????️ print-friendly PDF

If you haven’t yet watched The Chosen, make it a point to do so! I usually find Christian movies to be somewhat boring and difficult to get into. But not this one. It’s fun to watch, the characters are well-developed, and the people act like, well, people!

Another thing I really like is that The Chosen portrays the characters in a realistic cultural context. Jesus is a Jewish guy, doing Jewish things, as are the Jewish people around him. The creators of this series don’t seem to fear the Jewishness of the New Testament.

Dallas Jenkins, the show’s director and co-writer consults a Messianic Jewish rabbi, Rabbi Jason Sobel, among others, to achieve the most realistic and Biblically accurate story possible.

There are many interesting and enlightening things I find in this series that I would have missed before my journey on the Hebrew Roots path, however. I’d like to expand on some of these as they may be unnoticed or easily dismissed but add so much to the series when understood.

Who is Adonai?

When Mary Magdalene is a little girl, she and her father pray the “prayer of Adonai“. What they’re praying is from Isaiah 43:1. Most of your translations will say something similar to this:

But now, thus says the LORD, your Creator, O Jacob, And He who formed you, O Israel, “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name; you are Mine!

Isaiah 43:1

In the original Hebrew for this verse, the word translated “LORD” is יהוה, God’s name. This could be translated “Yahweh” or “Yehovah” but it’s out of respect that it’s traditionally read as “Adonai” when reading it in the Hebrew scriptures.

The word “adonai” means “god” or “lord”. Just like we use the word “god” to mean “our God” or just any “god”, the word “adonai” can mean THE God or can be a term of respect, like when a commoner addresses a member of royalty.

In this case, they refer to God as “Adonai” just as we call Him “God”.

City of Capernaum

This episode takes place in Capernaum, where Matthew, Peter, Andrew, James, and John were from. During Jesus’s time, the fishing village of Capernaum was under Roman rule, which explains the Roman soldiers roaming around and giving much grief to the Jewish people on the show.

Who is Quintus?

In this episode, we meet Quintus, a Roman soldier that served Pilate. But who is he? Is he in the Bible or is he a made-up character?

Although Quintus is not mentioned in the Bible, his name, meaning “fifth” was a common name for a Roman male fifth child. According to the writings of Josephus (The War of the Jews), the books of the Maccabees, as well as archeological sources, there are multiple accounts of a Roman soldier named Quintus. One of these worked under Quirinius, who is mentioned in the Bible near the time of Jesus’s birth.

I’m not sure exactly which Quintus is portrayed in The Chosen but it certainly is a realistic name for a character, historically. If you know more about Quintus’s character, share with the rest of us in the comments!

What are Nicodemus and His Students Wearing?

Aside from being a very cool theatrical addition, Nicodemus’s outfit has meaning and is the traditional dress for a Pharisee and member of the Sanhedrin of that time.

All of Nicodemus’s students, as well as other Jewish men in The Chosen, are wearing a prayer shawl called a tallit (tall-eet), with fringes on it called tzitzit (tzeet-tzeet). On the tallit, there’s often an embroidered blessing. This is usually the tallit blessing in reference to the command in Numbers 15:37-41:

Blessed are You, LORD, our God, Master of the Universe, who has sanctified us with Your commandments (mitzvoth) and commanded us to wrap ourselves in the fringed garment (tzitzit).

A tallit is worn in order to adhere to the command to wear tzitzit, which also is a reminder and a symbol of us being surrounded by God, protected by Him, and of His commandments.

What is a Torah Room?

At one point in this episode, Nicodemus says to Shmuel (Samuel), “A fine Torah room is the heartbeat of a fine synagogue, Shmuel.”

Today, a Torah room is a place to inspect Torah scrolls for quality. Those working in the Torah room ensure the scrolls are intact and legible. Torah rooms are where these valuable scrolls are stored and preserved.

Why Do the Women Cover Their Heads?

Women covered their heads in Bible times as a custom in their culture. While not a law they were required to follow, it was considered shameful to have their heads uncovered. Married women covered their heads out of modesty and many Jewish (and some Christian) people still do this today, some whenever they’re in public and others just in synagogues.

