DO GENTILES NEED HEBREW?

David Bivin

If you are one of the multitude "which no man could number, of all
nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues" (Revelation 7:9) who
worship the God of Israel, do you also need to study Hebrew? You are
not one of the 144,000 (Revelation 7:4) of the twelve tribes of Israel that
the Revelator saw in his vision, nor are you descended from those among
whom the Word of God came, originally spoken in the Hebrew
language. Neither did your ancestors likely hear Paul speaking to them
"in the Hebrew language" in ancient Jerusalem (Acts 21:40; 22:2); nor
would they have understood it if Jesus had spoken to them in that
language, as he did to Paul on the road to Damascus (Acts 26:14).
True, neither you nor your ancestors needed to know Hebrew in order to
experience the salvation of the Gospel and its fruits. For that matter, they
didn't (nor did you ) require any great knowledge of Scripture in order to
grasp the simple message of salvation. Of course, they were time and
again urged by preachers and teachers on the basis of Scripture to study
the Word of God and to immerse themselves in it.
Now, if you've been truly bathing yourself in God's Word, originally
delivered to Jewish patriarchs, prophets, sages and apostles, how much
of a Gentile do you think you are? Have you come to realize who the
heroes of your faith are, what their culture was, their mentality and
worldview? The Apostle Paul wrote once to the Corinthian Christians
living in the heart of pagan Greece: "I want you to know,
BRETHREN, that OUR fathers were all under the cloud, and all
passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the
cloud and in the sea..." (I Corinthians 10:1-2). You may contend that
Paul was only speaking of his own Jewish ancestors in this excerpt. But
was he speaking only to his Jewish BRETHREN? If so, why did he write
just a few sentences later: "Now these things happened to them (the
ancient Hebrews) as a warning, but they were written down for our
instruction, upon whom the end of the ages has come" (I Corinthians
10:11)? Were these words openly for the instruction of the Hebrew
Christians in Corinth, if there were any? Hardly! For in writing to the
Ephesian Christians in Asia Minor, as he had written to the Galatians
and to other Christians emerging from paganism, he had a revolutionary
message to give. It was addressed to people totally alien to "the
commonwealth of Israel...far off [from the God of Israel] ... who have
been brought near..." (Ephesians 2:11-19).
Yes, your ancestors were Gentiles. You have inherited or learned an
ethnic or national culture developed in a geophysical context apart from
the people of Israel (but probably much influenced by them), and
yet..."you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but fellow
citizens..." (Ephesians 2:19). With the Canaanites, the Hittites, the
Amorites? With the Babylonians, the Greeks, the Romans? No! With the
people of Israel, the seed of Abraham!
You will perhaps say: "We are spiritual Jews now, spiritual children of
Abraham." But according to Scripture, only "spiritual Jews" or
"spiritual children of Abraham" represent the real thing. "For he is
not a real Jew who is one outwardly," Paul wrote to the Roman
Christians, adding, "nor is true circumcision something external and
physical. He is a Jew who is one inwardly, and real circumcision is a
matter of the heart" (Romans 2:28-29). This echoes the clear teaching
of the Hebrew Scriptures from the Torah (the Books of Moses) onward.
"Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart," Moses wrote in the
Book of Deuteronomy (10:16). The Prophet Jeremiah, reproaching
Israel, declared during a period of national apostasy: "...Egypt, Judah,
Edom, the sons of Ammon, Moab...all these nations are
uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel is uncircumcised in heart"
(Jeremiah 9:26).
Wait a minute! Doesn't the Bible in its fullest message teach that "there
is neither Jew nor Greek" (Galatians 3:28)? So why all this concern
about Jews and children of Abraham? Unfortunately, for centuries
Christians have misunderstood this teaching of Paul written to the
Christians in Galatia, who were set upon by those who desired to bring
them under the yoke of the Law of Moses. Since that time, how often it
has been misapplied to mean that the Jew who comes to faith in Jesus is
obliged to sever all ties with his own people and culture and, in effect, to
become a Gentile! Actually, the context of the passage seen in the full
light of Scripture should lead to the reverse conclusion.
