First let's get something clear about erroneous notions of Paul and his founding a new religion, which he didn't. True, the halakhah of his Judaism switched from the Pharisaic oral law to the Ruach Hakodesh, but his religion was still one of the Judaisms of the time, not a new non-Judaism Gentile religion.

THE BESURAS HAGEULAH ACCORDING TO MATTITYAHU

Liberals try to destroy the historical validity of the Besuras

Hageulah by asserting these documents were written by the second

and third generations of followers of our Moshiach rather than

eye-witnesses and first generation authors, even Moshiach's

Shluchim. They assert that Mattityahu didn't write Matthew,

Yochanan didn't write Yochanan, and Markos and Lukas were second

or third generation or even anonymous authors. In other words,the

Besuras Hageulah is based on late and unauthorized hear-say

tales, not eye-witnessed accounts, and, according to this view,

written 60 years or more after Moshiach Yehoshua died. And this

later Brit Chadasha kehillah, when it wrote the Brit Chadasha

Scriptures, acted like a ventriloquist, throwing its voice into

Moshiach Yehoshua, making him say all kinds of things he never

really said. This is what these liberals believe. They throw out

whatever they want, and try to find the true Moshiach Yehoshua of

history, but when they find him he looks suspiciously like

themselves, an ethical humanist, or a figure lower than

themselves, i.e an erroneous dead prophet who thought that the

world was coming to an end in his life-time, etc. These liberals

say that anyone with an open mind who follows their scholarly

approach will reach the same conclusion. What they forget is that

the mind is not open and the heart is desperately wicked, who can

know it? And unless you receive the Ruach Hakodesh of G-d you

cannot know either G-d or G-d's mind, nor can you understand

words taught by the Ruach Hakodesh--that is, spiritual words

explaining spiritual things (I Cor. 2:13f). A worldly person

cannot understand or judge spiritual matters correctly.

Of course there are Brit Chadasha Scriptures scholars who refute

liberalism and reconstruct the data differently. They show that

Moshiach Yehoshua died in C.E. 30 but only 30 years later,

Shliach Kefa, Luke, Shliach Sha'ul, and Mark are shown to be in

Rome (Col. 4:10, 14; I Pt. 5:13), and apparently they were all

writing away, with eye-witnessed materials and records in their

hands. Furthermore, as we shall see, when you're reading Mark,

you're really reading Shliach Kefa, because Mark basically has

arranged Shliach Kefa's sermons into an ordered form. That's why

Mattityahu and Luke use Mark's writing. Mattityahu and Luke want

to preach Shliach Kefa's Besuras Hageulah. Yochanan does not use

Shliach Kefa's material because it's already been used three

times. But Shliach Kefa was not the only one in the empty tomb.

Yochanan was with him (read Yochanan 20:1-9). So in the four

Besuras Hageulahs you have an exhaustive witness of both Yochanan

and Shliach Kefa, to say nothing of the Shliach Mattityahu and

all the eye-witnesses Luke was able to talk to when he was in

Judaea with Shliach Sha'ul in C.E. 57.

Liberals have their own religion, be it humanism, existentialism,

communism, etc, and they use Biblical G-d-talk to preach their

own message. Liberals preach another Moshiach Yehoshua, but we

preach the coming Son of Man, the Son of the living G-d, known

personally by Shliach Kefa and Yochanan and seen by them alive

from the dead and coming apocalyptically with his kingdom (Mat.

16:28-17:8).

We know when Moshiach Yehoshua lived, from about 6/5 B.C.E. to

30 C.E., preaching roughly 26 C.E. (tevilah) - 30 C.E.

(hanged on the Aitz). His historical existence is confirmed in

the writings of Pliny, Tacitus, Suetonius, Lucian, Josephus, and

other historians and written of antiquity. Those who say that

Moshiach Yehoshua is a mythical character who never existed are

ignoramuses on the order of someone saying that Julius Caesar or

Napoleon never existed.

