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Hebrew Voices #222 – You Can’t Be Perfect—Can You? Part 1
In this episode of Hebrew Voices #222 - You Can’t Be Perfect—Can You?: Part 1, Nehemia is joined by Pastor AJ Bernard to discuss what “being perfect” means in context of Scripture, as they debunk and reaffirm various perceptions about how people can attain Biblical “perfection.”
I look forward to reading your comments!
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Hebrew Voices #222 – You Can’t Be Perfect—Can You? Part 1
You are listening to Hebrew Voices with Nehemia Gordon. Thank you for supporting Nehemia Gordon's Makor Hebrew Foundation. Learn more at NehemiasWall.com.
Nehemia: “And he reckoned it for him as righteousness.” What does that mean?
Pastor AJ Bernard: So, trusting in the Lord is how Abraham is made righteous. Believing that Yehovah is who He says He is and will do what He says He will do is how Abraham is made perfect.
—
Nehemia: Shalom, and welcome to Hebrew Voices. I have here today, Pastor AJ Bernard, who is a licensed pastor at the Global Methodist Church.
And can I call you a lover of Torah?
AJ: Yes, absolutely.
Nehemia: Okay, beautiful. We’ve done programs in the past, AJ, and I just love your heart. And you reached out to me, I don’t know, a year or two ago, and I said, “We need to do a program on that!” And I never got to it. And I’m like, “Where’s AJ? I need to do this program with him that he brought up to me.”
So, I’m going to let you do kind of the introduction of what the topic is, because it’s been a while. And it was a program that I had presented, and you had contacted me and told me it really resonated with you. And I’m like, “We need to share that with people.”
AJ: Yeah.
Nehemia: I think it could bless a lot of people.
AJ: I really hope so. The program that I found was on your Nehemia Gordon Clips channel, and it was a clip from Hebrew Gospel Pearls #29 where you were talking about Numbers chapter 15 and verse 30… Numbers 15 and 30. I probably should have pulled that up here before I started talking.
Nehemia: And, guys, I asked him to move back from the keyboard, and so, he’s going to have to, like, stretch to be able to type. I’m sorry about that AJ, because your head was filling up too much of the…
AJ: Oh…
Nehemia: By the way, I love your new hairdo since I’ve last seen you. A man after my own heart.
AJ: Yes. I wanted to be more like Nehemia.
Nehemia: Well, I tell people this is a choice. Say, choice.
AJ: Good choice.
Nehemia: I didn’t say it’s much of a choice, but it’s a choice.
AJ: [Laughter]
Nehemia: You could always do that kind of squirrel sitting on your head, kind of swirl thing. It takes several years. You can do it! I can do it.
AJ: Actually, it goes backwards. I could do the, you know, the medieval monk tonsure thing with the bald spot on the top and the hair on the side.
Nehemia: Wow! I think the tonsure has to have hair in front, AJ.
AJ: Well, I can do that. There’s a little bit there, but not a whole lot.
Nehemia: I’m with you.
AJ: [Laughter] So, the…
Nehemia: All right. So, Numbers 15, let me pull that up as well, and go ahead and tell me…
AJ: Yeah, yeah. The teaching that I saw, you were talking to Keith. I found another recording that you had done where you were speaking to Jono about it, but your conversation with Keith just… I don’t want to put too much emphasis on this. I don’t want to say it too strongly, but can I say, your teaching with Keith changed my life forever?
Nehemia: Okay, people need to hear; what is the intelligent thing I said? Because I don’t remember.
AJ: [Laughter]
Nehemia: Every once in a while, I have a piece of wisdom that comes through. You know, I’m Balaam’s donkey, and every once in a while, Yehovah allows some truth to come out of my mouth. Hopefully more than every once in a while.
AJ: Because I love you, I’m going to tease you a little bit.
Nehemia: Please tease me.
Nehemia: The beautiful thing that you said was when you were quoting Yeshua. So…
Nehemia: Okay. I think I was quoting my father, but he stole it from Yeshua.
AJ: You were quoting your father, who was quoting Yeshua. Yes.
Nehemia: Unbeknownst to him, he was quoting Yeshua, yes. I remember this now, yes.
AJ: [Laughter]. Yes. And I heard this, and I was sitting on the edge of my chair, staring at my screen, waiting to hear what you were going to say. And when your father quoted Yeshua on this passage, I broke down in tears. Yeah. Because it was so beautiful. So, this passage… beginning at verse 27 of Numbers chapter 15. I’m reading from the ESV. “If one person sins unintentionally, he shall offer a female goat, a year old for a sin offering, and a priest shall make atonement before the LORD for the person who makes a mistake, and when he sins unintentionally to make atonement for him, and he shall be forgiven.”
Nehemia: Which translation is this? That’s going to be important.
AJ: I’m sorry. I’m reading from the ESV, the English Standard Version.
Nehemia: That’s great. We’ll go back and I’ll nitpick about little words there, but more or less, that’s what it says. Yeah.
AJ: Well, I also have the JPS and the King James here if…
Nehemia: That’s fine. Let’s stick with the ESV for now.
AJ: All right. Verse 29. “You shall have one law for him who does anything unintentionally, for him who is native among the people of Israel, and for the stranger who sojourns among them.” And verse 30 is the thing that did it. “But the person who does anything beyad rama,” with a high hand, “whether he is a native or a sojourner, reviles the LORD, and that person shall be cut off from among his people, because he has despised the word of the LORD and has broken His commandment. That person shall be utterly cut off. His iniquity shall be on him.” When I read that…
Nehemia: Yeah…
AJ: I remembered what Moses had said in Leviticus, 21:6-8, “They shall be holy to their God and not profane the name of their God. They shall offer the LORD’s food offerings, bread to their God. Therefore, they shall be holy. They shall not marry a prostitute or a woman who’s been defiled. Neither shall they marry a woman divorced from her husband. For the priest is holy to God.” Now that’s just for the priests, but it’s…
Nehemia: That’s just for the Kohanim. And guys, “priest” here isn’t the guy… isn’t the pastor in your church on Sunday…
AJ: Right.
Nehemia: …or the rabbi. It’s a male direct line descendant from Aaron, the brother of Moses.
AJ: Right. This is for the Kohanim.
Nehemia: For the Kohanim.
AJ: But it ends by saying “He shall be holy to you, for I, the LORD, who sanctify you, am holy.” And if it had just been that I could have said, “Well, I’m not Kohanim. It’s not on me to be holy.” Right? But then the Lord continues.
Nehemia: So, wait, what verse was that that you just read? Sorry.
AJ: I just read from Leviticus 21:6-8.
Nehemia: Okay, beautiful. And guys, in verse 1, it starts, “And Yehovah said to Moshe: speak to the Kohanim, the sons of Aaron.” Right? So, that’s specifically for the Aaronic priests. And a lot of Christians get this confused and they say Levitical priests, which isn’t wrong; it’s a phrase that appears in Deuteronomy. But Levitical priests are Kohanim who are also Levites, meaning, Aaron was from the tribe of Levi. So, all Kohanim are Levites, but not all Levites are Kohanim.
AJ: Right.
Nehemia: So, all right, just to clarify that. There’s some confusion there in some circles.
AJ: Nope. All good. And then it continues, in Exodus 19:5-8. “‘Now therefore if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, you shall be My treasured possession from among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine. You shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words you shall speak to the people of Israel.’ So, Moses came and called the elders of the people and said before them all these words that the LORD had commanded him. And all the people answered together, ‘All that the LORD has spoken, we will do.’ And Moses reported the words of the people to the LORD.”
And again, Leviticus 11:45, “For I am the LORD who brought you up out of the land of Egypt to be your God. You shall therefore be holy, for I am holy.” And again. Leviticus 19:2, “Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel, and say to them, ‘You shall be holy, for I, the LORD your God, am holy.’” And again… Well, no, that’s Leviticus 19:2.
But I could have squeaked by all of those because I’m not Israel, right? I’m not Jewish. And if I’m looking for a loophole in the law, I could have said, “Well, I’m not a priest. Well, I’m not a Hebrew.” But then Yeshua goes even further in Matthew 5:48. He says, “Therefore…”
Nehemia: Wait hold on, let me pull that up. Matthew 5:48. Sorry, I’m here on my computer and it’s a bit slow, so… All right, go ahead.
AJ: Good. No. “You therefore must be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect.”
Nehemia: Ooh. Okay.
AJ: And he is, of course, quoting Moses, right? Because Yeshua was a good rabbi, but he was expanding this commandment to all of us.
Nehemia: Hmm.
AJ: Go be holy. Go be perfect. Right? Not just to the priests, not just to the Kohanim, not just to the Jews, but to the goyim like myself.
Nehemia: Hmm.
AJ: “You must therefore be perfect, as your heavenly father is perfect.” And for a very long time I struggled with that. I preached sermons on it; I led Bible studies on it. Because I look at my own life, I look at myself with a very fine lens, and I don’t see me as well as the Lord sees me, of course. But, even in my cloudy vision, I realized that I am far from perfect. I am a broken person. There are sins. There are things in my life that I do that I know that I shouldn’t do. Some jerk cuts me off on the highway, and I’ll yell at him. I’ll stick my arm out the window, and I’ll yell, “Darn you!” Right?
I’m substitute teaching at a local school, and I had a kid lie to me, and I was angry with this child, right? And Yeshua said, “You know… anyone who’s angry with their brother…” So, I do these things that I know that I shouldn’t do, and I hate them within myself. I hate the wickedness that is within me. I am nowhere near holy as Moses calls me to. I am nowhere near perfect as Yeshua calls me to. And so, this verse… like, there’s this verse in Hebrews chapter 6… Hebrews 6.
Nehemia: Let’s see it; pull it up.
AJ: Yeah, yeah, oh, man. This verse… like, I refused to read the Book of Hebrews for 20 years because of this verse.
Nehemia: What?
AJ: Yeah. I’m back in Hebrews now; I’m trying to push myself through it, but it’s rough. Okay. Hebrews chapter 6 and 4 from the English Standard: “For it is impossible in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift and have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tested the goodness of the Word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt.” It is impossible, the New Testament says. Boy, if…
Nehemia: Help me understand that. Let’s give a little bit of a… because some of my Jewish listeners are like… “Hebrews? We don’t know what’s going on here. You’ve got to help us out.”