Just look at the complete passage: "There is neither Jew nor Greek,
there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for
you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ's, then you are
Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise." Now, in Jewish
culture of Paul's time, the woman was considered inferior to the man, the
slave inferior to the free man, and the non-Jew inferior to the Jew. (In
fact, devout Orthodox Jews have preserved echoes of this value scale in
their morning prayers when they recite a threefold benediction: "Blessed
art thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who has not made
me a Gentile...a slave...a woman." But Paul declares here that believing
Gentiles are to regard themselves as "Abraham's offspring, heirs
according to promise." Which promise? The promise made by the God
of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of Israel to the Hebrew people.
So actually, it is the gentiles who, in Paul's beautiful imagery of the olive
tree (Romans 11:17-24), are grafted in as wild olive shoots among the
natural branches of Israel. And they are to stop being gentiles and
become Abraham's offspring! Immediately the question comes to mind:
What of the Jews, the physical descendants of Abraham?

REPLACEMENT THEOLOGY

A common teaching has been promulgated that God totally rejected the
physical, historical Israel and replaced her with the "Gentile" Church.
Therefore, this Gentile body, "the Church," could appropriate all the
blessings of the Hebrew Scriptures to itself (and, of course, leave the
curses and condemnations to the Jews!). But this is a terrible distortion
of the plain meaning of Scripture. True, "a hardening" has come upon
PART (not all!) of Israel, and they have "stumbled" (Romans 11:11,25).
But "GOD HAS NOT REJECTED HIS PEOPLE [Israel] WHOM HE
FOREKNEW," Paul declared passionately (Romans 11:2), and He will
finally save the people of Israel (Romans 11:26). To doubt God's saving
power for His ancient people would be tantamount to doubting His
saving power toward the "ingrafted ones." Are not Christians often sinful
and hardened in their hearts? And if God has totally cast off Israel, to
whom He made such firm, unconditional promises, can we have any
confidence that He won't do the same to the Church because of its many
grievous sins through the centuries, or because of some future sin?
According to the plain teaching of Scripture, God has NOT disinherited
Israel, even if only a remnant survives to the end time. "For the gifts
and the call of God are irrevocable" (Romans 11:29). Not only Paul, the
apostle to the gentiles, wrote passionately about God's unconditional and
immutable love for His chosen people. The Hebrew prophets wrote just
as passionately. Listen to the prophet Isaiah's plaintive query: "Can a
mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the
child she has borne? Though she might forget, I could never forget
you. See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands..." (Isaiah
49:14-16). The prophet Jeremiah goes so far as to link Israel's survival as
a people, "for all that they have done," to the elements of the cosmos:
"I have loved you with an everlasting love...for I am a father to
Israel...Thus says the LORD who established the sun for light by day, the
fixed laws of the moon and the stars for light by night...If these fixed
laws are annulled by me, says the LORD, then shall the race of Israel
cease to be a nation before me forever" (Jeremiah 31:3, 9, 35-36).
You may counter: "This applied to the true Israelites, the ones to whom
we referred earlier, who are Jews inwardly, with a circumcision of the
heart." True, it applies to them certainly. But because God determined to
work through historical Israel and the Jewish nation, in order that His
word and promises might be vindicated before all men, He has preserved
Israel as a nation to this day, "not for your sake, O house of
Israel...but for the sake of my holy name" (Ezekiel 36:22). Thus, He
has kept their Hebrew culture and identity intact even in the most
unnatural circumstances of exile and persecution, and within the past
century caused a remnant of Israel to return to their national homeland,
and revived them as a nation among the nations in fulfillment of ancient
and never-cancelled prophecies of the Scriptures. All of this must be
seen by the believer, whether he comes from Hebrew or Gentile stock, as
a prelude to the spiritual circumcision, the spiritual Judaizing, of the
people of Israel.
In the Book of Deuteronomy, after Moses has outlined the prophetic
future of Israel in the context of national disobedience, exile,
persecution, and restoration, he states: "And the LORD your God will
circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring..."
