Hebrew Gospel Pearls Special – Tricks of Translation 1

You are listening to Hebrew Gospel Pearls with Nehemia Gordon and Keith Johnson. Thank you for supporting Nehemia Gordon's Makor Hebrew Foundation. Learn more at NehemiasWall.com.

Keith: “I want to be like Elisha; I want you to be Elijah, and I want the double portion!” And then you stopped in the Old City of Jerusalem. Come on, laugh with me! You know that’s funny. You stopped with me in the Old City of Jerusalem, we sat down on a rock, you opened up the Hebrew Bible and this is when my life changed.

Keith: Welcome to Hebrew Gospel Pearls, the Special Edition. I am here with Dr. Nehemia Gordon. We are continuing to open up the word of God to find out what it means in its language, history and context. But we’re actually going to do something a little different, we’re going to do some, what you would call it, Nehemia? I think the first time you gave me this phrase… you gave me this phrase, I think it was a French phrase. What was it? Italian phrase!

Nehemia: Oh!

Keith: Come on, work with me here.

Nehemia: Okay, so there’s this famous Italian expression, which I’m sure I’m mispronouncing, but it’s something like “traduttore, traditore”.

Keith: Right.

Nehemia: And it means, “the translator is a traitor”.

Keith: That’s right.

Nehemia: And it’s this idea that whenever you translate something, you have to make a choice. You could translate literally, and then you lose the meaning in the target language, or you translate broadly, sort of paraphrase, and then you lose the flavor and the literal meaning of what you’re saying.

Keith: Okay.

Nehemia: And so “the translator is a traitor” is a problem I think we keep encountering in our Hebrew Gospel Pearls. And we were talking, and we decided what we need to do is, rather than just continuing verse after verse after verse, which we will hopefully continue to do, that’s the plan, but I think we need to get a broad 30,000-foot view where we can see what are the principles behind some of these issues that we’re encountering? And you had this brilliant idea of taking some case studies …

Keith: Yes.

Nehemia: … of translation issues where the translator is a traitor, and you called it, “tricks of translation”.

Keith: I called it “tricks of translation”. And I came to the team here and said, “Help us with this.” And they just click, click, click, and the next thing you know we got a special. We’ve got tricks of translation. We have at least two, I think we’ll have three episodes we’re going to do. And the reason for that is, Nehemia, we don’t get you in the studio all the time. You’ve been really busy; you’ve been traveling around.

Nehemia: Oh yeah.

Keith: Listen, I want to give just a quick update for our Hebrew Gospel Pearls folks. What have you been doing since we finished recording Hebrew Gospel Pearls? Up until episode 32… I think we finished episode 32, public and Plus.

Nehemia: I don’t even remember when we recorded that. I’ll tell you what I’ve been doing for the last year.

Keith: Okay.

Nehemia: So, over the last year… I’m based now in Dallas. That’s where Lynell, my wife and I live.

Keith: In the great State of Texas.

Nehemia: The Great Republic of Texas, my favorite Spanish-speaking country. I’m still trying to learn the local language! And I think I spent something like two months of the last year actually at home. I’ve been in planes, trains and automobiles… actually, I’m not sure there were any trains. Well, there was a train.

Keith: It works.

Nehemia: We’ve been all over the place. And I actually had somebody… my wife was telling somebody this, and she said, “Oh wow, what a fancy life you live. You’re traveling all over.” Do you know how difficult it is to be living out of a suitcase?

Keith: Right.

Nehemia: And you check into a hotel.

Keith: Right.

Nehemia: And honestly, I want to sit at home and never leave my house! So it’s really challenging, but we’re going to where we need to go. We’ve spent, over the last year, time in Berlin, Cambridge, England, multiple times in Italy – we spent three weeks at the Vatican. First, we spent a week studying Codex Vaticanus. And then another two weeks… we came back later to study Codex Vaticanus and other Hebrew manuscripts at the Vatican.

It was actually kind of interesting. When we got to the Vatican… we had submitted this proposal, and they approved the proposal. And we got there… they looked at the proposal, and they said, “Oh, we don’t let anybody access this. You can’t access this manuscript. We don’t let anybody do that.” And we had to then convince them why our research could only be done directly with the manuscript and not with photos, because we had come all the way to the Vatican, and they were only going to let us look at photos. But we ended up for three weeks… actually, first one, and then two more weeks, examining it directly using very advanced technologies in order to answer some really important questions that nobody’s been able to answer up until now. I can’t share the answers yet because we’re hopefully going to be publishing them in a peer-reviewed academic journal. So, I can’t share the results, but it’s absolutely fascinating.

We spent a week in a place called Ferrara, Italy, where someone discovered this old Torah scroll that has all kinds of interesting features you don’t normally see in a Torah scroll. And this was an unknown scroll. I had to decide whether we were going to spend a week there… and we were invited to. And I said, “Okay, well, before I bring this whole team,” we have people coming from Jerusalem, people coming from Munich, people coming from Hamburg, it’s a lot of resources, “is it worth it for us to go and examine this scroll in Ferrara?” And I said, “Can you send us the photos?” He said, “Well, we don’t really have any photos.” So, I looked in every catalog that exists. I asked all the top people. They said, “We’ve never heard of this scroll. As far as we know, it doesn’t exist.” I finally got two small photos, and I saw things in those photos where I called up the different teams, and I said, “We must go to Ferrara.”