AJ: Yeah, sorry about that.
Nehemia: No, it’s fine. Just give us the context and help us understand what… Read that again and put it in context here.
AJ: Well, so, the author of Hebrews… and there’s a lot of debate…
Nehemia: And what’s the verse again in Hebrews? Sorry.
AJ: Hebrews chapter 6.
Nehemia: Right, I’m still in Matthew…
AJ: Beginning in verse…
Nehemia: Sorry what? Verse 4…
AJ: Hebrews 6 and 4
Nehemia: Okay.
AJ: Paul… well, okay. So, there’s a lot of debate over who wrote Hebrews. I’m convinced that it was a collaboration between Paul and Luke for a couple of reasons. But anytime you have a Christian with an opinion, you’re going to have another Christian who will angrily fight against that opinion.
Nehemia: Well, I think in mainstream scholarship they’ll talk about… what is it, the seven epistles that Paul wrote and all the other ones they say are pseudo-Paul, and Paul didn’t really write them. And… okay, all right, whatever. But generally, most… I think most even Christian scholars, correct me if I’m wrong… like, let’s say university Christian scholars don’t believe that Paul wrote Hebrews, if I’m not mistaken.
AJ: Right.
Nehemia: And maybe I’m wrong about that. Meaning, maybe if you go into the Dallas Theological Seminary, it’s a totally different story. But I’m not so sure.
AJ: Yeah. No, I think that…
Nehemia: Maybe Bible colleges probably definitely think Paul wrote it, but I don’t really know. Anyway, go on.
AJ: I had an Old Testament professor when I was in seminary, and I told him that I believe that Moses wrote the Torah. And he all but patted me on the head and said, “Isn’t that cute?” So, I don’t have a whole lot of faith in academic scholarship.
Nehemia: Okay, fair enough; I understand where you’re coming from. And really, I would say that’s what… I’ll say from my perspective. There’s two different types of Bible criticism; there’s textual criticism, which is what I do. Which is, what do the manuscripts actually say? Right? And then there’s a so-called higher criticism. And it’s called higher because on the bottom of the page in these academic Bibles, there are all these little notes that say, you know, “There’s this other manuscript that says this. There’s another manuscript that says that.” That’s lower criticism, right? That’s empirical evidence. It’s empirical science. Right? There is actually a manuscript that says that. You might say it’s not an important manuscript, or you might say it’s very important; that’s up to debate. But it’s not up to debate, if it’s done correctly, that it really says that. Higher criticism is the top part of the page…
Nehemia: Ah hah. Makes sense…
Nehemia: … where they say, “Well, how is Matthew written? Surely, there wasn’t a man named…” So, Keith Johnson and I wrote our book, A Prayer to Our Father, in which we talked about the place where Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount. And he sent this book to… I won’t say to who; it doesn’t matter. But he got it back, from a Christian, he got back a… let’s say a Christian scholar, I will say that, who he respected. Who really kind of patted us on the head and said, “How cute.” Basically, Jesus didn’t preach the sermon on the Mount, it took place in Matthew’s study. And maybe not actually a man named Matthew, but the figure that we refer to as the author of the Gospel of Matthew. He was sitting surrounded by these scrolls, and one scroll had this tradition that Jesus had spoken, and another scroll had that tradition, and he compiled this fiction which was the Sermon on the Mount. And I looked at Keith and I’m like, “I’m not the Christian, and I’m taking the book seriously.” Right? Like, I don’t know if it happened or not, I wasn’t there. But based on what’s described in the book, what does it mean? That’s the question I’m asking.
AJ: Mm-hmm.
Nehemia: Right? Look, I asked that question in Job. There’s a debate within ancient Jewish sources; was Job an actual person who lived? Or is it all an allegory? And I say, “I want to know what Job means,” right?
AJ: Mm-hmm.
Nehemia: Whether Job actually sat down with three friends while he was scraping his skin with a shard… I believe he did, just between you and me. But it’s irrelevant for understanding what the book’s telling us.
AJ: Right.
Nehemia: Right? And if you start off, “Oh, this is all allegory, and I don’t take it seriously. And it didn’t happen, so don’t even try to understand it.” You know, I feel like you’re doomed to fail there. I don’t know, I that’s not my approach, let me say that.
AJ: Yeah.
Nehemia: So, I want to take the literature seriously, and… now… Yeah. All right. Let’s not get too much into the weeds there. So, the Book of Hebrews, whether it was written by Paul or was attributed to Paul, that is neither here nor there as far as what the message is. Okay. “For it is impossible to…” I’m reading here the NRSV, just because it popped up on my computer. “For it is impossible to restore again to repentance those who have once been enlightened and have tasted the heavenly gift and share in the Holy Spirit and have tasted the goodness of the Word of God and the powers of the age to come and then have fallen away.” So, in other words, once you’ve had a certain spiritual experience and you’ve… whatever fallen away means… maybe that’s the crux of the problem, right? You can’t really go back after that.
AJ: Yeah.
Nehemia: Wow.
AJ: Right.
Nehemia: So, what does that mean? What does fallen away here mean?
AJ: Well, so, I think the key word here is “tasted”. It’s the same word here in verse 6 and in verse 5 and is used metaphorically to indicate eating or drinking. Thus, experiencing something fully, not merely a superficial participation in something. Right?
Nehemia: Okay.
AJ: It means to have complete understanding of a thing, right?
Nehemia: Well, I mean, taste in Biblical Hebrew is something like discernment.
AJ: Yeah.
Nehemia: Right? Like, tuv ta’am is good taste, but it really means you have good understanding, good discernment.
AJ: Okay, I didn’t know that; that’s amazing.
Nehemia: Yeah.
AJ: Yeah, that fits right in here. In Hebrews 2:9, the same Greek word is used where it says that Jesus tasted death for everyone. So, like, the death by crucifixion is an extreme sort of death, right? There’s no ambiguity about it. So, my understanding of this passage, and it leads us back to Numbers 15:30, is that we do things without understanding. Like, we…
Nehemia: So, you’re saying taste here in Hebrews means you have, like, full discernment and you really know what you’re doing.
AJ: Yeah. Right.
Nehemia: It’s very deliberate. That’s what you’re…
AJ: Right.
Nehemia: Okay. And that that ties into Numbers 15:30. That ties into Numbers 15:30. I did a teaching on this recently, I don’t know if you… it was like a live teaching, I think, I’m not sure you saw it. But I brought up this example of… And I’ll pull the image up here and try to show it. It’s called the… I don’t know; here in Wikipedia, they call it success kid. But let me show it to you. So, yad rama is the term in Numbers 15:30.
AJ: Yes.
Nehemia: So, it’s to sin with a high hand.
AJ: Right.
Nehemia: And here we… you know what? Before I bring up the little kid, let’s go back to Numbers 15:30. But I really do want to talk about Matthew 5… I believe it’s 48 or something, or 46, that you brought about being perfect. Can we talk about that for a minute? Because I feel like that’s important.
AJ: Uh, yeah. Matthew 5:48.
Nehemia: 5:48, right. So, is that the verse? Can you read that again?
AJ: Yeah. So, let’s… beginning at verse 6, or verse 1 of chapter 6, just to get a… no, I’m sorry. That’s… sorry. Here we go. Beginning at verse 43 of chapter 5, you get a little bit of context. Yeshua is giving the Sermon on the Mount, and he says, “You’ve heard that it was said, ‘you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy,’ but I say to you: love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father, who is in heaven, for He makes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
Nehemia: So, I think you kind of implied, correct me if I’m wrong, that this is based on something in the Tanakh. And so, it is. So, the word there for perfect in Greek is taleo, from taleos. So, that’s based on Deuteronomy 8:13, where it says, “You are tamim,” and we’ll talk about what tamim means, or sorry, “You shall be tamim with Yehovah, your God,” is what it says there in the Hebrew. And the word there for tamim is teleos, right? So, be teleos, be tamim, and by Greek, I mean the Septuagint, the ancient Greek translation.
AJ: Right, right.
Nehemia: So, Yeshua is quoting that, right? Saying, “be teleos with Yehovah your God”. Well, what’s teleos? What’s tamim? Is it perfect? Right? So, now it becomes a question of, what does that Hebrew word “perfect” mean?
AJ: Mm-hmm.
Nehemia: Right? And…
AJ: I also have something else on that score as well, so let’s chase that.
Nehemia: Oooh, okay.
AJ: Yeah.
Nehemia: And look, so, Genesis 17:1 is, “And Abraham was 99 years old and Yehovah appeared to Avram and He said to him, ‘I am El Shaddai. Walk before Me veheye tamim,’” and be tamim. Now, in Greek it’s a different word, but the Hebrew is the same word. Be tamim, right? And then we have Exodus 12:5, which is a se tamim, a “tamim lamb”, one year old. Right? This is for the Passover, is to be tamim.
AJ: Oh, wow! And that’s… yes! That’s where that gets translated as “without blemish” in the ESV.
Nehemia: Right! Well, and then there’s a definition of what tamim means. It’s a very technical definition in Leviticus where it doesn’t, you know, it doesn’t have a broken leg and it’s not blind and… right? That’s tamim in the context of a lamb. In the context of a person and his character, it’s somewhat different, presumably. But tamim, repeatedly, is in the ritual context of animals, right, for sacrifices. It’s all over… Exodus 29:1, Leviticus 1:3… I could read you a bunch in Leviticus. I’m not going to do it. Leviticus 1-7 has it over a dozen times, I think… a bunch of times, I don’t know. So, what is this tamim mean? Because Yeshua is then quoting that, right?
AJ: Mm-hmm.
Nehemia: So, here’s for me the key verse, and here I will give credit to the rabbis for what I believe is a profound observation. Can you open up Genesis 6:9 and tell me what you have in your translation?
AJ: Absolutely. I also have King James in the JPS.
Nehemia: Yeah, any translation, doesn’t matter.
AJ: Okay, let me just go with my favorite then, the ESV. Genesis 6:9 says, “These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man. Blameless in his generation, Noah walked with God.”
