Switch-up! Is the hexagram the Star of Remphan? I did independent study on this. Amos 5:26 mentions the "star of your god" Chiun, later identified as Remphan, when no polygrams of any kind were associated with Israel! Pentagrams and later hexagrams came in primarily through the Pythagoreans. So this star is shown by inspiration not to be the hexagram! (I concluded the star in question was the bronze idol Nehushtan or its symbol.) This anachronism doesn't prove "Jews serve satan"; we know everyone of any race who doesn't serve God as he has revealed himself, through his true Messiah Jesus, is in some way serving satan (no dualism, just that satan claims and benefits from all service not directed to God).
Can Jews be saved? Only by accepting God revealed. I say one can accept God rightly as revealed in Tanakh as long as one has not personally rejected Jesus as Messiah. Before Jesus came, those without revelation showed whether they accepted or rejected God's testimony through nature by their behavior and conscience, Rom. 2:14-15. After that, Jews ended up in the place of being without the revelation of the identity of Messiah, and they can still be judged by the rule of whether their actions show acceptance or rejection of God: like any other people-group partly reached with the truth. I have hope for all such races as the Bible teaches. Besides the nearly a million Messianics, it's still possible today for a Jew to come to know God without knowing the Messiah's name if he has not rejected that Messiah (and they have not rejected him corporately, though a few individuals have done so personally). And that truth applies the same to any other unreached tribe or community that believes a Creator exists but doesn't know enough specifics about him. The real problem is that Christians exempt the Jews from this rule of evangelism that applies to every other people!
Switch-up! Jews are connected to Masons? Jackie, maybe. The faulty arguments from symbolism are unpersuasive (straightedge, 90 degrees, is not equilateral, 60 degrees). Masonry is a syncretism mostly of Abrahamic faiths, well of course it sounds Jewish, it also sounds Christian! No proof the GAOTU is "Moloch", as if we've interviewed the idols; we should just stick to our basic knowledge that all the satanic idols are connected. Then:
Switch-up! Jesus cursed the Jews in John 8? Actually, only those among the leaders who had first believed in him and then disputed and insulted him repeatedly (see the whole course of the chapter), not anywhere near the whole race. Of course we know physical descendants of Abraham aren't always spiritual heirs of Abraham, but they are not excluded from returning! Even Abrami cites 8:44 and misquotes as "The Jews are the sons of the devil"! If a Jewish rabbi can misunderstand the NT about the Jews, it's likely we can misunderstand the Talmud about Jesus! Rather, Jesus spoke to "those Jews which believed on him" who didn't accept his charge "continue in my word", 8:31. The gospel was preached by and among Jews, and many tens of thousands of them believed (literal myriads, Acts 21:20), and these Jews obviously were spiritual children of Abraham; so there was no racial curse from Jesus's preaching. In Acts 3-4, many of the very mob that called for his death came to be saved.
Who is the synagogue of satan? First, Jesus said they're not Jews. If we said he means they're not real spiritual Jews, well, then he'd mean some Jews in Philadelphia/Smyrna, but of course not the Christians from among the Jews. Jesus the Jew said this to John the Jew, so it cannot mean the whole race; it means a network that had infected these two cities only. We don't get to extrapolate this as a racial slur.
Who are the antichrists? The clever idea of limiting this to people that believe a messiah exists doesn't work in the other definitional passages. 1 John 4:3, 2 John 1:7 say who won't confess "Jesus Christ is come in the flesh" is an antichrist, so belief in "messiah" is no prerequisite to being antichrist, but rejection of the central message of Jesus.
Denying Jesus? Reuven Mann was willing to say, "If the claim is made that he's a Messiah, then he's a false Messiah." But note, the question is still out on whether he even claimed that, because the Messianic title in Judaism is so redefined onto the national deliverance aspect! So he carefully keeps himself off the hook of speaking directly against Jesus's title. But then Anderson goes to: "We know that that other messiah that's coming is the antichrist". Not quite that simple! Of course antichrist will deceive many Jews and many Gentiles, but there's no reason for many Jews and many Gentiles not to turn to Jesus at that hour too. They are not nationally pledged to either! Each individual will decide; the race has not decided. Rabbi Jeremy Gimpel's statement is similarly two-edged, and often heard: "We will all kneel before the king, do you know what I mean, whoever that is. So, your vision of that, you say it's the second coming." Literally, that means if it's Jesus, sobeit, we'll still only count it as his first coming as Messiah (a narrowing of definition shared by several in this video, but confusing to many Christians). Yet it can also permit a false messiah, and that is the range of openness that encourages our evangel.