Keith: Everything changes.

Nehemia: This is a scroll that is pretty rare, and we don’t normally get an opportunity to access a scroll like this. It had certain features that aren’t supposed to exist in Torah scrolls, but there they were. And so, we went there and we photographed it using something called multispectral imaging, of each page, or really sheet, of the Torah scroll. We took 25 different images at different wavelengths and different kinds of raking lights and things like that, very, very sophisticated stuff. It’s never been done on this scale with Torah scrolls until we did a similar thing at the Vatican. So, we actually did two scrolls on that trip.

Keith: Right.

Nehemia: Then one of the places we went was Budapest. In Budapest, I spoke at the Conference of Samaritan Studies. All the top scholars in the world who research Samaritan history and Samaritan literature come there, and you get an opportunity to present to them the results of your findings. And what do you think I spoke about there at the Conference of Samaritan Studies? What topic do you think I talked about?

Keith: Let’s see…

Nehemia: The Name.

Keith: The Name?

Nehemia: So, one of the main arguments for Yahweh is a 5th century Church Father who for years I’ve been calling “Theo-dor-et” of Cyrus. And one of the people there said, “Well who’s that?” I said, “Here. Here’s how it’s spelled.” He said, “Oh, you mean Theodoret of Cyrus?”

Keith: Theodoret.

Nehemia: Theodoret of Cyrrhus or…

Keith: Okay.

Nehemia: Theodoret, not “Theo-dor-et”. And then I found out maybe in America they say “Theo-dor-et”, and in Europe they say Theodoret. So Theodoret, or “Theo-dor-et”, says that the Samaritans pronounce the Tetragrammaton, Yahveh. So, I combed through Samaritan sources, and I’ve done a study on this, a very preliminary study in the past, but I wanted to present to the top scholars in Samaritan studies, what is it that we actually know about this?

And I walked into that conference… it’s really interesting… with a pretty good case for what I was saying. And I walked out of there after a week with a definitive ironclad case, because I had people at the conference walk up to me and say, “You know, you made a good point here, but what about X, Y, Z?” “Oh, I never even heard of that.” And they’d say, “Okay. Have you considered what this 4th century Samaritan author said?” “No, let me have a look. Wow, he proves my case.” And so, it was incredible. An incredible opportunity.

There was actually one person sitting there in the conference who was one of the top scholars in the world in Samaritan studies, and as I began to present my paper, my presentation, he had this look on his face, he kept shaking his head. And at the end of the presentation, he was nodding!

Keith: Amen! Amen!

Nehemia: Now, I can’t say he was convinced, but he seemed to have been coming around. I also went and spoke at the World Congress of Jewish Studies, which is like the Olympics of Judaic studies, of biblical studies. It’s like once every four or five years in Jerusalem at Mount Scopus. It was one of my dreams in life to speak at that conference, and I spoke there. I also spoke at the SBL, the Society of Biblical Literature in Denver on various manuscripts that I’ve discovered and various issues.

And so, I’ve been traveling around the world researching manuscripts, interviewing scholars, interviewing other people, so I can share, not just discover things, but share this information with people. And it’s been a whirlwind. Like I said, I’ve been only home for two months and sometimes I wake up and I’m like, “What country am I in?” Or I pull up my computer and I get the wrong time zone because it’s still on the previous place where I’ve been.

Keith: Wow! Well, Nehemia, for me, when I hear about all this stuff, you always call me and tell me, and I always get really excited because I always think about our time back in 2002. I actually have a picture I’d like to show.

Nehemia: Yeah.

Keith: I found this a couple days ago. This was before digital pictures, when you used pictures. In 2002, I met you, and here I found a picture of you. I want them to put it up on the screen. I want you to take a look at it. Is that you, Nehemia?

Nehemia: That appears to be me.

Keith: That appears to be you! That’s 2002.

Nehemia: Those were much better hair days!

Keith: And so, in 2002 we met, and we’re going to get into this, but I want to give you an update on what I’ve been doing since our meeting. I found myself in a situation, I’m going to call it “BS” and “AS”. What is BS?

Nehemia: Like, “Keith is speaking BS?” You heard it from him!

Keith: Before Saudi Arabia.

Nehemia: Okay!

Keith: So, we lead tours at BFA International, and we did a tour this year to Israel. It was called Prayer Pilgrimage. And we were in Israel… some amazing things happened there. I thought I would be coming right back, and I got an invitation from a couple of people, my new friends now, Carrie and Doug, who said, “God said we should ask you if you want to go with us to Saudi Arabia.” And I actually called you on the phone. I’m going to bring you into this. So, I said to them, “What do you mean, go to Saudi Arabia?” “Yeah, we’re going to go to the Mountain of God. Will you go with us?” And I looked at the dates and all that, and the first thing I did is I called my wife, and then I called my second wife – used to be – Nehemia! In the old days they used to say we were a couple! So, I call my wife, Andrea, and she says…

Nehemia: We were doing these speaking tours, and it was super low budget, so we’d end up in the same hotel room.

Keith: That’s TMI (too much information)!

Nehemia: And we’d always tell people, “Say, two beds, two beds, separate beds”.

Keith: Yes! So, you and I have had 20 years. It’s been amazing. But then I had told my wife… and permission to take a couple minutes here.

