Dr. Brown Tackles Jewish Objections to Jesus, including Why Jews Reject the Deity of the Messiah

[Download MP3]

Join Dr. Brown today to discuss some of the reasons Jews don’t believe that the Messiah can also be God, and more objections to Jesus as the Jewish Messiah!

Hour 1:

Dr. Brown’s Bottom Line: Our glorious God has revealed Himself to us, in various ways at different times, but most fully, most wonderfully in Jesus the Messiah; the one and only, unique Son of God. As we recognize Jesus, Yeshua, we bow down and worship the One True God. There is nothing idolatrous about it.

Hour 2:

Dr. Brown’s Bottom Line: Hebrews chapter 1: Long ago, at many times, and in many ways, God has spoken to us by the prophets. But in these last days, He has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed the heir of all things, and through whom He created the world. He is the radiance of the Glory of God, and the exact imprint of His nature, and He upholds the universe with the word of His power. After making purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name He has inherited is more excellent than theirs.

Featured Resources:

Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus vol. 2 by Dr. Brown and The Deity of Messiah: Son of God or Chosen Man? (debate)

Prophets & Prophetic Ministry [MP3 Series]

Essential Israel Resources!

Answering Jewish Objections To Jesus – Volume 1

Stand With Israel [MP3 CD]

Other Resources:

Previous LOF Shows:

Dr. Brown Answers the Rabbis (Part 1): Dr. Brown answers challenges given him by traditional rabbis as to why Jesus is not the Jewish Messiah, focusing today on challenges from his friend, Rabbi Yisroel Blumenthal.

Dr. Brown Answers the Rabbis (Part 2): Dr. Brown responds to objections from Rabbi Michael Skobac from Jews for Judaism.


Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus vol. 3 by Dr. Brown: This third installment of Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus looks specifically at questions raised about messianic prophecies in Isaiah, Daniel, Psalms, Haggai, and Zechariah.

Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus vol. 4 by Dr. Brown: In this volume of the Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus series, Dr. Brown counters the arguments that the New Testament mistranslates, misuses, and misunderstands the Hebrew Scriptures, also addressing the objections that Jesus or Paul abolished the Law.

_

Who Is Jesus? Dr. Brown/Blumhofe Debate [DVD]: If you could travel 2,000 years back in time and be an eyewitness to a debate between Paul the Apostle and the most outstanding Pharisee over the Messiahship of Jesus, it could not be more exciting than this debate.


113 Comments
  1. This translation of Romans 9:5 looks quite exact to me – very literal – and It’s certainly supported by ancient translations of the Greek such as the Latin Vulgate: “quorum (of/from whom/whose [are]) patres (the fathers/patriachs), et (and) ex (from) quibus (whom) est (is) Christus (the Christ/Messiah) secundum (according to) carnem (the flesh), qui (who) est (is) super (over) omnia (all things) Deus (God) benedictus (blessed) in sæcula (forever). Amen.”

    For an interesting alterative, here’s the same verse translated by the celebrated classicist Richmond Lattimore, whose translations of Homer are (arguably) the finest of the 20th century.

    “From them are the fathers, from them, in the way of the flesh, the Christ, who is over all, God to be praised forever” (Romans 9:5, Lattimore trans.).

    I hope that helps.

    God bless,
    Tim

  2. Thank you kindly Timotheus. Would you say that the last part is to be understood as a salutation or is it part of the main sentence? (God blessed forever) Or, maybe there’s no way to tell?

    I’m thinking if it is part of the sentence it certainly seems like Christ is God over all and is blessed forever.

    Thanks again!

  3. You’re welcome Sheila. I would say that the last part is best understood as affirming Jesus’ divinity – “God over all,” as you say, and which He most assuredly is. I think the sense is brought out best by the translation you provided in post 102, but I like Lattimore’s as well.

    Of course this is just one tiny fragment of the overwhelming mountain of evidence from both Scripture and church tradition that points to the truth: that Jesus Christ is the Almighty God.

    I will join you in prayer for Sir Anthony. Mark 9:28-29.

    In Christ.

  4. Thank you my brother Tim. Yes, let’s all send our prayers up for Sir Anthony in Jesus’ Name! I pray everytime I engage him that I might say something differently, perhaps, than he’s already heard–who knows–so I try again.

    Do you think, maybe, those who know and read the Bible in Greek are possibly missing the flavor of the first English translation of it? Of course the modern ESV I use is very good, I’m just thinking that the Greek maybe doesn’t have the same flavor. If you know what I mean.

    Thanks, Blessings to you.

    In Christ Jesus, our Lord and Savior!

  5. Sir Anthony,

    You’ve had me thinking about angels and agents and how the agent concept would work and I see that it just doesn’t make sense. This is what I’ve been thinking about lately.

    CONCERNING ANGELS and “THE ANGEL”

    I understand that the word, “angel,” for the most part, means messenger, but of course there must be something different about their image, their physical appearance, such that people recognize they’re not human. I see the appearing of the Lord to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as an Angel as being one who was clearly seen as more glorious than they were. Apparently angels are made of different elements than we mortals, who are made of dirt (earthly elements). Anyway, the appearance of the Lord as a Glorified Being (The Angel) is true of other encounters too. He appears and is said to be “a Man” then known to be “The Angel,” only in the sense that He is more awesome in appearance than the children of men. I don’t want you to think I consider Him an angel in the “generic” sense of the word. I think you understand my point. The transfiguration is a good example.