We know the kind of world Moshiach Yehoshua lived in. Antiochus

Epiphanes, the Syrian-Greek, desecrated G-d's holy Beis Hamikdash

and the Maccabee brothers defeated him in 165 B.C.E., recapturing

the city of Jerusalem, and rededicating the Beis Hamikdash,

setting up an independent state until Pompey conquered Israel and

Roman rule began in 63 B.C.E. This was the beginning of the end

for Israel, because in 70 C.E. the Jerusalem Beis Hamikdash and

the Zealot insurrectionists holding it were destroyed, and in 135

C.E. another Jewish revolt against Rome ended with the final

razing of Jerusalem. Actually, the Jewish revolts are dated C.E.

66, 116, and 132-5.

Before we study the Besuras Hageulah, we need to look at a very

important quote written by a leader in the L-rd's work born

around 100 years after Moshiach Yehoshua rose from the dead:

Irenaeus, who flourished around C.E. 175-195. This man, who

preached the doctrine of the millennium, resided in what is today

France. As a youth, in Smyrna in Asia Minor (modern Turkey), his

teacher had been Polycarp, who may have been the last survivor

who had talked with the eyewitnesses of Moshiach Yehoshua and

surely had a firsthand knowledge of the Besuras Hageulah and its

inspired authors, being himself a disciple of the Shliach

Yochanan.

Since Irenaeus had been Polycarp's student, a certain weight of

credibility should be affixed to this quote, found in Irenaeus'

work known popularly as Against Heresies, Book III, I.1. He wrote

that Mattityahu also issued a written Besuras Hageulah among the

Hebrews in their own dialect, while Shliach Kefa and Shliach

Sha'ul were preaching at Rome, and laying the foundation of the

Brit Chadasha kehillah. After their departure, Markos, the

disciple and interpreter of Shliach Kefa, did also hand down to

us in writing what had been preached by Shliach Kefa. Lukas,

also, the co-worker companion of Shliach Sha'ul, recorded in a

book the Besuras Hageulah preached by him. Afterwards, Yochanan,

the disciple of the L-rd, who had leaned upon his breast, did

indeed publish a Besuras Hageulah during his residence at Ephesus

in Asia. This is the solemn testimony of Irenaeus.

Mark was written after that Antiochus Epiphanes redivivus figure,

Caligula, had almost put his image or statue up in the Beis

Hamikdash area in C.E. 40. That's why Mark writes, "But when ye

shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the

prophet, standing where it ought not (let him that readeth

understand,) then let them that be in Judaea flee to the

mountains" (Mark 13:14). If Matthew had written Matthew 22:7

(compare Luke 14:21,24) after 70 C.E., shouldn't we expect the

same "(let the reader understand)"? Since Moshiach Yehoshua was a

real navi and really predicted things that came true later, no

"after-the-fact" spurious prophecies were needed (called

prophecies ex eventu, a contradiction in terms). In his writing,

Matthew does not exploit the destruction of Jerusalem; neither

does Luke. Both Matthew and Luke seem almost unaware of it and

do not at all capitalize on the significance of this epochal

event for their Gentile readers. The burden of proof is on those

who assert that Moshiach Yehoshua could not have predicted Luke

21:20,24 or 19:43-44.

Because Ignatius of Antioch in his letter (written before 107) is

the earliest witness to Mattityahu's Besuras Hageulah, many

scholars believe Matthew wrote from Antioch or somewhere else in

Syria like Damascus. Matthew is writing to convince the

Greek-speaking Jewish people in the diaspora synagogues that

Moshiach Yehoshua is the promised Jewish Moshiach. But Matthew is

also speaking on behalf of the G-d-fearing Gentiles of the world

and, for that reason, he uses the word ethnos (non-Jewish or

Gentile, that is, foreign or pagan tribe) more than any other

Besuras Hageulah writer. This also would speak well for a

possible Syrian origin of this Besuras Hageulah, since the Brit

Chadasha kehillah at Antioch had Greek-speaking Jews and a great

burden to go to the Gentiles throughout the world (see Acts

11:19-22; 13:1). However, Mattityahu's Besuras Hageulah could

have been written in Israel, as well. The author is familiar with

Jerusalem and writes from that vantage point (see Matt.27:8;

28:15).