(Deuteronomy 30:6). Thus, in the final analysis, the sovereignty of God
requires that the realization of Israel's spiritual destiny be not only self-
circumcision but also a circumcision that is made by God Himself. It is
this double aspect of the work of God which Paul and other biblical
writers had in mind when they dealt with the mystery of Israel's people
who were free agents to choose their way, and yet divine agents subject
to the overruling purpose of Providence. And the same principle applies
to the "ingrafted ones" who have become part of the Israel of God, no
longer "alienated from the commonwealth of Israel." Those wild
elements (from among the gentiles) who have freely chosen to become
ingrafted among the "alien" natural elements (the Jews) of the Olive
Tree, share its richness according to the sovereign purpose of God, but
they do not support the root or trunk; the reverse is true. "It is the root
that supports you," Paul reminds boastful Roman Christians.
Remember His promise to Abraham, the father of the faithful:
"Through you all the families (or nations) on earth will be blessed"
(Genesis 12:3; 18:18; 22:18). Through Jesus of Nazareth, the blessing of
Abraham was extended to the gentiles in practice, as Paul notes in his
letter to the Galatians: "The Scripture, foreseeing that God would
justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the Gospel beforehand to
Abraham, saying: 'Through you all the nations will be blessed.' So
then, those who are men of faith are blessed with Abraham who had
faith...that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come
upon the gentiles..." (Galatians 3:8,8,14). Nevertheless, it was certainly
NOT God's will that any believer in Jesus should be estranged from the
natural people of Israel, as many Christians believe or demonstrate by
their hostility to the Jewish people.
Now, in this regard, two mainstreams in the historic Church have been
prominent: One consists of those who have been utterly hostile to
historic Israel and who, in spirit--if not in letter--have resembled the
Second Century heretic, Marcion, who sought to detach the Gospel from
its Hebrew sources. The other consists of those who have taught that the
Church is the "New Israel" which completely replaces original Israel.
There is, however, a third stream, faithful both to the Hebrew roots of
Christian faith and to the universal teachings of the Church. Peter van
Woerden, who, as a member of the well-known ten Boom family of
Holland suffered much during World War II for rescuing Jews from the
Nazi genocide, has written: "All over the world there is now arising a
completely new type of Christian who knows that, because of their faith,
they are PART of Israel."
Since Gentiles who have entered into Abraham's faith have become
"fellow citizens" with the people of Israel, they have a new history, new
ancestors, a new focus on the Land of Israel, its people and culture. In
one sense, this link has been demonstrated in the often morbid and
perverse ways that sinful men have passionately fought over the holy
places in the Land of Israel and over control of the Holy Land and the
Holy City, and for rights and privileges politically and otherwise in the
God-centered Land. Yet, we who have come into this "commonwealth"
through Christ can in no way be said to replace Israel. Together with the
believing Jewish remnant, we are part of God's people, " a chosen race, a
royal priesthood, a holy nation" (I Peter 2:9), called like Abraham out of
heathen darkness to witness to the unsaved world. As members of the
Body of Christ, we are taken inside Israel, joined to the Jew Jesus, "for
salvation is of the Jews" (John 4:22). (Salvation is the very meaning of
the name of Jesus in Hebrew - YESHUA.) Our ancestors are also the
patriarchs of Israel, and Moses and Aaron and Miriam and Deborah, the
prophets and the psalmists, the sages and the writers and heroes of faith,
and "in the fulness of time," the Messiah, born of a Jewish mother,
"made like his [Jewish] brethren in every respect" (Hebrews 2:17),
followed by Jewish disciples and proclaimed by Jewish apostles. They
are all ours because, in the profoundest sense, we are converts to
Judaism, Judaism in its universal aspect.
It is not for nothing that Christians--or those called Christians--have been
agitated unceasingly over the "Jewish Question," either becoming
diabolically the chief instigators or perpetrators of violence against the
Jewish people or among their staunchest defenders and allies. One can
scarcely be neutral about a close kinship!
Likewise, it is not for nothing that a renewed stream (for it is not entirely
new) has entered the worldwide body of Christian believers. In our time,
men and women the world over are again identifying with the Jewish
people and their culture and ancestral language. These are folk within the
Body of Christ who realize that Hebrew and Hebrew culture provide a
key to understanding all that is dear and central to us as Christians.
Thousands of them are studying Hebrew with a motivation not unlike
that of generations of Jews who kept the sacred tongue alive for worship,
study, and literary communication, until "in the fulness of time" it could
be revived as a mother tongue as it has been so miraculously during the
past hundred years.

