Hebrew and the OT

[ContinuingCorletta]

I didn't know what to categorize this question/ discussion under, and because Christianity stems from Judaism and the Hebrew OT, I thought it could go under this category. I have a Jewish friend who tells me that I can't understand the Old Testament unless I read it in Hebrew. She says that there is a numerical way of understanding the Hebrew Bible (our OT). Although I believe that God isn't limited by language to communicate His truth to us, my friend believes that we cannot understand the meaning of the OT if we merely read it in English. She says that in Isaiah 9, virgin isn't the correct translation. Can anyone help me to understand the Hebrew number system because I don't know what she is talking about and I want to learn what I can to help her know that Jesus is the Messiah. Thank you for your help.

[Who me]

Sorry I no nothing about Hebrew. If your friend is fluent  in Hebrew asher for help, otherwise contact your local synagogue as they will have language  classes. 

Your minister might b3 able to lend you some basic books on Hebrew as most touch it in theological college. 

[hopper]

Knowing the original languages of the Christian Scriptures can indeed be helpful, but it's much more nuanced than that. We learn more each day about that ancient culture and the Biblical languages, but I'd hope your Jewish friend would also include an aspect of spiritual understanding given by God Himself, and even today's religious Jews also rely upon such interpretive guidance as the Talmud, Mishnah, Midrash, commentaries and more for clarity. 

Your friend needs the Holy Spirit to covert the mind and heart to a rightful and salvific understanding. She's insisting you need to understand Hebrew, and Christians might insist she needs the Spirit of God for understanding eyes to be opened. 

I too have a Jewish friend, prominent online, but completely rejecting of Christ as Messiah. No amount of arguing or apologetic will persuade him, and I've always sorrowfully known this. My main recourse is prayer for my friend and keeping the avenues of communication open. 

Getting into discussions of how "virgin" can mean "young woman", the rather fascinating numerology of Hebrew, or the now hundreds of English translations and interlinear presentations of the Hebrew Scriptures may indeed help in ongoing avenues of communication, but without transformative insights from God Himself through the Holy Spirit your friend will continue to be lost, just as she may feel you are. 

The best you may do outside of prayer is to remain a steadfast friend with her awareness of your urgency for her eternal soul and well-being. 

[ContinuingCorletta]

11 hours ago, hopper said:

Knowing the original languages of the Christian Scriptures can indeed be helpful, but it's much more nuanced than that. We learn more each day about that ancient culture and the Biblical languages, but I'd hope your Jewish friend would also include an aspect of spiritual understanding given by God Himself, and even today's religious Jews also rely upon such interpretive guidance as the Talmud, Mishnah, Midrash, commentaries and more for clarity. 

Your friend needs the Holy Spirit to covert the mind and heart to a rightful and salvific understanding. She's insisting you need to understand Hebrew, and Christians might insist she needs the Spirit of God for understanding eyes to be opened. 

I too have a Jewish friend, prominent online, but completely rejecting of Christ as Messiah. No amount of arguing or apologetic will persuade him, and I've always sorrowfully known this. My main recourse is prayer for my friend and keeping the avenues of communication open. 

Getting into discussions of how "virgin" can mean "young woman", the rather fascinating numerology of Hebrew, or the now hundreds of English translations and interlinear presentations of the Hebrew Scriptures may indeed help in ongoing avenues of communication, but without transformative insights from God Himself through the Holy Spirit your friend will continue to be lost, just as she may feel you are. 

The best you may do outside of prayer is to remain a steadfast friend with her awareness of your urgency for her eternal soul and well-being. 

Thank you for sharing. Please pray for her. Her name is Wendy.

[hopper]

I will pray for Wendy. 

There are a couple of sites I'll point you to (I hope it's allowed) to give you an idea of the depth of what she's claiming. Of course, Jesus and the Disciples basically had the Tanakh (OT) from which to declare Jesus as Messiah, so it isn't all that difficult to proclaim the New Covenant from the Old and 'prove' Jesus from the Old Testament, though I'm not sure Wendy is prepared for that.

https://www.easylearnhebrew.com/blog/how-to-understand-hebrew-numbers-a-simple-guide-for-beginners/

https://zondervanacademic.com/blog/hebrew-numbers

Also, there's much modern talk of 'Bibles codes'. I won't get into those, but she may have some notion of those as well. Your concern to learn from or for her may also be a thing used by the Holy Spirit in her regard, but don't think it's really the nuances of Biblical Hebrew or original languages that's tripping her up. Jews have their eyes covered a bit when it comes to Jesus as Messiah, though most religious Jews are quite prepared to soon see Messiah with all that's happening in the world. 

