Sid: What a fascinating week, as a matter of fact I’ve been running out of time because I don’t even want to look at my watch. Well I’m talking to Bob Fischer at his home in Tiberias, Israel who just finished a book called “Full Circle” in which he documents the majority of the Jewish people that they were like 3 different types of Jewish people at the time that Jesus came in the flesh. They were the Sadducees, the Pharisees, and the Essenes. And the one that were in the majority were the Essenes. And because we found these ancient manuscripts called the Dead Sea Scrolls written some 250 years before Jesus came in the flesh. The experts that have studied these, and they are not even believers and they have said it’s close to 250 years before Jesus came in the flesh. They had these writings, and when you read their writings then obviously you believe the Jesus is the Messiah. But they’ve been hidden, there’s a rabbinic conspiracy if you will and we may have time to get into that. But for such a time as this this is being revealed. For instance, Bob Fischer I was fascinated when I read their writings it sounds just like the Beatitudes in the Gospels.
Bob: Well actually Sid it isn’t the same the words but it’s the same form it’s the same poetic form. It’s almost like Yeshua had modeled His own beatitudes after these as far as form goes. Well let me read you some of it. “Blessed is the one who speaks the truth with a pure heart and does not slander with his tongue; Blessed are those who adhere to His laws and do not adhere to perverted paths; Blessed are those who rejoice in her and do not explore insane paths; Blessed are those who search for her with pure hands and do not importune her with a treacherous heart; Blessed is the man who attains wisdom and walks in the laws of the Most High and dedicates His heart to her ways and is constrained by her discipline and always takes pleasure in her punishments and does not forsake her in the hardship of his wrongs. And in the time of anguish does not discard her and does not forget her in the days of terror and in the distress of his soul does not loathe her.” Isn’t that beautiful?
Sid: It really and I love to read the writings of the Essenes these were my kind of Jews not the Pharisees that missed Yeshua. Tell me a little bit about (don’t even read it) but what was their belief on a doctrine that has been very controversial in the church called predestination? What did these… the precursors, if you will, the forerunners if you will, of Christianity what did they believe about predestination?
Bob: They were very Calvinistic in their orientation. The pages of the Dead Sea Scrolls that relate to this could have been written by the hand of John Calvin, they believed in predestination. They believed that God created both good people and bad people if you will. And at the time of their creation even before the beginning of the world they were predestined to either be in heaven or not in heaven. And that He did this for His own purposes.
Sid: Now you’re going into another subject of even far more importance now the Trinity or the Triune nature of God; there are books within Judaism called Kabbalah that actually talk about the Triune nature of God. Tell me about that.
Bob: Absolutely they were written down about 200 AD, their available and their regularly read.
Sid: This is traditional Judaism, this is not pre-Jesus.
Bob: This is today’s Judaism I was in a synagogue in Tz’fat some years ago. We went to the main synagogue there and this is the center of modern day Kabbalahism. And there in the dome of the synagogue there’s a dove coming down from heaven with a scroll in his beak. And in the same sense that the dove came out from heaven and landed on Yeshua at the time of His baptism it could be the same thing. It’s incredible, really!
Sid: Well let me ask you a question because you go into detail in your book but when I think of Kabbalah I think of a synonym called Jewish New Age. But originally that’s not what Kabbalah was according to your understanding.
Bob: This didn’t happen until the Middle Ages when it got polluted, it got polluted by the Pharisees. About the time of Rambam and after Rambam; this is Rabbi Maimonides Rambam.
Sid: Okay, speaking of Rambam, tell us who he is and why he’s so important.
Bob: Oh, he’s extremely important to the understanding of this whole system and the departure of Christianity from what became after the Pharisees, what Judaism became in the religion and the Rabbis that we have today. Rambam…
Sid: Isn’t it amazing Judaism traditional Judaism got so perverted from the truth what we call Rabbinic Judaism is a far cry from the Judaism of the scriptures. And Christianity I might say the religion of Christianity did about the same too. If we could only go back to what the first church had maybe we’d have the power of the first church.
Bob: Amen, amen to that.
Sid: So let’s go with this Rambam and tell us about him.