So will all (the bulk of) Israel be saved? Anderson rightly points out the devil's antichrist strategy, but then misreads Rom. 11 as if it teaches the tautology that all the saved will be saved. No; he means "Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for; but the election [chosen] hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded." Physical Israel was split in two so the Gentiles could be brought in, and, once they are, Israel will receive its healing. Eschatologically, this happens a long time after sifting and testing by the initial deception of antichrist; but this complex plan to outwit the devil's scheme requires consulting many Scriptures so we often get only pieces of it.
Bless Israel? 2 John 1:9-11 cannot be taken as saying that to bless those without Christ is automatically to partake of their evil deeds, because Jesus says, "Bless them that curse you" (Matt. 5:44). (Rather, John is not speaking of general blessing, but those among people who "come ... unto you" (1:10), in context who present themselves as having a message for the church.) Hagee mistakenly said, "Everyone else ... needs to believe in Jesus ... but not Jews". I don't know if Hagee has moved on from that, or if it's a semantic game, but of course that sentiment as ordinarily understood does not ultimately bless Israel; they have the same need as any other nation. Instead, they can (see above) only be saved and "brothers" if they accept God on his own terms and not reject the Messiah at the time in their lives he is pleased to reveal himself to them. We want Jews to have the truth, requiring sensitivity to their desire not to be evangelized and skillful presentation of truth that overcomes their fear: this is why a slogan of Jews for Jesus is to make the Messiahship of Jesus an "unavoidable issue" for Jews worldwide.
Politics? Not that interested; yes, the Jewish-Evangelical lobby is strong, but it only works if both sides recognize the truths I'm pointing out, so they don't fall prey to Anderson's criticisms. The idea that Jehoshaphat of Judah was not to support Israel when it was ungodly may be a valid principle, though a bit misleading in presentation; but Christians take both sides on this nonessential question.
Does Israel have narrow citizenship laws and tight antimissionary provisions? Absolutely! Which makes it just another of the creative-access countries so familiar to spreaders of the truth of Jesus. Gay Tel Aviv, same point.
Kabbalah? Yes, Hagee said Washington wanted the hexagram and Shekhinah to be on the dollar (Washington only spoke of the great seal and it was Roosevelt who put it on the dollar; so that's overreach). The glory of God is Biblical and must be understood as it is, and it is called "shakan". So Shekhinah is not wrong if used consistent with Biblical glory. The masculinity of Father, Son, and Spirit is emphatic, but the occasional Scriptures that speak of his feminine aspects, most notably as Wisdom in Prov. 8-9, must be understood as they are presented: not as some sexual duality but as an expression of God's total overarching character. (Anderson implies a dangerous idea, that only males are in the image of God; rather, first usage (Gen. 1:26) is, "Let us make man in our image ... and let them have dominion", and "man" is "them".)
Genealogy (which turns out to be the last point besides the gospel): Much time wasted. One good point, there's high likelihood that many or most people have at least one Jewish person somewhere earlier in the tree; but that doesn't define Jewishness, which is determined only by matrilineality or conversion. The Jewish populace still has self-definition rights to determine who is a member, just like any other race that doesn't want to be watered down.
Spiritual covenant aspects have always stayed with the covenant people even as those people became largely Gentile and called "Christians"; national covenant aspects have always, like any national covenant, related solely to the physical and been passed down to a people as self-defined. The divergence of these two covenants leads to much mystery, resolved as soon as it is seen.
