“From the rising of the sun even to its setting, My Name will be great among the Gentiles,” says Yahweh Sabaoth.
(Malachi 1: 11)
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Who is a Jew? Confusion Abounds.
Who is a Jew?
When anyone says “I am Jewish” or “I am a descendant of Jews”, you have to examine the facts. The truth isn’t always what people believe.
Fact 1
From Yahweh’s perspective, Jewishness is determined by heredity, not religion. If you are a direct descendant of Judah, you are Jewish. If you are not a direct descendant of Judah, you are not Jewish.
That information comes from the Old Testament (a.k.a. the Tanach or the Torah, Prophets, and Writings). The Old Testament is Yahweh’s word.
Fact 2
Judaism, the religion, is based on Halacha. According to Halacha, a person can become a Jew by converting to Judaism.
That information comes from the Talmud, the Mishnah, and other religious writings. Those writings are collections of opinions held by prominent sages since the 500s BC.
No matter how highly regarded the sages are, their opinions are not Yahweh’s word.
Fact 3
Judaism as we know it today originated during the Babylonian captivity.
Yahweh required animal sacrifices at His Temple in Jerusalem for the forgiveness of sin. Since the Babylonians destroyed Yahweh’s Temple in 586 BC, Jewish religious leaders in exile in Babylon came up with a new religion that did not require the Temple or animal sacrifice. Their religion included worship in synagogues instead of worship in the Temple, no animal sacrifices, and Halacha as the do’s and don’ts.
The rabbis in Babylon believed and taught that strict adherence to Halacha was a substitute for following Yahweh’s decrees that are spelled out in the Torah. Halacha was explained in great detail in the Babylonian Talmud. It was written about 2,500 years ago in the Jewish religious academies in Sura and Pumbeditha, or in the area that we know today as Faluja, Iraq.
Fact 4
Persia defeated Babylon in 539 BC, and the Persian King, Cyrus the Great, allowed Jews in Babylon to return to Jerusalem. He also allowed them to rebuild Yahweh’s Temple. At that point, animal sacrifice for the forgiveness of sin was reinstituted, but Jewish religious leaders didn’t jettison Halacha. They integrated it with Yahweh’s Law that is spelled out in the Torah.
In other words, they perverted Yahweh’s Law by mixing it with their own imaginings. They didn’t think they were doing anything wrong. They believed that they had the right to alter Yahweh’s Law as they saw fit. They were wrong.
Fact 5
The Messiah came about 500 years after the Babylonian Captivity. He told the religious leaders in Israel that Yahweh’s word is supreme and that Halacha (man-made law) is not from Him.
For example, He said, “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” (Matthew 7: 1-5)
That was an attack on Judaism. Religious leaders in Israel hated the Messiah, because they were obsessed with their religion and with Halacha. The Messiah’s attacks threatened their economic, political, and social standing.
Halacha gave the priests tremendous power over the people and enabled them to become very wealthy men, but it did nothing to acquaint the masses with Yahweh’s word. The job of the priests is spelled out in the Torah. They failed to do their job, but they did get rich. They made their choice, and Yahweh made His.
It’s hard to imagine how rich the priests were during the Messiah’s time, but seeing is believing. Watch the video below to see what I mean. I took this video in the Wohl Museum in the Old City of Jerusalem. If you are ever in Jerusalem, you should put the Wohl Museum on your itinerary.
In the Torah, Yahweh said that people are not supposed to work on the Sabbath, so the priests came up with a vast array of dos and don’ts to prevent people from working. They went way too far.
The Messiah performed many miracles on the Sabbath to challenge Halacha and to teach the priests and the people a lesson about Yahweh’s perspective on the Sabbath. Some of them were healing miracles. Several of those healing miracles are mentioned in the Talmud.
According to Halacha, the Messiah’s Sabbath healing miracles were considered work. Look at this exchange between the Messiah and a priest on the Sabbath:
One Sabbath, the Messiah was teaching in one of the synagogues, and a woman there had been disabled by a spirit for eighteen years. She was hunched over and could not stand up straight. When the Messiah saw her, He called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your infirmity.” Then He laid His hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and began to glorify Elohim.
But the synagogue leader [i.e., the priest] was indignant that the Messiah had healed on the Sabbath. “There are six days for work,” he told the crowd. “So come and be healed on those days and not on the Sabbath.”
“You hypocrites!” the Messiah replied, “Does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or donkey from the stall and lead it to water? Then should not this daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has bound for eighteen long years, be released from her bondage on the Sabbath day?”
When the Messiah said this, all His adversaries were humiliated. And the whole crowd rejoiced at all the glorious things He was doing. (Luke 13: 10-17)
Imagine what the people who were standing around watching were thinking. They witnessed a great miracle. It wasn’t a story that someone told them about. A woman they had known for a very long time was healed right in front of their eyes. It was like watching the Red Sea part. They were ecstatic, but the priest was humiliated.
