Identity Theft Page 5

  In this passage it states clearly that Caiaphas was speaking to “the Jews.” However, if we turn back a few pages we can see exactly to whom Caiaphas was speaking:

  Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin…. Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, spoke up, “You know nothing at all! You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish” (John 11:47,49-50).

  So “the Jews” of John 18 and 19 are Jewish leaders, not the Jewish population. It would have been strange for those who flocked to hear Him teach—many of whom were healed—to suddenly call for His execution. Scripture makes it clear that a very large number of Jews followed Yeshua, even some high-profile leaders like Nicodemus.

  When He had come into Jerusalem, all the city was moved, saying, “Who is this?” So the multitudes said, “This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth… (Matthew 21:10-11 NKJV).

  Many of the people believed in Him, and said, “When the Christ comes, will He do more signs than these which this Man has done?” (John 7:31 NKJV).

  Nevertheless, even among the [ Jewish] rulers many believed in Him…” (John 12:42 NKJV).

  John records it was the leaders who shouted for Him to be crucified. “As soon as the chief priests and their officials saw him, they shouted, ‘Crucify! Crucify!’” (John 19:6).

  In the other accounts, where it mentions the crowd joining in, it seems clear they were manipulated by the leaders. As Matthew writes, “But the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and to have Jesus executed” (Matt. 27:20). We are not told the means by which they persuaded the crowd, but bribery would have been the common resource of the time. (They had paid witnesses to turn in false evidence at the trial the day before.) Clearly this persuaded crowd did not represent the people of Israel, as there were approximately 100,000 Jews living in Jerusalem, and because it was Passover, there could have been upward of another 500,000 visitors in Jerusalem at that time. Do you really think there were 600,000 Jews at Pilate’s Jerusalem palace?

  This may appear to you as nitpicking, but on the contrary, it is extremely important, because so many Jews have been falsely blamed for the death of Yeshua, even killed as part of this accusation of being Christ-killers. It is important therefore to make clear that it was primarily the Jewish leaders who were jealous of Yeshua who went to Pilate. The multitudes loved Him.

  Thanks for your time.

  Blessings,

  Avi Marks

  “This is crazy, Ariel. The entire Jewish nation has been blamed for the actions of a small group of jealous, politically oriented leaders and a manipulated crowd.”

  “I know, it is twisted and sad, but you should know not all the leaders were jealous of Him. Let the words of one of the passages that you just read, John 12:42, sink in.” Again the words appeared in fire as Ariel read them:

  Yet at the same time many even among the [ Jewish] leaders believed in him. But because of the Pharisees they would not openly acknowledge their faith for fear they would be put out of the synagogue (John 12:42).

  “These Jewish leaders believed, but were afraid. Nicodemus, to whom Avi made reference, was a Jewish leader, a member of the Sanhedrin, in fact. He was initially scared to be caught even speaking with Yeshua and so met with Him in secret, but eventually he became one of His most ardent followers.”

  Another passage in fire appeared.

  Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him (John 3:1-2).

  “David, it is entirely false to claim, firstly, that all Israel rejected Yeshua, as you will see in the coming lessons; and secondly, that the Jews, or even the Romans for that matter, were responsible for killing Yeshua.

  “Let me put this dreadful argument to rest—I know who killed Yeshua.”

  “Who?” I asked, wondering what he would say. Wars have been fought over this question and now an angel sent from Heaven itself was about to tell me. Unreal! I thought.

  “You did! You killed Him, David!”

  Chapter Eight

  “ME? A KILLER?”

  “What!?” I was incredulous. What was this angel talking about? “I am only twenty-eight years old. How could I have possibly killed Jesus?”

  “Your sin nailed those spikes into His hands and feet,” Ariel said with a holy passion, which prior to this he had not expressed. “It was your selfishness and rebellion that placed Yeshua on that Cross. Yes, David, you are the guilty one!

  “But not just you, David, the whole world lies guilty before Him. It was the sin of the world—yours and that of everyone who came before you or will come after. If the world is looking for Christ’s killer, it needs only to look in the mirror.

  “Do you really think, David, that anyone could have killed the Divine Messiah without God’s permission? Many times they tried to kill Him, but they could not, not until Yeshua allowed them to. Yeshua said it Himself. Go ahead and read, David.”

  The words of fire that were still there reformed into another passage and I read them aloud:

  No one takes my life from me. I give my life of my own free will. I have the authority to give my life, and I have the authority to take my life back again… (John 10:18 GW).

  “This is in the New Testament?” I asked, astonished. He nodded. “How many Jews have been mistreated, even killed in the name of this blood libel, when all along the truth that He chose to die was plainly written in their Bible?” I could feel myself getting angry again.

  “The Church erased the Jewishness of Yeshua and then blamed the entire Jewish nation for His death. This is why people, like you David, need to stop listening to what others tell them and do their own research. Notice that I am not teaching you anything that is not backed up by the historical account of Scripture…and I have direct access to the Truth Himself. When humankind has been given the divine revelation contained in the Bible, why would he then look to a human source to tell him whether or not Yeshua is the Messiah?