Hebrew Vandalism

The writing on the wall Nicodemus and the soldiers pass on the way to the Red District is in Hebrew. It says “the Messiah will overthrow the Romans” or, in Hebrew, המשח יהרוס את הרומאים (Hamaschiach yaharos et haromanim). At this time, the Romans were in power in Capernaum and surrounding areas and, as you can see in the story, were oppressive to the Jewish people.

Exorcism Scene

When Nicodemus is being taken to the Red District for Mary Magdalene’s attempted exorcism, he passes pigs on the way. This indicates that this is a pagan area, as pigs are considered unclean animals.

When Nicodemus figures out Mary’s possessed by a demon, he asks for Sulfur, Nettles, Hyssop, and Wormwood. He needs these items because he intends to drive the demons out, reportedly by way of fumigation. Smoke and sulfur are used to drive them out. The other items have different purposes in the exorcism procedure as well. The hyssop, for example, is for cleansing.

The All Powerful El Shaddai

It’s in the name of the “All Powerful El Shaddai” that Nicodemus casts out the demon indwelling Mary. One of the most sacred names for God in Judaism, you’ll also find El Shaddai in your own Bible. In Genesis 17:1, God uses this name for Himself when establishing His covenant with Abram. It means “all sufficient God”.

Shabbat Dinner

Shabbat is the Hebrew word for Sabbath, as in the Sabbath day. This refers to Saturday, which is Yom Shabbat in Hebrew. On the Hebrew calendar, days begin the evening before, similar to how our days begin at 12:00 am, which is technically the night before, right? So, Shabbat, the Sabbath Day, begins on Friday.

Simon and Andrew discuss attending Eema’s Shabbat dinner and Simon’s wife mentions it later as well. Why is this so important? Doesn’t Shabbat dinner happen every week? What’s wrong with missing a week?

Shabbat dinner is a wonderfully sacred time in a Jewish household. Just after sundown, candles are lit, blessings are said, songs are sung, and families everywhere come together to “remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy”. These traditions, some thousands of years old, serve to set apart the Sabbath and to honor the command to keep it.

Yes, it’s done every week but Simon and Andrew didn’t want to miss it because, well no one does! It’s a celebration – a time to leave the hardship and the grind behind and settle down to focus on God and the people you love.

Who’s Eema?

We hear of Eema, not only when they discuss Shabbat Dinner, but also when Eden, Simon’s wife is “staying at her Eema’s tonight”. Eema is the Hebrew word for “mom”. In this case, they’re referring to Eden’s mom, Simon’s mother-in-law.

The Chosen is rich with a cultural context that’s rare to find elsewhere. It brings to life the characters in the Bible , helping our Western minds to grasp what it may have been like in Jesus’s time. It’s so well done! Stay tuned for Explaining The Chosen: Episode 2: Shabbat!

Yeshua: A Guide to the Real Jesus and the Original Church

As my family and I have grown in our Christian faith and embraced the Hebrew Roots of that faith, I’ve found so many benefits along our journey! It’s put to rest some of the inconsistencies that have bothered me about the Christian faith as well as given me a better understanding of the Scriptures, our Savior, and of God! Here are the main benefits I’ve noticed of this perspective on my faith.

1. It clarifies the continuity between the Old and New Testaments. 

Many regard the Old and New Testaments to be separate books, with separate stories, maybe even with different Gods. Although most Christians will say they believe Bible to be the inspired word of God in its entirety, some even go so far as to consider the Old Testament irrelevant to our faith. I used to embrace this belief and it led to colossal misunderstandings of God, Jesus, salvation, the Bible, and many other concepts.

The truth is that the whole Bible is one story of one God and His people. There is no “God of the Old Testament” as I have heard Him described. God is the same as He was then and we can expect Him to be the same in the future.

When the Bible tells of God’s people in the Old Testament, it also refers to us as Believers because we’re grafted in to the promises of God through our faith in Jesus.

Both Testaments are not only relevant to our faith, they each contain concepts that we must apply to our lives as Believers in Christ. While most of us can see the relevance of the New Testament clearly, some see the Old Testament as difficult to understand, outdated, and harsh.