Nehemia: Okay. And it’s tamim, same word that Yeshua used in Matthew 5:48, same word that Deuteronomy 18 used, saying, “you will be tamim with Yehovah your God.” And then the Greek word there, by the way, is teleos as well in the Septuagint, for there… Now, there’s a profound observation of the rabbis, and what it literally says is he was a righteous man, he was a Tzadik. And then it says “tamim haya be’dorotav” “he was tamim in his generations.” Meaning, he lived in multiple generations. He was kind of an old guy, right? According to the Torah, he was hundreds of years old when the flood took place, and he lived in very sinful and iniquitous generations. And we can actually look at him; he wasn’t a perfect person. I could just bring up the story of him getting drunk.
AJ: Right.
Nehemia: And, you know, and some very unfortunate things happen that we won’t get into, if you understand what it says in the Hebrew. And some of that wasn’t his fault, but it was his fault that he lost control and got drunk. If he had been in control of his faculties, that wouldn’t have happened, and… Or it could have hopefully been avoided. Not trying to victim-blame here. So, the observation the rabbis make, which I think is… I mean, I think it’s correct; it’s the plain meaning. He wasn’t perfect. He was perfect in his generations. He was surrounded by extremely iniquitous and sinful people, and compared to them, he was perfect.
AJ: Mmm.
Nehemia: And I think what it’s saying in Deuteronomy 18, because there’s a context. We didn’t read the context; I just read one verse. “You shall be tamim with Yehovah your God.” What’s the context there? Well, he’s talking about the nations of the Canaanites that they’re going among, and then it contrasts it. It says, “You will be tamim with Yehovah your God,” that’s Deuteronomy 18:13. And then it says, “for these nations, that you are inheriting them, they turn to soothsayers,” or “they listen to soothsayers and diviners, and you not so. Yehovah your God has given you… He has placed a prophet among you.” Right?
So, what it’s saying is, “Look, I know you’re not perfect, but at least when the prophet tells you to repent, you should listen to him. And don’t listen to the witch. Don’t listen to the soothsayer. Don’t listen to the fortuneteller. Don’t read the astrology. I know you’re not going to be perfect, but be perfect in the sense that at least you know who to listen to, which is the true prophet that Yehovah sends you and not these self-serving fortune tellers.” And maybe scammers, as well, in a lot of cases. Right? Meaning this… that’s a question; are the soothsayers and the diviners, is that real? Is that a real spiritual power? Or is it just deception, right? This is a classic question in Judaism. It’s the debate I have with my mother-in-law about Harry Potter, right?
AJ: [Laughter]
Nehemia: She’s like, “How is it that your nephews and nieces, your Jewish Orthodox nephews and nieces, read Harry Potter?” And I’m trying to explain to her at least the Orthodox Jewish perspective; they don’t believe magic is real. It’s just sleight of hand. So, it’s ridiculous stories. But if you believe it as power, then maybe you’re giving it permission to be in your life, right? That’s her perspective. If there are actual real spiritual entities you’re dealing with, maybe… right? And we’re not going to solve that problem today, right?
But the point is, right, so, when he says, “you shall be tamim with Yehovah your God,” there’s a context there, which is, compared to these nations who are turning to Harry Potter and Dumbledore and whatever it is, right? And not metaphorical story ones, literal ones that claim that they have gods behind them and spiritual entities behind them. Whether they do or not is a different question. And I think that also ties into what Yeshua’s saying… if I may be so bold. I could be wrong.
AJ: Please do.
Nehemia: But I think… what’s that?
AJ: Please do, yes.
Nehemia: So, Matthew 5:48 is, “Be perfect, therefore…” And you know, there’s the old question: “What’s the therefore, there for?” Right?
AJ: Right.
Nehemia: Right? Or thus in Greek, it could be as well, un. So, “be perfect therefore, as your heavenly father is perfect.” So, what’s the context? The context is, here’s people who, let’s say for this purpose… So, look, for sacrifices, tamim, “perfect” has a definition. It doesn’t have a broken leg, and it’s not blind… And it doesn’t mean if you’re blind, you’re not perfect in the spiritual sense. But if you’re a sheep that needs to be sacrificed, yeah, then you’re not perfect. Right? So, it’s a very specific definition, right? Malachi talks about that. He says try offering that to one of your governors of the Persian Empire. Right? You want to give that to God, the blind and lame animal? So, there’s a specific legal definition. And the definition in this context is what he says and what you read, right? That, well, even the tax collectors greet people, right? And tax collectors in that context is, you know, people who like… Like, think of the mafia, right? That’s really what you have to think of. They’re collecting protection money. Right? Now, they’re doing it on behalf of the Roman Empire, but they’re not just taking what you owe the Romans, they’re taking what they want. As they as they say in the movies, they want to wet their beak as well.
AJ: Sure, sure.
Nehemia: Right? So, they’re taking their portion as well, which is whatever they decide it is and whatever they can get away with. So, tax collectors are basically, you know, bullies and thieves in that context. And he says, “If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do you not even the…” And that’s interesting. Yours has “Gentiles”, I believe, is what you read. And some translations have “the pagans”, right? NIV has “pagans”, and NRSV has “Gentiles”. And the word there is ethnikoi, which really is “the nations”, right? So, goyim in Hebrew means “the nations”, right? And Israel is called a goy. You quoted a verse that says you’re a holy nation, you’re a goy kadosh, a holy goy. Right? Every nation is a goy. And you could be a holy goy or an unholy goy, it’s up to how you choose to live your life, right? Do you set it apart to God and do your best?
And so, here’s my takeaway: I don’t think perfect is perfect. I think perfect is perfect within the context in which it’s given. And the context in which it’s given here by Yeshua… let’s read it again. Right? So, Matthew 5, where did you start it there?
AJ: I started at 43.
Nehemia: So, let’s start in 43. There you go. Right? So, this is the context in which He wants you to be perfect. He knows you’re never… look, it’s in the Tanakh; there’s no man who doesn’t sin. It’s quoted in the New Testament, right? So, I don’t think Yeshua is asking people to be perfect. I don’t know… do you think Yeshua would put a burden on people that he knows they can’t fulfill? Maybe you do theologically, I don’t know.
AJ: No, no. I don’t think… I don’t think he would. But I think that it challenges our understanding of what perfect is.
Nehemia: Oh, yeah.
AJ: And when we… Yeah. So, when we answer that, I want to make a quick stop over in Genesis 15.
Nehemia: Okay. We’ll get to Genesis 15. Read me Matthew. Let’s go to Genesis 15 first, and then we’ll come back to Matthew 5:43-48. Genesis 15; let’s look at that. Where are we in Genesis? Or, which verse in Genesis?
AJ: Oh, yes. Genesis 15, right in the beginning where God is making the covenant with Abram. “Fear not, I’m your sword, your shield. I am your shield; your reward will be very great.”
Nehemia: Give me what verse we’re in.
AJ: Well, beginning at verse 1, but the key verse is going to be verse 6.
Nehemia: Okay.
AJ: Which is one of my favorite verses in the whole of the Bible.
Nehemia: Ooh, nice!
AJ: Right?
Nehemia: There’s a lot of meat there. Okay, let’s read it.
AJ: Because I’m goyim, right? I’m not the people of Israel; I’m not among the chosen. But I know there is no God in all the world except in Israel, right? To quote Na’aman. So, beginning at verse 5: “And he brought him outside and said, ‘Look toward the heaven and number the stars if you’re able to number them.’ And he said to him, ‘So shall your offspring be.’” Verse 6. “And he believed the LORD, and He counted it to him as righteousness.”
Nehemia: Mhm.
AJ: Now, I love that verse so much, because this is the origin of faith. This is the first place in the Bible where anyone has faith in anything.
Nehemia: Hmm.
AJ: And it’s Father Abraham.
Nehemia: That’s a great observation. Okay.
AJ: He is…
Nehemia: So, what does it mean that… tell us what the verse means. You know, I once had a professor who was a Greek expert, and he wanted to work on his Greek. So, he sat down with this classical scholar… this was in Australia, he told us. That’s where he was from, but… meaning, I wasn’t in Australia, I was in Israel. But that’s where he was from, and he had this colleague who had never read the Bible, never heard of Christianity. He was raised in, like, the British tradition of classical scholarship. And they started reading Genesis 1:1, and it says, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” And in the beginning in Greek is en archai, which is in… archai is like arch, right? Like “the first”. And en archai could mean “in the ruler”. And he and this person genuinely and innocently believed, this Greek scholar that my professor was talking to back when he was younger, believed en archi was the creator. And that’s what Genesis was saying.
AJ: Oh, wow!
Nehemia: Because he had never heard this before! He didn’t know anything about… like, he knew all the myths of Zeus and Apollo and Hercules. Had never really encountered… which is hard to understand, but he had not encountered the Judeo-Christian version of events. So, let’s say I’m that guy, and I have no idea what this verse means. Tell me what it means.
AJ: Well, this is one of the most honest verses in the entirety of the Bible. And I stack this up right there with Numbers 15:30 and Habakkuk. “The just shall live by faith.” What is…
Nehemia: Ooh, another very important verse.
AJ: Oh, my goodness. Yeah. Like, that verse, that verse launched the Protestant Reformation. But…
Nehemia: Hmm. So, what does it mean? “And he believed in the LORD,” or “Yehovah” it says in Hebrew. In the Greek, it actually says “he believed in God… and He reckoned it for him as righteousness.” What does that mean?
AJ: So, trusting in the Lord is how Abraham is made righteous. Believing that Yehovah is who He says He is and will do what He says He will do is how Abraham is made perfect.
Nehemia: Hmm.
AJ: I love that. Because we know… like, we read the rest of the story and Abraham goes into Egypt, and he has the thing with Sarah and the Pharaoh, and he does that again, right? And then he questions the Lord. And there’s all kinds of things that Abraham does that we can say, “Eh, maybe not so… maybe not so kadosh there.” But here in verse 6, Abraham believed the Lord, and that belief, “He counted it to him as righteousness.” This is how Abraham is made holy.
Nehemia: Okay. So, we should do a whole separate study in which we look at how this is interpreted in the writings of Paul and of James, because that’s a famous discussion. Right? There’s even claims that they’re dialoguing with each other because of what James wrote about it. I believe it was Martin Luther who wanted to remove James’s epistle from the New Testament.
AJ: But the spirit wouldn’t let him, yes.
Nehemia: Well, okay.
AJ: [Laughter]
Nehemia: But he wanted to because of what James wrote about this that contradicted his theology.
AJ: Right.
