Hebrew Voices #129 – Thy Kingdom be Blessed

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Hebrew Voices #129 – Thy Kingdom be Blessed

You are listening to Hebrew Voices with Nehemia Gordon. Thank you for supporting Nehemia Gordon's Makor Hebrew Foundation. Learn more at NehemiasWall.com.

Nehemia: It wasn’t till I was actually studying the Prayer of Yeshua that I realized, “Wait a minute. These are Jewish concepts. These are Hebrew concepts that appear in the Tanakh and throughout ancient Jewish literature. So, why am I not embracing this, and putting this into practice into my own life?”

Don: Our guest is Nehemia Gordon and his partner in the book, “A Prayer to Our Father,” Keith Johnson. These two men, Nehemia and Keith, have written a book, “A Prayer to Our Father.” It's the Hebrew origins of the Lord's Prayer. And there's one discovery after another that opens this prayer up to understanding that previously was, well, it was nearly impossible when you compound the translations and the common understanding in Christianity about exactly what this prayer was, and what it meant. Let's bring everybody up to speed on exactly what your intentions on the book were, what your goals were.

Nehemia: Basically, the book is about the Hebrew origins of the Lord's Prayer. We came together coming from two different perspectives. I'm what's known as a Karaite Jew, a biblical Old Testament Jew, I'm not Messianic or Christian, and Keith came to this topic as a Christian. I actually have a background in biblical studies. I worked on the Dead Sea Scrolls and studying various ancient Hebrew manuscripts.

A number of years back, I came across this Hebrew version of the Gospel of Matthew, and I wrote another book on it called “The Hebrew Yeshua Versus the Greek Jesus,” examining several passages in Matthew. And I wanted to take this study one step further. I thought it was really important to get the perspective of somebody who approaches the New Testament as a believer. And so, I got together with Keith, me bringing the linguistics side of it and Keith bringing the faith side of it. We decided to look at one particular passage, what's known as the “Lord's Prayer” in Matthew 6:9-13, and try to understand, what did this prayer mean in the original context in which it was taught? It's part of the Sermon on the Mount, which appears in Matthew chapters 5-7. And so, as we were studying this prayer in the original Hebrew, we asked the question, when Jesus, or as he was known, “Yeshua,” was preaching these words, this message to the Jewish multitudes who were standing and hearing him preach from a mountainside, what did those words mean to those people? They lived in a certain context and spoke a certain language. What did those words mean in their original language and context? That's the question that we were asking throughout the study.

Don: Okay, both of you, I'm sure as you were studying this, there were times when one or both of you would get all lit up about something. There had to be a high point, there had to be something where you've discovered some nugget that's gonna change your life. Keith, can you remember one in particular?

Keith: Were you with us, Don? It sounds like maybe you were with us when we had those highlights.