Nehemia: Please.

Keith: I had told my wife, about a year and a half ago, I said, “Honey, I had this dream.” Not the dream, Keith with the dream. And in the dream, I was in Saudi Arabia, but it was at night, and I saw this mountain. So right away, I’m looking to figure out how I could go to Saudi Arabia. It was COVID, there was no travel. So, I forgot about it, really, until these people said, “Will you go?”

Nehemia: Yeah.

Keith: So, I’m in Israel already. They said, “Will you go?” Now, here’s the amazing thing, Nehemia.

Nehemia: Yeah.

Keith: Up until 2013, you couldn’t even go to Saudi Arabia unless… if you were international and you weren’t working for them, unless you’re going to the Hajj. In other words, if the people are going to the…

Nehemia: If you weren’t going to the Hajj, you had to be there as an oil worker…

Keith: Yeah.

Nehemia: Or a nurse or something.

Keith: Exactly, yeah.

Nehemia: Some kind of medical professional.

Keith: So, they’d been changing it and changing it and changing it. In 2016 or so, they’re like, “Okay, everybody come. Let’s do tourism!” So, I said to them, “How am I going to get a visa?” And they said, “You can go online.” So, Andrea says, “Keith, I trust you. Go.” Before I made the final decision, I called you. And you and Lynell were on the phone. Do you remember this conversation?

Nehemia: Oh, I do!

Keith: Okay.

Nehemia: Can I tell you what I was thinking? I was with you on the Temple Mount, which has two groups of security people. There’s the Israeli police, and there’s the Waqf.

Keith: Yes.

Nehemia: The Waqf are the Islamic religious authorities. It’s basically like the Pope, but for the Muslims. And so, this is like the Pope’s police, but for Muslims. So, we’re up there on the Temple Mount, the third holiest place in Islam. We’re there with my mother in her wheelchair, and a man walks up, and he says, “Keith Johnson, how’s your friend, Rabbi Yehudah Glick?” And the part he doesn’t say is, “who we shot in the chest”.

And I’m thinking, “Keith, they know who you …” Do you know how many hundreds of thousands of tourists go up there? You know how many African American and actually African tourists from Africa go up there? But they immediately recognized you by face, the Islamic authorities on the Temple Mount, and you want to go to Saudi Arabia, where they behead people for the slightest… I mean, they’ve executed people in Muslim countries…

There’s actually a case, where there was this kindergarten teacher, and she had a little teddy bear, and she said to the class, “Okay, we’re going to give it a name. We’ll call it Mohammed.” And she was thrown in prison. And now, here’s the guy who went up on the Temple Mount and they shot his friend in the chest, and you want to go to Saudi Arabia? So, what I said to Lynell is, “This seems like a bad idea.”

Keith: And then he told me this as I’m sitting, preparing to go. And so anyway, I went,

and the reason is, I believe the safest place to be is in the center of God’s will. I felt strongly, and I’m going to be spiritual, that He was calling me to the mountain. So, I went to the mountain… this happened between our Hebrew Gospel Pearls and today, and while I was there I had an experience.

Nehemia: Well, there’s Before Sinai and After Sinai…

Keith: Yeah. So, I had an experience…

Nehemia: So, what’s the experience? I wasn’t there.

Keith: So, I actually did bring you there; I brought everyone there, because what I did is I decided to go there just with my little camera and to climb this mountain, and I did three things: I went to the mountain, I climbed it. I went to Elijah’s cave. I went to the altar of the golden calf, and also to the split rock. And I brought my little camera.

But then what I did is a really cool thing – I called ARA, the people at ARA. And I said, “Hey, listen, can you guys help me make this presentable?” And I’m telling you Nehemia, I gave it to who I call “the wizard” here. The first one, I gave it to the wizard, and I’m telling you, when I saw the ten minutes, I started crying. Because I was reminded of… if this is the spot – and I believe it is, by culture, by context, I won’t go into great detail – but if this is the spot, I’m climbing, crying and crawling up this mountain, and if this is the spot, this is where our Father showed up.

So, I went to the mountain. As a result, I got back, and now I’m calling it “AS,” after Saudi, because Nehemia, I experienced there… and I know we’re on camera, and we’ve got the little tears. I experienced His presence there in a way that radically changed my perspective. What we did do at ARA, on the YouTube channel of A Rood Awakening, is put the videos up. There’s three of them – climbing the mountain of God, ten minutes. The second one is going to the golden altar. I actually… you know what I did? It was locked, the gates were locked, so I snuck under the fence and I took the people with my camera under the fence, and I went there and I saw it. It’s amazing! And then we went to the split rock. So those are available.

But what that did is it put me to a place to remember again just who God is and what the journey I have had. This journey has been amazing… 20 years ago, Nehemia…

Nehemia: Yes.

Keith: For all of those people that say, “Keith, you know you always go on these rabbit trails.” Listen, this fits what we did 20 years ago. Twenty years ago, that picture, we’re in the Old City. You’ve got your Hebrew Bible, I’m walking with you… Michael Rood, I want to put up a picture of Michael real quick. I have one here from 20 years ago. Let’s put up that picture of Michael. There it is you guys. This is him 20 years ago. And Michael was the one who said, “Listen, Keith, this isn’t my expertise, but I know Nehemia Gordon from the Hebrew University and I want you to meet with him.”