Nehemia: Meaning, like, he talks there about… let’s not go into it; let’s save that for a separate study because it’s important enough. I’ll just say that I’ve discussed this before, I believe in Torah Pearls, but if you look at how Jews interpreted this verse, there’s two interpretations. And here’s where the problem comes in. It says, “And he reckoned it to him as righteousness.” Who reckoned it to who? And of course, the way Paul and James interpret it is, “God reckoned it to Abraham.” Right? Where they disagree is what “and he believed” means.
AJ: Okay.
Nehemia: Right? Is believe just an intellectual process that goes on in your head? Or is believe something that has to be backed up by action, right? That’s at least how people interpret James and Paul. Whether that’s correct or not, we’ll save that for a different study.
So, there’s a second interpretation among Jewish sources, which, Abraham believed in God, in Yehovah, and considered Yehovah righteous. And, for example, I could give you a list of different rabbis, some of which you’ve heard of, some have not, but that is one of the interpretations in traditional Jewish sources. Both of them exist, right? Both interpretations are there, and they’re both possible from the Genesis context. Now, let’s say Paul and James, we already said they interpret it, “God interprets for Abraham righteousness, the fact that he believed.” And “he reckoned it for him as righteousness” could also be, “he considered him to be righteous”. That’s what the words in Hebrew can mean.
AJ: Sure, but isn’t that kind of like saying, “I saw the fish swimming and I counted it to be wet?”
Nehemia: Um… no. Meaning…. okay, sure, in a way.
AJ: The Lord is absolutely righteous, and there’s no doubt about…
Nehemia: That. Well, the Lord is absolutely… God is absolutely righteous, I agree with that a hundred percent. But there are many people who don’t view God as righteous. I mean, we have an entire civilization today that we are surrounded by which considers… Like, look, if you ask the great atheists of our generation, if those two words can go together…
AJ: “Great” and “atheists”! [Laughter] Yes!
Nehemia: Sure. If you ask them why they don’t believe in God… so, there’s a number of different answers. Bart Ehrman, famously or infamously, however you want to put it, he says it’s nothing to do with anything in the New Testament. It’s the problem of theodicy.
AJ: Right.
Nehemia: What’s theodicy? Theodicy is fancy speak for “righteous people suffer”.
AJ: Yeah. Ehrman started finding errors in the text as he was growing up, things that he didn’t understand, but he himself said it wasn’t those things that drove him out of Christianity…
Nehemia: And it still isn’t, he says. And I believe him.
AJ: Sure.
Nehemia: Right? In other words, his view isn’t that, yes, the New Testament is corrupt. He believes that too, right? He believes it was corrupt to begin with, right? And it’s funny because I’ll see, like, Jewish… what’s the word I’m looking for without being disrespectful? Like the counter-missionaries; they love Ehrman.
AJ: Yeah.
Nehemia: But they should listen to what Ehrman says about the Tanakh.
AJ: [Laughter]
Nehemia: He says that if you think the New Testament is bad, the Torah is just a complete mess, right? Meaning, he doesn’t believe in the mosaic authorship of the Torah. He doesn’t, you know… like, to him, that’s just a given, why even talk about it? And also, he doesn’t know much about it, right? As much as he does about the New Testament, right? And he openly says that, right? He’s like, “Oh, no. If you think the New Testament…” Like, in his book Forged, if I remember correctly, where he claims all these different books in the New Testament are forgeries, he says the Old Testament is much worse, as far as it all being forgeries, right? Meaning, he doesn’t believe Moses wrote the Torah, right? He believes that it’s a forgery. Which, okay, there I’m going to disagree with him. But it’s not because of something wrong with the manuscripts or the text that he believes that, he says it’s because righteous people suffer.
AJ: Right.
Nehemia: Right? And I’ll just throw out a cliché; a million-and-a-half children died in the Holocaust, right? Well, they weren’t evil.
AJ: No.
Nehemia: Right? You know, you could say their parents sinned or not sinned, right? We could have that debate. You can’t have that debate about children, right? So, that’s called theodicy, that righteous people suffer. So, to view Yehovah as righteous is not a given. That actually itself is a form of wisdom and righteousness in itself.
AJ: Okay.
Nehemia: So, in other words, that’s where the Jews who are reading this are like, “Why say that?” Like you said, “I see a fish and it’s swimming that’s wet,” right? Or “I see a fish fleeing from a shark and I say, ‘It’s a good swimmer,’” right? Maybe it’s not, and it doesn’t survive. But to view God as righteous, that’s not a given. And so, I think that’s actually really…
So, is that what it means? I don’t know, but I think that’s important to recognize that possibility. And that doesn’t contradict Paul or James, because there’s a principle in biblical writing style which is that something can have more than one meaning, right? It’s called the… well, we call it a double entendre in French, which is English. English takes it from French, right? But there’s somebody who wrote an entire study, a Hebrew scholar, showing how there’s numerous examples of double entendres, which… it’s not that we’re reading a second meaning into it; it was intended from the very beginning to have both meanings. And you’re like, “Why is this so ambiguous?” It’s meant to be ambiguous, to have both meanings. I wonder if that’s the case here. I don’t know. So… all right. So, talk to me about how that ties into being perfect.
AJ: Well… My understanding of it has always been, and probably because I got it from Paul and James, that Abraham’s faith was what made him righteous. Just like Habakkuk says in chapter 2:4, “The just shall live by faith.”
Nehemia: Let’s look at that verse.
AJ: [Laughter]
Nehemia: No, I think it’s important, rather than… So, it’s Habakkuk 2:4. It says, “And the righteous will live in emunah.” And what’s really interesting is in the history… this actually was a very important verse in the history of the modern State of Israel. David Ben-Gurion loved this verse, but he changed it. So, it says… meaning he changed it for the purposes of interpretation, which rabbis are allowed to do.
AJ: Interpretation, yes.
Nehemia: Right. Meaning, it’s not a pshat, or a plain meaning interpretation, his was his drash, right? A drash is a non-contextual, non-linguistic interpretation. So, it’s tsadik be’emunato yichye. A tsadik, a righteous man, will live through, or because of, his emunah. Because of his… we’ll talk about emunah means in a minute. Because emunah… well, we’ll talk about it now. Emunah is not just faith and belief, it’s faithfulness. That’s what James is saying, right?
AJ: Oh, cool!
Nehemia: That’s why James quotes that verse. He says, “If you have it without action that backs it up, it’s not faith,” right? It’s just belief. Right?
AJ: Mm-hmm.
Nehemia: And it has to be backed up in action. By definition, in Hebrew… not in Greek but in Hebrew, by definition it has to be backed up by action. So, David Ben-Gurion famously took the Christian interpretation, and he interpreted emunah as religious belief, or whatever it is you believe, and instead of, “A righteous man will live through emunah,” he changed it to ish ish be’emunato yichye, which means, “each man will live according to his own faith”. And what he meant by that is, “You religious Jews, leave us alone. We don’t believe anything.”
AJ: Oh, no!
Nehemia: You live in your belief; I’ll live in my belief. Which for Ben-Gurion is, I suppose, communism or something. Or socialism, really. So… yeah, so, he distorted the verse very deliberately and intentionally and knowingly, right? Meaning, like anybody could look up the verse and knew that isn’t what it says, but he took that verse and imbued it with a new meaning by actually changing the first word, right? To “each and every man” instead of “a righteous man”. But emunah, as I understand it, at least, is faithfulness, and that’s what Habakkuk is saying. And I believe that’s also what it’s saying in Genesis 15:6; that Abraham believed, meaning, he acted with emunah in God, and God reckoned it to him as righteousness. It wasn’t just a theoretical belief; he had to act on it for it to be emunah. Emunah is often translated as faithfulness, right?
AJ: Okay.
Nehemia: In the Hebrew sense, right? Maybe the New Testament is different, we could have that discussion. But in the Tanakh sense it is faithfulness, reliability, right? Let’s see… I’m looking for a verse that will give us a good demonstration of that.
AJ: Well, it’s my perspective that all but I think two or maybe three of the books in the New Testament were written by Jews anyway.
Nehemia: Okay.
AJ: So, it should be the Jewish understanding in the New Testament. I think Luke was probably a Gentile. So, the gospel that bears his name and then the Book of Acts would have been written by Gentiles. And then, possibly, the Book of Hebrews, if he collaborated with Paul.
Nehemia: Hmm. Okay.
AJ: Yeah.
Nehemia: Yeah. So, all right. So, we’re getting off the… I mean, we should get back to Numbers 5.
AJ: Yeah, we’re way off topic here! [Laughter]
Nehemia: No, we should do a separate study on that, because I think it’s a really important question. What I find fascinating is what scholars call intertextuality, right? So, you have the same verse, Genesis 15:6, and it’s being used by Paul, and it’s being used by James, and they look like they’re having a dialogue with one another. The question is whether they’re disagreeing, right? But that they’re having a dialogue seems… or, that they’re both aware of the other’s work seems pretty clear, right? And so, does one supplement the other? Or do they disagree with each other, right? That’s the debate, right? I’m sure Bart Ehrman would say they disagree with each other.
AJ: I’m sure he would, yes.
Nehemia: Undoubtedly. But maybe there’s different emphases, right? There’s different ways to understand it.
—
Nehemia: So, all right, so, let’s get back to Numbers 15… 15:30. And I started to talk about this a little bit before. So, it talks about the… because I think we haven’t stated what my friend Keith calls the moneyball.
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VERSES MENTIONED
Numbers 15:27-31
Leviticus 21:6-8
Exodus 19:5-8
Leviticus 11:45
Leviticus 19:2
Matthew 5:43-48
Hebrews 6:4
Hebrews 2:9
Deuteronomy 18:13
Genesis 17:1
Exodus 12:5
Genesis 6:9
Talmud Sanhedrin 108a:17
Genesis 9:21-27
Malachi 1:8
1 Kings 8:46; Ecclesiastes 7:20; Romans 3:10-12, 23; James 3:2; 1 John 1:8-10; Galatians 3:22
2 Kings 5
Genesis 15:5-6
Genesis 1:1
Habbakkuk 2:4
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Hebrew Voices #40 – Hebrew Manuscript of the Book of Revelation: Part 2
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The Spirit is Willing but the Flesh is Weak
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In this episode of Hebrew Voices #222 - You Can’t Be Perfect—Can You?: Part 1, Nehemia is joined by Pastor AJ Bernard to discuss what “being perfect” means in context of Scripture, as they debunk and reaffirm various perceptions about how people can attain Biblical “perfection.”
