The Dr. Jeff Show Ep. 96 – David Nekrutman

Episode 96: Summary & Transcript

Disclaimer: Please note that this is an automatically generated transcript. Although the transcription is largely accurate, it may be incomplete or inaccurate in some cases due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.

Episode Summary

In this episode of the Dr. Jeff Show podcast, host Dr. Jeff welcomes David Nekrutman, an Orthodox Jewish scholar speaking from Israel who has spent two decades as a Goodwill Ambassador for Jewish-Christian relations. Nekrutman holds the unique distinction of being the only Orthodox Jew to graduate from Oral Roberts University with a master’s degree in biblical literature, focusing on the Hebraic roots of the Holy Spirit.

Throughout the conversation, they discuss bridging spiritual understanding between Judaism and Christianity, Israel’s inclusive democracy (countering anti-Israel rhetoric), and Nekrutman’s work with the Isaiah Projects, which creates curriculum for Christian homeschool students through biblicalexcavations.com. The episode highlights the importance of understanding Hebrew thought patterns and the Old Testament to fully grasp the New Testament teachings, with both host and guest agreeing to revisit topics like Sabbath in future episodes.

Episode Transcript

Dr. Jeff Myers (00:02):
Hey everyone. Welcome back to the Dr. Jeff Show podcast. Here we are, brand New Year, new season. I’m really looking forward to it, and we’re going to have some amazing guests. So please tell your friends about the show. If you review the show and then tell others about it. We grow our audience and more people get to experience what the show is all about, which is introducing you to thought leaders who show that our worldview changes everything. This show’s available on Apple, Google, Spotify, Liftable, Edifi, wherever you get your podcast.

Today’s guest is somebody who’s going to be on the show from Israel, and I just love this guy. We just met just a couple of weeks ago when my wife and I were on a trip to Israel, but he’s had two decades as a goodwill ambassador for Jewish Christian relations. He attended Yeshiva schools in New York and in Israel. He earned degrees in forensic psychology, social work, and biblical literature with a concentration in Judaic Christian studies. And he became the only Orthodox Jewish person to graduate from a spirit-filled charismatic Christian college with a master’s degree. It’s unbelievable.

And what this guy does for Jewish Christian relations, how he explains the Bible, how he connects what we believe as Christians to what he believes as a Jew is so fascinating to me. Please welcome David Nekrutman to the show. David Nekrutman, welcome to the Dr. Jeff Show podcast.

David Nekrutman (01:33):
Well, greetings from Israel. It’s a pleasure to be with you today.

Dr. Jeff Myers (01:36):
Well, I’m really glad that you’re doing this and it’s in the afternoon here in Colorado where I’m in the studio, which means it’s very, very late at night where you live in Israel. So thank you for staying up to do the show with us.

David Nekrutman (01:48):
Anytime.

Dr. Jeff Myers (01:50):
Well, what if I said it was going to be two o’clock or three o’clock in the morning?

David Nekrutman (01:53):
I would do it any day besides the Sabbath. How about that?

Dr. Jeff Myers (01:56):
That’s right. Yeah.

David Nekrutman (01:57):
I’m a 24/6 person.

Dr. Jeff Myers (02:01):
Well, David, you and I got to meet recently when my wife Stephanie and I traveled to Israel and you very graciously picked us up at the airport and we drove to a hotel in the Negev Desert about a four hour drive from Tel Aviv, and I peppered you with questions the whole way. I was so excited to meet you and I’m really excited to introduce you to my podcast audience. And in fact, I realized in talking with Stephanie, we may actually just end up needing to have you come back again because there are more things to talk about than I think we can just talk about in one show.

But we did a little introduction of you at the beginning of the show so people have a little bit of a sense of who you are and what you’re working on. But one of the things that you mentioned to me right out of the gate was that you were the only Orthodox Jewish person to have attended the theology program at Oral Roberts and to graduate from the theology program at Oral Roberts University.

David Nekrutman (03:07):
Yeah, that’s my claim to fame. So yeah, because of the former president Mark Rutland and Dr. Brad Young who started the Judeo Christian Studies program at Oral Roberts University, I am indeed, I would say the first Orthodox Jew to be accepted into a spirit-filled graduate theology program. And my thesis is in the Hebraic roots of Holy Spirit.

