LET'S COME TO TERMS WITH THE FAITH OF THE FIRST CENTURY

Is the Hebrew Bible trustworthy?

בשר

"Bring Good News" [of G-d's deliverance of G-d's people.] See Shmuel Bais 18:31-33. Notice in this chapter 18 that the peace-bringing Besorah Tovah of Ben Dovid Talui HaEtz requires a mevaser to herald it.

The discovery in the middle of the Twentieth Century of the Dead Sea Scrolls, an incredible find containing 800 exemplars of Biblical texts, greatly undergirded the trustworthiness and provenance of the Hebrew Bible. This discovery gave us manuscripts that were more than 1000 years older than the previously available Hebrew manuscripts used by Bible translators and scholars. The official synagogue Torah scrolls were carefully copied and it was from these exemplars that the Dead Sea scribes made the ancient copies that we now have in front of us so we can verify today that the Hebrew Bible we have before us was not changed in scribal copying down through the centuries.

The Torah was written by Moshe Rabbeinu under the inspiration of the Ruach Hakodesh. This group of writings plus the rest of the Tanakh were written over a period of about 1000 years, from the 15th Century B.C.E. to the 5th Century B.C.E., assuming that the time of the Conquest was around 1400 B.C.E. The first book of the Torah begins with an inspired cosmology, but the "tov" creation falls into sinful corruption (see Midrash) involving first the great catastrophes of the Fall, or Chet Kadmon, followed by a world-shaking divine judgment called the Mabbul or Flood. We learn about the terror of the L-rd when a Mesopotamian ziggurat called the Tower of Babel fails divine inspection, and we quickly move to the call of the Avot, first Avraham Avinu, followed by Yitzchak, then Ya'akov and at last the adonei haaretz (42:30), the Messianic prophet, buried as dead, rejected by his brothers, but raised up alive to the right hand of Supreme Power to save the world and then be recognized in the end by Israel. Yosef Chai! (Gn 45:26).So here we have a picture of how the Moshiach will reveal himself as Moshia Savior first to the Nations and then to Moshiach's own people. Moshiach will crush Satan's head. But Moshiach will come from the tribe of Yehudah, as we see in Gn 49:10.

Around 1440 B.C.E. we have the Exodus from Egypt. But first the Savior from Hashem who is willing to lay down his life must be called and prepared. We know from Exodus chapter 32:30-32 that Moshe Rabbeinu was willing to die to make kapparah for the sins of the people, although Isaiah saw that this self-offering in Exodus chapter 32 was to be the ministry of the Moshiach (see Isaiah chapter 53).

The Torah was placed in the Aron Kodesh (see Deut 31:26) for safe-keeping and preservation. But what Moses did Joshua also did with his writings (Josh 24:26.) The navi Shmuel continued the collection of Hebrew Kitvei Hakodesh (see 1Sm 10:25). Daniel was able to look at the Sfarim (Books) that we call the Hebrew Bible and see that it was the word of G-d, especially when he read the book of Jeremiah and saw the prophesied time frame for the Golus (Exile). Like Daniel, we have also seen in our own lifetime the Nation of Israel resurrected to live again on The Land. And we have also seen the prophecy of Amos 9:15 come to pass in our own day as well as a worldwide Messianic Jewish revival following the Six Day War, fulfilling Scriptual prophecy. See Jeremiah 25:11 and 29:10 and compare Daniel 9:2. Also Jeremiah recognized in the writing of the navi Micah the word of the Holy Scriptures (compare Jeremiah 26:18 and Micah 3:12). The canonical Hebrew and Aramaic words of Scripture are called the Divrei Elohei Yisroel (see Ezra 9:4). To insure accuracy in the transmission of the text down through the centuries, the Hebrew Scribes had to count the letters of each book and this counting involved also the middle letter in each book. If you look at the masora marginal readings and end notes of a Masoretic Bible you will see these notations and by comparing the work of the scholar scribes called Masoretes to the Dead Sea Scrolls, discovered in 1947, you can check the copyist's work and their astounding scribal accuracy. As Josephus has said about the "justly accredited" or canonical books of the Tanakh, these were written by inspired "prophets." (See Contra Apionem.) Archaeologists have unearthed ancient inscriptions that verify the sober historical reality and accuracy in the Hebrew Biblical text as well as the existence of Biblical kings and persons in no way mythic or fictional. Linguistic evidence is also important in establishing provenance, i.e. that Daniel wrote Daniel. For example, the word ALEPH CHET SHIN DALET RESH PEH FINAL NUN ("AH-KHASH-DAR-PAHN") in Daniel 3:2 is an old Aramaic word for "Satrap," and belies an earlier rather than a later date for the book of Daniel. To illustrate, "hula-hoop" is a word of Eisenhower's era and not Thomas Jefferson's. Daniel's words are of the era before Ezra and not of the era after Antiochus Epiphanes. Daniel is trustworthy and so is the Hebrew Bible.