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Hebrew Voices #222 – You Can’t Be Perfect—Can You? Part 1
You are listening to Hebrew Voices with Nehemia Gordon. Thank you for supporting Nehemia Gordon's Makor Hebrew Foundation. Learn more at NehemiasWall.com.
Nehemia: “And he reckoned it for him as righteousness.” What does that mean?
Pastor AJ Bernard: So, trusting in the Lord is how Abraham is made righteous. Believing that Yehovah is who He says He is and will do what He says He will do is how Abraham is made perfect.
—
Nehemia: Shalom, and welcome to Hebrew Voices. I have here today, Pastor AJ Bernard, who is a licensed pastor at the Global Methodist Church.
And can I call you a lover of Torah?
AJ: Yes, absolutely.
Nehemia: Okay, beautiful. We’ve done programs in the past, AJ, and I just love your heart. And you reached out to me, I don’t know, a year or two ago, and I said, “We need to do a program on that!” And I never got to it. And I’m like, “Where’s AJ? I need to do this program with him that he brought up to me.”
So, I’m going to let you do kind of the introduction of what the topic is, because it’s been a while. And it was a program that I had presented, and you had contacted me and told me it really resonated with you. And I’m like, “We need to share that with people.”
AJ: Yeah.
Nehemia: I think it could bless a lot of people.
AJ: I really hope so. The program that I found was on your Nehemia Gordon Clips channel, and it was a clip from Hebrew Gospel Pearls #29 where you were talking about Numbers chapter 15 and verse 30… Numbers 15 and 30. I probably should have pulled that up here before I started talking.
Nehemia: And, guys, I asked him to move back from the keyboard, and so, he’s going to have to, like, stretch to be able to type. I’m sorry about that AJ, because your head was filling up too much of the…
AJ: Oh…
Nehemia: By the way, I love your new hairdo since I’ve last seen you. A man after my own heart.
AJ: Yes. I wanted to be more like Nehemia.
Nehemia: Well, I tell people this is a choice. Say, choice.
AJ: Good choice.
Nehemia: I didn’t say it’s much of a choice, but it’s a choice.
AJ: [Laughter]
Nehemia: You could always do that kind of squirrel sitting on your head, kind of swirl thing. It takes several years. You can do it! I can do it.
AJ: Actually, it goes backwards. I could do the, you know, the medieval monk tonsure thing with the bald spot on the top and the hair on the side.
Nehemia: Wow! I think the tonsure has to have hair in front, AJ.
AJ: Well, I can do that. There’s a little bit there, but not a whole lot.
Nehemia: I’m with you.
AJ: [Laughter] So, the…
Nehemia: All right. So, Numbers 15, let me pull that up as well, and go ahead and tell me…
AJ: Yeah, yeah. The teaching that I saw, you were talking to Keith. I found another recording that you had done where you were speaking to Jono about it, but your conversation with Keith just… I don’t want to put too much emphasis on this. I don’t want to say it too strongly, but can I say, your teaching with Keith changed my life forever?
Nehemia: Okay, people need to hear; what is the intelligent thing I said? Because I don’t remember.
AJ: [Laughter]
Nehemia: Every once in a while, I have a piece of wisdom that comes through. You know, I’m Balaam’s donkey, and every once in a while, Yehovah allows some truth to come out of my mouth. Hopefully more than every once in a while.
AJ: Because I love you, I’m going to tease you a little bit.
Nehemia: Please tease me.
Nehemia: The beautiful thing that you said was when you were quoting Yeshua. So…
Nehemia: Okay. I think I was quoting my father, but he stole it from Yeshua.
AJ: You were quoting your father, who was quoting Yeshua. Yes.
Nehemia: Unbeknownst to him, he was quoting Yeshua, yes. I remember this now, yes.
AJ: [Laughter]. Yes. And I heard this, and I was sitting on the edge of my chair, staring at my screen, waiting to hear what you were going to say. And when your father quoted Yeshua on this passage, I broke down in tears. Yeah. Because it was so beautiful. So, this passage… beginning at verse 27 of Numbers chapter 15. I’m reading from the ESV. “If one person sins unintentionally, he shall offer a female goat, a year old for a sin offering, and a priest shall make atonement before the LORD for the person who makes a mistake, and when he sins unintentionally to make atonement for him, and he shall be forgiven.”
Nehemia: Which translation is this? That’s going to be important.
AJ: I’m sorry. I’m reading from the ESV, the English Standard Version.
Nehemia: That’s great. We’ll go back and I’ll nitpick about little words there, but more or less, that’s what it says. Yeah.
AJ: Well, I also have the JPS and the King James here if…
Nehemia: That’s fine. Let’s stick with the ESV for now.
AJ: All right. Verse 29. “You shall have one law for him who does anything unintentionally, for him who is native among the people of Israel, and for the stranger who sojourns among them.” And verse 30 is the thing that did it. “But the person who does anything beyad rama,” with a high hand, “whether he is a native or a sojourner, reviles the LORD, and that person shall be cut off from among his people, because he has despised the word of the LORD and has broken His commandment. That person shall be utterly cut off. His iniquity shall be on him.” When I read that…
Nehemia: Yeah…
AJ: I remembered what Moses had said in Leviticus, 21:6-8, “They shall be holy to their God and not profane the name of their God. They shall offer the LORD’s food offerings, bread to their God. Therefore, they shall be holy. They shall not marry a prostitute or a woman who’s been defiled. Neither shall they marry a woman divorced from her husband. For the priest is holy to God.” Now that’s just for the priests, but it’s…
Nehemia: That’s just for the Kohanim. And guys, “priest” here isn’t the guy… isn’t the pastor in your church on Sunday…
AJ: Right.
Nehemia: …or the rabbi. It’s a male direct line descendant from Aaron, the brother of Moses.
AJ: Right. This is for the Kohanim.
Nehemia: For the Kohanim.
AJ: But it ends by saying “He shall be holy to you, for I, the LORD, who sanctify you, am holy.” And if it had just been that I could have said, “Well, I’m not Kohanim. It’s not on me to be holy.” Right? But then the Lord continues.
Nehemia: So, wait, what verse was that that you just read? Sorry.
AJ: I just read from Leviticus 21:6-8.
Nehemia: Okay, beautiful. And guys, in verse 1, it starts, “And Yehovah said to Moshe: speak to the Kohanim, the sons of Aaron.” Right? So, that’s specifically for the Aaronic priests. And a lot of Christians get this confused and they say Levitical priests, which isn’t wrong; it’s a phrase that appears in Deuteronomy. But Levitical priests are Kohanim who are also Levites, meaning, Aaron was from the tribe of Levi. So, all Kohanim are Levites, but not all Levites are Kohanim.
AJ: Right.
Nehemia: So, all right, just to clarify that. There’s some confusion there in some circles.
AJ: Nope. All good. And then it continues, in Exodus 19:5-8. “‘Now therefore if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, you shall be My treasured possession from among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine. You shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words you shall speak to the people of Israel.’ So, Moses came and called the elders of the people and said before them all these words that the LORD had commanded him. And all the people answered together, ‘All that the LORD has spoken, we will do.’ And Moses reported the words of the people to the LORD.”
And again, Leviticus 11:45, “For I am the LORD who brought you up out of the land of Egypt to be your God. You shall therefore be holy, for I am holy.” And again. Leviticus 19:2, “Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel, and say to them, ‘You shall be holy, for I, the LORD your God, am holy.’” And again… Well, no, that’s Leviticus 19:2.
But I could have squeaked by all of those because I’m not Israel, right? I’m not Jewish. And if I’m looking for a loophole in the law, I could have said, “Well, I’m not a priest. Well, I’m not a Hebrew.” But then Yeshua goes even further in Matthew 5:48. He says, “Therefore…”
Nehemia: Wait hold on, let me pull that up. Matthew 5:48. Sorry, I’m here on my computer and it’s a bit slow, so… All right, go ahead.
AJ: Good. No. “You therefore must be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect.”
Nehemia: Ooh. Okay.
AJ: And he is, of course, quoting Moses, right? Because Yeshua was a good rabbi, but he was expanding this commandment to all of us.
Nehemia: Hmm.
AJ: Go be holy. Go be perfect. Right? Not just to the priests, not just to the Kohanim, not just to the Jews, but to the goyim like myself.
Nehemia: Hmm.
AJ: “You must therefore be perfect, as your heavenly father is perfect.” And for a very long time I struggled with that. I preached sermons on it; I led Bible studies on it. Because I look at my own life, I look at myself with a very fine lens, and I don’t see me as well as the Lord sees me, of course. But, even in my cloudy vision, I realized that I am far from perfect. I am a broken person. There are sins. There are things in my life that I do that I know that I shouldn’t do. Some jerk cuts me off on the highway, and I’ll yell at him. I’ll stick my arm out the window, and I’ll yell, “Darn you!” Right?
I’m substitute teaching at a local school, and I had a kid lie to me, and I was angry with this child, right? And Yeshua said, “You know… anyone who’s angry with their brother…” So, I do these things that I know that I shouldn’t do, and I hate them within myself. I hate the wickedness that is within me. I am nowhere near holy as Moses calls me to. I am nowhere near perfect as Yeshua calls me to. And so, this verse… like, there’s this verse in Hebrews chapter 6… Hebrews 6.
Nehemia: Let’s see it; pull it up.
AJ: Yeah, yeah, oh, man. This verse… like, I refused to read the Book of Hebrews for 20 years because of this verse.
Nehemia: What?
AJ: Yeah. I’m back in Hebrews now; I’m trying to push myself through it, but it’s rough. Okay. Hebrews chapter 6 and 4 from the English Standard: “For it is impossible in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift and have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tested the goodness of the Word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt.” It is impossible, the New Testament says. Boy, if…
Nehemia: Help me understand that. Let’s give a little bit of a… because some of my Jewish listeners are like… “Hebrews? We don’t know what’s going on here. You’ve got to help us out.”
AJ: Yeah, sorry about that.
Nehemia: No, it’s fine. Just give us the context and help us understand what… Read that again and put it in context here.
AJ: Well, so, the author of Hebrews… and there’s a lot of debate…
Nehemia: And what’s the verse again in Hebrews? Sorry.
