Messianic Torah Apologetics
Messianic Rabbi Bruce R. Booker
Apologetics
• Doesn’t mean that we “apologize” for what
we believe!
1 Peter 3:15
• “…but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts,
always {being} ready to make a defense to
everyone who asks you to give an account for
the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness
and reverence…”
ἀπολογία - Strong's Number: 627
Transliterated Word Phonetic Spelling
• apologia ap-ol-og-ee'-ah
Definition
1. verbal defense, speech in defense
2. a reasoned statement or argument
We need to be able to make an
“Apologia” for the Hope that lies
within us!
With gentleness and reverence
We Need to be Able to Answer the
Question:
“Why do we believe what we believe?”
What we believe and why we
believe must be based upon what
the Scriptures say:
That’s the Rub…
The reason why there is such diversity
of understanding is that most often we
read into the Scriptures what we want
the Scriptures to say.
When, in reality, we should study out
the Scriptures from its own
perspective!
2 Timothy 2:15
• “Be diligent to present yourself approved to
God as a workman who does not need to be
ashamed, accurately handling the word of
truth.”
Rules of Scripture Interpretation
• How we interpret Scripture is known as
Biblical Hermeneutics.
Herman WHO???
Hermeneutics
“Hermeneutics is a science and art of
interpreting the text of scripture.”
[Dr. Milton Terry- Biblical Hermeneutics 1890]
Hermeneutics
• Hermeneutics (Hermeneutic means
interpretive), is a branch of philosophy
concerned with human understanding and the
interpretation of texts.
Difference between
Translation vs. interpretation
Name Derivation
Name derived from a Greek word
connected with the name of the
god “Hermes,” (Mercury) the
reputed messenger and
interpreter of the gods.
Acts 14:11-13
• When the crowd saw what Paul had done, they
shouted in the Lycaonian language, "The gods
have come down to us in human form!“
• Barnabas they called Zeus, and Paul they called
Hermes because he was the chief speaker.
• The priest of Zeus, whose temple was just outside
the city, brought bulls and wreaths to the city
gates because he and the crowd wanted to offer
sacrifices to them.
Biblical Hermeneutics
• Determines how we interpret what the Bible is
saying to us - Interpret: make clear –
understandable
• Gives tools to ask intelligent questions about
what the Biblical text says, rather than be
deceived by what TV, a book, article, or person
may say.
• To seek the Message that God intended:
•
One Meaning; One Mind.
Principles of Interpretation
• It is not a hit or miss proposition. It is detailed,
carefully spelled out.
• Both Jewish and Christian scholars have come
to basic agreement on principles of
interpretation – as far as methodology.
• The purpose of this course of study today is
not to go through the principles of
Hermeneutics. Not enough time.
Principles of Interpretation
• God’s Word was written by and to a people in
another time and place in history, people with
a different culture, customs, environment,
language.
• So those people could understand
• God’s Word contains stories, poetry, literal and
figurative language.
• God’s Word was written by “one mind”.
Hebraic Hermeneutics
• Studying the Scripture from a Hebraic
perspective.
• In our previous Conference last year, I had
gone through the differences between the
Greek worldview and understanding of
Scripture and the Hebraic (Biblical) worldview
and understanding of Scripture.
Saw the Differences
They are Significant!
Need to Realize: The Bible is a
Hebraic Work
• To best understand the Bible, we need to
approach it from the Hebraic perspective,
since it IS a Hebraic book!
Exegesis…
Theological Positions;
Ideas
Reading “out” (exe) of the Scriptures…
Like Prospecting…
• Taking gold out of the earth!
…Not Eisegesis
Preconceived Theology; Ideas
• Reading “Into” (eise) the Scriptures!
Careful Study…
• The process of careful study of a biblical
passage in relation to its historical setting; its
setting in the overall collection that makes up
the scriptures, specific questions of language
and literary form, and how it has been
understood by past interpreters, in order to
provide a foundation for hearing what the
passage may have to say to us today.
With Eisegesis We Can Make the Bible
say ANYTHING We Want!