But without a solid understanding of the Old Testament, we cannot fully understand the New. It was in the Old Testament that the roots were laid – for the Messiah, Israel (both the people and the land), for the church, and for the future.

The complete story can’t be found in the New Testament alone and interpreting the Old Testament in light of the New is backward and will lead to much confusion and misinterpretation. I have very recently found a simple way to understand the strong connection between the two Testaments in the version of the Bible called The Scriptures. It puts in bold the parts of the New Testament that are directly from the Old Testament and there’s a LOT of bold!

2. Jesus’s words are easier to understand. 

While it may be difficult for some Christians to get their heads around (it was for me at first!), Jesus is very, very Jewish. The thought that once blew my mind is that he’ll STILL be Jewish when he returns!

With that in mind, how can we interpret what Jesus says from the mindset of American culture? For example, when Jesus is asked what the most important commandment is, his response includes the words of the Shema, Deuteronomy 6:4-9, which is recited at least twice daily by Orthodox Jews, both today and in Jesus’s time. His audience would have easily recognized his response as the familiar words of the Shema.

Jesus said that all of the rest of the Law and prophets (the Old Testament) hung on these words. With an understanding of the Shema and its prominent place in Jewish life, no one in his audience would have interpreted him as saying that these were now the only two laws that applied, as some believe today. They would have seen, as many do, that this verse shows us that loving God is following His commands – all of them!

3. Paul’s writings no longer seem to contradict one another. 

I’ve always found Paul’s letters, particularly when he writes about the Law, to be confusing. I’m not the only one. Even Peter notes in 2 Peter 3:3 that Paul’s writing is confusing to some. Here are two excerpts from Paul’s writings as an example:

Now that no one is justified by the Law before God is evident…

Galatians 3:11

And

…for it is not the hearers of the Law who are just before God, but the doers of the Law will be justified.

Romans 2:13

And Paul appears to not only have contradicted himself but to have contradicted Jesus as well! Jesus says that he didn’t come to abolish the Law (Matt. 5:17-19) and then Paul says that Jesus abolished the Law (Eph. 2:14-15).

The common Christian interpretation takes the position that the Law has been abolished and interprets these and other verses with that understanding. They hold Jesus’s words up to Paul’s and take the position that Jesus must have meant something else when he contradicted Paul. But when you take the words of Jesus and the rest of the Bible as the authority for interpretation of Paul’s words, a very different result is reached.

Even though his writings confuse many due to the different types of laws he refers to and his differing audiences, Paul believes (as do many Hebrew Roots Christians and Messianic Jews) that, while our adherence to the Law doesn’t save us, it is the code we should adhere to after salvation out of sanctification and growth in righteousness. I’ll say it again because this is the point where the Hebrew Roots Movement tends to lose a lot of Christians – following the Law does NOT save us. But it is the way we should live as God’s redeemed people.

4. God’s Laws can be seen as blessings instead of constraints. 

Biblically, God’s Laws are good but many see them instead as negative and as constraints put on the lives of those before us just to show us what sin is and that we can’t live up to what God desires of us. But that’s not what God says about them. Here are some verses that show us how God views His Laws for us (emphasis mine):

The law of the LORD is perfect, restoring the soul…

Psalm 19:7

How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers! But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and in His law he meditates day and night.

Psalm 1:1-2

Oh that they had such a heart in them, that they would fear Me and keep all My commandments always, that it may be well with them and with their sons forever!

Deuteronomy 5:29

The entire chapter of Psalm 119 has wonderful things to say about God’s Law and so do many, many other places in the Bible! Although they don’t have the power to save us, God’s Laws are the best way to live as His people and they are a blessing to us!

5. God gets the glory. 

Reverence for God, His name, His Word, and His Law are all major themes when Christianity is practiced from a Hebrew Roots perspective.

Many have returned to using the tetragrammaton (יהוה or Yahweh, as it’s most commonly pronounced) to refer to God or even to not saying or writing a name for Him at all. This is done out of reverence as well as out of obedience to the third commandment. While some may see this as impersonal, it comes as a result of faith in and awe and reverent fear of the God of the universe.

