 Let's talk some more about Dr. Brown's five volumes answering Jewish objections to Jesus. But why should we talk about it? Why am I drawing attention to these books? Why focus on them? And I will give you three reasons why I focus on them. There are many people who read Dr. Brown's books. And the way it would seem when you're reading his books at first glance is that he's presenting a balanced picture. He spends a lot of time presenting the Jewish position. Sometimes in relatively favorable light. People who read his five volumes may think that they understand the Jewish position, they understand the Christian position, and they come to a decision. But Dr. Brown seriously misrepresents the Jewish position and therefore it is my responsibility to bring the true Jewish position, the true Jewish arguments to light. That's reason number one. Reason number two, many people have not read Dr. Brown's five volumes. But they look at them and they assume such a sophisticated work, 1,500 pages with scholarly footnotes. How could something so sophisticated be wrong? How could it be dead wrong? How could it be so incredibly empty? And that's another reason why I'm drawing attention to these books. I lay out my arguments in writing and I ask of you please read what I wrote. Please read the arguments that I bring up against his book. But there's a third reason why I'm drawing attention to Dr. Brown's books. Dr. Brown is a scholar. He studied. He's a smart person. Now do you realize what happened? Someone came over to Dr. Brown, I'm talking figuratively, and he gave him 1,500 blank pieces of paper. He gave him 10 years of time and he told him, here try your best, make a case for Jesus on the basis of the Jewish Bible. And Dr. Brown filled those 1,500 pages with his arguments, with his writings. And this is what he had to do. He had to omit some of the foundational Jewish objections. He had to contradict himself on some of his central arguments and he had to misrepresent the Jewish position on some of the foundational issues. So if you realize that and you realize what an opportunity he had and what this is the best case he was able to make, I believe that Dr. Brown's five volumes scream loudly. Jesus is not the Messiah. The title of Dr. Brown's work, Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus, would give us to understand that this is a defense of Christianity. And indeed it is. It is a defense of Christianity. But it is also an attack on Judaism. Dr. Brown says things like, he suggests that the Jewish rejection of the Trinity is a gut level negative reaction to anything Christian. That's a very serious charge against Judaism. In other words, it's saying that the central core of Judaism, the love for God is just a reaction to something else. It would be like telling a Christian, the reason you love Jesus is because you hate Muhammad. Dr. Brown misrepresents the Talmud when it comes to the issue of sacrifice as atonement. And his whole fifth volume, his entire fifth volume is an attack on the traditions of Judaism. So if you're going to attack something, it would be good if you would understand what you're attacking. Now many Christians are not aware. Many Christians are not aware how deeply the Jewish position is rooted in the Bible. I had a conversation with a very sincere Christian. This fellow told me that he was very well read on the Jewish-Christian polemic, the argument to debate between Judaism and Christianity. And I said, fine, well, let's have a conversation. But before we have that conversation, let me tell you something. I also read quite a bit on the subject of Jewish-Christian polemics. I'm going to tell you now which passages in the Jewish scriptures you're going to be quoting to me. You're going to be quoting Isaiah 53, Psalm 22, Daniel 9, et cetera, et cetera. I want you to tell me, my friend, what verses, what passages will I quote to support my position? And he looked at me and he said, what do you mean? You're going to tell me that Isaiah 53 is not talking about the Messiah. It's talking about the righteous of Israel. You're going to tell me Psalm 22 is talking about King David. Now I said, no, those are the texts that the Christians look to as supportive of their position. What are the texts that the Jewish people look to as supportive of the Jewish position? The first article on my blog is called 1,000 verses. In that article, I give you a list of verses according to various categories, which the Jews see as supportive of their position. Please read that article, study those verses. Again, it's not about me. It's not about Dr. Brown. It's between you and God. And ask yourselves what the author of the book was trying to tell you with those passages. Now Dr. Brown actually goes further than most missionaries in telling you how the Jewish position is rooted in the Bible. Throughout his five volumes, he quotes many of the passages that the