Certainly Luke's Besuras Hageulah was written before the book of

Acts (see Acts 1:1). Among other reasons, since Acts has a

surprisingly absolute lack of notice or interest that Jerusalem

has been destroyed, Luke/Acts seems likely to have been written

before C.E. 70. If Rav Sha'ul's trial has not taken piece yet at

the end of Acts, then Acts should be dated around C.E. 63, Luke's

Besuras Hageulah dated before that, and Mark's Besuras Hageulah

dated before Luke (since Luke uses Mark). These are all factors

that must be taken into consideration in deciding the date of

Matthew. However, there is, of course, another possibility: both

Luke and Matthew, as men who knew Mark personally, may have used

Mark's own unpublished material which only later, and with

additions, was published as the Besuras Hageulah of Mark during

the early 60's when Shliach Sha'ul, Mark, and Luke were all in

Rome together (see Col. 4:10; Philemon 24; I Shimon Kefa 5:13;

Col. 4:14; II Tim. 4:11).

It is also possible that Matthew wrote the so-called "Q material"

which Papias of Hierapolis in modern Turkey (quoted by Eusebius

the fourth century C.E. Brit Chadasha kehillah historian), may be

referring to when he says (probably around C.E. 110), "Matthew

compiled the logia (sayings) in the Hebrew (Aramaic?) dialect,

and each one translated/interpreted them as he was able." If

this is true, we see that Luke was dependent on both Matthew and

Mark for his Besuras Hageulah. If Matthew's Besuras Hageulah had

also been in Luke's hands, and if Luke/Acts had been written

before C.E. 63, then Matthew must have been written before C.E.

63, and Mark still earlier. This is as close to the date of

Matthew as we can firmly conclude.

Mattityahu, like the three other inerrant versions of the Besuras

Hageulah, is not mere biography because its interest is

kerygmatic (kerygma is a Greek word meaning "proclamation" or

"preaching" as well as "what is preached"). Matthew is sermon

material stitched together to tell a story. Since Matthew and

Luke are apparently dependent on Mark's words, and since much of

Mark's words are Shliach Kefa's sermon material and Shliach

Kefa's anointed words (the "rock" of Matthew 16:15-18), it

becomes obvious that the Besuras Hageulah Gospels contain

preaching that is intended to be ingested by the reader and then

not merely read but preached. Mat. 9:9 and 10:3 mention Matthew,

as if to signal his humility in acknowledging his own part of the

authorship (see also Matthew 13:52).

The Sermon on the Mount (chs. 5-7) gives us a taste of

Moshiach's Torah or law/teaching (I Cor. 9:21), for Moshiach

Yehoshua is presented apologetically to Jews as the New Moses

(see Isaiah 49:9; Matthew 12:1-8; 9:16-17). The Moshiach's law

is so stringent only the regenerate, repentant, law-abiding, true

disciples can follow his Torah in this wicked and adulterous

world. The lawless, false disciples cannot keep Moshiach's

Torah. These "scribes-and-pharisees kind of false talmidim and

maggidim" filling up the Brit Chadasha kehillah will be separated

at the final judgment (7:21-23; 13:36-43; 25:31-46). A rebuke to

them is found in chs. 23-25; this is not a mere external polemic

against outsiders in the synagogues and in the Jerusalem Beis

Hamikdash; this is also focussing on those within the Brit

Chadasha kehillot who love their reverential titles, offices,

power and perogatives, and who, in time of distress are "in love

with this present world," and desert the poor, persecuted, true

brethren of the Israel of G-d (II Tim. 4:10). They are the

lawless ones, the false disciples and false maggidim, without the

oil of the Ruach Hakodesh issuing in the kind of obedience that

keeps their torches lit and their light of sanctification and

holiness shining (25:8; 5:14-16).

At the time Matthew is writing (see above), the early Messianic

community has been in existence long enough to have had its share

of those cunning, opportunistic "organization men" who lack the

courageous zeal in witnessing of the charter members and have

settled down to try to assert political control over what was

once a revival movement and to shun the poor, itinerant, homeless

emissaries of Moshiach's shlichut as unwanted rivals. Possibly

for this reason, there is a great emphasis in Matthew's Besuras

Hageulah on the need to be on one's guard against the swelling

pride of the religious leaders (16:6) and to keep close to the

dangerous Aitz of persecution and lowly, compassionate sacrifice

and bold, open, proclamation (10:27). Only so armed can believers

avoid the pitfall of a worldly, false profession (24:37-44).