Dr. Jeff Myers (03:32):
Which I love, and I am looking forward to learning more about that. It just strikes me that that is just so unexpected. Now you came to the United States, to Oklahoma to go through these studies, and did you do that because you were interested in studying the Holy Spirit or because of those two individuals you already had known something about?

David Nekrutman (04:00):
So the genesis of how that all began in the road of exploring the Holy Spirit academically and accessing myself into the spirit-filled world really began with a discussion with my own mentor in Jewish Christian relations. The late Rabbi, Dr. Gerald Meister, who is my pulpit rabbi back in my college days in Brooklyn, New York, and he was the one who mentored me in Jewish Christian relations when I served the calling for the last 22 years.

The last conversation I had with him in a car ride from Arad, which is not that far away from where we were at the hotel, about a good hour and a half away from where we were staying at the hotel. But the reason why we went to Arad is I had a group of evangelical Christians and Orthodox Jews from Yale University who came together each week to learn the Bible together, and the chaplain asked me to facilitate their trip.

(05:06):
So one of the things we did to do a deep dive into theology and the concept of suffering is we brought them to Rick Wee’s Fountain of Tears, which is Jesus of the last seven sayings of him on the cross juxtaposed with a Holocaust survivor, and it’s called a dialogue of suffering. And that opens up a whole Pandora’s box as far as looking at the theology of suffering in the context of Jesus on the cross and the Holocaust survivor.

And so it worked for the students because they went on the bus, they had their conversation. My mentor was in Israel. I brought him to give what would be his last conversation to a group of students. And on the drive back I said, there’s something about the Holy Spirit and its language, although expressed differently between Jews and Christians that I think we should explore because I think that’s a way to sort of bridge the gap between Jews and Christians even further.

(06:15):
There are differences theologically speaking between Jews and Christians, but I’m always trying to find out the commonalities and then wait for the mystery to happen of that line. And Rabbi Meister said, it’s a great idea. Let’s speak after Passover holiday. And unbeknownst to me, I didn’t know he had pancreatic cancer, and a few days later he passed away.

So to honor his memory and to honor what God put into my own heart, I said, I will go ahead and explore the Holy Spirit and see what are the commonalities between Jews and Christians in regard to this unbelievable thing. I can’t be in Israel without the Holy Spirit, the in-gathering of the exiles, the fact that there is a state of Israel is all a move by God.

Now obviously the differences between Judaism, Christianity is whether or not the Holy Spirit is a persona in a trinitarian understanding of God, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, who are equal and coeternal. Obviously Jews don’t subscribe to that definition of understanding God, but we do see the Holy Spirit as an, it is an expression of the communication between God and his people.

So for me, just the mere fact I’m speaking to you today is a move of the Holy Spirit, but it never has been academically explored in the mainstream of Jewish Christian relations. And so I decided to honor what God put in my heart, honor my rabbi and his memory, and then thank God for Mark Rutland and I got accepted to Oral Roberts University.

Dr. Jeff Myers (08:01):
I love that story, David. And I think what I especially love about it is I’ve seen a lot of different initiatives to bring Christians and Jews together, especially in reference to supporting the nation of Israel. But I haven’t seen efforts like you’re talking about, to bridge them spiritually. We know what our differences are very often, but what are some of those things that are areas of understanding that as Christians, we can learn from Jewish people, we can learn from Hebraic tradition.

So thank you for sharing about that. I really appreciate it and I’m sure we’re going to have a lot of people who have a lot more questions about that. They are probably going to say, and you’ve got to do another show because you kind of left us hanging here. And the reason I say that is because if you’re in a charismatic church, you’re talking about the Holy Spirit a lot.

(08:57):
But if you’re in a mainstream church or evangelical church, Protestant church or even a Catholic church, so yeah, not so much. So what’s this Holy Spirit? And so we may have to do another show on that as well, which would make three that we need to do with you that I’m already keeping in my mind. Not tonight. We can do this one and then we’ll do some others. Okay.

David, I want to hear a little bit about Jewish Christian relations. I understand there are some different initiatives that the government has been undertaking because they want people who are from the United States to come, but I learned something recently, in fact, since we’ve been back from our trip that I did not know before because I, I’m trying to learn a couple of Hebrew phrases here and there that I can use if I get to come back. And one of them was, where are you from? And as near as I can tell, the term that they say for us to say if we’re from the United States is lands of the Covenant.

David Nekrutman (10:09):
From the Ministry of Tourism? Israel’s Ministry of Tourism?