Jewish people see as supportive of their position. But consistently, he skips out, in each discussion, he skips out the central passages. In his discussion on repentance, Deuteronomy 30 is not there. In his discussion on messianic prophecies, Deuteronomy 30 is not there. In his discussion on idolatry, Deuteronomy 435 is not there. In his discussion on the oral law, on the traditions of the Jewish people, the Sinai Revelation is not there. The Sinai Revelation is also not there in his discussion on the subject of idolatry. Some of these don't make it into his book altogether. Some of them make it into his book in different places, not in the center of the discussion about, for example, when he's discussing messianic prophecies, volume 3, Deuteronomy 30 is not there. When he's discussing repentance, volume 2, Deuteronomy 30 is not there. When he's discussing idolatry, also volume 2, Deuteronomy 435, the Sinai Revelation are not mentioned. You know what this is like? This is like a book about American history, and when you're reading a five-volume book, 1,500 pages, and when you're coming to the 1800s, no mention is made of the Civil War, nothing, zero. It's when you come to the last volume and it's discussing World War II, so you have a half a page about the Civil War. That is how warped Dr. Brown's presentation is of the Jewish position. Why is that Deuteronomy 30 so important? What's so significant about Deuteronomy 30? In the end of volume 3, Dr. Brown tells us, messianic prophecies are not readily identified as such. Now, I find this statement astounding. Dr. Brown believes that the main purpose of the Jewish Bible is to point you to the Messiah, and he is telling you that the messianic prophecies are not readily identified as such. Students of the Bible from the beginning of time have read the Jewish Bible and have come to the realization that the author of this Bible has a beautiful hope for the future of Israel, has a beautiful hope for the future of mankind. And that hope came to be known as the messianic age, the author of the Bible associates a person, a king with that hope, and that person came to be known as the Messiah. But the passages that speak of this beautiful hope for the future are very clear in the Bible. There's no question that certain passages are talking about that beautiful hope for the future. Yes, certain passages may be ambiguous and certain details may not be clear, but the general thrust of that hope was always clear. Let's just look at the disciples of Jesus. The Jewish disciples of Jesus, they had an idea of the Messiah before Jesus died, before he was allegedly resurrected. In fact, their concept of the Messiah did not include a death and resurrection because when Jesus died, they reacted with shock and it was something they didn't expect. This was after they read Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22, but they had an idea of what the Messiah was supposed to do and it wasn't dying. But in any case, when you're looking at the Bible and you're looking and asking yourself, is the author telling us anything about a hope for the future? Deuteronomy 30 will jump at you. Moses, the trustworthy one of God's household, the greatest prophet that the Jewish people ever had, speaks most clearly about this hope for the future in Deuteronomy 30 verses 1 through 10. And we have to realize that Moses came before most of the other prophets, of course, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob came before Moses, but all the books of Scripture come after Moses. So when the other prophets are speaking about the messianic age, they are speaking in the context of Deuteronomy 30 verses 1 through 10. When it comes to the issue of repentance, when it comes to the issue of repairing your relationship with God, and I'm speaking about the national relationship with God, which by the way is the main focus of the Jewish Scriptures. The Jewish Scriptures are primarily focused on the national relationship with God. The Jewish Scriptures are not so much focused on your individual relationship with God. So when it's speaking about that national relationship with God and repairing it, Deuteronomy 30 is foundational. Open a Jewish prayer book. You'll have, after the morning prayers, the passage of repentance. And it's Deuteronomy 30 verses 1 through 10. So when Dr. Brown omits Deuteronomy 30 from the discussion of messianic prophecies or from the discussion of repairing our relationship with God, he is taking that discussion out of its biblical context. What does Deuteronomy 30 tell us? Deuteronomy 30 tells us, and again, I encourage you to read it on your own. Again, it's Deuteronomy 30 verses 1 through 10. But it tells us when the Jewish people experience the blessing and the curse, they'll be dispersed into many lands that God scattered them, and they'll turn their hearts back to listen to the voice of the Lord, their God. According