And so, he introduces you to me. He sets up a day-long tour in the Old City of Jerusalem, where we’re sitting across from the wall where God’s name was spoken, and we talked about it a thousand times. But the thing that happened was, we were walking, and we kept talking about the Bible, and I’m going to tell the story… what did we do? We would stop. I’d say “Nehemia, blah, blah, blah,” in my Methodist pastor background. I think at one point I said something like, “You know, Nehemia, I really want you to work with me. I want you to teach me. I want to be like Elisha; I want you to be Elijah; and I want the double portion!” And then you stopped in the Old City of Jerusalem. Come on, laugh with me! You know that’s funny. You stopped with me in the Old City of Jerusalem, we sat down on a rock, you opened up the Hebrew Bible, and this is when my life changed.

You started reading what the verse said. I went behind and looked at what you were reading. It wasn’t an English translation. Immediately in my gut, I said, “This is not right. I’m Keith Johnson from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. I’ve got a master’s degree, I’m a pastor, and this guy is reading the Bible and I don’t know what he’s reading, and I don’t understand, and he’s translating it from Hebrew!”

Nehemia: Yeah.

Keith: It changed everything for me.

Nehemia: Wow.

Keith: And it was this verse that we’re going to look at today that started me on the issue of the tricks of translation. So that’s my intro.

Nehemia: Before we get to the verse, which is important…

Keith: Yes.

Nehemia: I want to tell you something I remember from that trip, that hike that we took around the Old City. And I don’t know if you remember this, but one of the things you asked me about… And let’s put this in context, this is 2002.

Keith: Yep.

Nehemia: I had finished all of my coursework – I think most of my coursework, or all of my coursework – for my master’s degree, and I just had a few things. I had to write a thesis basically.

Keith: Right.

Nehemia: Which I put off for quite a number of years. I was working for Prof. Emanuel Tov on the Dead Sea Scrolls, that’s what I was doing. You picked me up from work the night before.

Keith: Right.

Nehemia: You turn to me, and you say, “Nehemia, I have a question about the mercy seat.” And I said, “What’s that?” In my life, I had never heard of the mercy seat. I literally had no idea what you were talking about. And you’re like…

Keith: “The mercy seat!”

Nehemia: “You’re from Hebrew University! How do you not know what the mercy seat is?” So, we open up, and I see it in Hebrew and I’m like, “It doesn’t say ‘mercy seat’ there; where did they get that?” And to this day, I’m kind of stunned.

Keith: Yeah.

Nehemia: “Why would they call it the mercy seat?” It’s a completely different word in Hebrew, it’s the kaporet. It is the “atonement seat”.

Keith: Yes.

Nehemia: “The site of atonement”, “the atonement item”, “the covering of atonement”, kaporet. The word “mercy” isn’t there, and the word “seat” isn’t there! And it was interesting, that stuck with me ever since. Talk about tricks of translation.

Keith: Right.

Nehemia: When somebody translates that “the mercy seat”, when it doesn’t say anything of the sort – in fact, it’s called “the atonement covering”.

Keith: Yes.

Nehemia: That’s pretty deliberate.

Keith: That is very deliberate.

Nehemia: There is an agenda there, and I’m not even sure in that case what the agenda is. But isn’t that interesting? I think it’s someone who’s trying to remove “atonement” from there. I don’t really know what it’s about.

Keith: Yeah.

Nehemia: But it’s a completely different concept.

Keith: Yeah.

Nehemia: Now, let’s look at the verse. Actually…

Keith: Well, before we get to the verse.

Nehemia: Before we get to the verse.

Keith: I have to tell you the second thing that happened to me since I’ve been back.

Nehemia: What’s that?

Keith: So, there was Saudi Arabia, Israel tours, all of that. The second thing is, I’m in Connecticut with my dear friends, the Gephardts, Rob and Christie, and their family. And I was sitting in their living room, and I looked across the living room and I see this old book. And it’s a Bible, clearly, a big old book. And I actually have it here.

Nehemia: Okay!

Keith: I said, “What is that book?” They said, “It’s a Bible.”

Nehemia: Yeah.

Keith: So, I get the Bible, and it falls apart, Nehemia.

Nehemia: Okay.

Keith: The outside falls apart, but I open it and I read it, and I come to find out this book is a book that was the first translation from Hebrew into English for the Jews of America. A man named Isaac Leeser in 1853 said some really interesting things, and I want to read just one of the things that he said. I have it here.

Now, I can’t flip through this book, but I’ve asked the amazing team here at ARA to give you guys the picture of what he says. I have it, let’s see, right here.

Nehemia: Which verse is this on?

Keith: This is not a verse.

Nehemia: Oh, this is the preface.

Keith: This is the preface, yes.

Nehemia: Okay.

Keith: Oh, here it is. I’m sorry. Here it is.

Nehemia: Wait, so tell us again what this translation is.

Keith: So, here’s the deal.

Nehemia: Who made the translation, in what year?

Keith: So, this is Isaac Leeser in 1853.

Nehemia: Okay.

Keith: And this Bible that I have here was actually presented – and I can’t use the pages very often, but in 1915, this Bible was presented to Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Weisberger by Mortimer Newman, June 1, 1915. The amazing thing about this Bible is that there are so many pearls in this Bible, Nehemia. He says something… can I read what he says?