Dr. Jeff Myers (10:11):
No, it’s from a book, just a book of Hebrew phrases.

David Nekrutman (10:16):
Okay.

Dr. Jeff Myers (10:17):
And I’m just wondering, is that a common thing?

David Nekrutman (10:22):
That I’ve never encountered somebody saying when they arrive in Israel, lands of the Covenant, I do believe that the land of Israel is covenanted by God. I do believe that there is a sacredness in the land, not because I live here, it’s because God chose this geographic location. And to be a complete full Jew in the mission of what we need to do for God, we have to be in this geographic location. Being divorced from the land at what we experienced in the last 2000 years of exile is, we tend to be a footnote in sacred history. If we want to be truly a chapter heading, the people need to come back to the land.

And for the last almost 75 years, Israel is about to celebrate its diamond anniversary. So much has been fast tracked, biblical prophecies being fulfilled. So for me, I look at it as covenant land comes with covenant responsibility and therefore in my walk in Jewish Christian relations and my passion of what I do, I feed the Christian Arabs living in Bethlehem that’s under the governing entity of the Palestinian Authority as well as Christian Arabs living in Jerusalem.

So I do that with my partner, my dynamic duo partner Pastor Stephen Corey, of holding land missions. So because the land is covenanted, therefore it demands covenant expression and that’s all through the Bible. That’s the only way I hear that term from you. But I have never experienced Christians coming off the airplane saying covenant lands.

Dr. Jeff Myers (12:08):
Yeah, okay. Okay. I was just curious. I’m reading a number of different things, but I wondered if there was some kind of a relationship there. Tell me, David, what the chapter heading should be. You said Jews, you feel through 2000 years of the diaspora have been a footnote in religious history. What should that chapter heading be?

David Nekrutman (12:35):
God’s ultimate redemption for the World. Again, ultimately both Jews and Christians, because we believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and Christians believe their relationship with the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is through Jesus as stated in the gospel of John. That’s fine. Unity doesn’t mean sameness when it comes to actualizing God’s will. We have to be partners. Diversity is okay when it comes into the unity of God.

Therefore, this is the ultimate chapter for me when Jews are back in a sovereign state in partnership with the nations, but nations, meaning Christians who are in the nations who believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to bring the world to know who God is and then to repair this world onto the sovereignty of God. That’s how I look into the big picture of it all. This is not the Peace Corps. This is not trying to make myself feel good. I’m just a simple divine agent to actualize what God wants for me to do for him. My ego has to be at the door.

Dr. Jeff Myers (13:43):
David and I know there are different people who are listening to this who are maybe out of college or university right now, and they’re almost certainly hearing anti-Israeli rhetoric. In fact, after we left Israel, so this was just a couple of weeks ago, Stephanie and I went to Italy. We were in Rome, we were staying at a hotel. There’s a couple from a European country there.

And we mentioned that we had just been to Israel and the woman communicated to us in no uncertain terms, oh, we don’t go there. They’re bad, they’re racist, they’re oppressors. Can you help us understand what’s behind that thinking? And if you were in that conversation, how would you direct that? What would you ask or what would you say that would kind of carry the issue forward toward truth?

David Nekrutman (14:45):
That’s a great question because over the years I’ve been asked, why do I work with Christians who love me and love Israel, whatever the intention is? But I think most Christians have a pure intention when it comes to loving me and loving the state of Israel. Even though in Jewish history, we don’t have a precedent for that. This is sort of the first time phenomenon for us. And I also am cognizant that not every Christian understands the past history of the church antisemitism towards the Jewish people.

So I’m not throwing the entire 2000 years of church history on an individual Christian. I think at the end of the day, I’m not here to convince anybody about my narrative. I think if you truly really want to know who we are, you can jump on a plane and actually see what goes on the ground. We have 9 million people who are citizens of the state.

(15:42):
21% of those citizens are not Jewish. 19% of them are Arabs indigenous to the land. Most of them are Muslim. A small amount are Christian Arabs. They have equal access to education and healthcare. So anyone that puts us as far as in a negative light, I’m just like, here we are. We’ve done this as a Jewish state in a freedom of allowing freedom of expression and religion and trying our utmost to be a light onto the nations.

When it comes to the issue of the Israeli Palestine conflict, my argument is that we’ve tried land for peace during the nineties, the Oslo course. I was working for the Israeli Council in New York in the year of 2000. When Prime Minister Ehud Barak came to the UN, we thought peace was around the corner. There would be a two state solution.