to all that I, Moses, in other words, commanded you, the eternal nation of Israel, today. And then God will bring them back to the land of Israel on the basis of that turning back to God on the basis of that repentance. So this tells us that the way the Jewish people repair their relationship with God is with repentance. No blood sacrifice. There's no temple. And it says clearly you're going to do this repentance according to the commandments of Moses. Moses never commanded us about any other blood sacrifices besides the ones that are offered in the temple. So we don't have that, and according to Moses' commandment, we are not allowed to bring blood sacrifices outside the temple, outside the land of Israel. So we're dealing with a repentance without blood sacrifices. And on the basis of this repentance, the passage teaches us that God will restore the Jewish people back to the land of Israel. The prophet goes on, Moses goes on to tell us that God will circumcise our hearts. You know what this tells us? That that repentance that took place before the circumcision of the heart was not a perfect repentance, because it's only after the circumcision of the heart that we are able to love the Lord our God with all our hearts and all our might. So in other words, the repentance was a human repentance. It was a repentance marked with humanity, with human frailty and human inability to be perfect. It was before the circumcision of the heart. Christians argue, yes, if you would repent perfectly, if you would observe the law of Moses exactly according to every slightest letter of the law, then of course God will restore you, but that's impossible. They're making a joke, a mockery out of God's word. When God commands, he doesn't expect you to be an angel. He doesn't expect you to be perfect. He doesn't expect you to be God. He knows we are human. And here the passage clearly tells us that the repentance which precedes, which comes before the circumcision of the heart is accepted by God. Furthermore, the passage tells us that after the circumcision of the heart, we will look back to Moses as our ultimate teacher. We will follow the teachings of Moses. Nothing about a better way, nothing about a greater teacher, a greater prophet. It's even after, in the messianic age, after the circumcision of the heart, we will still be looking back to Moses as our ultimate teacher. No Jesus, no greater than Moses. So on all these levels, the passage in Deuteronomy contradicts Christian theology. Now Dr. Brown devotes less than one page, a few paragraphs to Deuteronomy 30 in Volume 5. And this is not the volume that's speaking about repentance, repairing your relationship with God. This is not the volume that's speaking about the messianic prophecies. In those two volumes, Deuteronomy 30 was not invited, noticeably absent. Let me just read what Dr. Brown says about Deuteronomy 30. He's only addressing one detail of Deuteronomy 30, and this is what he says. But I'm reading Dr. Brown's words. But what about Deuteronomy 30, which states emphatically that after we have experienced judgment and dispersion, when we repent and return to the observance of the Torah, the Torah will be brought back to the land. That means that the central issue is Torah observance right until the last moment before the messianic age. That statement is highly misleading because it clearly says that Torah observance is central during the messianic age, not only until the last minute before the messianic age. Okay, but what does Dr. Brown's response to this challenge to his position? He gives us a two-fold response. Either he tells us that Deuteronomy 30 is talking, the repentance that it's talking about is talking about an acceptance of Jesus. Yes? Following the law according to all that Moses commanded today, meaning to say as the Jewish people understood it, on the day that Moses commanded means following Jesus, couldn't Moses have used better words to express that idea of devoting yourself to Jesus, accepting Jesus? The second answer he gives is that perhaps this prophecy was conditional because the Jewish people sinned so terribly, so this prophecy sort of is canceled. It's only useful if you didn't sin. You know what that's like? That's like telling me that you can't use a fire extinguisher when there's a fire because there's a fire. That's what the fire extinguisher is for. This prophecy is here for the specific purpose when we do not obey, when we experience the blessing and the curse. The curse comes upon us when we don't obey the law. How could you tell me that this prophecy is no longer relevant because we didn't obey the law? The whole point of the prophecy is when we don't obey the law, this is how we are supposed to repair our relationship with God. So these are Dr. Brown's responses quote unquote to Deuteronomy 30. Do you understand now why I say that Dr. Brown's five volumes is incredibly empty?