Our Guest Bob Fischer
Sid: My guest by way of telephone is another Jewish man that is red hot for the Messiah Dr. Bob Fischer. I’m speaking to him at his home in Tiberias, Israel. And we are excited to be making available for the very first time a special DVD that Bod has done. It’s called “The Jewish Origins of Christianity.” He has got the most beautiful art work in this DVD, pictures from Israel. And then he got permission from various organizations of artifacts of antiquity backing up all the things about the Jewish roots of Christianity. You see there is something missing; haven’t you felt there must be something more? Well it has evolved to 21st century America Christianity is so different than what we read about in the New Testament. What was that first church like; what were those original believer’s like? We have found out that they are a group of people that few people have ever even heard of or if they’ve heard of it they don’t know anything about these Essenes. But now that we have uncovered these Dead Sea Scrolls we’re getting insights into their teaching; we’re understanding why so many Jewish people believed in Jesus at His first coming. This course shows why Jewish people today are just basically they’re the Pharisees that we read about in the New Testament. Because the Pharisees became what was known as the Rabbinic Judaism of today. But the Essenes are what the first Jewish believers; what they thought about the Messiah; but Bob let’s go into a bit about the Dead Sea and the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Bob: I’m fascinated by the Dead Sea because it was a double blessing from God to Israel. On the very eve when Israel became a State in 1948 the first Dead Sea Scrolls were offered for sale by an Arab merchant. I think this is fascinating because God was basically speaking again the fulfillment of the Abrahamic Covenant. He was giving us an intimate knowledge of Himself and at the same time He was giving us back the land. I think that this is so exciting for a Jew who believes in Yeshua; who lives in Israel as an Israeli citizen this just gladdens my heart more than I can say. You see what He was doing was giving us enormous material wealth. The salt of the Dead Sea; the metals; the magnesium. There’s enough magnesium in the Dead Sea to meet the needs of the world for 25,000 years. The total value of the minerals of the Dead Sea is to be 4 times the total wealth of the entire wealth of the United States of America. Fascinating, and at the same time these Dead Sea Scrolls are a mirror image of all virtual, virtually all of the phenomenal doctrine of theology that we cling to within our religion called Christianity. It’s fascinating.
Sid: Bob, what would you say is the great contribution of the Dead Sea Scrolls?
Bob: Well Sid Doctor Florentino Garcia Martinez that is probably the leading Dead Sea scholars sums it up very well and I’m going to quote him. He says “The great contribution of the Qumran manuscripts is the following:
“They have revealed to us the Jewish background against which to draw and to which to insert and from which were developed the figure of Jesus Christ and His message as well as early Christianity. In broad terms I would say that the Dead Sea Scrolls do not explain Christianity does but they help us to know the Judaism from which Christianity was born. It is a Judaism which is very different and much richer and more varied and pluralistic than we could have imagined from the message reflected in the Rabbinical that we’re used to comparing Christianity.”
Sid: And you know the thing that is so amazing to me Bob is that when we say the term Judaism we think of Jews today; which is an evolved state. But when we understand what the Dead Sea reveals and the New Testament reveals it is such a different Judaism. Just as Christianity is such a different Christianity. Do you think the thing that we’ll ever really go that full circle as you put it?
Bob: I’m praying that it will because the Dead Sea Scrolls do teach us about this unique form of Judaism from which Christianity emerged. And they teach us about the first century Nazarene Essenes who were the authors of these extensive writings and the pre-Christian form of Judaism they reflect. Now we can become intimately acquainted with these Nazarene Essenes through parallel teachings of the Old and New Testaments and secular and church historians and the Dead Sea Scrolls. You know I really find that in short these writings merged the hope in the Messiah King, and a Messiah Priest, and a Prophet like Moses, and a suffering Servant, and a Shoot from the Stump of Jesse, and even a heavenly Messiah. And to one undeniable historical person Yeshua who is return they were expecting in the eschatological future. It’s just amazing what we find in this treasure chest that was found in these 11 different caves and in…
Sid: You know something I never understood is why is it taking so long to get… I mean there are still many scrolls that we don’t know what’s in there?