Nehemia: First of all, this is a rabbi in the US in the 1800’s.

Keith: 1800’s.

Nehemia: Even though this is a later reprint.

Keith: Yes.

Nehemia: And it’s the first Jewish translation of the Bible by an American Jew, by an American Jewish Rabbi.

Keith: Yes, the first one, ever.

Nehemia: Okay. And that’s interesting, because today most Jews will say, “Oh well, there’s the JPS – Jewish Publication Society.”

Keith: Yeah.

Nehemia: Or “There’s the ArtScroll.” Which is sort of the ultra-Orthodox version of the JPS.

Keith: Yeah.

Nehemia: And they’re like, “Oh, we have the earlier one, the JPS 1917.” This predates JPS by decades… 50, 60 years, something like that.

Keith: He’s really the founder of the Jewish Publication Society. He really is. And in fact, I’ve got to tell you something – if we get to it, Nehemia. I don’t know if we’re going to get to it, you’re so busy.

Nehemia: Yeah.

Keith: But if we can get to it, this Bible answers a question about the name Yeshua. This is the only Bible…

Nehemia: Wait, wait, wait!

Keith: No, I’m telling you!

Nehemia: A Bible by a Jewish rabbi in the 1800’s?

Keith: The Jewish rabbi does something I found in no translation anywhere.

Nehemia: Deals with Yeshua? Wow. With the name Yeshua?

Keith: If we can get to it, I’m going to ask… if we can get to it, we’re going to try to do a special episode for ARA, Shabbat Night Live. I want the world to see this Bible. But this is for our Hebrew Gospel Pearls folks. Let me just get back to what he says real quick, and we’re going to get into this verse.

Here’s what he says, “The translator is an Israelite in faith, in the full sense of the word. He believes in the Scriptures as they have been handed down to us, in the truth and authenticity of prophecies and their ultimate literal fulfillment. He has always studied the Scriptures to find a confirmation for his faith and hope. Nevertheless, he asserts fearlessly,” say fearlessly.

Nehemia: Fearlessly.

Keith: “…that in his going through his work,” I love this, “he has thrown aside all bias, discarded every preconceived opinion, and translated the text before him without regard to the result thence arising for his creed. But no perversion or forced rendering of any text was needed to bear out his opinions or those of Israelites in general.” You know, want to call that SNL?

Nehemia: What’s that?

Keith: “A Jew and a Gentile explain the name Yeshua”. And if it’s not you, this Jew will help us explain it. I want it to be you. Will you do it with me?

Nehemia: Okay. Let’s do it.

Keith: Alright, almost done. “…Israelites in general. And he for one, would place but little confidence in them, if he were compelled to change the evident meaning of the Bible to find a support for them.” Last sentence, “He trusts, therefore, that to those who agree with him in their religious persuasion, he has rendered an acceptable service.”

And it goes on and on. And Nehemia, this is what I’m going to do in our little Tricks of Translation, two episodes, potentially three, is towards the end, we’re going to go to what I call, “the big book”. Tell the story why I call it “the big book”. Why do I call it the big book, Nehemia?

Nehemia: Because it’s a book that’s… big?

Keith: You don’t listen to my stories! I told you the first time I became a Christian, they offered me “a little book”. Come on!

Nehemia: Why don’t you tell the story?

Keith: No, the point is, I found my big book. This is the first English translation…

Nehemia: Meaning, the “little book” was the New Testament.

Keith: The New Testament was the little book, but this one is the big book.

Nehemia: This is your big book.

Keith: It’s the first English translation for those Americans Jews who all they read was the King James.

Nehemia: So now, let’s do something off-script. We haven’t tested this. So, Exodus 25:17, it says, “and he will make a kaporet of pure gold”. And in the King James, “And thou shalt make a mercy seat of pure gold.” JPS 1985, “You shall make a cover of pure gold.” What does Rabbi Leeser have?

Keith: Well, you know what? If I were to… the reason we can’t…

Nehemia: Exodus 25:17. Is the book going to fall apart?

Keith: Literally the pages…

Nehemia: You can’t just check for me Exodus 25:17?

Keith: They’d have to take pictures.

Nehemia: You know, slowly?

Keith: I’m going to try.

Nehemia: Carefully turn to Exodus 25:17. Do we have “the mercy seat”, or do we have…?

Keith: Okay. Let’s see, the pages are literally… 25 what?

Nehemia: 17. This is live on camera. I don’t know what it says.

Keith: 17, “and thou shalt make a mercy…” I’m just kidding! “And thou shalt make a cover of pure gold; two cubits and a half shall be its length,” And then he gives a note which is a …

Nehemia: Something like “mercy seat.” What does he say?

Keith: No, no, no, oh my goodness. We’ll have to put it up here. The point is, he does say “cover”.

Nehemia: He translates “cover”, not “mercy seat”.

Keith: He does say “cover”.

Nehemia: Isn’t that interesting?

Keith: And you know what I want to tell you about this Bible, Nehemia?

Nehemia: Yeah?