Hebrew is not quite the impenetrable language it is often made out to be.
It is, to a large extent, a phonetic language with a relatively small
vocabulary which requires far less command of words than, for example,
the complex and often quite irregular English language in which this is
being written. Hebrew is based on a relatively simple three-letter root
system which provides a sure-fire memory aid in the formation of
various verbs and nouns; nothing like the complexity of so many modern
European languages which require learning all kinds of words and forms
derived from a hodgepodge of sources. In English, we find words
borrowed from the most diverse sources, such as Celtic, Medieval
French, Anglo-Saxon, ancient Greek and Latin, not to overlook Oriental
languages where British sailors and colonists absorbed Hindi, Chinese,
Arabic and local dialects. While Hebrew in its modern revived form has
absorbed many "loan" words and phrases, these tend to come from the
basic international vocabulary shared by most modern languages--words
like "telephone," "televisia," "politica," "relevanti," and the like.
For the Christian, however, the main attraction that Hebrew has always
had is its tie to the Word of God. Obviously, except for that apocryphal
saint who opined that "if English was good enough for Moses and St.
Paul, it's good enough for me," most Christians are aware of the fact that
the books known as the "Old Testament," the largest section of Holy
Scripture and the basis for the New Testament, were composed in the
Hebrew language. A much lesser awareness exists about the impact of
Hebrew upon the writings of the New testament. How many Christians
realize that the name "Jesus" is a rather awkward transliteration of the
Hebrew name Yeshua--which literally means "salvation" and is a
shortened form of Yehoshua (Joshua)? Yeshua was Hellenized to
Iesous, and thence to "Jesus." This, of course, makes clear the play on
words in the very opening chapter of the Gospels (Matthew 1:21) in the
naming of Jesus: "for he [Yeshua] will save [yoshia] his people from
their sins," a typical Hebraic way of choosing a child's name. (Compare
the naming of Eve, Noah, Isaac, Moses, and many others, all derived
from Hebrew wordplay.)
We may also ask how often Christians are sensitive to the important
nuances of common New Testament language directly transliterated
from original Hebrew speech or documents. We may think of "Messiah"
(derived from the Hebrew Mashiakh, or "anointed One"), "Rabbi"
(derived from the Hebrew term of address meaning "My teacher"),
"Hosanna" (a recurrent phrase in the Temple prayers during the Feast of
Tabernacles meaning "Save! We beseech"), and "AMEN" (a common
Hebrew expletive in worship derived from a Hebrew root suggesting
trust, faithfulness, truth).
There are also many other common New testament phrases and words,
based on Hebrew terms, which have lost or shed some of their original
sense and led to confusion about their meaning. One thinks of the use of
"hell," "kingdom of heaven," or "baptism." Older translations of the New
Testament often used the word "hell" for Hades (Hebrew, Sheol,, the
abode of the dead; the grave) as well as for Gehenna (Hebrew
Gehinnom, the place of punishment for the wicked after death, derived
from the "Valley of Hinnom," near Jerusalem used as a receptacle for
refuse, fires being kept up to prevent pestilence).
Some scholars have come to recognize the importance of Hebrew for an
understanding of the New Testament books. This is true especially in
Israel where an increasingly bold study of this literature, free of
traditional Jewish-Christian polarization, is being made by masters of
Hebrew and Greek. Evidence is mounting to support the claim of
important New Testament scholars that nearly half the New Testament
(the first three Gospels and the first half of the Book of Acts) is based on
translations of sources produced originally in the Hebrew language.
At present, if you ask the average knowledgeable Christian what
language the Lord Jesus and his first disciples and followers spoke, the
response will more likely than not be "Aramaic." Some more
knowledgeable may hyphenate their reply and say "Judeo-Aramaic," a
dialect of this lingua franca of the ancient Middle East much affected
by biblical and rabbinic Hebrew. Why that response should be so
common among Christians is rather ironic and difficult to understand.