Jews are not satanist by birth; rabbinical Jews are not necessarily satanist by religion any more than any non-Christian religion. But the vast body of Jewish thought keeping many of them from committing outright rejection of Jesus as Messiah is neglected. It is because they have been entrusted with all the Hebrew Scriptures that they have, in every generation, all the tools the disciples had to come to faith in Jesus. As a people they have been in a holding pattern ever since, constantly forced to face the same question of Jesus's identity over all generations, as so many other nations pass them by in becoming evangelized with the good news. They are still an unreached people, in some ways the last one! They resist evangelism more than the remotest tribe, and with more power. Even if someone were to tell me directly he was a son of satan, I would still hold out hope for him while he is alive. I can do no less with the people from whom my Bible and my Messiah came.
Many tropes, choppy themes. The gospel to all races Jew and Gentile could've unified. The video ends with the gospel, but I daresay that the producers would've complied with the standard that all the Jews interviewed would've insisted, that their appearances would be predicated on the implicit condition that they not be "evangelized". Instead, give the same gospel to both Jew and Gentile, to escape the charge of believing (like Hagee is charged with thinking) that Jews are unwinnable to the current gospel. The producers seem to state that no Jews were evangelized during the making of this film. Maybe they believe it fruitless, that the people are too far gone.
Their goal is to claim the true Zion and "replace" all Jewish promises. But failing to see spiritual vs. national promise, the land covenant remains invisible to the producers. Then these slightly-spun points get used as fodder for spin beyond recognition and really monstrous racism, which Anderson avoids showing. So were the positive features, the interactive dialogue, the vignettes about Jewish oddities, the genealogical argument, worth the imbalance and spin? It's hard to say the strengths overcame the weaknesses. The need for remediation is much clearer than the effectiveness of the whole presentation.
Footnote: The Church of England has "some correction" to "chosen" Jews: "God’s will is for all people to enter into the renewed covenant in Christ’s blood .... Jewish people therefore need to discover and respond to this divine gift as God’s irrevocably chosen people" (p. 30 ff.). Concerns of fundamentalist members are held as legitimate to present to Jews without fear of reprisal. That's how it's done. Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis affirmed this, questioning only "targeting of Jews for conversion to Christianity." I answer, "Convert to God" (Ps. 51:13, shuv). Find God's new covenant in Messiah. They've never said it's impossible to return to unity or to continue dialogue.
How might dialogue with Jews proceed instead? In the Sanhedrin section of the Talmud, when all the rabbis are making puns about how the Messiah will be named after them, why doesn't Rabbi Yehoshua make a pun about his own name, but changes the subject instead? Is it for the same reason that Zechariah says that High Priest Yehoshua from his day would have a name connected with the Branch of God, the Messiah? Do the Jews still look for the prophet like unto Moshe, who appointed no successor other than General Yehoshua son of Nun? Why do the commentaries on the Talmud admit that there will be two Messiahs, not only the son of David who will reign, but also a "son of Joseph" (!) who will be humble? Why does the Talmud teach that there is a special Angel of the Lord who has the privilege to stand before the Lord as an equal, almost like the Son of Man in Daniel 7, even though it is taught that there is otherwise no such standing before the Lord? Why does Rabbi Simlai present arguments for the corporate unity of God when debating separatists who sound like early tritheists? Why did the rabbi in this video reiterate that the Shekhinah is One with God the Father and yet distinctions can be made between them, exactly as we speak of Spirit and Father? Why do rabbis act like they worship the Torah, especially in the annual festivals, not the synagogue scroll but the eternal Message of God it contains? Why does every Passover seder have exactly three matzah slices, where the second of three is broken in half, one half remaining with the others and the other half wrapped and hidden secretly, and then sought and found and brought out later as the last part of the meal, the "afikomen" (the one coming afterward), the last slice of unleavened bread presented with the last cups of wine, the same bread and wine that Jesus called his body and blood in that annual meal? Why do rabbis read Isaiah 52 and 54 in the prophetic cycle but not 53? Since the suffering servant of 53 is distinguished from sinful Israel and yet is also Israel, wouldn't that mean in fact that he represents the best of Israel, possibly the best one alone out of all Israel? How will Israel mourn for the one they have pierced as for a firstborn son, according to Zechariah? Can you see why I'm excited about the Jewish sources? Why does the Talmud say that everyone who approaches heaven will be asked by the Father, "Did you accept the salvation of my Messiah?"?