In Matthew's Besuras Hageulah the above ideas are exemplified by

two gates, two ways, two types of trees, two kinds of foundation,

two breeds of followers, the moral and the immoral. Entrance

into the Kingdom is obtained in the end only by those who have

the kind of faith that issues in exacting, overflowing

righteousness (5:20). The "crowds" want no part of this way to

righteousness. Only a few obtain this road. The vast majority

want the easy life if they can somehow find it in a religion that

pays lip-service to Moshiach Yehoshua (7:22) but avoids his hard,

restricting commands that prohibit sinful pleasures and produce

fearless preaching and persecution.

The pseudo-prophets want the limelight and the chief seats and

the flashy attention of the external show of their charismatic

activity (7:22), but they do not want to pay the private price of

doing and being a life of exacting holiness and purity. The

foundation of their ministries is wrong. They fail to base their

whole existence on the rock of the Torah of the Moshiach, and on

the true faith that obeys his sayings. Gehinnom awaits these

foolish maggidim of Moshiach Yehoshua (7:23), which is really

another "Moshiach Yehoshua", for the true Moshiach Yehoshua

disowns their Besuras Hageulah with its evil, antinomian ways and

wicked fruit (7:20). If they do not repent, these are bound for

Gehinnom, because they are guilty of faithlessly disobeying the

Moshiach's Torah given in Matthew chapters 5-7. Study the word

anomia (lawlessness), a key word regarding religious sin in

Matthew 7:23; 13:41; 23:28; 24:12.

Matthew tells believers how to recognize false prophets by their

eschatology. If they have immoral behavior they are false

prophets (7:13-23). If they preach anything other than an

imminent parousia they are false prophets(24:23-25:13). The word

tameion in Matthew 24:26 means a room without windows in the

interior of the house; that is, a hidden or even secret storage

room or private, secret chamber (the word is used that way in I

Clement 50), where one could pray in secret or in hiding as in

Mat. 6:6 or Isaiah 26:20 in the Septuagint. See Luke 12:3 where

the word must mean private room. Anyone who says, in spite of

Mat. 24:26, that the Moshiach will come secretly needs to bring

his doctrine into line with the Greek Brit Chadasha Scriptures

(see also Rev. 1:7). The public and open, non-secret aspect of

the Second Coming is taught in Luke 17:23-24; 21:26-28, 35 and

the doctrine of a private or secret, non-public parousia is

condemned as well in II Thes. 2:l-8. From Zechariah 14:5 and

Luke 17:37 we may surmise that the"corpse" in Matthew 24:28 is

Jerusalem (certainly Jerusalem was a corpse in 586 B.C.E.end even

leter, after Matthew wrote, in C.E. 70--see Luke 19:43-44; 21:32)

and the"vultures" are the angels and raptured saints with the Son

of Man at the Second Coming. The vultures signify divine

judgment (see 16:27). Those who insist on separating the rapture

of the saints and the Second Coming so that they become two

different events with a considerable time interval between them

have to grapple withthe fact that the word episunago "to gather

together" is used in Matt. 24:31; Mark 13:27; II Thes. 2:l and

appears to be a technical expression for the rapture as even

Dispensationalists admit (see Ryrie Study Bible note on II Thes.

2:1), just as parousia is a technical expression for the Second

Coming. But these two expected events, the "gathering together"

and the parousia, are seen as one and the same event in both II

Thes. 2:1 and Matt. 24:27-31. We must make our teaching line up

with the Greek Brit Chadasha Scriptures, not with some human

tradition of Dispensationalism taught as doctrine.

Mt. 16:16-19 views Shliach Kefa's anointed words as

representative of the Brit Chadasha kehillah's kerygma and

doctrine and shows, using rabbinic technical terms, by what

criteria conduct is permitted or prohibited (asur) by means of

shunning from fellowship or restoring to communion. If someone

in your congregation claims to be a believer in the L-rd but is a

fornicator or sexually unclean or guilty of any unrepentant

wickedness condemned by Scripture, you also share his guilt if

you do not obey Mat. 18:15-20, which speaks the same message as

Mat. 16:16-19; I Cor. 5:4-5, 9-13; Gal. 5:19-21 and II Thes.

3:14. Mat. 7:1-5 has to do with interpersonal judgmental

attitudes, not Brit Chadasha kehillah discipline of idlers and

fornicating hypocrites.