AJ: Hebrews chapter 6.
Nehemia: Right, I’m still in Matthew…
AJ: Beginning in verse…
Nehemia: Sorry what? Verse 4…
AJ: Hebrews 6 and 4
Nehemia: Okay.
AJ: Paul… well, okay. So, there’s a lot of debate over who wrote Hebrews. I’m convinced that it was a collaboration between Paul and Luke for a couple of reasons. But anytime you have a Christian with an opinion, you’re going to have another Christian who will angrily fight against that opinion.
Nehemia: Well, I think in mainstream scholarship they’ll talk about… what is it, the seven epistles that Paul wrote and all the other ones they say are pseudo-Paul, and Paul didn’t really write them. And… okay, all right, whatever. But generally, most… I think most even Christian scholars, correct me if I’m wrong… like, let’s say university Christian scholars don’t believe that Paul wrote Hebrews, if I’m not mistaken.
AJ: Right.
Nehemia: And maybe I’m wrong about that. Meaning, maybe if you go into the Dallas Theological Seminary, it’s a totally different story. But I’m not so sure.
AJ: Yeah. No, I think that…
Nehemia: Maybe Bible colleges probably definitely think Paul wrote it, but I don’t really know. Anyway, go on.
AJ: I had an Old Testament professor when I was in seminary, and I told him that I believe that Moses wrote the Torah. And he all but patted me on the head and said, “Isn’t that cute?” So, I don’t have a whole lot of faith in academic scholarship.
Nehemia: Okay, fair enough; I understand where you’re coming from. And really, I would say that’s what… I’ll say from my perspective. There’s two different types of Bible criticism; there’s textual criticism, which is what I do. Which is, what do the manuscripts actually say? Right? And then there’s a so-called higher criticism. And it’s called higher because on the bottom of the page in these academic Bibles, there are all these little notes that say, you know, “There’s this other manuscript that says this. There’s another manuscript that says that.” That’s lower criticism, right? That’s empirical evidence. It’s empirical science. Right? There is actually a manuscript that says that. You might say it’s not an important manuscript, or you might say it’s very important; that’s up to debate. But it’s not up to debate, if it’s done correctly, that it really says that. Higher criticism is the top part of the page…
Nehemia: Ah hah. Makes sense…
Nehemia: … where they say, “Well, how is Matthew written? Surely, there wasn’t a man named…” So, Keith Johnson and I wrote our book, A Prayer to Our Father, in which we talked about the place where Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount. And he sent this book to… I won’t say to who; it doesn’t matter. But he got it back, from a Christian, he got back a… let’s say a Christian scholar, I will say that, who he respected. Who really kind of patted us on the head and said, “How cute.” Basically, Jesus didn’t preach the sermon on the Mount, it took place in Matthew’s study. And maybe not actually a man named Matthew, but the figure that we refer to as the author of the Gospel of Matthew. He was sitting surrounded by these scrolls, and one scroll had this tradition that Jesus had spoken, and another scroll had that tradition, and he compiled this fiction which was the Sermon on the Mount. And I looked at Keith and I’m like, “I’m not the Christian, and I’m taking the book seriously.” Right? Like, I don’t know if it happened or not, I wasn’t there. But based on what’s described in the book, what does it mean? That’s the question I’m asking.
AJ: Mm-hmm.
Nehemia: Right? Look, I asked that question in Job. There’s a debate within ancient Jewish sources; was Job an actual person who lived? Or is it all an allegory? And I say, “I want to know what Job means,” right?
AJ: Mm-hmm.
Nehemia: Whether Job actually sat down with three friends while he was scraping his skin with a shard… I believe he did, just between you and me. But it’s irrelevant for understanding what the book’s telling us.
AJ: Right.
Nehemia: Right? And if you start off, “Oh, this is all allegory, and I don’t take it seriously. And it didn’t happen, so don’t even try to understand it.” You know, I feel like you’re doomed to fail there. I don’t know, I that’s not my approach, let me say that.
AJ: Yeah.
Nehemia: So, I want to take the literature seriously, and… now… Yeah. All right. Let’s not get too much into the weeds there. So, the Book of Hebrews, whether it was written by Paul or was attributed to Paul, that is neither here nor there as far as what the message is. Okay. “For it is impossible to…” I’m reading here the NRSV, just because it popped up on my computer. “For it is impossible to restore again to repentance those who have once been enlightened and have tasted the heavenly gift and share in the Holy Spirit and have tasted the goodness of the Word of God and the powers of the age to come and then have fallen away.” So, in other words, once you’ve had a certain spiritual experience and you’ve… whatever fallen away means… maybe that’s the crux of the problem, right? You can’t really go back after that.
AJ: Yeah.
Nehemia: Wow.
AJ: Right.
Nehemia: So, what does that mean? What does fallen away here mean?
AJ: Well, so, I think the key word here is “tasted”. It’s the same word here in verse 6 and in verse 5 and is used metaphorically to indicate eating or drinking. Thus, experiencing something fully, not merely a superficial participation in something. Right?
Nehemia: Okay.
AJ: It means to have complete understanding of a thing, right?
Nehemia: Well, I mean, taste in Biblical Hebrew is something like discernment.
AJ: Yeah.
Nehemia: Right? Like, tuv ta’am is good taste, but it really means you have good understanding, good discernment.
AJ: Okay, I didn’t know that; that’s amazing.
Nehemia: Yeah.
AJ: Yeah, that fits right in here. In Hebrews 2:9, the same Greek word is used where it says that Jesus tasted death for everyone. So, like, the death by crucifixion is an extreme sort of death, right? There’s no ambiguity about it. So, my understanding of this passage, and it leads us back to Numbers 15:30, is that we do things without understanding. Like, we…
Nehemia: So, you’re saying taste here in Hebrews means you have, like, full discernment and you really know what you’re doing.
AJ: Yeah. Right.
Nehemia: It’s very deliberate. That’s what you’re…
AJ: Right.
Nehemia: Okay. And that that ties into Numbers 15:30. That ties into Numbers 15:30. I did a teaching on this recently, I don’t know if you… it was like a live teaching, I think, I’m not sure you saw it. But I brought up this example of… And I’ll pull the image up here and try to show it. It’s called the… I don’t know; here in Wikipedia, they call it success kid. But let me show it to you. So, yad rama is the term in Numbers 15:30.
AJ: Yes.
Nehemia: So, it’s to sin with a high hand.
AJ: Right.
Nehemia: And here we… you know what? Before I bring up the little kid, let’s go back to Numbers 15:30. But I really do want to talk about Matthew 5… I believe it’s 48 or something, or 46, that you brought about being perfect. Can we talk about that for a minute? Because I feel like that’s important.
AJ: Uh, yeah. Matthew 5:48.
Nehemia: 5:48, right. So, is that the verse? Can you read that again?
AJ: Yeah. So, let’s… beginning at verse 6, or verse 1 of chapter 6, just to get a… no, I’m sorry. That’s… sorry. Here we go. Beginning at verse 43 of chapter 5, you get a little bit of context. Yeshua is giving the Sermon on the Mount, and he says, “You’ve heard that it was said, ‘you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy,’ but I say to you: love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father, who is in heaven, for He makes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
Nehemia: So, I think you kind of implied, correct me if I’m wrong, that this is based on something in the Tanakh. And so, it is. So, the word there for perfect in Greek is taleo, from taleos. So, that’s based on Deuteronomy 8:13, where it says, “You are tamim,” and we’ll talk about what tamim means, or sorry, “You shall be tamim with Yehovah, your God,” is what it says there in the Hebrew. And the word there for tamim is teleos, right? So, be teleos, be tamim, and by Greek, I mean the Septuagint, the ancient Greek translation.
AJ: Right, right.
Nehemia: So, Yeshua is quoting that, right? Saying, “be teleos with Yehovah your God”. Well, what’s teleos? What’s tamim? Is it perfect? Right? So, now it becomes a question of, what does that Hebrew word “perfect” mean?
AJ: Mm-hmm.
Nehemia: Right? And…
AJ: I also have something else on that score as well, so let’s chase that.
Nehemia: Oooh, okay.
AJ: Yeah.
Nehemia: And look, so, Genesis 17:1 is, “And Abraham was 99 years old and Yehovah appeared to Avram and He said to him, ‘I am El Shaddai. Walk before Me veheye tamim,’” and be tamim. Now, in Greek it’s a different word, but the Hebrew is the same word. Be tamim, right? And then we have Exodus 12:5, which is a se tamim, a “tamim lamb”, one year old. Right? This is for the Passover, is to be tamim.
AJ: Oh, wow! And that’s… yes! That’s where that gets translated as “without blemish” in the ESV.
Nehemia: Right! Well, and then there’s a definition of what tamim means. It’s a very technical definition in Leviticus where it doesn’t, you know, it doesn’t have a broken leg and it’s not blind and… right? That’s tamim in the context of a lamb. In the context of a person and his character, it’s somewhat different, presumably. But tamim, repeatedly, is in the ritual context of animals, right, for sacrifices. It’s all over… Exodus 29:1, Leviticus 1:3… I could read you a bunch in Leviticus. I’m not going to do it. Leviticus 1-7 has it over a dozen times, I think… a bunch of times, I don’t know. So, what is this tamim mean? Because Yeshua is then quoting that, right?
AJ: Mm-hmm.
Nehemia: So, here’s for me the key verse, and here I will give credit to the rabbis for what I believe is a profound observation. Can you open up Genesis 6:9 and tell me what you have in your translation?
AJ: Absolutely. I also have King James in the JPS.
Nehemia: Yeah, any translation, doesn’t matter.
AJ: Okay, let me just go with my favorite then, the ESV. Genesis 6:9 says, “These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man. Blameless in his generation, Noah walked with God.”
Nehemia: Okay. And it’s tamim, same word that Yeshua used in Matthew 5:48, same word that Deuteronomy 18 used, saying, “you will be tamim with Yehovah your God.” And then the Greek word there, by the way, is teleos as well in the Septuagint, for there… Now, there’s a profound observation of the rabbis, and what it literally says is he was a righteous man, he was a Tzadik. And then it says “tamim haya be’dorotav” “he was tamim in his generations.” Meaning, he lived in multiple generations. He was kind of an old guy, right? According to the Torah, he was hundreds of years old when the flood took place, and he lived in very sinful and iniquitous generations. And we can actually look at him; he wasn’t a perfect person. I could just bring up the story of him getting drunk.
