Hebrew Voices #65 – Saving Faith

Hebrew Voices - Saving Faith with Nehemia Gordon and Dr. Mark Andrews

In this episode of Hebrew Voices, Saving Faith, Nehemia Gordon talks with medical doctor and theologian Dr. Mark Andrews, who shares the incredible story of the message he received from God while cycling through a New Mexico cornfield, a message which ended up changing both his life and Nehemia’s. Find out how "Rabbi Google" is destroying people's faith and why a Karaite Jew "shared the gospel" with a lifelong Christian.

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Hebrew Voices #65 - Saving Faith

You are listening to Hebrew Voices with Nehemia Gordon. Thank you for supporting Nehemia Gordon's Makor Hebrew Foundation. Learn more at NehemiasWall.com.

Mark: Nehemia, probably to summarize the whole event, you made it so that I could still believe in Yeshua.

Benjamin Netanyahu: Le ma’an Zion lo ekhesheh, u’l’ma’an Yerushalayim lo eshkot. (For Zion’s sake I will not be silent, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest. Isaiah 62:1)

Nehemia: Shalom, and welcome to Hebrew Voices. This is Nehemia Gordon. I am coming to you from Dallas, Texas, and I have here with me, Dr. Mark Andrews, in Roswell, New Mexico. Shalom, Dr. Mark.

Mark: Shalom, Nehemia.

Nehemia: Dr. Mark, we were talking the other day about something that happened back in 2012, a conversation we had, and it reminded me of something I hadn’t thought about in a long time, and I wanted you to share that incredible testimony you had with people. But before you do, I want to give the background of what happened.

So in 2012 I was going through a very difficult time in my life. I was on tour with Keith Johnson. We were in Pennsylvania, and I’d done this study on the Yom Kippur War. And there’s a scene in the Yom Kippur War where the Syrians see a hand come down from heaven, and this hand said to them, “Stop.” And this captured commander says, “If you see an angel and a white hand come down from heaven and it says to you, ‘Stop,’ I stopped.” And I felt that at that moment in the tour, that a hand had come down - I didn’t literally see a hand, right? But I felt at that point that God was saying to me, “Stop. It’s not time for you to do ministry. It’s time for you to take a break.”

And I went to Keith and I said, “I need to leave the tour, I need to take a break. It’s not time for me to do ministry now. It’s time for me to do ministry to myself and for myself, not to other people.”

Mark: Wow.

Nehemia: And he said, “Well, where will you go?” And I really had no place to go. At this point, I was literally homeless, I had rented out my place in Jerusalem shortly before this, and I was planning to be on a speaking tour for several months. And so I literally didn’t know where I was going to go.

So then I get a phone call from Deb, who runs my ministry, and she said, “This man in New Mexico called, and he wants you to come and stay at his house,” within an hour of this decision being made. So tell me your side of it, now.

Mark: So I had been in a process - God was changing my life and my heart - and for about nine months, I’d been listening to Torah Pearls. Every Shabbat I would listen to Torah Pearls. And I had this strange - because this is not something that happened to me often – but a strange, overwhelming sense that I needed to reach out and talk to you, but that was not the time. And I had actually shared this with a pastor friend of mine, and about every month, he’d say, “So did you talk to Nehemia yet?” And I would say, “No, I don’t feel like it’s time yet.”

And one day, I was on a ride on my bicycle down the road, through a corn field area, and God says to me, as clearly as you can say He says without hearing an audible voice, “Call Nehemia.”

Nehemia: Wow. [laughing]

Mark: So of course, the way to call Nehemia is I called Deb, and I talked to Deb, and I said, “Deb, this is really strange, but I kind of have a question. How’s Nehemia today?” And she says, “Well, why do you ask?” And I say, “Well, I just feel like God told me to call and see how he is, and I’ve been knowing I was going to do this for a long time, but He told me today was the day to call.” And that’s what happened.

Nehemia: Wow. I mean, to me, this is unbelievable! Because there I am, and I’m literally having this conversation with Keith in Pennsylvania, and I literally have no idea where I’m going to go, and I get this message. “This man has invited you to stay at his house as long as you need, to rest and recuperate, out in the desert.”

And so I ended up going to your house, and this is kind of crazy, because I’ve never met you! I think I spoke to you on the phone once that day, when we got the ticket. Other than that… Did you ever see the movie, Misery? [laughing] It’s a Stephen King movie, where this author goes and visits this person and she breaks his legs and keeps him locked up in the basement? So I don’t know if that’s what it’s going to be, but I just know that God is telling me I’m not supposed to be doing what I was doing, I was supposed to be doing something else, and ministering to myself, like I said.