• And Judas went out and hanged himself…
(Matthew 27:5)
• And Jesus said, “Go, do thou likewise.” (Luke
10:37)
• “And what thou doest, do thou quickly!” (John
13:27)
As Torah Submissive Believers in
Yeshua, our Messiah and Lord
• We believe that the Torah IS applicable and
pertinent to ALL Messianic believers: both
Jewish and Non-Jewish!
Need to be able to make a
“defense” to our brethren who
believe otherwise!
We Need to Understand Where
Others Are Coming From and
Relate to them from the Biblical
(Hebraic) Perspective!
• We need to be able to “cross the bridge” to
reach out to them.
• Sha’ul did this with the Athenians at Mar’s Hill
in Acts 17:16-31.
Sha’ul did not use a SINGLE Verse of
Scripture to Them
• Because Scripture did not yet hold authority
over them and their lives.
• He used their poets, philosophers and worldview to reach them!
Likewise, we must KNOW and RELATE
• To those who do not yet grasp our
understanding from their OWN world-view
and perspective.
• Then we bring them over the bridge to see
ours.
• This DOESN’T mean that they will come across
to our perspective!
That’s the Job of the Ruach haKodesh!
• Holy Spirit convicts of sin:
John 16:5-15
5
"But now I am going to Him who sent Me; and none of
you asks Me, `Where are You going?' 6 "But because I
have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your
heart. 7 "But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage
that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not
come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you. 8 "And He,
when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin and
righteousness and judgment; 9 concerning sin, because
they do not believe in Me; 10 and concerning
righteousness, because I go to the Father and you no
longer see Me; 11 and concerning judgment, because the
ruler of this world has been judged.
John 16:5-15
12
"I have many more things to say to you, but you
cannot bear them now. 13 "But when He, the Spirit
of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth;
for He will not speak on His own initiative, but
whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will
disclose to you what is to come. 14 "He will glorify
Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to
you. 15 "All things that the Father has are Mine;
therefore I said that He takes of Mine and will
disclose it to you.
Our Job is to Bear Witness
• His Job is to reveal it to those who see and
hear our witness!
Having Said that
• Let’s take the MAJOR difference in Perspective
between those of us who believe in the
perpetuity of Torah and its application in the
lives of believers.
That is the Torah Itself!
• Many Christians say that the Law was done
away with by Jesus on the Cross and…
• …That Christians follow what is called the “law
of Christ” and NOT the “Old Testament” Laws!
Important to Realize that the word
“Torah” does NOT Mean “Law.”
• “Torah” literally means “teachings” or
“instructions.”
• From the root word “Yawrah” meaning to
throw or shoot, as an arrow.
• Teacher “shoots” or “throws” the instruction
to the student.
Septuagint (LXX) – 70 rabbis –
translated Torah into “nomos” which
in the Greek means “law.”
The Septuagint: is the Koine Greek version of the
Hebrew Bible, translated in stages between the
3rd and 2nd century BCE in Alexandria. It was
begun by the 3rd century BCE and completed
before 132 BCE.
• According to the record in the Talmud:
• 'King Ptolemy once gathered 72 Elders. He
placed them in 72 chambers, each of them in
a separate one, without revealing to them
why they were summoned. He entered each
one's room and said: "Write for me the Torah
of Moshe, your teacher." God put it in the
heart of each one to translate identically as all
the others did.’
New Testament Writings
• Cite from the Septuagint!
• So when we read passages in the “New
Testament” it often seems as though the
“New Testament” is anti-Law (anti-Torah)!
• Especially the writings of the Apostle Sha’ul!
Is Sha’ul/Paul “Anti-Law”?
• “For sin shall not be master over you, for you
are not under law but under grace.” Romans
6:4
• “But now we have been released from the
Law, having died to that by which we were
bound, so that we serve in newness of the
Spirit and not in oldness of the letter.” Romans
7:6
Is Sha’ul/Paul “Anti-Law”?
• “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus
has set you free from the law of sin and of
death.” Romans 8:2
• “For Christ is the end of the law for
righteousness to everyone who believes.”
Romans 10:4
• “"For through the Law I died to the Law, so
that I might live to God.” Galatians 2:19
Is Sha’ul/Paul “Anti-Law”?
• “But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not
under the Law.” Galatians 5:18
We Must Understand this:
• There was NO word group in the First Century
Koine Greek (or for that matter First Century
Hebrew) for the concepts of:
– Legalism
– Legalistic
– Or Legalist
Sha’ul did NOT have a way to
express these concepts in the
Greek or Hebrew languages of the
First Century!