Through Halacha, the priests had so distorted Yahweh’s word that it didn’t even resemble what He had in mind. The Messiah made that point and demonstrated His power by healing the woman. He showed everyone in attendance including the priest that He is Lord of the Sabbath and that Halacha is not from Him. Neither is Judaism.
Be that as it may, Roman soldiers destroyed Yahweh’s Second Temple in 70 AD. Since then, Halacha has reigned supreme in Judaism. Since then, there have been no animal sacrifices for the forgiveness of sin and no worship in Yahweh’s Temple.
For more details, see “His Name is Yahweh: Revised Edition“.
Fact 6
Many Israelites migrated to Europe and other places after the Assyrian and Babylonian captivities. Some of them were descendants of Judah, but most of them were descendants of the other Children of Israel.
Many of the Israelites who were not descendants of Judah associated with Judaism in their new homes, and they considered themselves to be Jewish. Gentiles converted to Judaism, too, and they considered themselves to be Jewish as well. They believed they were Jewish because of Halacha.
Today, those people’s descendants think of themselves as Jewish. Some of them are. Some of them are not. A lot of Israeli citizens today whose families migrated to Israel from Europe following World War II are Israelites, not Jews. They may be Levites or Danites or Gadites, for instance, but they are not Jews. Some of them are descendants of Gentiles who converted to Judaism.
In Israel, that’s going to be a hard pill to swallow, but it’s correct. We have reached the point where the truth needs a hearing. First, the truth needs to be told.
The Facts About Israelites: Israel and Judah
Yahweh made His promises to Abraham and extended them to Isaac, then to Jacob, and then to Jacob’s children.
We call Jacob’s children “the Children of Israel” because Yahweh changed Jacob’s name to Israel. All of Jacob’s children are called Israelites.
We call the Promised Land “Israel” because it belongs to all of Jacob’s descendants, not just Judah’s descendants.
Judah is one of Jacob’s children, not all of them.
Judah’s descendants created a religion and called it “Judaism”. It can’t be from Yahweh because it’s Judah specific.
Again, Yahweh’s promises extend to all of Jacob’s descendants, and the faith that Yahweh requires is the faith of Abraham. I call the faith of Abraham “faith with legs”, because it is a combination of believing and obeying Yahweh. It has nothing to do with Halacha.
The Bottom Line
- No one is Jewish unless he is a direct descendant of Judah.
- Judaism is a man-made religion. It is Judah specific.
- Conversion to Judaism has nothing to do with Jewishness.
- All of Jacob’s children are Israelites, but only Judah’s descendants are Jewish.
- Yahweh’s promises apply to all the Children of Israel, not just Judah.
- The Promised Land belongs to all the Children of Israel, not just Judah.
Details Matter to Yahweh
We are entering a time when accuracy matters. Ezekiel 37 is a prophecy about Yahweh reuniting Israel and Judah after about 2,900 years of separation. Yahweh is about to fulfill that prophecy.
Following King Solomon’s death in the 900’s BC, the nation Israel divided into two nations: Judah in the south and Israel in the north. Judah and Israel have been divided since then.
In the 700s BC, the Assyrians took Israel (the Northern Kingdom) captive. Most of them were scattered throughout the world. They lost touch with their identity as Israelites. Most of them assimilated in the communities where their settled down. Today, they are called the “Ten Lost Tribes of Israel”, but they were never “lost”. They assimilated and are, therefore, difficult to identify.
In the 500s BC, the Babylonians took Judah (the Southern Kingdom) captive. Most of them returned to Jerusalem after 70 years of captivity. Only some of them were scattered throughout the world.
In 70 AD when Roman soldiers destroyed Jerusalem, about 30,000 Jews fled to other countries. Most of them resettled in North Africa. In 136 AD after the failed Bar Kochba Rebellion, a large number of Jews left Israel. Most of them resettled in North Africa as well. They became part of the Diaspora or galut (exile). They established Jewish communities wherever they went.
Most people in Europe today who think they are Jewish are not descendants of Judah. Either they are descendants of one of Jacob’s other sons who converted to Judaism, or they are descendants of Gentiles in Europe who converted to Judaism. That’s been true since long before the Spanish Inquisition began in the late-1400s AD. It’s been true since the Assyrian Captivity in the 700s BC, or for more than 2,500 years.
Ezekiel’s prophecy was written during the Babylonian Captivity. It has to do with the descendants of Judah and the descendants of the other Children of Israel being reunited and becoming one in Yahweh’s hand. It has nothing to do with Judaism.
Yahweh encourages Gentiles to join themselves to Him so that they can partake of the promises that He made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They do that by “calling on the Name of Yahweh”. (Joel 2: 32, Acts 2: 21, Romans 10: 11) “Calling on the Name of Yahweh” means to place your faith in Yahweh the same way that Abraham did. For details, see The Trilogy.
Confusion Abounds
Confusion abounds. To avoid confusion, get acquainted with Yahweh’s word. It’s not confusing, but you have to pay attention to details.
Details matter to Yahweh.
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“The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me. Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.” (John 17: 22-24)