The word pornea in Matthew 19:9 generally means sexual

immorality, but in certain instances it may refer specifically to

incest (Acts 15:20), as in the sins of Lev. 18. The rabbis

called this kind of incestuous Lev. 18 forbidden marriage zehnut

which means prostitution in the sense of an illicit union. In

Mat.19:9 we see the Pharisees trying to tempt Moshiach Yehoshua

by making him take sides in the debate among the rabbis of two

schools regarding the correct interpretation of two words in

Deuteronomy 24:1: ervat davar, "something indecent" or "a matter

of nakedness." Moses granted grounds for divorce for the man

(not the woman) if the husband found "something indecent" in his

wife. According to Moses, all the husband had to do was give her

a bill of divorcement and she could then remarry if she chose,

which she had little choice but to do, because a single woman

living independently was practically an impossibility in the

society and culture of the day. Of course, the teaching of

Moshiach Yehoshua is more exacting on this point, and women

without families were in some cases cared for by the congregation

in the early days of the Brit Chadasha kehillah.

In the days of Moshiach Yehoshua the marriage laws of Deuteronomy

22:13-30 were strictly interpreted and a husbend had to divorce

an adulterous wife or a woman guilty of infidelity during the

engagement period (in which case immorality/deception in entering

the union would annul the marriage--Mat. 1:19; Deu 22:13-21).

The law provided no loop-hole for her to be forgiven as Hosea

graciously forgave his wife. However, Matthew 19:9 is translated,

"Any husband who sends his spouse away--the reason of fornication

being left out of account or excepted--and marries another woman

commits adultery (against the first woman)." This is the

exceptive clause: "except for porneia (sexual immorality,

unchastity, unlawful sexual intercourse)." The exception has a

purpose in a society governed by Torah. The man who follows the

Torah is being protected from going through life with a second

marriage but under the stigma of being called an adulterer

against his first wife, when in fact he was forced by the Torah

to put the first of two wives away. Yosef would have been

excepted by Mat. 19:9 from being an adulterer if he had in fact

found Miryam to be an immoral fiancee (Mat. 1:19) and if in fact

he had thereafter remarried subsequent to the annulment of the

first marriage. (An engagement in that day had the binding force

of a marriage and had to be broken by divorce.) Having said all

this to point out the ramifications of the Matthew 19:9 exceptive

clause, it should be added that this verse shows the higher moral

demands of Brit Chadasha Torah/teaching and destroys any

loop-hole lawless believers might try to use to contract serial

marriages under the screen of justifiable divorces, thus masking

lechery with legalism. Another exception is abandonment,

according to I Cor.7:15.

The Greek word matheteuo is very important in Mt. 28:19-20. It

means "make a disciple of, teach." "Go (a command to shlichut

and kiruv outreach), therefore, make learners with a teacher

(that's what a talmid is), make them talmidim of mine, all the

ethnic peoples, giving them a tevilah of teshuva in ha-Shem of

HaAv and HaBen and HaRuach HaKodesh, instructing them that they

must keep all the commandments that you have received from me.

And, look, surely I am with you always, to the Kets of the Olam

Hazeh."

How can you obey this command if you are not regularly sharing

and/or teaching with countable inquirers? How can you obey Mt.

28:19-20 if you are not attempting to bring these people to take

the required immersion and be incorporated into the shared life

of a community of believers? It is not hearers of the Word who

are true disciples, but doers of the Word (7:24).

Mat. 23:39; 24:32 make important points about the relationship

between eschatology and Jewish outreach.

Prayerlessness opens one to temptation, whereas watchfulness in

prayer guards against this very danger. See Mat. 24:42-44;

25:1-13 26:38-41. Moshiach Yehoshua lived in this real world.

Moshiach Yehoshua preached a message about heaven and the Kingdom

of heaven/G-d (Mat. 10:7). And the message he preached was rooted

in the message of the prophets, which is this: As surely as there

was an Abraham, as surely as there was a Moses and an Exodus, as

surely as there was a Joshua and a conquest of Israel, as surely

as there was a David and his coming Messianic Davidic Throne

imminently present in Moshiach Yehoshua and his words and deeds

and in his resurrection and ascension, so just as surely there

will be a Day of the L-rd, when the world will come to an end.