AJ: Right.
Nehemia: And, you know, and some very unfortunate things happen that we won’t get into, if you understand what it says in the Hebrew. And some of that wasn’t his fault, but it was his fault that he lost control and got drunk. If he had been in control of his faculties, that wouldn’t have happened, and… Or it could have hopefully been avoided. Not trying to victim-blame here. So, the observation the rabbis make, which I think is… I mean, I think it’s correct; it’s the plain meaning. He wasn’t perfect. He was perfect in his generations. He was surrounded by extremely iniquitous and sinful people, and compared to them, he was perfect.
AJ: Mmm.
Nehemia: And I think what it’s saying in Deuteronomy 18, because there’s a context. We didn’t read the context; I just read one verse. “You shall be tamim with Yehovah your God.” What’s the context there? Well, he’s talking about the nations of the Canaanites that they’re going among, and then it contrasts it. It says, “You will be tamim with Yehovah your God,” that’s Deuteronomy 18:13. And then it says, “for these nations, that you are inheriting them, they turn to soothsayers,” or “they listen to soothsayers and diviners, and you not so. Yehovah your God has given you… He has placed a prophet among you.” Right?
So, what it’s saying is, “Look, I know you’re not perfect, but at least when the prophet tells you to repent, you should listen to him. And don’t listen to the witch. Don’t listen to the soothsayer. Don’t listen to the fortuneteller. Don’t read the astrology. I know you’re not going to be perfect, but be perfect in the sense that at least you know who to listen to, which is the true prophet that Yehovah sends you and not these self-serving fortune tellers.” And maybe scammers, as well, in a lot of cases. Right? Meaning this… that’s a question; are the soothsayers and the diviners, is that real? Is that a real spiritual power? Or is it just deception, right? This is a classic question in Judaism. It’s the debate I have with my mother-in-law about Harry Potter, right?
AJ: [Laughter]
Nehemia: She’s like, “How is it that your nephews and nieces, your Jewish Orthodox nephews and nieces, read Harry Potter?” And I’m trying to explain to her at least the Orthodox Jewish perspective; they don’t believe magic is real. It’s just sleight of hand. So, it’s ridiculous stories. But if you believe it as power, then maybe you’re giving it permission to be in your life, right? That’s her perspective. If there are actual real spiritual entities you’re dealing with, maybe… right? And we’re not going to solve that problem today, right?
But the point is, right, so, when he says, “you shall be tamim with Yehovah your God,” there’s a context there, which is, compared to these nations who are turning to Harry Potter and Dumbledore and whatever it is, right? And not metaphorical story ones, literal ones that claim that they have gods behind them and spiritual entities behind them. Whether they do or not is a different question. And I think that also ties into what Yeshua’s saying… if I may be so bold. I could be wrong.
AJ: Please do.
Nehemia: But I think… what’s that?
AJ: Please do, yes.
Nehemia: So, Matthew 5:48 is, “Be perfect, therefore…” And you know, there’s the old question: “What’s the therefore, there for?” Right?
AJ: Right.
Nehemia: Right? Or thus in Greek, it could be as well, un. So, “be perfect therefore, as your heavenly father is perfect.” So, what’s the context? The context is, here’s people who, let’s say for this purpose… So, look, for sacrifices, tamim, “perfect” has a definition. It doesn’t have a broken leg, and it’s not blind… And it doesn’t mean if you’re blind, you’re not perfect in the spiritual sense. But if you’re a sheep that needs to be sacrificed, yeah, then you’re not perfect. Right? So, it’s a very specific definition, right? Malachi talks about that. He says try offering that to one of your governors of the Persian Empire. Right? You want to give that to God, the blind and lame animal? So, there’s a specific legal definition. And the definition in this context is what he says and what you read, right? That, well, even the tax collectors greet people, right? And tax collectors in that context is, you know, people who like… Like, think of the mafia, right? That’s really what you have to think of. They’re collecting protection money. Right? Now, they’re doing it on behalf of the Roman Empire, but they’re not just taking what you owe the Romans, they’re taking what they want. As they as they say in the movies, they want to wet their beak as well.
AJ: Sure, sure.
Nehemia: Right? So, they’re taking their portion as well, which is whatever they decide it is and whatever they can get away with. So, tax collectors are basically, you know, bullies and thieves in that context. And he says, “If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do you not even the…” And that’s interesting. Yours has “Gentiles”, I believe, is what you read. And some translations have “the pagans”, right? NIV has “pagans”, and NRSV has “Gentiles”. And the word there is ethnikoi, which really is “the nations”, right? So, goyim in Hebrew means “the nations”, right? And Israel is called a goy. You quoted a verse that says you’re a holy nation, you’re a goy kadosh, a holy goy. Right? Every nation is a goy. And you could be a holy goy or an unholy goy, it’s up to how you choose to live your life, right? Do you set it apart to God and do your best?
And so, here’s my takeaway: I don’t think perfect is perfect. I think perfect is perfect within the context in which it’s given. And the context in which it’s given here by Yeshua… let’s read it again. Right? So, Matthew 5, where did you start it there?
AJ: I started at 43.
Nehemia: So, let’s start in 43. There you go. Right? So, this is the context in which He wants you to be perfect. He knows you’re never… look, it’s in the Tanakh; there’s no man who doesn’t sin. It’s quoted in the New Testament, right? So, I don’t think Yeshua is asking people to be perfect. I don’t know… do you think Yeshua would put a burden on people that he knows they can’t fulfill? Maybe you do theologically, I don’t know.
AJ: No, no. I don’t think… I don’t think he would. But I think that it challenges our understanding of what perfect is.
Nehemia: Oh, yeah.
AJ: And when we… Yeah. So, when we answer that, I want to make a quick stop over in Genesis 15.
Nehemia: Okay. We’ll get to Genesis 15. Read me Matthew. Let’s go to Genesis 15 first, and then we’ll come back to Matthew 5:43-48. Genesis 15; let’s look at that. Where are we in Genesis? Or, which verse in Genesis?
AJ: Oh, yes. Genesis 15, right in the beginning where God is making the covenant with Abram. “Fear not, I’m your sword, your shield. I am your shield; your reward will be very great.”
Nehemia: Give me what verse we’re in.
AJ: Well, beginning at verse 1, but the key verse is going to be verse 6.
Nehemia: Okay.
AJ: Which is one of my favorite verses in the whole of the Bible.
Nehemia: Ooh, nice!
AJ: Right?
Nehemia: There’s a lot of meat there. Okay, let’s read it.
AJ: Because I’m goyim, right? I’m not the people of Israel; I’m not among the chosen. But I know there is no God in all the world except in Israel, right? To quote Na’aman. So, beginning at verse 5: “And he brought him outside and said, ‘Look toward the heaven and number the stars if you’re able to number them.’ And he said to him, ‘So shall your offspring be.’” Verse 6. “And he believed the LORD, and He counted it to him as righteousness.”
Nehemia: Mhm.
AJ: Now, I love that verse so much, because this is the origin of faith. This is the first place in the Bible where anyone has faith in anything.
Nehemia: Hmm.
AJ: And it’s Father Abraham.
Nehemia: That’s a great observation. Okay.
AJ: He is…
Nehemia: So, what does it mean that… tell us what the verse means. You know, I once had a professor who was a Greek expert, and he wanted to work on his Greek. So, he sat down with this classical scholar… this was in Australia, he told us. That’s where he was from, but… meaning, I wasn’t in Australia, I was in Israel. But that’s where he was from, and he had this colleague who had never read the Bible, never heard of Christianity. He was raised in, like, the British tradition of classical scholarship. And they started reading Genesis 1:1, and it says, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” And in the beginning in Greek is en archai, which is in… archai is like arch, right? Like “the first”. And en archai could mean “in the ruler”. And he and this person genuinely and innocently believed, this Greek scholar that my professor was talking to back when he was younger, believed en archi was the creator. And that’s what Genesis was saying.
AJ: Oh, wow!
Nehemia: Because he had never heard this before! He didn’t know anything about… like, he knew all the myths of Zeus and Apollo and Hercules. Had never really encountered… which is hard to understand, but he had not encountered the Judeo-Christian version of events. So, let’s say I’m that guy, and I have no idea what this verse means. Tell me what it means.
AJ: Well, this is one of the most honest verses in the entirety of the Bible. And I stack this up right there with Numbers 15:30 and Habakkuk. “The just shall live by faith.” What is…
Nehemia: Ooh, another very important verse.
AJ: Oh, my goodness. Yeah. Like, that verse, that verse launched the Protestant Reformation. But…
Nehemia: Hmm. So, what does it mean? “And he believed in the LORD,” or “Yehovah” it says in Hebrew. In the Greek, it actually says “he believed in God… and He reckoned it for him as righteousness.” What does that mean?
AJ: So, trusting in the Lord is how Abraham is made righteous. Believing that Yehovah is who He says He is and will do what He says He will do is how Abraham is made perfect.
Nehemia: Hmm.
AJ: I love that. Because we know… like, we read the rest of the story and Abraham goes into Egypt, and he has the thing with Sarah and the Pharaoh, and he does that again, right? And then he questions the Lord. And there’s all kinds of things that Abraham does that we can say, “Eh, maybe not so… maybe not so kadosh there.” But here in verse 6, Abraham believed the Lord, and that belief, “He counted it to him as righteousness.” This is how Abraham is made holy.
Nehemia: Okay. So, we should do a whole separate study in which we look at how this is interpreted in the writings of Paul and of James, because that’s a famous discussion. Right? There’s even claims that they’re dialoguing with each other because of what James wrote about it. I believe it was Martin Luther who wanted to remove James’s epistle from the New Testament.
AJ: But the spirit wouldn’t let him, yes.
Nehemia: Well, okay.
AJ: [Laughter]
Nehemia: But he wanted to because of what James wrote about this that contradicted his theology.
AJ: Right.
Nehemia: Meaning, like, he talks there about… let’s not go into it; let’s save that for a separate study because it’s important enough. I’ll just say that I’ve discussed this before, I believe in Torah Pearls, but if you look at how Jews interpreted this verse, there’s two interpretations. And here’s where the problem comes in. It says, “And he reckoned it to him as righteousness.” Who reckoned it to who? And of course, the way Paul and James interpret it is, “God reckoned it to Abraham.” Right? Where they disagree is what “and he believed” means.
