, z.

Jesus didn't do it, therefore he's not the Messiah. Show me in the Bible where it says the Messiah will do that. And that he will not also suffer, and that he will not also die. I'm disappointed in the fact that it was said that Jewish tradition has one teaching about the Messiah.