Bob: Okay Rambam was a very important patriarch in the scheme of rabbinical Judaism. He lived in the 12 century, 1125 to 1204. He was a bigot in life Jewish Sage and he covered a large spectrum of disciplines anything from medicine to theology. But he’s most well known for his book called “The Mishnah Torah” which is a guide to Rabbinical Jews how to live; the details of their lives even how to peel a potato these kind of things…
Sid: My goodness when I said we don’t think for ourselves I really wasn’t exaggerating if we have to be told how to peal a potato. (Laughing)
Bob: Even more important to the Mishnah Torah were his “Thirteen Articles of Faith.” And these were written down as a code of conduct so to speak for Rabbinical Judaism; there were 13 of them. And the most poignant of them from a Christian perspective are his 2nd and his 3rd Articles of Faith let me read them to you. Article Number 2 was “God’s absolute and unparalleled unity.” Three “Is the belief in God’s non-corporate reality which is His inability to take on human form or that He would be affected by any physical occurrences such as movement or rest or dwelling.” Now what Rambam did here in Number 2 that is in the belief in God’s absolute and unparalleled unity was to go directly against the Essences Triune understanding. Because he took this statement you know he used a variation of what the Jews called “The Shema” which is Deuteronomy 6:4; which is “Hear oh Israel the Lord our God the Lord is one.” The Hebrew word for one used here is echad. Now echad is a word that means unity but it’s the unity that allows for a plurality.
Sid: As it says in the Torah “Adam and Eve were echad one flesh” yet two people.
Bob: Two flesh and so there you have that and so what Rambam did instead of using echad for his paraphrase of the Shema he used yacheed and yacheed is hardly ever used in the Old Covenant. It’s used 12 times as I recall and was compared to 100’s of times that echad was used. But it’s a word that means unparalleled unity; that is a unity that can’t be divided.
Sid: It sounds like the old con called the shell game where you have a walnut shell and which one has the bean underneath it and you spin it around. It sounds like he pulled a real swift deal by changing that word it changed the understanding of Judaism.”
Bob: Absolutely, it was a pinnacle thing; it was a thing that absolutely built a wall between the faith that we have in Yeshua as believers in Yeshua; you and me and all of the rest and all of Judaism that doesn’t know Him. And they have a resistance and this… there is a movement that’s in the contemporary Jewish group; even half of the Messianic Jews who came to the faith out of a orthodox background are struggling with this problem with echad and yacheed because they came out of a Pharisaic background or a rabbinical background where they had where they can’t get beyond the idea that God is divisible; that He’s divisible that He’s a Chad. They keep thinking of Him as an indivisible yacheed and this is an incredibly important problem that we have in Judaism today.
Sid: You know one of my problems, and I see it so clear by understanding your book is that many Gentile believers in the Messiah want to go back to their Jewish roots; God is the One that’s doing this but they go back to the Jewish roots of the Pharisees rather than the Jewish Roots of the Essenes and I think that’s where they miss it.
Bob: Absolutely, this another tragic thing that is happening that my book really attempts to address in depth that so many of our Gentile believers that are looking for a way to identify with the Torah. To identify with Judaism pick up the long Judaism like you say and they really abandon their faith if they give up the idea that Yeshua is divine and a part of a triune Godhead. That He in fact is God then they end up into apostasy they’ve thrown away their salvation and so many of them are coming into this wrong understanding.
Sid: And I’ll tell you what bothers me so much is I find first I got excited with many Gentile Christians that said “Boy I want to understand my Jewish Roots” and obviously I got excited. But then I found that many of them were more interested in their Jewish roots which weren’t even Jewish roots they were Pharisee roots rather than Essene roots, which they should have been doing. And they’re more interested in their roots than their Messiah, than Israel, than Jewish people that are unsaved. That Ezekiel says “Son of man I’ve appointed you a watchman unto the House of Israel if you don’t warn them of their wicked ways than I’m going to hold you accountable. I mean it’s unfortunate but what God meant for good many Christians are going too far with.
Bob: Just this evening Sid I know it was a divine appointment Terri Morey who is a mutual friend of ours…
Sid: Will you hold that thought we’ll pick it up on tomorrow’s broadcast.
Tags: its supernatural, Sid Roth
Tags: its supernatural, Sid Roth