Keith: Over each verse that we’ve looked at, pearl, pearl, pearl, pearl, pearl. So, we’re going to get into the first verse that I asked you about. I asked you about 2 Kings chapter 2 verse 9, and you had the Nehemia look, by the way, when I said it, I said, “Nehemia, would you be willing to spend time,” you just met me the day before, and I said, “Hey, would you teach, would you work with me?” And you’re like, “No. No.” From the morning to the afternoon, “No. No. No. No. No.” It took how long for you to finally say yes?

Nehemia: I don’t remember exactly, but it was some time.

Keith: And guess what? I just want to say…

Nehemia: Yeah.

Keith: Back to all of your travels and all that you’ve done – Nehemia, you are a scholar of scholars. Michael says it all the time. But now for you to be Dr. Nehemia Gordon, PhD, it gives me such joy, and I am so humble that you’re still working with me. So, let’s take a look at 2 Kings; or do you want to say something else before that?

Nehemia: Before we get to that, and I feel like we might want to save this for the Plus, because I don’t know that we have time to get to it in the public episode. Can we save it for the Plus?

Keith: Okay, if you’d like. You’ve got something else?

Nehemia: Well, I’ve got a couple of things.

Keith: Okay.

Nehemia: But I think I have to save them for the Plus, this is too big to…

Keith: Okay. So, we’ve had to shift, guys. Now let me just say this, I want to say this. I brought a couple things. I brought my little picture book. I brought the “big book”, but I brought this, I love this.

Nehemia: What is it? It looks like a key.

Keith: It’s absolutely a key.

Nehemia: Yeah.

Keith: And I’ve got to tell you something – when it comes to the Tanakh, and even sometimes as it pertains to the New Testament, when you have the key – what I call the Scriptures, they called the Scriptures in its original language, history and context. I call this my Hebrew key. And this key, when you go in there and you unlock it, there’s so many things, Nehemia, that just absolutely jump off the page. I was talking to you and Nelson, the new… he’s not new. He’s been a research person that works with you.

Nehemia: He’s a research assistant at the Institute of Hebrew Bible Manuscript Research.

Keith: Absolutely he is, and he’s amazing. And I was talking about how when I first met you 20 years ago, and I said, “Hey, listen, I really want to get back, I want to understand Hebrew, I want to open up my Hebrew Bible and I want to translate it. I want to be able to open a Torah scroll and I want to be able to read it.” And you did a phenomenal thing – you worked with me, worked with me, worked with me; 20 years ago, when I said “Hebrew”, people would do that little thing that you and Lynell sometimes do, where you take your head and go like this.

Nehemia: We’ve got our little friend, Gwenny, and when Gwenny hears something surprising, she goes, “hmm?”

Keith: So, whenever I’m talking to Nehemia and Lynell, and I say something weird, BS or AS, if I say it BS, they go like this. So, people used to do that to me all the time, “Why are you studying Hebrew?” But do you know, right now Nehemia, around the world, people are beginning to interact with the Hebrew language, both in speaking it, class after class after class, and also learning Biblical Hebrew. And it’s amazing to see that. So now when we talk about this, the tricks of translation…

Nehemia: Yeah.

Keith: And we decide in a little section of our episode that says, “Let’s use the key.”

Nehemia: Yeah.

Keith: Let’s go to the big book. Let’s see the translations. You’ve got “tap-tap” here. It’s something that people are interested in, and I’m particularly excited that we’re going to do this.

Nehemia: So, before we cut over to the Plus section, we talked about this traduttore, traditore, “the translator is a traitor”, and when we originally discussed this, I said, “You know who we have to talk about here? Abraham Ibn Ezra.”

Keith: Okay.

Nehemia: Ibn Ezra was this rabbi who lived from 1089 to 1164. He started out in Spain, ended up in Italy, and he was one of the great commentators of the Tanakh in Hebrew. And there’s this incredible introduction that he gives to his commentary on the Torah, and I want to just share a little bit about that before we go to the Plus section.

Keith: Absolutely.

Nehemia: Because he lays out some of the problems here of the translator being the traitor. And I’ve talked about this in the past, that he famously describes how there are five approaches to interpreting Scripture, and he describes it as shooting an arrow. And he says, “Some people shoot the arrow, and they completely miss the target. Other people shoot the arrow and they hit the target, but they don’t hit the bullseye. Still other people, they hit the target, sometimes they’re on the bullseye, sometimes they’re off, and it’s kind of hit or miss. Some people shoot the arrow, and it lands on a tree nearby, and they go and they draw the target around the arrow.”

Keith: This was where I was trying to go!

Nehemia: And he says, “What I’m trying to do is always fire the arrow and hit the target.” So, he describes five methods of interpretation, or five approaches. And the first one he describes, he calls it “the approach of the uncircumcised”, by which he means the Christians. And he says, “The Christians, when they interpret Scripture, everything is allegorical. Everything in the Tanakh, in the Hebrew Bible, is allegorical, even the commandments. And so, they’re completely missing the target.” That’s according to Ibn Ezra.

He said, “Then there’s the Karaite interpretation.” And he said, “the problem with the Karaites is they only accept the peshat, the plain meaning based on the language, history and context, but they don’t accept the authority of the rabbis.”

The third interpretation is, the rabbis known as the Geonim, who are from 589 to 1038, and he says, “They interpret through the filter of science and philosophy.” And you might think, “Well, that’s wonderful, isn’t it?” But what they mean by science isn’t what we mean by science today!