The New Testament clearly states that Jesus in his post-resurrection
appearance to the Apostle Paul on the road to Damascus spoke to him
"in the Hebrew language" (Acts 26:14) and that the same apostle spoke
to the throng assembled in the Jerusalem Temple in Hebrew (Acts 21:40;
22:2). "And when they heard that he addressed them in the Hebrew
language," the writer of Acts notes, "they became even quieter." And the
fact that it wasn't merely the sound of the sacred tongue that hushed
them (as it might have in later generations when Hebrew was confined to
the Synagogue and its rites and House of Study) is evident from the fact
that pandemonium broke loose when Paul told them in the Hebrew
language that God, the God of Israel, had sent him on a mission to the
Gentiles. The sacred tongue was a very living language during the days
of Jesus and the apostles.
Those who claim an Aramaic cultural milieu for that period have often
noted that our Gospels contain Aramaic words like Talitha cumi,
ephphatha, Rabboni, and a few others. But so do all the Hebrew books
of that period; for instance, the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Mishnah. Even
the Book of Jeremiah, dating from a much earlier period and
overwhelmingly Hebrew, includes a sentence in Aramaic (Jeremiah
10:11). Likewise, the Book of Genesis contains a two-word phrase
(Genesis 31:47). Nevertheless, Hebrew words in the Gospels far
outnumber the Aramaic words. Following is a selection of Hebrew
words that appear in the Greek text of the Gospels: Corban (Mark 7:11),
Sabbath (Matthew 12:1), Satan (Luke 10:18), mammon (Luke 16:9).
Raca (Matthew 5:22), bath (a wet measure, between 8 and 9 gallons,
Luke 16:6), kor (a dry measure, between 10 and 12 bushels, Luke 16:7),
zuneem (tares, Matthew 13:25), mor (myrrh, Luke 7:37), sheekmah
(sycamore, Luke 9:4), sheichar (strong drink, Luke 1:15), levnoah
(frankincense, Matthew 2:11), Wai (Woe! Matthew 23:13).
There is something, however, much more significant than a word count
for determining the original language of the sources of our Gospels. It is
the discovery of so many clearly Hebraic idioms and phrases scattered
through the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) and the first
half of the Book of Acts. Additionally, the clear Hebrew word order of
many sentences and paragraphs points to a Hebrew undertext for these
New Testament Scriptures. Unfortunately, many modern Bible
translations make it difficult to observe the "Hebraisms" by providing
paraphrases or "dynamic equivalents" rather than literal translations for
these rich Hebraic idioms and thought forms. In the process, much
original flavor of the teaching of the Lord is lost.
What did Jesus mean when he used expressions which don't make very
good literal Greek sense (nor English, for that matter), but do make
excellent Hebrew sense: "If your eye is evil..." (Matthew 6:23); or "If
they do this when the wood is green..." (Luke 23:31) or "Whatever you
bind (or loose) on earth will be bound (or loosed) in heaven" (Matthew
16:19).
While there are many typical sayings in the Gospels which are fairly
well understood (probably because of their clear connection to Old
Testament Hebrew wording), they are, strictly speaking, not normative
English. In good biblical Hebrew we find colorful descriptions of simple
acts like "looking" couched in circumlocution. When in Luke's Gospel
we read that a certain rich man "lifted up his eyes and saw" (Luke
16:23), that is a beautiful expression in classical Hebrew, but not in
classical or common Greek, any more than it is in English (making due
allowance for the impact of good King James on English speech). Many
other Gospel expressions expose the clear Hebraic understructure, which
a knowledge of Hebrew will disclose to us: "cast out your name as evil,"
"the appearance of his countenance was altered," "lay these sayings in
your ears," or "he set his face to go to ..."
Often whole sentences, even whole passages, of our Gospels translate
word for word right back into the original Hebrew. For instance, when
Jesus gave his commission to the seventy he sent out, he stated:
"Whatever house you enter, first say, 'Peace be to this house' ("house"
with the added Hebrew connotation of "household" or "family"). And if
a son of peace is there, your peace shall rest upon him; but if not, it shall
return to you" (Luke 10:5-6). This is a blend of beautiful Hebrew idioms,
a knowledge of which can greatly enrich our perception of the Gospels.
Indeed, now over three decades since the discovery of the Dead Sea
Scrolls, it is becoming increasingly evident that the spoken and written
language of the Jews of the Holy Land at the time of Jesus was Hebrew.