And I ended up staying at your house for two months. During that time, we had a conversation, and you reminded me of the conversation yesterday. Give us the background of that, of the conversation, and what happened.

Mark: Wow, you know, it is awesome how God brought us together. It was a blessing to each of us. It was really amazing. You know, I have postgraduate degrees in both medicine and theology. I had done both of those things, usually throughout my entire life. I was a pastor when we met, a pastor of missions. I had been a missionary, and I am, at this point, a pastor of missions at a fairly large church in New Mexico.

And one of the things I did was prison ministry. So I was in charge of that, and we would hand out Bibles to the prisoners. And over time, I quit handing out the entire Bible, because that first two-thirds was just so confusing to them. And they would ask questions that were awkward, and I didn’t know how to answer them. And so I had started just handing out New Testaments, but I had this nagging feeling for decades in my life that we were missing something. There was some sort of intellectual dishonesty going on, and some of what we believed wasn’t logical.

And one day, it kind of came to a head when my daughter wanted to get a tattoo, and I went into the Bible to read about why she couldn’t have a tattoo, and explain to her why that was a bad idea. And of course, I came across passages that suggested I couldn’t trim my hair, and all sorts of things. And I realized, I have no idea what my Bible really says, or how I’m supposed to be interpreting it, but I’ve been in ministry for years. And so I’m dealing with some issues here. And one day, my wife says, “You know, we’ve been planning on going to Israel for a long time. Let’s go.” So we went on a tour to Israel, and of course, the first eight days or 10 days or so we’re seeing various sites around Israel, and it’s awesome.

But I remember, three days before the trip was over, we went up to Jerusalem, and on that bus ride up it hits me all of a sudden, “Oh, my goodness. This is real. It’s all real.” Then I have the follow-up thought of, “Well, what was it before?” [laughing] Because you’re a pastor - it was supposed to be real prior to this. But that started me on a journey. And I came back and I started reading my Bible, and I just fell in love with Scripture. And I started learning and reading, and then I began the part of the journey that a lot of your listeners have been through, I think, where they’ve realized that a lot of what they knew before maybe isn’t quite true. And there was a lot of paganism brought into our Christianity, and I was struggling with that.

In fact, I had had a friend who tried to share some Torah with me a good 10 years earlier. And his name was Ron, he lives in Mexico. And Ron and a friend of his tried to share some truths with me, and I remember his friend was so caustic about not eating bacon, that I thought, “If this is what happens to a person who doesn’t eat bacon for 10 years, I don’t want anything to do with this.”

Nehemia: [laughing]

Mark: And so God is moving my heart. And 10 years later, I call up Ron one day, and I say, “Ron, you won’t believe what happened. I love Torah.” And Ron says, “Mark, you won’t believe what happened. Pam and I have been praying for you every morning for 10 years. And at the 10-year point, she said, ‘Ron, we just need to give up on Mark. He’s never going to get it.’” And Ron said, “No, Pam. I think he will.” And it was about a week later, I called, I think. It was an amazing thing. So God was moving in my life, and this pendulum swing toward enthusiasm and love of Scripture and Torah is an awesome ride.

And then I kept reading and kept learning and got exposed to some other thoughts and I learned more about the paganism that had worked its way into our interpretation of Scripture. And I began to have doubts, and I was struggling. And I went back to Scripture. I thought, “But we’ve got those 300 prophesies about Messiah that Jesus fulfilled. And boy, if only 48 of them were true, that would be 10 to the 157th power. That’s statistically, absolutely impossible that that happened by chance.” And I started reading those, and it was awesome, and I loved reading those little prophesies. And then I made a mistake and I actually went back and read the first two-thirds of the book. [laughing]

Nehemia: Meaning the Old Testament or the Tanakh.

Mark: Meaning the Tanakh. And I realized, “Oh, my goodness. These New Testament prophesies that I’ve always been told are so clear and so amazing and irrefutable, are a little fuzzy.” And I realized sometimes they’re not actually quite prophesies, or sometimes they didn’t really seem to be talking, at least initially, about anything to do with Messiah. And I began to feel like my Christianity was built on a house of cards, and I went to Rabbi Google and I ran all sorts of things.

Nehemia: [laughing] Now, this is before you met me, right?