[Luther]

On 12/31/2024 at 8:03 PM, ContinuingCorletta said:

I didn't know what to categorize this question/ discussion under, and because Christianity stems from Judaism and the Hebrew OT, I thought it could go under this category. I have a Jewish friend who tells me that I can't understand the Old Testament unless I read it in Hebrew. She says that there is a numerical way of understanding the Hebrew Bible (our OT). Although I believe that God isn't limited by language to communicate His truth to us, my friend believes that we cannot understand the meaning of the OT if we merely read it in English. She says that in Isaiah 9, virgin isn't the correct translation. Can anyone help me to understand the Hebrew number system because I don't know what she is talking about and I want to learn what I can to help her know that Jesus is the Messiah. Thank you for your help.

The only thing you can do is pray for her salvation. As long as she remains in Judaism, the talmud ( teachings not from God) will always take precedence over the Old Testament.  

(Excerpt from Wikipedia):

"While a Jew can technically read and understand the basic narrative of the Hebrew Bible without the Talmud, fully comprehending its meaning and applying it to daily life within the framework of Jewish law is significantly easier with the Talmud, as it provides detailed interpretations and explanations of the often-ambiguous passages in the Bible, making it a crucial text for most observant Jews to fully grasp the scripture"

The only way to " grasp scripture" is through the guidance of the Holy Spirit. We pray for her. 

Edited January 4 by Luther
Needed to add to it

[farouk]

On 1/2/2025 at 1:16 PM, hopper said:

Knowing the original languages of the Christian Scriptures can indeed be helpful, but it's much more nuanced than that. We learn more each day about that ancient culture and the Biblical languages, but I'd hope your Jewish friend would also include an aspect of spiritual understanding given by God Himself, and even today's religious Jews also rely upon such interpretive guidance as the Talmud, Mishnah, Midrash, commentaries and more for clarity. 

Your friend needs the Holy Spirit to covert the mind and heart to a rightful and salvific understanding. She's insisting you need to understand Hebrew, and Christians might insist she needs the Spirit of God for understanding eyes to be opened. 

I too have a Jewish friend, prominent online, but completely rejecting of Christ as Messiah. No amount of arguing or apologetic will persuade him, and I've always sorrowfully known this. My main recourse is prayer for my friend and keeping the avenues of communication open. 

Getting into discussions of how "virgin" can mean "young woman", the rather fascinating numerology of Hebrew, or the now hundreds of English translations and interlinear presentations of the Hebrew Scriptures may indeed help in ongoing avenues of communication, but without transformative insights from God Himself through the Holy Spirit your friend will continue to be lost, just as she may feel you are. 

The best you may do outside of prayer is to remain a steadfast friend with her awareness of your urgency for her eternal soul and well-being. 

Hi @hopper. While passages such as Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22 are so clear about the Person and Work of Christ, it is necessary indeed for the Spirit of God truly to give light and understanding.

[timf]

Isa_7:14  Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

Virgin = ‛almâh = a lass (as veiled or private): - damsel, maid, virgin.

An unmarried woman would be presumed to be virginal. Some attempting to "prove" that the word does not mean virgin cite the verse in proverbs;

Pro 30:19  The way of an eagle in the air; the way of a serpent upon a rock; the way of a ship in the midst of the sea; and the way of a man with a maid.

However, the way of a man with a virgin on their wedding night may be in view and not necessarily change the meaning of virgin.

[unworthyservant]

On 12/31/2024 at 8:03 PM, ContinuingCorletta said:

I didn't know what to categorize this question/ discussion under, and because Christianity stems from Judaism and the Hebrew OT, I thought it could go under this category. I have a Jewish friend who tells me that I can't understand the Old Testament unless I read it in Hebrew. She says that there is a numerical way of understanding the Hebrew Bible (our OT). Although I believe that God isn't limited by language to communicate His truth to us, my friend believes that we cannot understand the meaning of the OT if we merely read it in English. She says that in Isaiah 9, virgin isn't the correct translation. Can anyone help me to understand the Hebrew number system because I don't know what she is talking about and I want to learn what I can to help her know that Jesus is the Messiah. Thank you for your help.

I believe your friend is probably speaking of "gematria". It is an ancient numerology system. According to Aristotle, it was used in the the Pythagorean Era with the Greek language.   The first documented evidence use of it in the Hebrew is from around 800 BCE. It was used in the Talmud and Midrash. It is still used by Jewish scholars today. It's a quite confusing system and would take some time to master, I'm sure. It involves reading words, phrases and sentences as numbers and assigning numerical instead of phonetic values to each letter of the Hebrew alphabet and comparing the numbers with other words, phrases or sentences. Quite mystic if you ask me.

The only other numbering system with which I am familiar is the one from Strong's Concordance where it assigns a number to every Hebrew and Greek word found in the Bible for easy reference. The numbering system found there has been used by pretty much every Hebrew lexicon since it came out.