And then unfortunately, Arafat wanted to be a person who was about propaganda about not being a states person because it’s hard to run a country because I have a crack on my sidewalk or a tree is growing somewhere on my property, or the sanitation didn’t pick up the garbage Today, that’s not really putting somebody in a Hollywood sea, let’s just say.

(17:07):
Right? Governance is hard. So do you want to have peace delivered to your people or not? And I think that Israel has given over almost 98% an attempt to give over 98% what the Palestinians wanted back in 2000. And the answer from the leadership was no, this has unfortunately affected the people.

So I’m not responsible for the government right now or whatever government comes in, but I think that Israel’s intent in its attempt to have peace has been its armed record. It seems like a broken record that we continue to say that the Palestinian leadership continues to miss all these opportunities to deliver something for their people.

And if you’re educating your youth in the public schools of the Palestinian authority to continue to hate us, then how are you ever going to bring peace to a land? So let’s understand this right now, back in 2000, you had the Palestinian Authority as the only governing entity for Gaza and parts of the West Bank.

(18:18):
Now you have two governing entities, Hamas, which is a terrorist organization ruling over 1.8 million people with 550 Christians living there. And then in the West Bank you have a Palestinian authority that’s running and it’s its governing entity. And at the end, now we have to deal with two groups of people. If Arafat would’ve said yes in 2000, I think the conversation will be different. I think the Palestinians are great in marketing propaganda in a context of it’s all or nothing. And in anything and trying to get a peace plan, you can’t have all or nothing. There has to be some compromise.

So that’s the way I would present it. Either you take it or you don’t take it. And I think that based upon what media outlet or wherever you’re hearing in the pews, that’s what you’re going to listen to. But if you come here to the land, you will see a different type of scenario.

You are in Jerusalem, you are in, people who are working in the hotels, in the service industry, people who are working in different civil service positions on the Supreme Court members of Knesset, there are non-Jews who are there. It’s interesting, the Prime Minister was eventually prosecuted by an Arab in the court system. Alright? Most powerful party in the last government was the Arab Party. Wow. Okay. So is this occupation, is this apartheid? I don’t think so.

Dr. Jeff Myers (19:58):
Yeah. Well, I appreciate you’re giving that response, and I’m sure you get tired of having to deliver it over and over again. It’s just that this message on college campuses, even on Christian college campuses, in fact sometimes especially on Christian college campuses and anti-Israel message has been growing. And so it’s really important what you’re talking about, and I thank you for dealing with that.

David Nekrutman (20:25):
Yeah. But I want to comment on that because I think unfortunately in certain parts of Christianity, the gospel for them is a social justice gospel, not a Christ-centered gospel. And I want to make that very clear. I know that’s going to be weird from someone who’s an Orthodox Jew saying that, but I want Christians to be a Christ-centered Christian.

You believe 100% of the divinity of Jesus and 100% of the humanity of Jesus, but the humanity of Jesus was born in a Jewish home, grew up in the Judaisms of his day, so he’s Jewish, not was Jewish, is Jewish from a Christian point of view. So to go ahead and go against the family of Jesus doesn’t make any sense to me unless you water down the Christ Center approach to the gospel and you amplify the social justice aspect of it only.

Dr. Jeff Myers (21:24):
Yeah, I think that you’ve nailed it. That’s exactly what’s happening, especially on Christian college campuses, is that what people want is a gospel without Jesus, but with a large nanny state.

David Nekrutman (21:38):
Yes.

Dr. Jeff Myers (21:39):
Yeah. Okay, man, we don’t have to talk about politics anymore. I just thought, I just thought, okay. I know this is an elephant in the room that we should probably go ahead and address now. I’d love to hear you talk about some of the things that you’re doing to promote Jewish Christian relations. I saw some of it when I was with you. We have lots of time to have conversations together, but there may be people who are watching or listening who can connect with you and benefit from what you’re doing or what you’re doing can serve them or what they’re doing can serve you. I’d love to just hear you describe some of your work.

David Nekrutman (22:18):
Right. So right now I’m the director for the Isaiah Projects, which is a ministry dedicated to creating Hebraic roots for Christians to discover the roots of their faith with a specific mandate to reach out to the Christian homeschool high school world. And this is through biblical excavations.com where we’re fusing critical thinking and Hebraic understanding to elevate how the Bible is being delivered to the Christian homeschool high school world.