Mark: This is before I met you, yes. And Rabbi Google tells me that none of this stuff was legitimate, and none of these were talking about the Messiah, and it was all just a sham. So one night at dinner, we were talking about how if you really understand both sides of the topic, you could argue for your belief, or you could argue against it, because hopefully you realize the other side aren’t complete idiots. There are actually reasons why they believe what they believe. And if you’ve truly dealt with those beliefs, you could argue their side if you had to.

So I said, “Nehemia…” and I don’t think I really told you exactly how much I was struggling, and how much my faith was on the line. I said, “What would it look like if you were to argue me into becoming a Christian? Let’s say, I’m struggling with all this stuff. What would you tell me?” And at that point, you gave an awesome answer. It was kind of like I got evangelized with some good news.

Nehemia: So I’m the Karaite Jew and I am sharing the Gospel with you, essentially. And look, from my background… you know, I was raised studying the Talmud. And the Talmud is a very complex and complicated book, and everything in the Talmud is debates. But it’s really not debates in the Western sense, it’s more dialectic. You know, a debate is, we’re arguing and I’m trying to win the debate. A dialectic is, you’re searching for the truth. And so you argue both sides of an argument to try to figure out, what’s true here? And with an open mind, I try to approach everything that way.

And so when you asked me, “If you had to prove to me that the New Testament is true,” or what was it…?

Mark: Any of those would have helped.

Nehemia: “Or that Jesus is the Messiah, Yeshua is the Messiah,” so then I put on my Talmudic hat and I say, “Okay, I could argue against this all day long. The seven reasons Jews deny…” You know, I could give you all that stuff, right? But that’s not what you were asking me. What you were asking me is, “If you had to argue from the New Testament, Yeshua’s side, what would the argument be?” And if I’m going to be intellectually honest, I can give you that answer. And you’re telling me, that’s what I did at that time, and I remember that conversation. I remember it on the couch. You remember it at the dinner table, but it was five years ago.

Mark: My conviction is, it started on the couch and then it went for hours, and it moved to the dinner table.

Nehemia: Ah, that makes sense to me.

Mark: Let me tell you what I thought you might come up with. You’d say, “Mark, tell me about your lineage.” And I’d say, “Well, Nehemia, my mother’s family is Jewish.” And you’d say, “Oh, well.” Tappy-tap-tap, and you’d get on your computer and you’d produce a little card that says, “You’re now a Karaite,” and then I would convert.

Nehemia: [laughing] Is your mother’s lineage Jewish?

Mark: Yeah, she really is.

Nehemia: Oh, okay. I didn’t realize that. All right.

Mark: But that isn’t what happened. Instead, you explained to me how from a linguistic point of view, when a New Testament author might say, “As was prophesied,” and then it named something that maybe initially had nothing to do with the prophesy that they’re pointing out, that that was an acceptable linguistic tool.

Nehemia: I would call it more an “interpretive tool”, meaning there’s a linguistic aspect here. And I did a podcast about this for people too, it was with AJ Bernard. Because he asked me a very similar question. And, you know, he’s a Methodist pastor and I thought, “This is a great opportunity to share this with people, rather than just the 45-minute answer I gave him. Let’s share it.”

And so we had this conversation, or repeated the conversation on the podcast. And so there’s this concept which I may have, at the time, called “drash” but it’s a specific type of drash called “pesher”. And pesher is, you find this term in the Dead Sea Scrolls, for example. And really, this ties in perfectly with what we’re told in Luke 24. Luke 24, you have this scene where the people are walking on the road to Emmaus. Guys, go read the story for yourselves. It fits perfectly with the pesher concept, because what it shows is that the disciples of Yeshua were not aware of the later interpretation of the 350 or so Messianic prophesies. They didn’t understand those prophesies the way they’re obvious today to Christian missionaries.

And how do we know that? Because it says that they said, “Oh, this is a disaster.” I’m paraphrasing, right? They thought it was a complete disaster, walking on the road to Emmaus, that Yeshua had been killed and was three days in the grave and now the tomb was empty. Why weren’t they shouting for joy, “The tomb is empty?” Because they didn’t have this understanding at that time, until he explained it to them.

And what you take away, or what I read in the Luke 24 account, is that you can have these understandings if that’s what’s revealed to you. Meaning, these aren’t what we would call “p’shat”, they’re not immediately obvious when you read them in the context, and they shouldn’t be treated as such.

So for example, Hosea chapter 11 verse 1, “I called My son out of Egypt.” Well, the second half of the verse and the two verses later, it’s talking about how, “My son committed idolatry.” Well, that’s not talking about Yeshua in the context. Meaning, the p’shat, which is the plain meaning based on the language, and the context is, yeah, it’s talking about Israel, who was taken out of Egypt, in the desert worshipped the Golden Calf, and then in Israel worshipped other idols. That’s the contextual meaning.