AJ: Okay.
Nehemia: Right? Is believe just an intellectual process that goes on in your head? Or is believe something that has to be backed up by action, right? That’s at least how people interpret James and Paul. Whether that’s correct or not, we’ll save that for a different study.
So, there’s a second interpretation among Jewish sources, which, Abraham believed in God, in Yehovah, and considered Yehovah righteous. And, for example, I could give you a list of different rabbis, some of which you’ve heard of, some have not, but that is one of the interpretations in traditional Jewish sources. Both of them exist, right? Both interpretations are there, and they’re both possible from the Genesis context. Now, let’s say Paul and James, we already said they interpret it, “God interprets for Abraham righteousness, the fact that he believed.” And “he reckoned it for him as righteousness” could also be, “he considered him to be righteous”. That’s what the words in Hebrew can mean.
AJ: Sure, but isn’t that kind of like saying, “I saw the fish swimming and I counted it to be wet?”
Nehemia: Um… no. Meaning…. okay, sure, in a way.
AJ: The Lord is absolutely righteous, and there’s no doubt about…
Nehemia: That. Well, the Lord is absolutely… God is absolutely righteous, I agree with that a hundred percent. But there are many people who don’t view God as righteous. I mean, we have an entire civilization today that we are surrounded by which considers… Like, look, if you ask the great atheists of our generation, if those two words can go together…
AJ: “Great” and “atheists”! [Laughter] Yes!
Nehemia: Sure. If you ask them why they don’t believe in God… so, there’s a number of different answers. Bart Ehrman, famously or infamously, however you want to put it, he says it’s nothing to do with anything in the New Testament. It’s the problem of theodicy.
AJ: Right.
Nehemia: What’s theodicy? Theodicy is fancy speak for “righteous people suffer”.
AJ: Yeah. Ehrman started finding errors in the text as he was growing up, things that he didn’t understand, but he himself said it wasn’t those things that drove him out of Christianity…
Nehemia: And it still isn’t, he says. And I believe him.
AJ: Sure.
Nehemia: Right? In other words, his view isn’t that, yes, the New Testament is corrupt. He believes that too, right? He believes it was corrupt to begin with, right? And it’s funny because I’ll see, like, Jewish… what’s the word I’m looking for without being disrespectful? Like the counter-missionaries; they love Ehrman.
AJ: Yeah.
Nehemia: But they should listen to what Ehrman says about the Tanakh.
AJ: [Laughter]
Nehemia: He says that if you think the New Testament is bad, the Torah is just a complete mess, right? Meaning, he doesn’t believe in the mosaic authorship of the Torah. He doesn’t, you know… like, to him, that’s just a given, why even talk about it? And also, he doesn’t know much about it, right? As much as he does about the New Testament, right? And he openly says that, right? He’s like, “Oh, no. If you think the New Testament…” Like, in his book Forged, if I remember correctly, where he claims all these different books in the New Testament are forgeries, he says the Old Testament is much worse, as far as it all being forgeries, right? Meaning, he doesn’t believe Moses wrote the Torah, right? He believes that it’s a forgery. Which, okay, there I’m going to disagree with him. But it’s not because of something wrong with the manuscripts or the text that he believes that, he says it’s because righteous people suffer.
AJ: Right.
Nehemia: Right? And I’ll just throw out a cliché; a million-and-a-half children died in the Holocaust, right? Well, they weren’t evil.
AJ: No.
Nehemia: Right? You know, you could say their parents sinned or not sinned, right? We could have that debate. You can’t have that debate about children, right? So, that’s called theodicy, that righteous people suffer. So, to view Yehovah as righteous is not a given. That actually itself is a form of wisdom and righteousness in itself.
AJ: Okay.
Nehemia: So, in other words, that’s where the Jews who are reading this are like, “Why say that?” Like you said, “I see a fish and it’s swimming that’s wet,” right? Or “I see a fish fleeing from a shark and I say, ‘It’s a good swimmer,’” right? Maybe it’s not, and it doesn’t survive. But to view God as righteous, that’s not a given. And so, I think that’s actually really…
So, is that what it means? I don’t know, but I think that’s important to recognize that possibility. And that doesn’t contradict Paul or James, because there’s a principle in biblical writing style which is that something can have more than one meaning, right? It’s called the… well, we call it a double entendre in French, which is English. English takes it from French, right? But there’s somebody who wrote an entire study, a Hebrew scholar, showing how there’s numerous examples of double entendres, which… it’s not that we’re reading a second meaning into it; it was intended from the very beginning to have both meanings. And you’re like, “Why is this so ambiguous?” It’s meant to be ambiguous, to have both meanings. I wonder if that’s the case here. I don’t know. So… all right. So, talk to me about how that ties into being perfect.
AJ: Well… My understanding of it has always been, and probably because I got it from Paul and James, that Abraham’s faith was what made him righteous. Just like Habakkuk says in chapter 2:4, “The just shall live by faith.”
Nehemia: Let’s look at that verse.
AJ: [Laughter]
Nehemia: No, I think it’s important, rather than… So, it’s Habakkuk 2:4. It says, “And the righteous will live in emunah.” And what’s really interesting is in the history… this actually was a very important verse in the history of the modern State of Israel. David Ben-Gurion loved this verse, but he changed it. So, it says… meaning he changed it for the purposes of interpretation, which rabbis are allowed to do.
AJ: Interpretation, yes.
Nehemia: Right. Meaning, it’s not a pshat, or a plain meaning interpretation, his was his drash, right? A drash is a non-contextual, non-linguistic interpretation. So, it’s tsadik be’emunato yichye. A tsadik, a righteous man, will live through, or because of, his emunah. Because of his… we’ll talk about emunah means in a minute. Because emunah… well, we’ll talk about it now. Emunah is not just faith and belief, it’s faithfulness. That’s what James is saying, right?
AJ: Oh, cool!
Nehemia: That’s why James quotes that verse. He says, “If you have it without action that backs it up, it’s not faith,” right? It’s just belief. Right?
AJ: Mm-hmm.
Nehemia: And it has to be backed up in action. By definition, in Hebrew… not in Greek but in Hebrew, by definition it has to be backed up by action. So, David Ben-Gurion famously took the Christian interpretation, and he interpreted emunah as religious belief, or whatever it is you believe, and instead of, “A righteous man will live through emunah,” he changed it to ish ish be’emunato yichye, which means, “each man will live according to his own faith”. And what he meant by that is, “You religious Jews, leave us alone. We don’t believe anything.”
AJ: Oh, no!
Nehemia: You live in your belief; I’ll live in my belief. Which for Ben-Gurion is, I suppose, communism or something. Or socialism, really. So… yeah, so, he distorted the verse very deliberately and intentionally and knowingly, right? Meaning, like anybody could look up the verse and knew that isn’t what it says, but he took that verse and imbued it with a new meaning by actually changing the first word, right? To “each and every man” instead of “a righteous man”. But emunah, as I understand it, at least, is faithfulness, and that’s what Habakkuk is saying. And I believe that’s also what it’s saying in Genesis 15:6; that Abraham believed, meaning, he acted with emunah in God, and God reckoned it to him as righteousness. It wasn’t just a theoretical belief; he had to act on it for it to be emunah. Emunah is often translated as faithfulness, right?
AJ: Okay.
Nehemia: In the Hebrew sense, right? Maybe the New Testament is different, we could have that discussion. But in the Tanakh sense it is faithfulness, reliability, right? Let’s see… I’m looking for a verse that will give us a good demonstration of that.
AJ: Well, it’s my perspective that all but I think two or maybe three of the books in the New Testament were written by Jews anyway.
Nehemia: Okay.
AJ: So, it should be the Jewish understanding in the New Testament. I think Luke was probably a Gentile. So, the gospel that bears his name and then the Book of Acts would have been written by Gentiles. And then, possibly, the Book of Hebrews, if he collaborated with Paul.
Nehemia: Hmm. Okay.
AJ: Yeah.
Nehemia: Yeah. So, all right. So, we’re getting off the… I mean, we should get back to Numbers 5.
AJ: Yeah, we’re way off topic here! [Laughter]
Nehemia: No, we should do a separate study on that, because I think it’s a really important question. What I find fascinating is what scholars call intertextuality, right? So, you have the same verse, Genesis 15:6, and it’s being used by Paul, and it’s being used by James, and they look like they’re having a dialogue with one another. The question is whether they’re disagreeing, right? But that they’re having a dialogue seems… or, that they’re both aware of the other’s work seems pretty clear, right? And so, does one supplement the other? Or do they disagree with each other, right? That’s the debate, right? I’m sure Bart Ehrman would say they disagree with each other.
AJ: I’m sure he would, yes.
Nehemia: Undoubtedly. But maybe there’s different emphases, right? There’s different ways to understand it.
—
Nehemia: So, all right, so, let’s get back to Numbers 15… 15:30. And I started to talk about this a little bit before. So, it talks about the… because I think we haven’t stated what my friend Keith calls the moneyball.
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VERSES MENTIONED
Numbers 15:27-31
Leviticus 21:6-8
Exodus 19:5-8
Leviticus 11:45
Leviticus 19:2
Matthew 5:43-48
Hebrews 6:4
Hebrews 2:9
Deuteronomy 18:13
Genesis 17:1
Exodus 12:5
Genesis 6:9
Talmud Sanhedrin 108a:17
Genesis 9:21-27
Malachi 1:8
1 Kings 8:46; Ecclesiastes 7:20; Romans 3:10-12, 23; James 3:2; 1 John 1:8-10; Galatians 3:22
2 Kings 5
Genesis 15:5-6
Genesis 1:1
Habbakkuk 2:4
BOOKS MENTIONED
https://store.nehemiaswall.com/products/a-prayer-to-our-father
RELATED EPISODES
Hebrew Voices Episodes
Hebrew Voices #39 – Hebrew Manuscript of the Book of Revelation: Part 1
Hebrew Voices #37 – How the New Testament Interprets the Tanakh
Hebrew Voices #40 – Hebrew Manuscript of the Book of Revelation: Part 2
OTHER LINKS
The Spirit is Willing but the Flesh is Weak
The post Hebrew Voices #222 – You Can’t Be Perfect—Can You? Part 1 appeared first on Nehemia's Wall.
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