The Day of the L-rd is a day of massacre, darkness, tears, and

woe, when G-d's burning fury would fall on sinners and when the

righteous remnant will be saved. This day came near when

prophesied invading armies actually did come and destroy the Beis

Hamikdash and Jerusalem, as they did In 586 B.C.E. and 70 C.E.

The fact that prophets were able to predict such an "imminent"

Day of the L-rd as these should convince people that the prophets

know what they're talking about when they prophesy the Day of the

L-rd and the end of the world. Certainly Yochanan of the Tevilah

of Teshuva and Moshiach Yehoshua saw the armies of Rome coming to

burn and destroy Jerusalem at least 40 years before they arrived.

Amos was one of the first prophets to preach about the Day of the

L-rd. He preached (Amos 5:20): "Will not the Day of the L-rd be

darkness, not light, totally dark, without a ray of light?" But

then Amos proclaims the Day of the L-rd in terms of the Moshiach

(Amos 9:11): "On that Day, I shall rebuild the tottering hut of

David, make good the gaps in it, restore its ruins and rebuild it

as it was in the days of old." In Matthew 24:3 we find Moshiach

Yehoshua's disciples, alert to these kinds of Scriptures,

quizzing Moshiach Yehoshua like this: "And while he was sitting

on the Mount of Olives the disciples came and asked him when they

were by themselves, 'Tell us, when is this going to happen, and

what sign will there be of your coming and of the end of the

world?" Then, in the discourse that followed, Moshiach Yehoshua

predicted the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash and the

subsequent destruction of the world (allowing for enough of a

delay in the parousia for the Good News to be proclaimed

throughout the world Mat. 24:14).

The doctrine of the resurrection of the body is found in the

Psalms and in Isaiah 26:19 and Daniel 12:2. Moshiach Yehoshua

even saw this doctrine in the book of Jonah and pointed to this

book to clarify the relationship between the doctrine of the

resurrection and his own ministry. Regarding this, in Mt. 16:1-4

he faulted wicked mankind for its evil and willful refusal to use

G-d given inductive powers of reasoning to gather from all the

available data the correct meaning or conclusion.

Both David and Malachi called the Moshiach "L-rd." When Malachi

3:1 says "the L-rd" whom you seek will suddenly come to His Beis

Hamikdash, he uses the same Hebrew word HaAdon, (the L-rd) as

Zechariah does when he says "the L-rd of all the earth"

(Zechariah 4:14). In Mt. 16:16 Shliach Kefa identifies

Moshiach Yehoshua as the person referred to in Mal. 3:l-4 (see

Mark 1:2; Mat. 1:16).

Yochanan of the Tevilah of Teshuva was an antiestablishment

preacher who infuriated the "religious establishment watchdog"

Pharisees because Yochanan turned the Moshiach's coming wrath

against them and undercut their confidence in being saved by

virtue of their self-righteous boast in being religious and

Jewish. There is no privilege before G-d by virtue of natural

birth in being Jewish (Mt. 3:9), because both Jew and non-Jew are

born under the power of sin (Rom. 3:9; Ps. 51:5), and G-d is no

respector of persons (Acts 10:34).

At the time of Moshiach Yehoshua's ministry, Pontius Pilate had

just started his tour of duty as prefect (26 C.E.) in Jerusalem.

He was the Roman governor of Judea, Samaria, and Idumaea. In the

northern town of Tiberias on Lake Galilee, Herod Antipas, (a

Roman vassal) ruled over Galilee and the trans-Jordan area. His

half-brother Philip (whose wife he had taken) ruled from the

extreme north of Israel in Caesarea-Philippi. The Roman

government acknowledged the legitimacy of these Herods (sons by

different women of Herod the Great), though they ruled as

subordinate leaders or tetrarchs. This is why Pilate sent

Moshiach Yehoshua before the Roman "puppet" king Herod Antipas

for judgment. Mobs could be hired, and the chief kohanim had

obviously hired people of little Jewish religion to cry out for

the death of a fellow Jew on a holy day. The chief kohanim were

Sadducees who did not believe in the supernatural and saw

Moshiach Yehoshua as an aspiring political claimant hailed as

"Ben Dovid" (and heir to the throne) when he entered Jerusalem

and then came (without their authorization!) and began taking

authority over the Beis Hamikdash, an act which they also saw as

political, necessitating Moshiach Yehoshua's death, since a

popular uprising in favor of making Moshiach Yehoshua King would

be suicidal, bringing down the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash

and Jerusalem by the Roman Empire. The act of driving the money

changers out of the Beis Hamikdash seems to have been a carefully

calculated move on the part of Moshiach Yehoshua. It challenged

the authority of the chief kohen with a higher authority which

they tried unsuccessfully to dethrone by putting him to death.