But what they do in this pesher method that was used in Second Temple times, you find it in the Dead Sea Scrolls and in Rabbinical literature and in Karaite literature - so Jews used this for over 1,000 years - you find they say, “Okay, well, we know that God wouldn’t do something so momentous as the destruction of the Temple without it being mentioned in the Bible,” the Second Temple, I mean. So then they go find a verse that describes the First Temple, and they say, “This foretold the destruction of the Second Temple.”

And you say, “Wait. In the context, it doesn’t say that.” We know it doesn’t say that in the context, we’re not idiots. But we have this statement in the Prophets that God doesn’t do something without revealing it to His servants, the prophets. So now we’re looking at it from a pesher perspective.

Now, the thing with the pesher perspective is that by and large you first need to know what the outcome is. In other words, you need to know the Temple was destroyed by the Romans, and there’s no way God destroys His own Temple without telling that to His servants, the Prophets. And in the case of Luke 24, Yeshua, based on what Luke describes him as, he knows who he is, foretold in those prophesies, and he then reveals that to the people walking on the road to Emmaus. And it says there he explained to them all the things concerning him in the law and the prophets.

So look, those things haven’t been revealed to me, but I can understand how from a pesher perspective, you read those things and come to those conclusions. And I think Christian missionaries do themselves a disservice when they say, “We have 300 prophesies. And just look, who else could they be talking about? They have to be talking about Yeshua.” And they’re missing a component there. The component is, first you have to have the faith in Yeshua, and maybe it has to be revealed to you, and then you can see how these things then confirm that. Whereas, if you’re coming from my perspective, I didn’t grow up with the faith in Yeshua. That’s never been revealed to me. I read those and I say, “Well, I’m looking at these from a p’shat... I understand the pesher perspective, but that wasn’t revealed to me,” if that makes any sense.

Mark: Yeah, it does. And what I found was, that was very helpful, because some of these prophesies do appear to be in fact things which I am comfortable saying, “That was a prophesy, and it was fulfilled in an amazing way.” But some of these pesher passages were very troublesome, and when I would talk to other theologians I would realize they’ve never, ever really bothered to address the Tanakh passage. And they’ve not struggled with this. We just read it in books, we reprint it in other books, and other people quote other people who are quoting other people. And there was a lot of ignorance, and it caused me issues.

I did go on to study more, and I found that we would be told that this is not an actual quotation from the Hebrew. Or, this is closer to the Septuagint. Or it’s somewhere in-between, and we don’t know exactly where this translation is, but it’s not real close to the original.

Also I found out there were a lot of Aramaic Targums at the time, and for the common folks, they didn’t have a copy, they didn’t have a scroll of Scripture, and they would write out some little paraphrases. And sometimes those might be the ones that were being quoted, and that’s why the verbiage differed. I found out that we’ve all done some reconstruction of history. If I were to ask any pastor, “Why is Christmas celebrated on December 25?” He wouldn’t tell me about pagan sun gods. He’s got a new story, and that’s the one that he’s been told, and that’s the one he passes on and he believes. And I found that some of that was happening. Modern-day Christian liberal theologians and rabbis were passing on stories of things like, “Oh, this passage was never considered Messianic.”

When you go back and you find out that sometimes that as many as 456 Messianic passages were believed to be Messianic at the time that aren’t any more, that they don’t really want to admit were. And in fact, sometimes in those targums they would actually get really loose with the translation and just put in the word “Messiah”.

Nehemia: Yeah, well, the Targum is paraphrastic, that’s the term scholars use. It’s a paraphrase. Aramaic in particular tends to be para… especially on the Prophets. So I’ll just give you an example. Isaiah 53, the counter-missionaries will tell you it was never interpreted as a Messianic prophesy. You open up the Aramaic Targum and you see the word “Meshikhah”, which is Messiah.

So then you ask the question, “So why didn’t the disciples of Yeshua walking on the road to Emmaus know, ‘Hey, we knew you were supposed to die and rise on the third day. You actually mentioned that in Galilee.’” And we know from the Targum, how come they didn’t say that? Because if you read the Targum in context – here’s context important again – they interpreted Isaiah 53 in the Targum as a messiah, but it was a conquering messiah.

So it’s really interesting, they used the word “messiah”, “mashiakh”, an individual who’s going to fulfill that role, but it’s someone who’s winning a battle. And it talks there about the part that the New Testament interprets, the Christians interpret, as referring to the “suffering”, the stripes that Yeshua received, and those things.