Switch-up! Is the hexagram the Star of Remphan? I did independent study on this. Amos 5:26 mentions the "star of your god" Chiun, later identified as Remphan, when no polygrams of any kind were associated with Israel! Pentagrams and later hexagrams came in primarily through the Pythagoreans. So this star is shown by inspiration not to be the hexagram! (I concluded the star in question was the bronze idol Nehushtan or its symbol.) This anachronism doesn't prove "Jews serve satan"; we know everyone of any race who doesn't serve God as he has revealed himself, through his true Messiah Jesus, is in some way serving satan (no dualism, just that satan claims and benefits from all service not directed to God).
Can Jews be saved? Only by accepting God revealed. I say one can accept God rightly as revealed in Tanakh as long as one has not personally rejected Jesus as Messiah. Before Jesus came, those without revelation showed whether they accepted or rejected God's testimony through nature by their behavior and conscience, Rom. 2:14-15. After that, Jews ended up in the place of being without the revelation of the identity of Messiah, and they can still be judged by the rule of whether their actions show acceptance or rejection of God: like any other people-group partly reached with the truth. I have hope for all such races as the Bible teaches. Besides the nearly a million Messianics, it's still possible today for a Jew to come to know God without knowing the Messiah's name if he has not rejected that Messiah (and they have not rejected him corporately, though a few individuals have done so personally). And that truth applies the same to any other unreached tribe or community that believes a Creator exists but doesn't know enough specifics about him. The real problem is that Christians exempt the Jews from this rule of evangelism that applies to every other people!
Switch-up! Jews are connected to Masons? Jackie, maybe. The faulty arguments from symbolism are unpersuasive (straightedge, 90 degrees, is not equilateral, 60 degrees). Masonry is a syncretism mostly of Abrahamic faiths, well of course it sounds Jewish, it also sounds Christian! No proof the GAOTU is "Moloch", as if we've interviewed the idols; we should just stick to our basic knowledge that all the satanic idols are connected. Then:
Switch-up! Jesus cursed the Jews in John 8? Actually, only those among the leaders who had first believed in him and then disputed and insulted him repeatedly (see the whole course of the chapter), not anywhere near the whole race. Of course we know physical descendants of Abraham aren't always spiritual heirs of Abraham, but they are not excluded from returning! Even Abrami cites 8:44 and misquotes as "The Jews are the sons of the devil"! If a Jewish rabbi can misunderstand the NT about the Jews, it's likely we can misunderstand the Talmud about Jesus! Rather, Jesus spoke to "those Jews which believed on him" who didn't accept his charge "continue in my word", 8:31. The gospel was preached by and among Jews, and many tens of thousands of them believed (literal myriads, Acts 21:20), and these Jews obviously were spiritual children of Abraham; so there was no racial curse from Jesus's preaching. In Acts 3-4, many of the very mob that called for his death came to be saved.
Who is the synagogue of satan? First, Jesus said they're not Jews. If we said he means they're not real spiritual Jews, well, then he'd mean some Jews in Philadelphia/Smyrna, but of course not the Christians from among the Jews. Jesus the Jew said this to John the Jew, so it cannot mean the whole race; it means a network that had infected these two cities only. We don't get to extrapolate this as a racial slur.
Who are the antichrists? The clever idea of limiting this to people that believe a messiah exists doesn't work in the other definitional passages. 1 John 4:3, 2 John 1:7 say who won't confess "Jesus Christ is come in the flesh" is an antichrist, so belief in "messiah" is no prerequisite to being antichrist, but rejection of the central message of Jesus.
Denying Jesus? Reuven Mann was willing to say, "If the claim is made that he's a Messiah, then he's a false Messiah." But note, the question is still out on whether he even claimed that, because the Messianic title in Judaism is so redefined onto the national deliverance aspect! So he carefully keeps himself off the hook of speaking directly against Jesus's title. But then Anderson goes to: "We know that that other messiah that's coming is the antichrist". Not quite that simple! Of course antichrist will deceive many Jews and many Gentiles, but there's no reason for many Jews and many Gentiles not to turn to Jesus at that hour too. They are not nationally pledged to either! Each individual will decide; the race has not decided. Rabbi Jeremy Gimpel's statement is similarly two-edged, and often heard: "We will all kneel before the king, do you know what I mean, whoever that is. So, your vision of that, you say it's the second coming." Literally, that means if it's Jesus, sobeit, we'll still only count it as his first coming as Messiah (a narrowing of definition shared by several in this video, but confusing to many Christians). Yet it can also permit a false messiah, and that is the range of openness that encourages our evangel.