As I stated in #1 above, the Hebrew Roots perspective gives equal weight to the Old and New Testaments. The Torah (the Bible’s first five books) and the words of the prophets are extensively referred to in the New Testament. In synagogues, these precious books of the Old Testament are studied and celebrated weekly! It glorifies God to take all of His words as applicable to our lives and our faith.

When His Word says that His Laws are “perfect” and that we should “delight” in them and many other positive things, we don’t glorify Him if we make them out to be negative constraints that God set up to trap us. We can rest in the trust that God gave His Laws because He knows what’s best for us as people belonging to Him.

6. Otherwise confusing cultural customs become clearly relevant. 

Take, for example, when the Holy Spirit was given to the Apostles. What they were celebrating when that happened was Shavuot. This is the time they celebrated God giving His Law to His people. With this background, they would’ve clearly understood the giving of the Holy Spirit as fulfillment of prophecy (Jere. 31:33). They would have seen that those same Laws they celebrated were the very ones being written on their hearts that day.

Celebrating Shavuot as a Christian puts the connection between the Law and the Holy Spirit in perspective. Rather than the Holy Spirit replacing the Law, it instead helps us be able to obey, since those Laws are now within us and have become a part of us.

7. Study of the Bible in its original languages brings clarity that no translation can.

Most Christians who have a Hebrew Roots perspective to their faith are at some level of learning the Hebrew and Greek languages to aid in their Bible studies. The Old Testament, written largely in Hebrew, cannot be fully understood from merely studying it in its translated form. Hebrew doesn’t translate seamlessly to English as there are some Hebrew words that cannot be fully expressed in our language.

I often use the well-known Hebrew word for peace as an example of this. In Hebrew, shalom is the word for peace.  Shalom doesn’t just mean peace though.  Its full Hebrew meaning encompasses completeness, welfare, prosperity, perfection, soundness, safety, health, and more.  Yet when translated into English almost everywhere it appears in the bible, in nearly every English bible translation, it is merely translated as “peace”, leaving the reader to interpret the meaning as simply that.

Learning Hebrew has great benefit to our Christian faith in that it aids our understanding of the Bible. Although there are great English translations of the Bible, none of them compare in accuracy to the original texts.

8. Jesus is celebrated year-round.

Celebrating the Biblical Holy Days, which all point to Jesus in some way, is a great benefit to our faith! Seven times a year (and on the Sabbath), we can look to these Days to remind us of Jesus – who he is, what he’s done for us, and what he will do in the future!

Here’s a summary of the Holy Days and their relevance to Jesus:

The Sabbath/Shabbat: Jesus is our Sabbath rest. Out of mercy, he covered our sin so we can escape the eternal punishment we deserve.

Pesach/Passover: Jesus is our Passover Lamb. His blood is what protects us from God’s just wrath.

Chag HaMatzot/Unleavened Bread: Being without sin, Jesus is the only “unleavened” one fit to take the place of sacrifice for our sin.

HaBikkurim/First Fruits: Jesus is our first fruits offering. Through him, we look forward to the future harvest, his resurrection, and to his eventual rule over the earth!

Shavuot/Pentecost: Jesus was the Word with us here on earth and left so that we could have the Spirit and the “Word” was then written on our hearts.

Yom Teruah/Rosh Hashanah: We look forward to the trumpet blasts that will occur when Jesus returns.

Yom Kippur/Day of Atonement: Because of Jesus, we can appear before God and commune with Him.

Sukkot/Feast of Tabernacles: Jesus came to earth and “tabernacled” with us.

9. Believing Jews and Christians can be one in Jesus.

Jesus didn’t come to earth to start a new religion. He came to be the sacrifice necessary to bridge the gap we created between us and God through sin. He came as the Messiah for Israel and we, as Gentile Christians, are grafted in to the promises God gave to His people Israel.

Christians and Jews weren’t meant to be separate but one body in Jesus. In communities of Hebrew Roots Christians and Messianic Jews, this complete body of Christ can be seen and experienced and it’s amazing to see them come together as one!

My family and I are on a journey to grow spiritually and strengthen the roots of our faith for the next generation. It’s my desire for other Christians and their families to grow along with us. I’ll share our beliefs, traditions, recipes, parenting advice and more to help you on your Hebrew Roots journey also. Welcome!