So that actually talks, in the Targum, if I remember correctly, it’s describing the Gentile nations who’ve come to war against Israel. They’re the ones who are going to be stricken, right? So they had some of this broader understanding that this is Messianic, but they didn’t understand it in the way that it was explained to them according to Luke 24 on the road to Emmaus.

Mark: Absolutely.

Nehemia: Now, you said something to me yesterday that made me say, “I need to share this with people.” You said something to the effect of, “You gave me the ability to continue to believe.” So talk about that.

Mark: I don’t know that I could phrase it better than that. My faith was in a place of crisis. I was reading folks who told me that there was never a legitimate reason to believe that any of those references could have had anything to do with Messiah, and your love of the truth and your understanding of ancient texts allowed me to realize that the people who wrote the Brit Hadashah weren’t idiots. They knew what they believed. They understood Hebrew, they understood Aramaic, they understood those devices, and it wasn’t an attempt to hoodwink people 2,000 years later.

And so I can deal with that text honestly, and I can allow Yehovah Himself to guide me through all that. But what you allowed me to look past was ultimately, I think, spurious attacks on the validity of that type of linguistic tool.

Nehemia: And do you believe in Yeshua today?

Mark: I do, absolutely. But, you know, you believe that Yeshua existed.

Nehemia: Yeah.

Mark: That was another fun conversation we had was, yeah, I had a friend at the time who had gotten on some websites and completely believed that no man by that name existed in the 1st century, which was ludicrous. I mean, we know that historically this was an event, and I have just loved in your ministry the way you pursue truth, you share knowledge, and part of your understanding of ancient documents and ancient languages allowed me to realize that those New Testament documents were not setting out to fool us, to hoodwink us. They were a legitimate way of conversing with those Tanakh texts.

Nehemia, probably to summarize the whole event, you made it so that I could still believe in Yeshua.

Nehemia: Wow. Okay, so now I’ve got to do what my friend Keith would call “damage control”, because there are going to be some Jews out there who want to tar and feather me. What on earth am I doing, essentially, helping you salvage your faith in Yeshua? And look, I believe God does everything, right? If I was there at that moment, then I was a tool that He wanted me to use for His purposes.

But look, I think it’s a valid question that some of the Jews listening to this are going to have, because their approach, or the approach of some Jews is, there’s no reason you should be talking about Jesus or Yeshua unless it’s to convince people to deny him. And that’s not what I feel called to do. That hasn’t been the focus of my ministry, of what I’ve been doing for years.

And look, in a sense, I started out that way. My mentor was a counter-missionary. And I was expected to follow in his footsteps. And I would have these conversations with people, and first of all, I felt like this isn’t intellectually honest, because I’m talking to someone who doesn’t know what the response is, and I know what he should be saying, but he doesn’t. That’s first of all. But also I felt like, this is pointless. I learned so much more from interacting with people and trying to find common ground than I do from trying to win a debate. I find dialectic so much more productive than debate in that respect, you know, going back and forth, trying to find out what the truth is.

So I want to bring this statement - I’m going to paraphrase it - from Maimonides, Rambam. He makes this statement about Yeshua. He says that God used Yeshua to bring the knowledge to the world of the concept of Messiah. In other words, before Christianity existed - before whatever you call it, right? 2,000 years ago, you could travel to most parts of the world and they have no concept of a Messiah. And in other words, what Maimonides is saying is, “Look, we’re Jews. We don’t believe that he’s fulfilled these Messianic prophesies.” And I would say, to be more specific, I don’t believe these Messianic prophesies have been fulfilled yet, because I’m still looking for a Messiah who will gather in the exiles, defeat the enemies of Israel, and bring peace to the world.

And I’ll say something Maimonides I don’t think would have said, which is, maybe that will be Yeshua. Maybe Yeshua will accomplish those things in the future. Right now, those things are not accomplished. We’re living in a fallen world with suffering. But Maimonides’ point is, and it’s kind of like what we talked about before with pesher, there’s no way something as momentous as a Jewish man who was crucified, who then has a billion-and-a-half followers, or two billion followers, there’s no way God allowed that to happen without it being part of God’s plan.

Mark: Amen.