So will all (the bulk of) Israel be saved? Anderson rightly points out the devil's antichrist strategy, but then misreads Rom. 11 as if it teaches the tautology that all the saved will be saved. No; he means "Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for; but the election [chosen] hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded." Physical Israel was split in two so the Gentiles could be brought in, and, once they are, Israel will receive its healing. Eschatologically, this happens a long time after sifting and testing by the initial deception of antichrist; but this complex plan to outwit the devil's scheme requires consulting many Scriptures so we often get only pieces of it.
Bless Israel? 2 John 1:9-11 cannot be taken as saying that to bless those without Christ is automatically to partake of their evil deeds, because Jesus says, "Bless them that curse you" (Matt. 5:44). (Rather, John is not speaking of general blessing, but those among people who "come ... unto you" (1:10), in context who present themselves as having a message for the church.) Hagee mistakenly said, "Everyone else ... needs to believe in Jesus ... but not Jews". I don't know if Hagee has moved on from that, or if it's a semantic game, but of course that sentiment as ordinarily understood does not ultimately bless Israel; they have the same need as any other nation. Instead, they can (see above) only be saved and "brothers" if they accept God on his own terms and not reject the Messiah at the time in their lives he is pleased to reveal himself to them. We want Jews to have the truth, requiring sensitivity to their desire not to be evangelized and skillful presentation of truth that overcomes their fear: this is why a slogan of Jews for Jesus is to make the Messiahship of Jesus an "unavoidable issue" for Jews worldwide.
Politics? Not that interested; yes, the Jewish-Evangelical lobby is strong, but it only works if both sides recognize the truths I'm pointing out, so they don't fall prey to Anderson's criticisms. The idea that Jehoshaphat of Judah was not to support Israel when it was ungodly may be a valid principle, though a bit misleading in presentation; but Christians take both sides on this nonessential question.
Does Israel have narrow citizenship laws and tight antimissionary provisions? Absolutely! Which makes it just another of the creative-access countries so familiar to spreaders of the truth of Jesus. Gay Tel Aviv, same point.
Kabbalah? Yes, Hagee said Washington wanted the hexagram and Shekhinah to be on the dollar (Washington only spoke of the great seal and it was Roosevelt who put it on the dollar; so that's overreach). The glory of God is Biblical and must be understood as it is, and it is called "shakan". So Shekhinah is not wrong if used consistent with Biblical glory. The masculinity of Father, Son, and Spirit is emphatic, but the occasional Scriptures that speak of his feminine aspects, most notably as Wisdom in Prov. 8-9, must be understood as they are presented: not as some sexual duality but as an expression of God's total overarching character. (Anderson implies a dangerous idea, that only males are in the image of God; rather, first usage (Gen. 1:26) is, "Let us make man in our image ... and let them have dominion", and "man" is "them".)
Genealogy (which turns out to be the last point besides the gospel): Much time wasted. One good point, there's high likelihood that many or most people have at least one Jewish person somewhere earlier in the tree; but that doesn't define Jewishness, which is determined only by matrilineality or conversion. The Jewish populace still has self-definition rights to determine who is a member, just like any other race that doesn't want to be watered down.
Spiritual covenant aspects have always stayed with the covenant people even as those people became largely Gentile and called "Christians"; national covenant aspects have always, like any national covenant, related solely to the physical and been passed down to a people as self-defined. The divergence of these two covenants leads to much mystery, resolved as soon as it is seen.