Keith: Right.

Nehemia: Everything is some hypothetical philosophical idea, and they’re interpreting Scripture through the filter of these medieval philosophies. The fourth interpretation is what’s called “the Midrashic interpretation.” That’s the interpretation of the group he calls the sages. The sages are the rabbis who wrote the Mishnah and the Talmud from around 200 BC up until 500 CE. And he says, “The sages ignore the language and the context.” He says, “That’s completely legitimate, but it’s not true.” Meaning, he says, this is a valid method of interpreting Scripture, but it doesn’t give you the plain meaning, the true meaning of Scripture. It’s true on some deep spiritual level, but it’s not true within the context of what Scripture is saying.

And then he comes to the fifth interpretation, which naturally is his interpretation, which is the one which is correct. And I want to read you what he says.

Keith: Okay.

Nehemia: He says, “The fifth way is the foundation upon which I will lay my commentary. To elucidate Scripture in accordance with its style, its grammar, and its plain meaning. Only concerning the commandments and statutes will I rely on our ancestors,” and here’s the key part, “and I will correct the grammar of our language in accordance with their words.”

In other words, if our rabbis in the Mishnah or the Talmud give us an interpretation of what something means, and it’s contrary to the language and the context, “I’ll just change the rules of language.” That’s what he says. He says, “Heaven forbid that I should sit against my Creator, to send my tongue against the sages, who are noble in their wisdom and their deeds, more so than all of the wise men of the generations that came after. Anyone who sins against them causes violence to his soul, and anyone who goes outside their words, his blood is upon his own head. He will be separated from the Congregation of the Exile and shall descend alive down into Sheol.”

In other words, when it comes to a practical commandment, “don’t boil a kid in its mother’s milk”, it doesn’t matter what the rules of the language are, I’m required to follow what the rabbis say. It says, “six days you shall work, and on the seventh day, you shall rest”, and language defines for me what work is and what rest is. I have to ignore language and I have to accept what the rabbis say is binding, even when it’s contrary to language. We’re going to twist and adapt, he says, “fix” here, I think. He says, “I will correct the grammar of our language in accordance with their words.” So, I’m going to adapt the meaning of… I’m going to go and change the grammar to fit with what our sages say when it comes to practical commandments.

And he goes on… and this is really interesting. He says, “Only concerning a Scripture that does not involve a commandment will I mention the correct interpretations of the ancient ones and the later ones and will only fear God and not be a respecter of persons in matters of Torah.” And that’s really profound.

What he’s saying is, “Look, if there’s some story in the Tanakh about Abraham and whatever, there’s no practical commandment. There’s no practical application. I can interpret it anyway I want, even contrary to what the rabbis say. But when it’s something that I have to carry out in my daily life as a commandment of God, I have to change the language and grammar to fit with what the rabbis say.”

And it’s interesting what he says at the end. He says, “Only then, when I’m dealing with something that doesn’t have a practical application in daily life, then I’m only going to fear God,” and not the rabbis, “and not be a respecter of persons.” So that phrase “be a respecter of persons”, that comes from Malachi… well, it starts in Leviticus 19:15. It says there, “You shall not do corruption in judgment. You shall not respect the face of a poor person, nor glorify the face of a great person. In justice, you will judge your people.” And that’s so profound. What it’s saying there in the Torah in Leviticus 19:15 is when you’re a judge and you have to judge a situation, you might say, “You know what? There’s this court case between the rich guy and the poor guy. The rich guy, he’s got enough. I’m going to find in favor of the poor guy, even though he’s wrong.” And that’s called being a “respecter of persons”. And you might say the opposite. You might say, “I mean, look, this guy, he’s the noble person of the town. He’s this rich guy. We’re going to believe this poor guy, this bum, over the rich guy? No, I’m going to trust the rich guy. Surely, he’s in the right.” And the Torah says, “don’t be a respecter of persons in judgment, only judge the truth.”

And by the way, there’s this concept today in American politics called equity. Equity says it’s wrong, it’s injustice; social justice is to play favorites and play favor of the poor against the rich. Or in favor of a certain social group or ethnic group in favor of the other ethnic group. That’s a corruption of justice, according to Leviticus 19:15. Justice is to follow the truth and not to be a respecter of persons.

Now, Malachi then takes that phrase, and he says, “Ve’gam ani natati etchem nivezim u’shfalim le’chol ha’am kefi asher einchem shomrim et drachai.” “And I have made you despised and lowly before all the people, because you do not keep my ways,” “ve’nos’im panim be’Torah.” “and your respecters of persons in matters of the Torah.” He’s talking to the priests and the prophets of those days, who say, “You know, this great person said this is what the Torah says. This great person is teaching us what the Torah says, and it’s not right. But we have to respect this person and modify our understanding of the Torah based on what this person says, rather than the truth.” So, Malachi directly rebukes people who do…

Keith: Amen.

Nehemia: … what Ibn Ezra says he won’t do in matters of stories in the Bible, but in matters of commandments he’s bound to do it.

So that’s tricks of translations, and we have a beautiful example of how that’s been brought over into the King James version, but I want to talk about that in the Plus.

Keith: Okay.

Nehemia: What Ibn Ezra talks about here hypothetically, actually happens in the King James translation of Joshua 5:11, but we’ll save that for the Plus episode.