Nehemia: And Maimonides is trying to figure out how is this part of God’s plan, and he proposes this radical idea, and I think he could only propose it because he lived in a Muslim country - in a Christian country he would have been murdered for saying this. But he said, “Maybe it was that God used Yeshua to bring knowledge of the Messiah to the entire world, or to a large part of the world.” And whether you agree with Maimonides or not, that’s what happened. And I look at you, and yes, you come from a Jewish background on your mother’s side, but as far as we know, most of your ancestors, certainly on your father’s side, were idolators who knew nothing about the God of Israel. And it was through Yeshua – this is a fact – it was through Yeshua that you came to know the God of Israel, that you know that there is a Torah. That you know that there is this thing called the Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible. And, yeah, Christians refer to it as the Old Testament, but at least they know it exists now, and they have come one step closer to being prepared for when the Messiah comes, or comes back, and unravels his plan for mankind. It won’t be a complete surprise to everybody. People will at least say, “Okay, this was foretold,” and this is an image we see in Isaiah. “I send out My word upon the water, and it comes back to Me, having accomplished its mission.” And maybe Yeshua was that word, or one of those words, that he was part of that divine plan.

I know I’m going to get into a lot of trouble for that, but I don’t care. I’ve said this throughout my ministry, my purpose is to empower people with information so that people can work it out for themselves in fear and trembling, with prayer and study before the Creator of the Universe. And you’ve done that. You did it the way that God led you to do it, not the way that I’ve done it, because God hasn’t led me to that at this point in my life. But you did it the way God led you to do it, and I respect that.

I think you’re more a part of God’s plan with what you believe now, than if you had walked away and said, “Okay, Jesus isn’t real. The New Testament is a lie. And now, there’s no such thing as God. I’m an atheist, a secular human.”

Mark: Right. Absolutely.

Nehemia: You know, you have a faith and your faith has led you to do wonderful things. I know you were doing work helping people in Fiji, and doing all kinds of what you call mission work, but trying to help people. And I think it’s because of your faith that you did that. So I think it makes you a better person. This isn’t to say that everyone who has faith is a better person. Some people, it can turn them mean. I’ve seen this happen, that people get this religious spirit. And Keith found this wonderful passage, which I’d read many times in Chronicles and never thought about. It talks about how they were keeping the Torah and walking straight in the ways of Yehovah, but they weren’t doing it with a lev shalem, with a complete heart.

And look, that happens. But you’re doing - if you don’t mind me saying - I think you’re living according to the best you can, the word of God with a complete heart, and I think it’s a wonderful thing that you have this faith. I don’t think that’s something that I need to destroy. That’s not what I’m called to do.

Mark: No. And you’ve been a blessing. You’ve built it up to your followers, that we’ve mentioned, who aren’t Christian. You know, one of the things though that you have done is you’ve introduced a lot of people to not the Greek Jesus so much as the Hebrew Yeshua, who loved Tanakh, who loved Torah, who obviously loved the Jews, who wept when he looked at Jerusalem and was looking forward to that Messianic kingdom when we would all be drawn back together. We need more people in the world like that. We need more people in the world who love Torah.

Nehemia: Dr. Mark, I was raised that whenever you said the name Yeshua, you were supposed to call him “Yeshu”, which we were told is an acronym, “May his name and memory be blotted out.” And now I would never say that, because I look at Yeshua as a brother. He’s actually my cousin, and I’m not trying to be funny. I’ve done my genealogy, found out, I think he’s like my 33rd cousin or so, I don’t remember the exact number. But he’s literally my cousin, and he is a person who has had a profound impact on nearly two billion people in the world. And so we should at least acknowledge that and understand that.

We have a perspective on him as Jews, like Maimonides explained, but it has brought people all over the world to know the God of Israel, people who, if we came to them with the Torah, I don’t know if they would have been prepared immediately to accept it. These were people who were engaging in human sacrifice, I mean literally, like the Scandinavians, for example, who used to cut people’s back open and pull their lungs out from their back, I mean, horrific things. And now, these people know about the God of Israel.

And so I do believe this is part of the Creator of the Universe’s plan. And I don’t understand the entire plan, right? I don’t. I’m like Job, why is this happening? Why are some things happening to me and to other people? There are horrible that are happing in the world. I don’t know how it’s part of God’s plan, but I do believe it is, because He’s in control of the Universe.

Anything else you want to share, Dr. Mark?

Mark: Just thanks. Thanks, Nehemia. We all love you and your ministry, and it has been a blessing to know you over the years.

Nehemia: Would you end in prayer?