Jews are not satanist by birth; rabbinical Jews are not necessarily satanist by religion any more than any non-Christian religion. But the vast body of Jewish thought keeping many of them from committing outright rejection of Jesus as Messiah is neglected. It is because they have been entrusted with all the Hebrew Scriptures that they have, in every generation, all the tools the disciples had to come to faith in Jesus. As a people they have been in a holding pattern ever since, constantly forced to face the same question of Jesus's identity over all generations, as so many other nations pass them by in becoming evangelized with the good news. They are still an unreached people, in some ways the last one! They resist evangelism more than the remotest tribe, and with more power. Even if someone were to tell me directly he was a son of satan, I would still hold out hope for him while he is alive. I can do no less with the people from whom my Bible and my Messiah came.
Many tropes, choppy themes. The gospel to all races Jew and Gentile could've unified. The video ends with the gospel, but I daresay that the producers would've complied with the standard that all the Jews interviewed would've insisted, that their appearances would be predicated on the implicit condition that they not be "evangelized". Instead, give the same gospel to both Jew and Gentile, to escape the charge of believing (like Hagee is charged with thinking) that Jews are unwinnable to the current gospel. The producers seem to state that no Jews were evangelized during the making of this film. Maybe they believe it fruitless, that the people are too far gone.
Their goal is to claim the true Zion and "replace" all Jewish promises. But failing to see spiritual vs. national promise, the land covenant remains invisible to the producers. Then these slightly-spun points get used as fodder for spin beyond recognition and really monstrous racism, which Anderson avoids showing. So were the positive features, the interactive dialogue, the vignettes about Jewish oddities, the genealogical argument, worth the imbalance and spin? It's hard to say the strengths overcame the weaknesses. The need for remediation is much clearer than the effectiveness of the whole presentation.
Footnote: The Church of England has "some correction" to "chosen" Jews: "God’s will is for all people to enter into the renewed covenant in Christ’s blood .... Jewish people therefore need to discover and respond to this divine gift as God’s irrevocably chosen people" (p. 30 ff.). Concerns of fundamentalist members are held as legitimate to present to Jews without fear of reprisal. That's how it's done. Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis affirmed this, questioning only "targeting of Jews for conversion to Christianity." I answer, "Convert to God" (Ps. 51:13, shuv). Find God's new covenant in Messiah. They've never said it's impossible to return to unity or to continue dialogue.
How might dialogue with Jews proceed instead? In the Sanhedrin section of the Talmud, when all the rabbis are making puns about how the Messiah will be named after them, why doesn't Rabbi Yehoshua make a pun about his own name, but changes the subject instead? Is it for the same reason that Zechariah says that High Priest Yehoshua from his day would have a name connected with the Branch of God, the Messiah? Do the Jews still look for the prophet like unto Moshe, who appointed no successor other than General Yehoshua son of Nun? Why do the commentaries on the Talmud admit that there will be two Messiahs, not only the son of David who will reign, but also a "son of Joseph" (!) who will be humble? Why does the Talmud teach that there is a special Angel of the Lord who has the privilege to stand before the Lord as an equal, almost like the Son of Man in Daniel 7, even though it is taught that there is otherwise no such standing before the Lord? Why does Rabbi Simlai present arguments for the corporate unity of God when debating separatists who sound like early tritheists? Why did the rabbi in this video reiterate that the Shekhinah is One with God the Father and yet distinctions can be made between them, exactly as we speak of Spirit and Father? Why do rabbis act like they worship the Torah, especially in the annual festivals, not the synagogue scroll but the eternal Message of God it contains? Why does every Passover seder have exactly three matzah slices, where the second of three is broken in half, one half remaining with the others and the other half wrapped and hidden secretly, and then sought and found and brought out later as the last part of the meal, the "afikomen" (the one coming afterward), the last slice of unleavened bread presented with the last cups of wine, the same bread and wine that Jesus called his body and blood in that annual meal? Why do rabbis read Isaiah 52 and 54 in the prophetic cycle but not 53? Since the suffering servant of 53 is distinguished from sinful Israel and yet is also Israel, wouldn't that mean in fact that he represents the best of Israel, possibly the best one alone out of all Israel? How will Israel mourn for the one they have pierced as for a firstborn son, according to Zechariah? Can you see why I'm excited about the Jewish sources? Why does the Talmud say that everyone who approaches heaven will be asked by the Father, "Did you accept the salvation of my Messiah?"?