  “Do you know how many times I have seen Jewish people, just like yourself, enter a season where the Father sends the Holy Spirit to draw them, to woo them, to attract them to Yeshua? They don’t know why, but they are suddenly curious; they want to know. Seemingly out of nowhere, there is suddenly a deep concern over their soul. Is there a Heaven? Is there a hell? Where will I spend eternity? This is how the Father brings new sheep into the fold. Yeshua Himself said when He walked the earth that ‘No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws them….’ It is recorded in John 6:44.

  “You know what most Jewish people do when they go through that season? Watch…”

  The lights dimmed as the movie screen came back to life. I was stunned to see me there in the video! I was walking into Rabbi Goodman’s office. Oh, I remember it well. I went there to confide in him—to tell him what I was going through, spiritually. When I spoke to him about my desire to find God, he was initially happy. Even when I told him I had researched different religions from the Far East, he remained pleasant, nodding benignly. But the minute I shared with him that I was intrigued by the story of Jesus, he became agitated, even angry.

  “How could you, David? Your grandfather would roll over in his grave if he could hear you talking such nonsense. Don’t you know what those people have done to us in His name? And now you want to join them!” He was getting angrier.

  “I didn’t say I wanted to join them, just that the Man Jesus and His purpose intrigue me,” I countered. I felt humiliated and shamed.

  He warned me in the strongest terms to end my spiritual journey if that was where it was leading me. “It will tear your family apart,” he warned. As I left his office, I felt like a traitor for even considering Yeshua. At this point, the movie ended.

  “Now, D
avid, God has had mercy on you. Because of His plan for you I was sent, but you know as well as I, had I not pulled you out of that Starbucks you might never have considered Yeshua again.” The word never hit me like a sword in my kishkas.1

  I felt so ashamed that I had let Rabbi Goodman’s intimidation keep me from seeking truth. “I am a writer, a journalist; I am supposed to look for the truth no matter where it takes me; and here, in the most important issue of my life, I caved in.”

  “David,” he softly said, “I have watched that same scene played out thousands of times in the past twenty years alone. Jewish people who are wrestling privately with the issue of Yeshua go to their rabbi instead of the Bible, and get shamed out of continuing their search. While it breaks my heart, please understand that Rabbi Goodman meant no harm. He cares for you and your family. He was simply seeking to protect you. But, yes, he was wrong. Religious leaders have always sought to control the beliefs of their constituents. Before the advent of the printing press, the poor souls were completely dependent upon their leaders to tell them what the Bible said.

  “There are some, though, who have thought for themselves. Today they are called Messianic Jews.”

  “I have heard of them. There is a large group right here in Philly…oh yeah…I am not in Philly, am I?”

  Ariel laughed, “It’s time for you, David Lebowitz, to rediscover the real Yeshua, the true Man, as He lived and died and rose from the grave, in this city—as a Jew. And then, you will offer that Yeshua, not a distorted facsimile of Him, to the Jewish people. The Lord has a task for you, but first we will expose this multifaceted, murderous identity theft that has caused so much pain. Are you ready?” he asked. Before I could reply, Ariel, my new friend, had grabbed me by the hand and we were flying again.

  Note

  * * *

  1. Yiddish for “guts” or “soul.”

  Chapter Nine

  CLASS IS IN SESSION

  When we landed, we were in what I can only explain as a high-tech, heavenly classroom. Everything in the classroom was ancient and yet completely modern. For sure, it was the coolest room I had ever been in! There was a desk for me to sit at; it was made of Jerusalem stone. But the desktop was a tablet—I mean the desktop was a tablet as in Moses and the Ten Commandments-type tablet. But inside the stone tablet was an iPad-like interface. My tablet had a tablet!

  The room was dimly lit in a yellowish-orange glow, as if lit by a torch or lantern. In fact, it wasn’t unlike the synagogue in Jerusalem, except for the fact that we appeared to be suspended in space and moving though at a very slow pace!

  There were no walls or ceilings, and I could see the stars and moon above me. There was a floor beneath us made of ancient, off-white marble, which made up the size of the classroom. I had the feeling that the marble was about a yard thick beneath me, but I couldn’t really see.

  In the front of the room was another tablet, only it was massive, about twelve feet by four feet and it had the face of a computer monitor—a very modern, large, and cool computer monitor. There was one file on the screen. It read, “DL 1.0.”—my initials. This was crazy. It had to be a dream.

  I had an insatiable desire to learn, which I can’t adequately explain in human terms—especially since it was the first time I’d ever experienced it. All I can say is that I felt like my brain had been programmed to optimum absorption and I couldn’t wait to start learning.

  “This will be our homeroom, David. You will spend a good deal of your time here learning, but don’t get too comfortable, as we will go on several journeys.