Mark: I would love to. Abba, we thank You for loving us, for having a plan for our lives, for bringing Nehemia and I together in ways that we were able to be of use to each other, to encourage, to support, to share truth. Thank You that he loves truth. I pray You would uncover our eyes and help us all to see more and more of the truth, to love You more and more. I pray that You’d guide us and lead us and allow us to be used as a tool in Your hands. Yehovah, You are so awesome and we love Your word. We love living by Your instructions. We love that You love to bless us, that You love for us to revel in Your rest, in your Shabbat, and Your mercies are new every morning.

Thank You for Nehemia and thank You for the work You’re doing. We pray that You’ll bless Him and protect Him in the days to come. Amen.

Nehemia: Amen. Shalom.

Mark: Shalom.

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We hope the above transcript has proven to be a helpful resource in your study. While much effort has been taken to provide you with this transcript, it should be noted that the text has not been reviewed by the speakers and its accuracy cannot be guaranteed. If you would like to support our efforts to transcribe the teachings on NehemiasWall.com, please visit our support page. All donations are tax-deductible (501c3) and help us empower people around the world with the Hebrew sources of their faith!


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Verses Mentioned:
Hosea 11:1
2 Chronicles 25:2
Isaiah 53
Luke 24

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Reading the New Testament Through Jewish Eyes
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Pesher in the Dead Sea Scrolls
Hope from Despair on Yom Kippur
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Nehemia Gordon's Teachings on the Name of God

  • Louis C Korkames Jr says:

    I also went through a crisis of faith, after reading a book put out by “The Jesus Seminar”. This group went through the gospels, including Thomas, and voted on the authenticity of each passage of Jesus’ words, resulting in their denying that 80% of the purported words were not authentic, but ascribed to other sources. At this point I had been studying, memorizing, and evangelising for Jesus for over 20 years! I realised I didn’t have a very strong foundation if this could rock it. This propelled me on a journey to find the foundations of my faith, first to the Greek, then to the foundation of that, the Hebrew and to the Hebrew world of the 2nd temple and before, the Tanakh, Torah, YHVH, Judaism. It is a wonderful journey!

  • Devarim says:

    Wow! One of Nehemia’s best interviews that I’ve heard, yet! It’s the story of many of us. The New Testament is completely rejected, and then, God’s existence is rejected completely. Love to hear Nehemia’s perspective on the value of Yeshua.

  • shell says:

    “I know I’m going to get into a lot of trouble for that, but I don’t care. I’ve said this throughout my ministry, my purpose is to empower people with information”

    I know im one of the mean ones, maybe its in my nature, but im so glad theres a good one like you thats reaching out to every person, regardless of their beliefs, and often at your own risk. Youre a gift

  • Dave Yancy says:

    Thank you,
    Please remember you will be hammered for telling the truth.How tuff are you??
    Don’t give up.Back to # 88 start building good cells.You are a light for many
    Some of us have no one to reason with.Your voice picks us up
    Shalom

  • Christina Wolkenfeld says:

    Nehemiah is Yeshua’s cousin <3 I really enjoy observing Nehemiah's humility and willingness to teach us who have so much to learn. We are grateful! "Thus says Yehovah of hosts, 'In those days ten men from all the nations will grasp the garment of a Jew, saying, "Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.""

  • donald murphy says:

    christianity is pagan.

  • Sheila Price says:

    Ahhh… blessings received once again because of listening to your podcast…

    Thank you, Nehemia for, as Dr. Mark put it… your constant search for God’s Truth and your willingness to share what you learn.

    I thank Yehovah for bringing you and those you bring into this site, to cross my path in life so that I may continue to learn and grow in my search for Yehovah’s Truth.

    Blessings and Shalom

  • Dale Hurley says:

    just putting this up so i am notified of others comments

  • Michael Okulski says:

    Awesome testimony!

  • Gnarlodious says:

    Nechemia, I honestly believe you have a special anointing to bring the truth of unity to the sorely divided tribes of Israel. Your ponderings about Israel you admitted is a mystery of God’s plan is that the Scandinavians, the horrible heathens you mentioned converting to Christianity, are Israelites. So are the Angles and the Saxons, and even the Greeks and Romans were Israelites. For millennia the scattered tribes of Israel were loathe to admit they were remotely related to the Jews. Likewise the Jews were adept at inventing explanations for why their persecutors were not Israelites. To expand your understanding of God’s plan, you need to accept that the Europeans ARE the “lost tribes”. I promise it will all start to make sense.

    • Marsha Bolton says:

      I agree. This is why Yeshua said, “I am sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” and “My sheep hear My voice.”

      • Reyes Nava says:

        When Yeshua referred to the “lost sheep of Israel” he was not referring to the scattered 10 tribes, but to the Israelites who were currently living in the land because they had strayed from their true shepherd.