Bob: It’s really a pathetic thing; you know it’s one of the saddest commentaries of our time that there are many different secular and church organizations involved in this process Who in fact there are many scrolls that were found that were missing more than likely that are still being hidden away in the hope of material gain at some time in the future. There’s precious little working together in cooperation; you know there was something like 800 manuscripts out of 1500 or so that were found to be valued that have any real value. And 375 of these 800 were potentially important. And 175 of these haven’t even been translated yet; they’ve only been studied superficially. It’s such a sad commentary that these people are not coordinating with one another. And really the sadder commentary is that it seems that the Church and the secular world beyond doesn’t seem to care. There unconcerned, they’re disinterested in this tragedy but even so what little is available to us in terms of numbers of scrolls we’ve learned a number an enormous amount of things. It is indeed a treasure chest.
Sid: You know something just caught my eye in the notes where you talk about the Biblical Jewish Feasts and how closely they were related to the events and the life of Yeshua. And it’s really kind of brilliant the way you put this. Let me read this “Yeshua was conceived during Hanukkah, the Feast of Lights. Yeshua was born on the first day of Sukkot, circumcised on the eighth day of this Feast. Yeshua was crucified and Resurrected on Pesach, or Passover. And the promised Holy Spirit was given on Shavuot or Pentecost.” That’s so rational and logical and yet all of this has been pulled out.
Bob: It has its just disappeared and it’s really a shame. There’s so much that has been suppressed by the church because you know the church doesn’t understand its Jewish roots. If the church understood its Jewish roots they’d be out celebrating the feasts; they’d be keeping the Resurrection of our Lord on Pasach; they wouldn’t be keeping it on a pagan holiday that was a fertility goddess’s birthday they’d be keeping it on the 14th of Nissan, but they’re not. It’s such a very sad commentary there’s such a richness in Judaism in Old Testament Judaism as we see so rooted in Hasidic Judaism and the Dead Sea Scrolls but it’s bypassed. It’s bypassed because of this pernicious process of de-Judization that we’ve been talking about that really began with Constantine; and then later with the church fathers. And then modern days this process ended up you know in the holocaust when people had been trying to wipe us off the face of the earth and kill our precious Jewish religion forever.
Sid: Now let’s take the average Gentile Christian that’s been raised not many, not even knowing that Yeshua is Jewish, or Jesus is Jewish. What will this course do for them?
Bob: This course will show them in deed first of all that Yeshua Jesus was a Jew. That He was born a Jew, and that He was raised as a Jew, and that He worked as a Jew, that He lived as a Jew, that He died as a Jew, and that He was resurrected as a Jew. I very carefully document this with scripture and with history to show the pervasive Jewishness of Yeshua. That’s the first thing that they’ll learn about Yeshua. And they’ll see Yeshua written all over the Old Testament. You’ll see Yeshua prophesied; you’ll see Him in Isaiah 53; and Psalm 22 and so forth and so on. And the exciting thing is that you’ll see Him all over the Dead Sea Scrolls. What we have is a continuum here of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Apocrypha writings, the Old Testament, the New Testament that all say the same thing that God began something in the Garden of Eden this process of the redemption of mankind. And that process will end one of these days when Yeshua comes back again.
Sid: Why is this not taught in every Bible College in the world?
Bob: That’s something that’s a real mystery to me. You know I taught this in a class at Faith Seminary some years ago. And my Dean Mike Adams who I dearly love came to me and after class and he said “Bob” he said, “Why didn’t they teach me this in seminary?” And I said to Mike I said “You know why didn’t you teach me?” Oh, the fact of the matter is this whole Jewish roots movement is just coming into fruition.
