a follow-up email to the Havurah group from emiled discussions:
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A couple of you sent me follow-ups on the question "was Abraham Jewish". Now that I think about it, it's sort of like the question "which came first, the chicken or the egg": It isn't just a riddle, it's a theological question, symbolic of other things.
If you say "chicken", you are a creationist, because on the fifth Day of God created "every winged fowl after [their] kind" (Genesis 1:21)
if you say "egg" you are an evolutionist, since, in the evolutionists' mindset, birds evolved from dinosaurs, also egg layers. So the egg points to this similarity.
So the question "was Abraham Jewish" is a question of where does the faith of the bible start:
does it start with faith? Romans 4:3 "Abraham believed God and He accounted** it to him as righteousness."
For Nora and Doug, our accountants, "accounting" - is in the Bible: "logizomai" = "numbering" (Greek).
Is it about a people and a tribe? Then the first Jews were Jacob / Yakov / Israel and his family: the nation of "Israel"
or is it about practices? Though Abraham was later circumcised, you'd think the practices of Jewishness started with Moses.
Our faith is certainly is perfected in Yeshua, but no one is going to argue He was the 1st Jew.
Since I am reading this Gen 12:1-3 portion on 10/16, I've been thinking about it. Here's an interesting twist...
What year was modern Israel born? 1948, of course! Everyone knows that.
What year was Abraham born? By the Jewish calendar, this year is 5782. Guess what year Abraham was born in the Jewish calendar? According to the Talmud, Abraham was born in the year 1948 !
Surprise! I am not big on numerologies, but that's pretty cool.