But the quick work of the chief kohanim against Moshiach Yehoshua

avoided a full hearing before the Sanhedrin (Jewish supreme

court). Instead a technically illegal "emergency" meeting, not in

the Beis Hamikdash chamber in the daytime but in the Kohen

Gadol's home at night, was hurriedly called, and a mob

subservient to the chief kohanim harrassed Pilate until he gave

in and allowed the hanging on the Aitz to placate the mob and the

chief kohanim. All of the above throws light on the way to

interpret Mat. 27:25 in light of Josh. 2:19, since it is the

kohen's mob and not all the people speaking.

The Hagbahah (Lifting up) of Moshiach took place Yom Shishi, ca.

April 7, 30 C.E. He was pierced and hanged (Devarim 21:23;

Isaiah 53:5) about midday and was dead before dusk. He arose in

the early morning light on Yom Rishon morning (Sifrat Haomer of

Bikkurim, 16 Nisan), ca. April 9, 30 C.E., the Jews reckoning any

part of a day as a whole day, making Yom Shishi, Shabbos and Yom

Rishon three days from the death to Moshiach's Techiyas HaMesim,

Moshiach's Tish and Betrayal being Thursday night. Note also this

chronology: Rav Sha'ul becomes a believer and an eye-witness of

the Moshiach's Techiyas HaMesim just a very few years later.

Like Ya'akov, he was an unbeliever until the resurrection

appearance.

Finally, before we read the Besuras Hageulah of Mattityahu, let's

look at the prophecy in Isaiah 7:14: "Behold a virgin (HA'ALMA,

the Virgin)." In the Hebrew Bible this word is never used of a

married woman, but always used of a sexually mature unmarried

maiden with virginity assumed and even demanded, since an almah

who was not a virgin would appear to be bearing an illegitimate

child since an almah was by definition unmarried. Such a

deflowered young unmarried woman in Israel would not be called an

almah but either a bad woman (a prostitute) or a pitiful victim

of rape or a deceiving fornicating fiancee to be stoned because

she entered into a marriage without proofs of virginity...and in

Deuteronomy chapter 22, the word almah is not used even once when

discussing women of this sort (unmarried women whose virginity is

destroyed by rape or immorality). The amazing way of a man with

a maid (almah) in Proverbs 30:19 has to do with the mystery of

sexual attraction. Certainly, no one can prove sexual purity is

implicitly excluded in the case of this Proverbs 30:19 almah. No

king would want a mere unmarried woman whose sexual purity had

been given to another man; therefore the word must be translated

"virgins" in Song of Songs 6:8 where it is given in the plural.

After the almah slept with the king she was no longer an almah

but a concubine or a queen (see the separate harem quarters for

virgin: and concubines in Esther 2:13-14.) In Hebrew there is a

technical word for the proofs of virginity B'TULIM (the blood

stained garment of the marriage night) and a related technical

word for the virgin B'TULAH, who at the same time may or may not

be married (i.e. legally belong to a man she has not as yet slept

with). But almah is the only word for an unmarried woman with

sexual purity or virginity assumed. (See Edward Young's The Book

of Isaiah, Vol 1 p.286f, Eerdmans, 1965). Mt. 1:23 quotes Isa.

7:14,"Look, the virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth

a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being

interpreted is, G-d with us."