And this is the only reason why I did this is because Christian grandmothers were asking me to step out from my former position when I was serving as the executive director for the Center for Jewish Christian Understanding Cooperation, which was the first Orthodox Jewish center in the entire world to actively dialogue and cooperate with Christians. But sometimes you have to say goodbye to old positions to walk into a new path that God is leading you into.

(23:22):
And again, I’ve always done this because where does God want me to be? And I was seeing what was happening in the educational system in the United States of gender fluidity. I was just kind of surprised at how much a young kid is being exposed to so much at a young age and that the biblical values that I grew up on and that you grew up on seems to be vanishing. So you can’t just rely on a solely devotional approach to scripture in a homeschool high school environment. You got to be prepared to walk into the world.

And if you’re not being taught how the Bible can enhance your critical thinking analysis along with understanding that the roots of Christianity goes into the womb of Judaism, I believe that’s one of the key ways of helping high school Christian when they leave the household. We are all parents. We want our kids to succeed and make a great salary and be able to provide food on the table.

But at the end, the Bible is for you eternally, and not everyone’s going to have a chance to come to Israel and see the faith in high definition. So let’s begin to bring what Jesus was reared in, what he was taught, how he communicated into the curriculum of how the Bible is being delivered today. And that’s my new path in life.

Dr. Jeff Myers (25:00):
You and I talked quite a bit about that when we were in Israel, and I’m thrilled with it. I’ve got the materials I’ve already begun to make my list of people who I want to let know about it, but I’d like to talk about the reasoning behind it. You just mentioned something there that I think it’s so critical that you’re talking about the kind of education that Jesus himself received in his humanity. Tell a little bit more about what that education would’ve been like and would’ve involved.

David Nekrutman (25:32):
Okay, so a glimpse into that is, and it’s very rare that you have this in the gospels. I’m starting from where a Christian would start because not all Christians are going to be growing up in what is known as the Old Testament, what I call Tanakh or the Hebrew Bible, the infancy stories of Jesus is quite important to dissect because what is happening when he’s 12 years old, he’s going to the Temple Mount on Passover.

Okay, first of all, you’ve got to know what Passover is. Why are they going to the Temple Mount? Because they’re fulfilling a biblical mandate that three times a year you should go up and Passover is the festival of freedom. And then for some reason the parents can’t find where Jesus is and they finally locate him and he’s talking to the rabbis at the Temple Mount and he’s having this discussion.

(26:27):
I mean, isn’t that incredible beauty of having elder statesmen talking to this young kid? And I don’t want to bring any, I’m not trying to level down what the story is about, and I know you see Jesus through a Christ-centered approach and his divinity, but at the end, he’s a 12-year-old kid who’s conversing as a human being with the elder statesmen and the people who know the Bible and the rabbinic discussions of the day.

So part of it is that there is always a question that you’re debating. And then if the answer is truly, is this really the answer, let’s debate if this is the answer. I think what you see Jesus doing in the infancy stories as well as when he’s the three years of his ministry work that he’s doing, it’s always in a Hebraic way, the art of the question. By asking the question I always find, I always say, you have to pay attention to the dialogue and what Jesus is saying to the others.

(27:38):
Whatever question he’s being asked, he’s never really answering the question. So for me it’s like how does a Christian really understand the high definition message behind the story if they don’t understand the judaisms that Jesus grew up with and how he was reared in asking a great question and the analysis of bringing a great answer. Is that helpful, Jeff? I think, yeah, hopefully I’m articulating this properly.

Dr. Jeff Myers (28:08):
I think so. And I wanted to talk about Sabbath, but can we just do that on another show? Can we just do the show? Because I think this is so fascinating. If you want to train your child the way Jesus parents train him in his humanity, you want to train your children to have critical thinking that comes about through interacting with absolute truth through questions and dialogue.

David Nekrutman (28:44):
But the only Bible in existence at that particular point in history was the Hebrew Bible. You got to know your Bible. For me, as important as Christian scriptures are for the development of someone being reared in Christianity, you can’t understand certain responses if you don’t have the background in the Hebrew Bible, everything is being referenced. There are code words. How are you going to understand the code?

I consider this, I know this is a man thing to do, but insider baseball lingo is happening in these stories because these words that people would know back then are understood. You have to basically train yourself to hear as the believers of Jesus heard in the first century. I hope that makes sense.