        By turning aside and obeying the commandments of men instead of the commandments of their Heavenly Father Yehovah the Holy One of Israel.

        “My people have become lost sheep; Their shepherds have led them astray. They have made them turn aside on the mountains; They have gone along from mountain to hill and have forgotten their resting place. (Jeremiah 50:6)

        “I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek Your servant, For I do not forget Your commandments.” (Psalm 119:176)

        • Aron Brackeen says:

          Re: “‘lost sheep of Israel’ he was not referring to the scattered 10 tribes, but to the Israelites who were currently living in the land because they had strayed from their true shepherd”
          Amen!

  • Don & Peggy says:

    so if yeshua is messiah and you thought it possible for him to return to complete prophesy, could this be tied into the second coming described in revelation?

  • Nehemiah, clearly Yah’s hand is on you and your life. As I told you in person when we spoke in Huntington, WV, YOU ARE DOING WHAT YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO DO. The people who are pressuring you to recognize Yeshua as Messiah need to have faith in Yah’s plan for you. The plan you described in this episode further confirms the two scriptures that I quoted to you in Huntington: Matthew 15:24 “But He (Yeshua) answered and said, I am not sent EXCEPT to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” and John 10:27 “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.” YES, YESHUA HAS MADE YHVH KNOWN TO THE WORLD!!! PRAISE YAH!!! I love your enthusiasm, and I hope to see you again soon in person. Yah bless you and keep you.

  • Dagny Beck says:

    Thank you both for addressing exactly what is in my heart. I would not be in this beautiful joy full place if it were not for your work Nehemia. I listen to you and Keith every day. Yehovah is moving through people today and I can see it in their eyes when I tell them what I feel. When they say “ME TOO” I tell them about your web site and Keith Johnson and Michael Rood. Thank you thank you thank you!!

  • Jackie says:

    Nehemia I needed to hear this… Thank you!

  • Jeremy Stack says:

    This was very interesting. I’ve often thought how YeHoVaH spread his TaNahK by the sect of Jesus. This is a good aspect. Nehemiah, FYI the subtitle in the video is not correct. The subtitle needs to be fixed. There are incorrect words. Thanks for posting this.

  • I don’t understand….. According to the conversation on the road to Emmaus, it is not a favorable position to be ignorant of the truth. In fact, those guys were criticized by Yeshua as being slow and foolish to believe the prophets. Should we use this story to prove our own ignorance and skip over the fact that that ignorance is not favorable or acceptable? … Especially when the Son of God rebukes our ignorance of the very scriptures we claim to study and follow?

    Perhaps instead we ought to go to the Father admitting our plight as the same plight of those guys on the road to Emmaus yet unwilling to settle for being slow and foolish in the eyes of Messiah or YHVH. Perhaps that kind of humility will cure our foolishness and stiff-necked approach to the very scriptures that claim our Messiah would do the very things Yeshua did.

    Don’t forget, Messiah’s rebukes and name-calling throughout the NT are not a “religious spirit” but a demand of surrender. If some of our brethren walk in those footsteps following that example, it is also not a religious spirit but an insistence of humility in approaching the Creator, not willing to let others ignore or be ambivalent to His word. That kind of rebuke is more of a gift than anything else.

    • Peter Quinones says:

      I believe you miss the point you would expect them meaning the followers to have a better understanding of Yeshua since they knew him intimately, they ate with him they traveled together as their teacher, plus after peter revealing his identity as to who he was, still they had trouble understanding what his mission was …so it would make sense for Yeshua to call them slow and foolish..they had the advantage that no others had. So you would of expected them to believe Yeshua’s word’s to them before he died. That’s is the reason he calls them those words…so what does he do he opens the scriptures to them so they can get a full sense of his mission. And not like Paul who did not know Yeshua, ever saw him, but yet was an educated Jew knowing the Hebrew scriptures did not understand, it took a revelation of Yeshua for him to see to get it. Remember the words of John 6:44 where Yeshua says it plainly: NO ONE CAN COME TO ME UNLESS THE FATHER WHO SENT ME DRAWS THEM…

      • yes, I agree. So claiming that the Father and I have a covenant relationship yet all the while being “slow” and “foolish” by missing what the text is telling me, is actually revealing that I don’t really have a covenant relationship with the Father, right? In other words, you said it just like Yeshua said it, “no one comes unless drawn.” Therefore we’re kidding ourselves that we are drawn and in covenant all while ignoring what the prophets say.