Now this virgin from Galilee seems related to the tribe of Levi

on her mother's side (see Luke 1:5,36), but on her father's side

it seems certain that she was from the tribe of Judah and the

lineage of David. This is the sense of Romans 1:3 "who as to his

human nature was a descendent of David," II Timothy 2:8

"descended from David," and Hebrews 7:14 "it is clear that our

L-rd descended from Judah." As Edersheim has pointed out, kohanim

normally either married daughters of kohanim or nobility, so

Miryam's family on her father's side may shortly before have held

higher rank (presumedly royal kinship in the line of David). See

on this Edersheim's The Life and Times p. 149. Luke 2:5 seems to

indicate that Miryam too was of the house of David and was

probably required to enroll. In any case Yosef, a descendent of

the house of David, married Miryam and named the child, thus

taking it as his own and thereby legally conferring on it all the

Davidic hereditary rights. The legal right to the throne came

through the father and depended on whether the father reoognized

the child as his son, which Yosef did by naming him--see

Babylonian Talmud Baba Bathra 130a on Deuteronomy 21:16. Also,

see Ignatius' Epistle to the Ephesians," Miryam of the seed of

David." If "Heli" is Miryam's father (Luke 3:23) and if "Jacob"

is Yosef's father (Matt. 1:16), then Moshiach Yehoshua descended

naturally through the former and legally through the latter (see

Gleason Archer, Encyclopedia of Biblical Difficulties, p. 316)

and this would account for the alleged discrepancies between

Luke's and Mattityahu's genealogies. Incidently, genealogy was

not left to guesswork in pious Jewish families. An accurate

genealogical family tree was transmitted generation to generation

over hundreds of years by religious Jews, particularly those

related to the tribes of Judah and Levi, where kehunnah

(priesthood) rights and throne rights were involved. These

records were kept in Jerusalem. Both Luke and Matthew had the

opportunity to inquire into these records.

The Jewish gematria for the name David spells the numerical

equivalent of 14 in 1:17. You can see the play on words in the

Hebrew of "Nazareth" and "Nazorean" in 2:23 (compare Netzaret to

Natzri).

Some of the texts in Matthew that tell us that Matthew was

convinced (as were many others) that Yehoshua was divine are

1:23; 2:11; 7:22; 12:8; 14:33; 28:17-19. Notice the texts that

create major division markers in this Besuras Hageulah (see7:28;

11:1; 13:53; 19:1; 26:1).

Note 10:22. From the time of the death of Shliach Kefa under

Nero in Rome the mere profession of the name of Moshiach, apart

from any other charges could lead to a martyr's death.

A clue to effective street preaching is found in 13:34 and in the

brilliant use of parables in the open-air preaching of Moshiach

Yehoshua. They forced the audience to reflect on what he was

saying and yet parables removed a basis for an argument as far as

hostile listeners were concerned. Parables can be very short:

see Mt. 13:33. Though not necessarily, they can be allegorical:

see Mt. 13:36-43. They sometimes state their point as a moral of

the story: see 20:16. Sometimes a type of human character is set

forth as a warning or an exemplar (see 7:24-27). Sometimes we are

told how G-d works or governs or sees human response (see

13:18-30). Parables generally have a challenge in them, even to

the opponents in the audience. Using Mt. 13:33 as a model, write

a short parable with no more than 50 words that is suitable for

street preaching. For example, "The new birth is like the

metamorphosis from a caterpillar to a pupa to a Monarch

butterfly. Old things have passed away. Look, all things have

become new." Mattityahu's Gospel is very Jewish. In 15:2 he

refers to nitilat yadayim "washing (lit. lifting) of the hands,"

a human precept taught as doctrine by the Pharisees. If Mark

9:37 gives us any clue as to who the "least of these" is in Matt.

25:45, it must mean "all people" (see Gal. 6:10).

A major theme of Mattityahu's Besuras Hageulah is that G-d

expects people to recognize His power and to trust Him, that He

cares about them. Without this kind of faith it is impossible to

please G-d (Heb. 11:6). See 6:30; 8:26; 14:31; 16:8. Acceptance

of the Good News entails an Aitz of self-denying discipleship

where in the old g-dless life is freely yielded up to destruction

by the believer (see 10:38).

Along with many of the insights above, Robert Gundry in his

commentary on Matthew (Eerdmans, 1982) shows that the important

question to which the whole book intends to bring its readership

to an affirmative answer is Mt. 12:23, "Can this be Ben Dovid,

the Son of David (i.e. the Jewish Moshiach)? For Matthew's

argument proving the answer to this question is "yes," see

9:27;12:23; 15:22; 21:9; 21:15 and all the quotations from the

Jewish Bible sprinkled throughout Mattityahu's Besuras Hageulah.