Keith: Now folks, BS, AS – before Saudi we had a system.

Nehemia: Yeah.

Keith: Before Saudi we had Plus, and one week was odd and one week was even. And when I came back, Nehemia, we sat down and decided we want to spread the love. And so, one of the things that we’re going to do is we’re going to make our Plus episodes available on both sites. And so, I want you first to give your explanation of how that works with your site.

Nehemia: Yes.

Keith: In other words, if people want to keep watching this, it will be on…

Nehemia: NehemiasWall.com. Come to NehemiasWall.com and join what I call my Support Team. You make a donation and you become part of the Support Team, and you get access to the Plus episodes. And in the past, that only gave you access to the even numbered Plus episodes, and you had to do the same thing on Keith’s website, which he’ll tell you about in a second. For the odd number episodes…

Keith: But we’re AS now – we’re after Saudi, so now what?

Nehemia: Now we’re after Sinai! And we’ve decided to try this as an experiment.

Keith: Yeah.

Nehemia: Where, if people join my Support Team or what you have going on, they can get access to the Plus on either website, through either ministry.

Keith: Right. And one of the things we’re doing at BFA – I came back, and this was one of the things that happened on the mountain – listen, and I don’t mind saying this, you actually blessed, Nehemia, just by this whole Plus thing back and forth. During COVID, it changed the game in terms of how many people we reached, and the way that we did it.

But when I got back, I was like, “Man, I just don’t want to do anything! I just want everything to go wherever!” Of course, the ministry that I work with at BFA looked at me like, “What are you talking about?” But one thing that we have decided to do, which I talked to you about also, is there are a lot of people who literally – and we went over this together, the letter, you sent it to me just last week – a guy from Africa sends a letter and he says, “I cannot. I am not able to help. I can’t do it. But I will help you in other ways.” And what did you say? There’s ways that you bless people that way through your ministry. What we do is we give him a scholarship, and what we do, right on our website, it says, “Share Premium with people.” You can do that; as many scholarships as we get, we give away. And last year I think we gave away about 150. So this year, if a person just cannot do $99 a year, or $9.99 a month, we will do everything we can to get them a scholarship, if you become a Premium Member.

Now, you don’t only have the odd numbers, but for these two special episodes, you have access to that. So that’s what you do here at BFA International. Nehemia, working with you over these 20 years, I just have to say again, my life has been changed. I hope in some ways you’ve been blessed by my crazy…

Nehemia: Very much so.

Keith: My crazy approach to things! But I’m in AS right now, After Sinai, After Saudi, and I want to continue with the verse that I want to get to, which is going to be in the Plus!

Nehemia: We’re going to get to the double portion. But first, I want to talk about what Ibn Ezra talks about here hypothetically – about changing the grammar and the language to fit with what the rabbis say, has wormed its way into the King James Version. And I wonder if it’s in that book; I actually don’t know.

Keith: You’re going to make me open it? Do we get to go to the big book? We’re going to go to the big book!

Nehemia: I want to go to the big book to find out. But I don’t even know what the answer is.

Keith: Here’s what we need to do. We’re going to say a prayer; we’re going to take a minute to see if we can carefully open up to where this is that you want to look at. These pages literally ripped as we took pictures.

Nehemia: I understand.

Keith: It’s over 100 years old. But I’m telling you, it’s amazing. I’m blessed by it. Nehemia, would you pray and then I’ll pray?

Nehemia: Yeah.

Keith: And then we’ll go to the Plus.

Nehemia: Yehovah, Avinu shebashamayim, Yehovah, our Father in heaven, I’m so grateful for You giving me the opportunity to travel around the world and study these ancient Hebrew and Greek manuscripts to get closer to the original words that You spoke. And rather than having to rely on people who translate these words with an agenda, who translate the words openly admitting they’re going to change the rules of grammar and language to fit their agenda, You give me the opportunity to get back to Your original word, in the original manuscripts, at least those that have survived, the ones that are available, and to share that with the world. Thank you, Father. Amen.

Keith: Father, thank you again as we sit in this amazing place with so much talent that helps us to communicate in excellence the things that You give us. We thank you for all of the people here that work. I thank you for Nehemia’s journey; I thank you for Lynell, and the way that You have brought them, in such a powerful way, together. They are doing amazing things, and the fact that I get a chance to be so close to see these things is overwhelming. I don’t just want to thank You for the Bible, I want to thank You for the word of God. I want to thank You for the way that we can read what You gave to your people in its original language, history and context, and then give it to people. Father, bring people from east, north, south, and west, all over the world, to come to this place to understand not only the tricks, but the answers. The ways that they can actually interact with Your word and apply it into their life. We give You praise, glory and honor for this opportunity, in Your name, amen.

Nehemia: Amen.

You have been listening to Hebrew Gospel Pearls with Nehemia Gordon and Keith Johnson. Thank you for supporting Nehemia Gordon’s Makor Hebrew Foundation. Learn more at NehemiasWall.com.

We hope the above transcript has been a helpful resource in your study. While much effort has been taken to provide you with this transcript, it should be noted that the transcript has not been reviewed by the speakers and its accuracy cannot be guaranteed. If this teaching has been a blessing to you, please consider supporting Nehemia's research and teachings, so he can continue to empower people around the world with the Hebrew sources of their faith!