Even apocryphal books (1 Maccabees, Ben Sira, Judith, Tobit) and other
Jewish literature of the period (Jubilees, The Testaments of the Twelve
Patriarchs) which have come down to us in Greek versions have been
found to be translations from Hebrew into Greek for the Greek-speaking
jews of the Diaspora. Ben Sira (Ecclesiasticus), for example, was known
only in Greek until less than 90 years ago. Fragments of the Hebrew text
of this book then began to come to light, and today we have almost two-
thirds of the book in the original Hebrew, the most recent discovery in
1964 occurring at the Masada excavations in the Judean desert.
As more and more discoveries come to light and scholarly research into
ancient sources continues, we are learning that at least to the end of the
first century A.D., and even later, the principal language of the Jews in
the Holy Land was Hebrew. The Dead Sea Scrolls are almost entirely in
Hebrew; the Mishnah (the so-called "Oral Law") is in Hebrew; the later
rabbinic commentary on Scripture, the Midrash, is also mostly Hebrew.
Of the thousands of parables in the rabbinic literature, so consonant with
the style of Jesus' teaching, only two are in Aramaic, all the other being
Hebrew. All Jewish coins minted between 103 B.C. and A.D. 135 have
Hebrew inscriptions, except for one coin of Alexander Jannaeus. Papias,
Bishop of Hierapolis in Asia Minor (A.D. 105), has left an ancient
statement on the subject of the Hebrew connection to the New
Testament. "Matthew put down the words of the Lord in the Hebrew
language, and others have translated them, each as best he could."
On the basis of his study of Matthew's Gospel and other literature
contemporary with the Gospels, an Israeli scholar, Yehoshua M. Grintz,
in a monograph entitled "Hebrew as the Spoken and Written Language
in the Last Days of the Second Temple," has asserted that "Hebrew was
the only literary language of that time; and to this alone we can
attribute the fact that the new (Christian) sect of 'unlearned and
ignorant men' (Acts 4:13) set out to write its main book, intended for
its Jewish members, in this language." Grintz further pointed out that
Hebrew was a vehicle for communication with Jews who lived outside
the Land of Israel. Already at the beginning of the Christian era Hebrew
was a kind of lingua franca for the many-tongued Jewish Diaspora.
Recall, for example, the scene (described in the Book of Acts) of the
Jewish pilgrims in Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost: "... we hear, each
of us in his own native language" (Acts 2:8). Nevertheless, Hebrew
remained the language of Jewish Palestine and its masses of people
throughout the New Testament period and until the final revolt against
Rome in A.D. 13.
One would expect that the centrality of Hebrew to the biblical milieu,
extending even to "the unlearned and ignorant" hoi polloi out of which
the Christian movement emerged, would coax the mainstream of
Christian fellowship to be more than slightly interested in their Hebrew
matrix and sources. If even a fraction of the interest of the Christians
in the New Testament Greek studies were applied to Hebrew studies,
the results would be revolutionary. Why, then, should Christians so
seldom consider the study of Hebrew, which is even more vital than
Greek study for their perception of Scripture? Is it because
Christians so seldom realize who they really are in relation to their
Hebrew roots?
We would even dare add that there will be no permanence to many
ministries of the Church, especially those directed toward the comfort
and support of Israel in their homeland or in their various Diasporas,
unless and until those ministries place a strong emphasis on the study of
Hebrew. The Body of Christ on earth must recover or sharpen its
perception of its Hebrew identity and roots. The widespread study of
Hebrew among Christians grounded in Scripture is surely one of the
major vehicles for moving into that reawakening.

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David Bivin has lived in Israel since 1963, when he came to do graduate
studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. From 1970 to 1981, he
was director of the Hebrew Language Division of the American Ulpan,
and also director of the Modern Hebrew Department of the Institute of
Holy Land Studies on Mt. Zion. David is co-author of two books: Fluent
Biblical and Modern Hebrew, and Understanding the Difficult Words of
Jesus. He is now the publisher of Jerusalem Perspective, a monthly
report for lay people on current research in Israel into the words of
Jesus.
Since 1981, David has served as Yavo's Director of Research and
Education. David additionally serves as director of the Jerusalem
School for the Study of the Synoptic Gospels.