    Who is interacting with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, then all of Egypt, with Moses, Balaam, and so forth, especially who was it that brought them out from slavery in the FT? That cannot be the Father walking around and interacting with us, but it’s certainly given to us that the person who is, “is” YHWH. He’s not just any agent at all but the One who, as we are told in Scripture, is also God working on earth. We can’t say He’s NAMED “THE LORD” but, “Well, He’s not ‘really’ God interacting here on earth, because sometimes YHWH is God and sometimes He isn’t!?” That’s absurd, but it sounds like that’s where your theory would lead us. Why would God give what is His “Name Forever” to a created being, to an angel? It’s like saying that sometimes YHWH is the Father’s NAME but; at other times it’s loaned out!

    We need to think of this too, that when said angel, who has YHWH’s NAME on loan to Him (is what unitarians say if I’m not mistaken), returns to Heaven does he revert back to being just ordinary, just like all the rest? He is filled with the “PRESENSE,” the “ESSENSE” of God who “EMBODIES” His “NAME”, He is working “AS GOD” on earth one minute, or sometimes all of a day; another all of a night (Abraham and Jacob, respectively) and then He returns to Heaven and becomes an empty shell, one who is now “without a name” even? There seems to me to be something very wrong with that scenario. You would need to elaborate on your thoughts, please.

    When He, YHWH, appeared during the time of the Judges, the Israelites apparently understood that the LORD interacted with mankind sometimes in the form of a Man who is “The” Angel, who is God, as He is spoken of as being. He is in appearance as a glorified Man, but certainly without the fullness of the radiant Glory He possessed together with the Father before the world began. Who, then, can see God in “ALL” of His Glory and live? That statement remains true. Whereas, just as in the FT Scriptures, those who had seen Jesus had, indeed, seen the Father, and “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe!”

    Then we have Jesus sending His angel to John in the Revelation. John goes to worship this angel and he tells him, “See that you don’t do it; I am your fellow servant…” That is definitely “not” true of the Angel of the LORD.

    I also have a very hard time believing that God needs anyone to represent Him in the first place. He’s the LORD, God, and He can certainly represent Himself; which He does!

  6. Sir Anthony,

    In speaking about names. Names are more than important, as you know; names qualify their owners. Names mean everything in Scripture.

    I need more information about the messenger agent of God. I can’t get around it as it is.

    Thanks.

  7. The creed of Jesus has become lost in this (I think unnecessarily complex) discussion. I see above that Dr. Brown as a Trinitarian states that Jesus was a Trinitarian when reciting Deut. 6:4 in Mk 12:29. Dr. Brown says that in reciting the Shema, he, Brown, affirms the Trinity.
    The Jew with whom Jesus agreed was then, on Dr. Brown’s argument a Trinitarian. Is there no one on this list who will join me in agreeing that it is preposterous to say that Jesus, and the Jew, were Trinitarians when they recited the creed of Israel. Speak up please!

  8. I wonder if “I and my Father are one.” could be considered a creed of Jesus, or maybe “baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.”

    Anthony, should those things be considered a creed of Jesus, as much as MK 12:29?

    Answer this and maybe I’ll speak up.

  9. Maybe the best way to approach a Jew on whether or not Jesus is God, is to ask them if it’s OK to compare Jesus with God, or if that would be robbery.

    Is Jesus really everything that God is? Did he fall short anywhere? Did God not place him on the same level as he is? Does not Jesus sit in the thone of God judging the nations?

    Did not God call him “God”? (Psalm 45:6, Heb 1:8)
    Is not a person or thing whatever it is that God calls it? Isn’t it OK if Jesus is God to us?

    One of the first things God gave the children of Israel is “I Am That I Am.” Did they consider among themselves everything that God is?

    If we were to consider everything we can that God is and put it down on a list, would not Jesus fit that same bill?

  10. I used to ride dirt bike and seemed to ride all the local trails. Then I was invited to go 4 wheeling with a Trinitarian church group. I rode along in a 4WD in an area I had known quite well by dirt bike and when one asked if I knew where we were and if I could get us back, well…..I certainly knew how to get back by dirt bike trail for I had been there often on a dirt bike as many of the trails had cut across or met some roads that they used as they went 4-wheeling.

    I just didn’t arrive at the same place they did the same way they did. I learned a different way, yet we were in the same place.

    I could have been a barbarian to them and they to me if we were to talk to each other about how to get back.

    I believe the Lord would have us to love, cherish, and to respect others in the Body, without regard to race, color, or creed.

  11. Sir Anthony,
    I totally agree that Jesus was not indicating the Trinity in the Shema as he would have been dishonest in his reply to a fellow Jew.
    From what I can see the trinity teaching originated in the Catholic church and was inherited by the Protestants during the reformation. Because of the Protestant churches approach to “sola scriptura”, they have to prove the Trinity in the Bible where it clearly can not be proved without fiddling with the scriptures. How they are going to explain this behaviour to Yahweh will be interesting to hear. I don’t know why our fellow Protestants don’t just admit like the Catholics that the Trinity is a “revealed teaching” and therefore does not require the Bible to back it up. It would solve a lot of problems and improve our Christian unity…
    As a christian, it’s embarrassing to see Dr Brown and others attack you in this manner, it reminds me of the treatment of Jesus, our Messiah who disagreed with the majority of Jews at the time. Have we all forgotten what it means to be Christian?
    I thank you for raising the point that Jesus may not have had a pre-human existence. I hadn’t considered that before. However I freely admit I haven’t the foggiest idea about how to describe the relationship of Jesus to Yahweh our father apart from what the Bible says, e.g he is Yahweh’s son.
    Thats enough for me and I hope to ask Jesus that very question when we meet.
    I hope my comments don’t upset anyone but they are said in the spirit of love..

    Anthony

  12. To Anthony & others, It seems many jews & christians do not understand “echad”! Surely you’ve all read where Yeshua said(my paraphrase), ‘Oy vey,”Have I been with you this long & you still don’t know me?” Shalom,TP

Comments are closed.