GN [this is about Paradise lost and the plan for a Savior introduced] p.1 EX [this is about the blood of the Lamb that makes possible the Exodus from the bondage of idolatrous Egypt and the redemption from the curse of the Law] p.52 LV [this is about what is authorized as the true kaparoh unto holiness] p.94 NUM [this is about the doom of a generation because of rebellion] p.127 DT [this is about the death of a rebellious generation at the Zered brook and the beginning of the Conquest at the Arnon river as told in the last sermon of a 120 year old preacher named Moses] p.171 JOSH [this is about G-d fulfilling His Promises through that foreshadow of Moshiach named Yehoshua/Yeshua] p.209 JUDG [this is about 13 deliverers, one a woman, who rescue self-willed sinners who are enslaved as anyone is enslaved who does not conquer sin) p.233 RUTH [this is about G-d's plan to raise up a Davidic King Messiah and to enfold the non-Jew into His Kingdom and even use chastening and loss to prepare one to receive such a messianic salvation] p.700 1SM [this book is about the folly of usurping priestly authority] p.256 2SM [this is about the divine choice of G-d's Great King, foreshadowing the Davidic Moshiach] p.291 1KGS [this is about apostasy and the confrontation showdown before the curse of exile overtakes the Northern Kingdom] p.317 2KGS [this is about the kings and people whose backsliding brings the Churban] p.349 1CHR [this is about the history of the people, priests, and kings and their spiritual legacy] p.769 2CHR [this continues the story to the Churban and the Return] 797 EZRA [this tells about a descendent of Aaron and the power of the Word of G-d in rebuilding the Beis Hamikdash people of G-d] p.746 NEH [this tells how G-d remembers the one who leaves a life of security and preferment to serve selflessly the rebuilding of the City of the Great King] p.755 ESTH [this tells about how G-d can use a woman called to save G-d's people] p.721 JOB [this tells about Satanic affliction and being found right with G-d] p.668 PS [this is the songbook and prayerbook of a Messianic prayer warrior] p.579 PROV [this is the book that tells how to avoid the sins of youth] p.644 ECCL [this is an old man's expose of the empty pleasures of this world and need to fear G-d and prepare for judgment] p.712 SONG [this is about Moshiach and his kallah] p.695 ISA [this is about the son of the royal Davidic virgin who is G-d with us and is wounded for our transgressions] p.378 JER [this is about the coming New Covenant and about the prophet who warned about the Churban and the Golus] p.431 LAM [this is the elegy for the lost of the Churban] p.706 EZEK [this is about the prophet who in visions of G-d foresaw the Churban and the Golus, even from Babylon as well as the lev chadash of regeneration] p.487 DAN [this is the prophet who foresaw that the Bar Enosh Moshiach and the Atik Yomin are G-d and that the Moshiach would be cut off before the Churban] p.730 HOS [this is the prophet who felt the anguish in his own heart of the spiritual adultery with which G-d's people afflict the heart of G-d] p.538 JOEL [this is the prophet who foresaw the Latter Rain of Spiritual Revival] p.545 AMOS [this is the prophet who preached against injustice, luxury, ingratitude, oppression] p.548 OBAD [this is the prophet who preached about Israel's foe] p.553 JON [this is the prophet of repentance who needed to repent and who foreshadowed the death and resurrection of Moshiach] p.554 MIC [this is the prophet who foresaw the birthplace of Moshiach] p.556 NAH [this prophet foresaw the fall of Ninevah] p.560 HAB [this prophet understood justification by faith] p.562 ZEPH [this prophet preached at the time of Josiah on the searching judgments of G-d] p.564 HAG [this prophet preached at the time of the restoring of the Bais Hamikdash and warned against building well-panelled houses for yourself while G-d's House lies in ruins] p.567 ZECH [this prophet foresaw the personal name of Moshiach Yeshoshua/Yeshua] p.568 MAL [this prophet foresaw Moshiach's forerunner] p.577

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