Dr. Jeff Myers (29:36):
Yeah, that does make sense. And I just think it’s fascinating. And there’s another component to this as well, which is that you need to understand something about the Hebrew language itself to really understand what you just said. In other words, you’ve got to make some kind of an effort to know the Hebrew alphabet, to know what the letters mean and then to just be able to understand some of these basic Hebrew concepts. Have I got that about right?

David Nekrutman (30:10):
Yeah, but even if you’re not trained in Hebrew, I think training in the method of the art of the question is probably going to be the most important takeaway when you’re studying the stories in the gospel. I don’t think Paul does, Paul is going to be different. But if we’re dealing with Jesus in the context, specifically in the synoptic gospels, then understanding the hip brake way of thinking is going to be very important. So I’ll give you an example. I think we’ve discussed this in the car. We did so much discussion in the four hours of the car.

(30:50):
But I would say when Jesus is saying in the Sermon of the Mount, first of all, the Sermon of Mount didn’t take place in one day. I think most people think that it did. I like to use Dr. Amy, Jill Levine’s. These are the greatest hits of Jesus is the Sermon of the Mount. If you really want to have an entry understanding of Jesus, then the sermon of the mount has to be studied. But if you’re studying it, one of the famous expressions that come up is you heard it said, but I said, but I say.

So a lot of people who don’t have Hebraic background think that Jesus is doing a second Sinai. This is like academic lingo. A second Sinai is happening and it’s not. It’s really not. He’s basically saying, let’s say we will take the case of the divorce, the issue of divorce. You heard it said, but I say the only reason for the justification for divorce is based upon infidelity, the issue or suspicion of infidelity. But the thing is that people know about the rabbinic discussions on the issue of divorce. What is the justification to have a divorce? We know the Hebrew Bible allows divorce. We just don’t know.

(32:16):
It doesn’t say exactly what the justification is. So is it that you burnt dinner, then I can say goodbye to my spouse? Is it something else? And there was a gamut of different understandings of how far the justification goes. And Jesus is saying, well, if you’re with me in this context, in this day where there are people just having an easy out with divorce, I’m saying to you no, the only way you can get out of it is the suspicion of infidelity. He’s basically what he’s doing is a rabbinic legal verdict of the day.

So you heard it said, but I say you heard said, but I say is an expression that was already understood at that particular point in time that we’re now anticipating a legal decision. This is how first century believers in Jesus would hear that expression, not as a second Sinai, but as a decision in Jewish law.

Dr. Jeff Myers (33:18):
Right? So it’s not that they’re chiseling that down. It’s the old covenant gone.

David Nekrutman (33:28):
Yeah. We’re going to bring down a Steve Jobs version of the 10 Commandments. All right? Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Jeff Myers (33:39):
Okay. This is so interesting to me. Let’s talk about the language though for a moment. I know we have a few minutes left. The Hebrew language, tell us about why it’s important. I mean, we might learn some letters in the alphabet, learn some of the meanings of the letters as well as understanding the Hebrew context in which Jesus was ministering.

David Nekrutman (34:09):
So my assumption is most of your listeners are Christian, so they’re going to know the first verse in the gospel of John in the beginning was the word. Now everyone rushes to finish off the verse, but I want you to just take a moment and just think about those words. In the beginning was the word that means you have to know Proverbs chapter 8, that the word was served with God before the formation of the world, that there was a heavenly word that God created. And we believe in Jewish tradition that this heavenly word was the blueprint, the Ikea instructions to form the world that we’re in. And then I’m speaking to you right now via this social media platform.

(34:58):
So what happened at Sinai or prior to Sinai, the ability to download a heavenly word and then God’s will being incarnate at Sinai. In Exodus chapter 20, the physical words and letters are now being connected to a heavenly word. That’s what’s happening when you’re engaging in scripture. This is huge because that means that there is a code that you have in the Hebrew Bible in Hebrew that has infinite revelation because a heavenly word would be infinite because it was created from an infinite God.

Sinai comes in, provides the Bible that we have in front of us today, but it’s not infinite. It’s physical, it’s finite. So therefore, engaging in the physical finite words helps me reveal infinite revelation. That’s why each generation is merited to provide commentaries upon commentaries upon commentaries on the Bible. Well, here’s the story. It’s written, here’s the verses. But the question is, why do we have these episodes?