  “Let me lay some ground rules. I will be showing you passages from books, encyclopedias, even websites, and of course, God’s Word, so that you can prepare for your assignment. Everything I show you here will be saved on your tablet on your desktop in the classroom. You see, David, I am not going to tell you what to believe, but I am going to help you build your case, primarily based on the Scriptures, but backed up by history. I will show you the evidence, but in the end, you must decide.

  “I am doing this for two reasons. First, you will use this information in fulfilling your destiny. Second, I don’t want you to trust a word I say theologically, if it is not backed up by Scripture. This is how many people are deceived. Paul wrote to the Galatians that even if an angel comes to you, if it is another gospel, reject it! (See Galatians 1:8.) Mohammad and Joseph Smith are just two of the more famous individuals who were deceived by false angels. Everything must line up with God’s Word.

  “And, we will study history. For all you know, I could just be making up stories, but if I supply you with the documents to back it up, not only will it be credible but, back to point one, you will be better equipped to convince others.”

  Convince others—what was he talking about?

  “Let’s begin,” Ariel was now dressed in professorial garb of cap and gown like in a prep school. “We will start with names. I do not deny that names are important,” he began to lecture. “They are. But at the risk of contradicting myself, I would also warn you not to get too hung up on names. The Father is not looking to catch us on technicalities. Sadly, there are those who obsess over names and miss the essence of the person of Yeshua.”

  Ariel tapped the center of the file that read DL 1.0 and suddenly the computer within the ancient tablet came to life. Several men appeared. The first one said, “Unless you read the Bible in the King James English, you are not reading the Bible!”

  The second one said, “If you are not baptized according to our church’s constitution, you are not saved and you’re on your way to hell.”

  The third and last one proclaimed, “If you don’t pronounce His sacred name correctly, you will be damned.”

  Ariel was laughing. “Silly religious people—this is not the God of the New Covenant, who ‘is not willing that any of these little ones should perish.’”

  As he said this, I heard a sound, not unlike the one my cell phone emits when I get a new text message. Right on cue “No. 1: Matthew 18:14” appeared on the right side of my personal tablet.

  “There is no angel at the gates of Heaven ready to say, ‘Sally, we really would like to let you in. Your heart was pure, you loved people and sacrificed for the kingdom, but we got you on a technicality. You got a name wrong and so you’re disqualified. Sorry about that!’”

  Oh, so my angel is a comedian.

  “No!” He continued, becoming serious again. “God is looking for every opportunity to save. People who get caught up in names, genealogies, traditions, or rituals and overemphasize their importance have a religious spirit, and that is not a good thing, David—it blinds them to the love of God, and sometimes to God Himself. Paul warns Timothy about those who promote controversy rather than God’s love.”

  The text message sound and another verse appeared on my desktop, again with a number beside it: “They have an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels about words that result in envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions” (1 Tim. 6:4).

  My tablet desktop was taking notes for me. I could’ve used one of these in college, I thought.

  “Sadly, there’s always the danger of getting so hung up on the minutiae that we miss the very purpose of Yeshua’s coming, which was, ‘to seek and save those who are lost.’” A third passage appeared—Luke 19:10 NLT.

  “Having said that, if we are going to understand the New Covenant in context, we are going to have to review a few names, as these name changes and translations influence how we perceive both the culture and message of certain New Covenant characters. These name revisions have resulted in both Jewish and Gentile readers completely missing the fact that these people were Jews, with Jewish names. Revisions that have tragically obscured the Jewishness of the New Covenant, communicating incorrectly to Jews that the New Covenant is not Jewish.”

  “D’ling,” announced the appearance of Jeremiah 31:31 on my tablet:

  “The days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant
with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah.”

  “David, while English versions of the New Covenant refer to Yeshua by His Greek name, Iesous, which when translated into English becomes Jesus, His parents never called Him by either of those names. Joseph, His stepfather, was given very specific instructions as to what His name was to be and why.” My tablet promptly displayed Matthew 1:20-21:

  An angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take [Miriam] home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name [Yeshua], because he will save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:20-21).

  Ariel continued his lecture, “The name Yeshua, in Hebrew, actually has meaning. Just about every Hebrew name has a meaning or comes from a similar root with a meaning, and the angel was very specific about the name that the Son of God, the Messiah, should have: His name was to be Yeshua. Pronounced slightly differently, putting the emphasis on the last syllable instead of the middle, ye-shu-à means salvation. In essence the angel told Joseph, ‘His name shall be “salvation” because he will “yoshia” (verb form, save) His people from their sins.’ It is impossible to pick up on this prophetic word play in the Greek or English versions.

  “And that, of course, was the mission of the Messiah, to bring salvation to His people and to be a light to the nations. Indeed, Simeon, the aged prophet who had been told he would not die until he saw the Messiah, prophesied as much.”

  Then I saw an old man on the larger tablet begin to pray, tears streaming down his face, as he held a baby in his arms. This had to be the Simeon of whom he spoke.

  Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you may now dismiss your servant in peace. for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all nations: a light for revelation to the gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel (Luke 2:29-32).