• The Greek of Paul's day lacked any term
corresponding to the distinct position of
"legalism", "legalist", or "legalistic", leading
C.E.B. Cranfield to commend "the possibility
that Pauline statements which at first sight
seem to disparage the law, were really
directed not against the law itself but against
that misunderstanding and misuse of it for
which we now have a convenient
terminology" (legalism).
Cranfield, C.E.B., The International Critical Commentary, Romans, 1979, p. 853.
Sha’ul Coined a Phrase
• “Hupo nomos” – “Under the Law”
David H. Stern
• Messianic Jewish Bible translator David H. Stern
cited these two scholars to support the
translation framework that often "'nomos' means
'legalism' and not God's Torah", especially in
Paul's constructs erga nomou (literally "works of
law", rendered by Stern "legalistic observance of
Torah commands") and upo nomon (literally
"under law", rendered by Stern by 13 words, "in
subjection to the system which results from
perverting the Torah into legalism").
David H. Stern
• Stern, David H., Jewish New Testament
Commentary, 1992, pp. 535-8, 552-3, on Gal.
2:16b, 3:23b.
So the Question is:
• Was Sha’ul against the Torah of God, or the
misuse of Torah as a system of works
righteousness (legalism)?
• We have to look at his life!
What Does Sha’ul DO???
• Look at the Book of Acts!
Sha’ul Kept the Nazirite Vow
• In Acts 18:18, Paul had his hair cut "for he was
keeping a vow" - a Nazirite vow.
• Acts 21:17-22
• This is a very holy and sacred Jewish vow of
purity to separate yourself to God found in the
Old Testament (Tanakh) Numbers 6.
He Observes the Biblical Sabbath
• Acts 13:14
• But going on from Perga, they arrived at
Pisidian Antioch, and on the Sabbath day they
went into the synagogue and sat down.
He observes the Biblical Shabbat
• Acts 16:13 - And on the Sabbath day we went
outside the gate to a riverside, where we were
supposing that there would be a place of
prayer; and we sat down and began speaking
to the women who had assembled.
FEAST OF UNLEAVENED BREAD
• In Acts 20:6 we are told that Sha’ul/Paul
observed the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
He observes the Feast of Passover
with his Corinthian Readers! 1
Corinthians 5:8
• Therefore let us celebrate the feast, not with
old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and
wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of
sincerity and truth
FEAST OF PENTECOST
• (FEAST OF FIRST FRUITS)
• Acts 20:16 he observed the Feast of
Pentecost.
Feast of Tabernacles
• In Acts 18:21, Apostle Sha’ul/Paul, indicated
that it was important to keep the Feast of
Tabernacles. Acts 18:21, I MUST BY ALL
MEANS KEEP this coming feast in Jerusalem;
but I will return again to you, God willing.
• The Feast of Tabernacles has been worked out
by biblical scholars to be the most likely time
when Yeshua was born
He observes the Feast of Yom Kippur
• Acts 27:9 - When considerable time had
passed and the voyage was now dangerous,
since even the fast was already over, Paul
{began} to admonish them,
What About Colossians 2:16?
• Therefore no one is to act as your judge in
regard to food or drink or in respect to a
festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day--
What About Romans 14:5, 6
• One person regards one day above another,
another regards every day {alike.} Each person
must be fully convinced in his own mind. He
who observes the day, observes it for the
Lord, and he who eats, does so for the Lord,
for he gives thanks to God; and he who eats
not, for the Lord he does not eat, and gives
thanks to God.
So What’s the REAL Problem with
Sha’ul?
• Kefa (Peter) tells us in 2 Peter 3:14-16
– Therefore, beloved, since you look for these
things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace,
spotless and blameless, and regard the patience
of our Lord {as} salvation; just as also our beloved
brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him,
wrote to you, as also in all {his} letters, speaking in
them of these things, in which are some things
hard to understand, which the untaught and
unstable distort, as {they do} also the rest of the
Scriptures, to their own destruction.
Nothing Wrong with Sha’ul
• Something Wrong with the Men who “twist”
Sha’ul!