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In This Newsletter

25% Discount on
Course Studies

Working to
Establishing a School
“Are You Serious?”
A few words
from the Director
“Lichtenstein and the
End of the Law”
by Rob Vanhoff
Video of the
Atlanta Seminar
25% DISCOUNT ON SELECTED COURSE STUDIES

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25% OFF DURING THE MONTH OF FEBRUARY

Take 25% off the retail prices on any of the following 8 studies by Tim Hegg when you purchase the complete course (Syllabus & Audio recordings) –

The Messiah: An Introduction to Christology – $35; now $26.25
The Biblical Doctrine of Salvation – $35; now $26.25
How We Got Our Bible – $35, now $26.25
The Messiah in the Tanach – $35, now $26.25
Introduction to Torah Living – $35, now $26.25
Interpreting the Bible – $30, now $22.50
Introduction to the Masorah of the Hebrew Bible – $20, now $15
What God Has Joined Together: Biblical Foundations for Marriage, $25, now $18.75

To receive the discount, just enter 25feb in the coupon box at check out. (Discount does not apply to bulk orders; discount only applies to the selected items listed above.)

Working to Establish a School

At TorahResource, we are busy formulating the first and foundational steps necessary to begin a school. Our goal for the school is to provide quality, advanced education in biblical and related studies in order to equip leaders and teachers (both present and future) for Torah communities. We recognize the immensity of the task that lies before us, but as HaShem enables, we are committed to the hard work required to see such a school become a reality.

Currently we are working on mapping out the curriculum, exploring avenues for accredited degrees, testing web oriented software for serving online courses, and investigating how we can combine online distance learning with face-to-face classroom opportunities for students. In the near future we plan to publish a prospectus that will explain our vision for the school and outline the educational opportunities the school will offer.

Quite obviously, such a venture will require funding. We believe that one way HaShem will reveal His purpose for us to launch a school is in His provision of the necessary finances. Some have already taken up the challenge to support this venture financially and for that we are grateful! We are hopeful that many more will see the great need we have for training leaders in our movement, and join with us to establish this school. Perhaps you or the community in which you fellowship would consider making a monthly donation to TorahResource for this cause. Now is the time for those of us who affirm the One Torah message to act. (Click here for mailing address, PayPal, and other contact information for TorahResource.)

Above all, we ask for your prayers as we seek HaShem's leading and wisdom in this venture.

“Are You Serious?”

Thoughts from the Director – Tim Hegg

Recently someone posted a blog entry questioning whether or not I’m serious. To be honest, at first that question caused me to chuckle, because in the past I’ve been labelled as being too serious, too often. It was kind of pleasant to hear someone suggest I might not be so serious after all.

The issue at hand, however, was the Atlanta Seminar we held last November, and the fact that we spent two of our sessions critiquing the Divine Invitation theology. The perspective of the blog was that we ought to have been done with this by now and moved on to other, more important issues.

But the Divine Invitation teaching is not an isolated piece of theological innovation. To put forth this teaching required significant shifts in the wider scope of theology. For instance, the belief in the all-sufficiency of Scripture had to be abandoned in favor of a mixture of Scripture and the Oral traditions of rabbinic Judaism. This in turn required a hybrid hermeneutic that gave significant authority to the rabbinic interpretation of biblical texts. Likewise, since the Torah was to be presented as an invitation to the Gentiles, the words of Yeshua in Matthew 16:18 (“I will build My ekklesia…”) had to be redefined to include a kind of dual-ekklesia, or a bi-lateral ecclesiology. Yeshua is seen as building His ekklesia on two fronts: one that espouses Torah and one that does not. Both, according to this teaching, are bona fide expressions of what He desires.

Of course, proponents of the Divine Invitation would deny that they have adopted these theological shifts, but the upshot of their teaching clearly requires that they have.

So am I serious about these issues? Yes, entirely serious, because they sit as the bedrock of our faith and halachah. At TorahResource, we will continue to affirm the all-sufficiency of Scripture, interpreted and applied within its historical, grammatical context. And we remain firmly convinced that Yeshua’s ekklesia is one ekklesia, being made up of Jew and non-Jew together as one new man in Messiah Yeshua, striving to walk in His footsteps, sanctifying God’s Name upon the earth.

“All Scripture is God-breathed and is valuable for teaching, reproof, correction and training in righteousness, with the result that anyone who belongs to God may be fully equipped for every good work.” (2Tim 3:16–17)
The End of the Law for Rabbi Lichtenstein:
An Early Messianic Jewish Interpretation of Romans 10:4

by Rob Vanhoff
(An eleven page essay available for immediate download)

In this essay, Rob Vanhoff takes a look at Romans 10:4 and the meaning of telos, “end” or “goal” in the phrase “For Messiah is the telos of the Torah for righteousness to everyone who believes.” He begins with a brief survey of the two options (telos meaning “end” or “goal”), noting that traditional Christianity has most often taken “end” to mean that the Messiah brought a termination to the Torah as a way of righteousness. Following this brief opening survey, Vanhoff investigates how Rabbi Lichtenstein, a 19th Century Messianic Jewish scholar, interpreted Rom 10:4. Vanhoff's method is to give us translations of sections from Lichtenstein's commentaries which bear on Rom 10:4–5, allowing these to give insight into Lichtenstein's view of the Torah.

Here is an excerpt from Vanhoff's essay that offers a summary. Please download the entire essay (pdf format) by clicking here.

Along with Franz Delitzsch, the Lutheran scholar twenty years his senior, Rabbi J. Z. Lichtenstein[1] translated the Greek word telos [in Rom 10:4] with the Hebrew ‘sof’ [“end”]. Drawing from his commentaries on Romans, 1 Timothy, and Acts, I will demonstrate in this paper that R’ Lichtenstein (herein R’L) understood sof to mean ‘end’ in the Christian sense of ‘termination’ and ‘abolition.’ But this misunderstanding is not in and of itself surprising.[2] What makes this particularly interesting for the history of interpretation of Romans 10:4 is this Messianic Jewish scholar held the commandments of the Torah to be eternally binding upon the people of Israel. The juxtaposition of these two assumptions – one, that Messiah is the end of the Torah, and two, that the Torah has not been abolished for Israel – creates a tension that is difficult to navigate hermeneutically. At the end of the paper, I will share my thoughts on the challenge this interpretive tradition holds for Messianic scholarship today, particularly for those who share Lichtenstein’s conviction that Torah is for Jews alone.


[1] See the helpful article by Jorge Quiñónez, “An Introductory Bio-Bibliography to Jechiel Zebi Herschensohn-Lichtenstein (1831-1912),” Kesher 15 (2002), p. 78-89. Quiñónez writes, “It is hoped that this brief overview will stimulate further discussion and interest in translating some of his writings from Hebrew into English; a thorough and critical analysis of his life and work is certainly required” (p. 88). I am thankful for Quiñónez’s efforts on this front, and hope that this article is received as a small contribution toward the type of critical analysis he envisioned.

[2] On the adoption of faulty Christian dogma by 19th century Messianic Jews, see my paper “19th Century Messianic ‘Sages’ in Context.”

 

Video of the Atlanta Seminar

Many of you have been asking about the availability of the Atlanta Seminar on video (DVD). Here is the reason for the delay. When we arrived home from the seminar, we discovered that one of the main hard drives used to store the video files had been damaged. By the mercies of HaShem, we were able to retrieve the data from the damaged hard drive through a data recovery service. We received the restored data at the beginning of January. As a result, we were greatly delayed in the compiling and editing of the video. We are now, however, making good progress and plan to have the complete Seminar available in March.