(36:12):
Like the first 2000 years of human history in the Bible is summed up in the first 11 chapters of history. Now, they’re great stories. Don’t mind me. I love flaming swords in the Garden of Eden, and if you think Days of Our Lives is an exciting soap opera series, mean key and Abel, what a great story. And then for some reason we spent over two chapters about Noah’s flood. I think there were probably more exciting stories that you could incorporate to make more chapters.

But for some reason, I only have these. Why? And then we’d have to break down, why are we presented with this type of dialogue and these verses? So I’ll give you an example just for your Hebrew question that you asked. The first word of the Bible in Hebrew is called Bereshit, which is usually translated in the beginning or at the beginning.

(37:08):
It is a very weird word to choose in Hebrew. I wouldn’t use that word. If we’re doing a chronology of creation, there is another mainstream word to use at first, but God chose to use Bereshit. I’ll even go further than that. When you say Bereshit bara Elohim, which is translated in the beginning, God created, and then the heavens and the earth is the second half of the verse. Those three words grammatically in Hebrew don’t make any sense. You don’t start off a Hebrew verse with, in the beginning, Bereshit, you start off, if the subject is you start off the subject. Therefore it should be, God created the beginning.

So you now have an awkward word choice. You have an awkward grammar structure. Now we can open up for the possibility of revelation. That’s the importance of understanding Hebrew because if you didn’t understand mainstream words versus non-mainstream words, grammar structure, you would miss the opportunity of the possible revelation of this particular verse. And how I come to the conclusion is that the first Hebrew word of the Bible be sheet is an anagram.

Now, most people will say there are anagrams in the Bible. Yeah, there are a few anagrams in the Bible, and if you take away the jumble of it all, it spells out Y Shabbat, which is Sabbath awe. That means God’s first intention was his last creative act, which is Sabbath.

Dr. Jeff Myers (38:53):
Wow.

David Nekrutman (38:54):
But that’s coded in the first word of the Bible. And how I got to that revelation is because word choice, awkward grammar, structure.

Dr. Jeff Myers (39:05):
Yeah. It’s like a big arrow pointing right to it. Correct. Yeah. Okay, man, we are out of time for this show. And would you come back?

David Nekrutman (39:18):
Of course. A hundred percent.

Dr. Jeff Myers (39:18):
You just teased out something here that we have got to talk about. We’ve had John Eldridge on this program talking about ra. Your book on Sabbath is powerful. I read it while we were there, and in fact, I read it while we were there at the Galilee because we were there for several days and you’d given me a copy of the book. We’ve got to know about that. And then, but just to close this discussion, the curriculum you’re talking about for Christians especially, that’s going to be useful for homeschooling families, that people go to biblicalexcavations.com.

David Nekrutman (40:00):
Yeah.

Dr. Jeff Myers (40:00):
Okay. And what they’re going to find there, what you’re going to find there is that you can go through and learn the Hebrew alphabet. You can learn the philosophies that are behind each of the Hebrew letters because this is a deeply philosophical language. This is a prototype of all language. And by learning it, you can begin to be the kind of learner that Jesus was in his humanity. So I really would love for everybody to find out about that. But we’ve got to come back and talk about Sabbath as well, because I think your insights are hugely important. And David, thanks so much for being on the show today.

David Nekrutman (40:41):
You got blessings from Israel, everybody. Take care.

Dr. Jeff Myers (40:45):
Thank you to my guest today, David Nekrutman. I’m the Dr. Jeff Show podcast. I hope you enjoyed the conversation as David was checking in from Israel and found that he had some intriguing insights, lots of things to think about there. If you’re interested in the Christian School and homeschool curriculum that David mentioned that he’s working on, you can go check out more at biblicalexcavations.com. I’m really compelled by this. Not only have I been to Israel recently, and so it’s top of mind, but I’ve been thinking about this for quite some time, that Hebrew is a prototype language for all written language.

(41:28):
It is the language in which almost three fourths of the Bible is written. So I’ve been trying to learn the alphabet, learn Hebrew words, read the text using the interlinear so that I can see what the Hebrew word is, what the English word is, and then try to understand scripture a little bit more from that original viewpoint.

The most important thing is whatever you do, that you start off this new year making a commitment and following through. You don’t have to read everything in the Bible all at once. Get all the commentaries all at once. Just would you do five minutes a day, five minutes a day of studying scripture and see if that doesn’t begin to change your life. Dr. Jeff, thanks for joining the show today.

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