The Book of the Decade?   02.2008

A book that we believe is of utmost importance for the emerging Hebrew Movement is: Copernicus and the Jews by Daniel Gruber. We want to give a short resume here of this book, praying that as many as possible of you will get it, read it and study it. You can now order it here directly.

Daniel Gruber is a Messianic Jew from New Hampshire on the East Coast of America. He has written several outstanding books. The most well known are The Church and the Jews – The Biblical Relationship, Rabbi Akiva´s Messiah and the Origins of Rabbinical Authority, and his latest, Copernicus and the Jews. All of these books have been extremely important for us in our walk with the Lord over the past ten years. You can now order them directly from our webshop.

Copernicus and the Jews is by far the best so far of Gruber's books. We have called it "the Book of the Decade". Dr. Michael L. Brown, well known author and old friend of ours, has written in his endorsement on the back cover:

"This is a serious book for the serious reader. It is for all those who love the truth and are willing to have their views challenged. For such readers, this carefully written and well-researched volume offers much food for thought. …In a day when many lightweight and even sensationalistic books are being written in the name of 'New Testament restoration' or 'Jewish roots,' this heavyweight study stands out as worthy of attention and discussion."

Even though Copernicus and the Jews is a very serious book that deals with a very serious topic, it is written in a humorous style that is very enjoyable. It is obvious that humor has become a way for Gruber to cope with the resistance to his message especially among theologians. The book is a 332 page, large size pocket, containing 25 chapters, the first in a trilogy called "The Separation of Church and Faith."

The title Copernicus and the Jews is inspired by the revolutionary discovery of the 16th century astronomer Copernicus that the earth is not the center of the universe. Every scientist before Copernicus had based their mathematical calculations concerning the orbit of the planets on the false assumption that they move around the earth instead of the sun. Over the centuries these calculations had become more and more complex, but they were still unable to completely explain or predict the movements of the planets.

In the same way the theologians in the Church has for 1800 years or so had the wrong center in their interpretation of the message of the Bible. It is not the Church, but Israel that is the center. The whole Bible, including the so called New Testament is written based on this understanding. There is only one cultivated olive tree and that is Israel where Gentiles who believe in the Messiah have been grafted in.

There Is No Old and No New Testament

Gruber has an entire chapter called "Dr Frankenstein´s Neighborhood Bible Club" where he explains that there are no testaments at all in the Bible, only covenants. A testament is the will of a person concerning his assets when he is dead. A covenant on the other hand describes the relationship between two people who are alive. There is neither any old nor any new testament in the Bible! Why has no theologian, as far as we know, been able to see this obvious fact for 1600 years? Gruber describes in detail how the word testament entered into most Bible translations because of an English transliteration of a Latin mistranslation of a Greek quotation of a Hebrew text!!

Another chapter deals with the Greek text of the Apostolic Writings (NT). Gruber explains that the Apostolic Writings are neither written in classic nor koine Greek, but in what he calls "Jewish Greek." He has borrowed the term from Steven Thompson's book The Apocalypse and Semitic Syntax, published on Cambridge University Press, NY 1985. Other theologians that he also quotes have called it "Holy Ghost Greek," "translation Greek" or "Jewish Biblical Greek."

Gruber writes that the Apostolic Writings is not a Christian, but a Jewish collection of books. They are impossible to fully understand without the background of the Hebrew Bible with the help of the Greek Septuagint translation. In his preface to Biblia Sacra from 1551 S. Cantellion wrote, "One should know that the New Testament was written in such a way that its diction is Hebraic… [for] the Apostles were Hebrew by birth, and they Hebraized when writing a foreign, that is, the Greek language." This is of course completely logical.

Dare to Be Challenged

Just like Copernicus deeply challenged his contemporaries, Gruber is doing the same today with his book. He is ruthless towards the status quo in the chapter called "A Good Church Is Hard to Find – There is No Church in the Bible." In the chapter "Those Pearly Gates" he exposes the false hope that the church has inherited from the philosophical thinking of Plato and Aristotle.

Here are some other challenging chapters: Gruber explains in "Hey Mate, What´s a Messiah?" that the Messiah is the King of Israel and the Jewish people. Why is this never explained in any of the church creeds? In the chapter "Zion & Son´s Building Co" Gruber challenges us to understand what the Messiah actually is building. "A Choice Property" deals of course with the land of Israel. And in the chapter "Coming Soon to a Location Near You" Gruber explains what the gospel of the kingdom is.

By now you can probably understand some of the comments from the back cover of this amazing book: "Profound and compelling," "Shattering and overwhelming" and "If this is true, it changes everything!"

Besides humor, Gruber also uses another very effective writing technique. When he realizes that your mind begins to spin because of all the information, he inserts imaginary questions or comments from the reader and then answers them. Many times it is exactly the questions you would like to ask.

If you dare to be challenged, we strongly encourage you to get this book and do like the noblemen in Berea: "they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what [was] said was true." (Acts 17:11) You can order the book straight from our webshop.

Last year we had the privilege to hear Gruber speak in Israel and got a chance to get to know him personally. He is a rather quite person, but a deep thinker, and he has a wonderful humor. When we asked him if it was difficult to challenge all the ignorance in the church about the Jewish people and our Hebrew roots, he said: "You need to remind yourself that there are many people involved in preparing the way for the LORD. If I can contribute with one stone in the huge highway that is being built I am content." What humility from such a fantastic author.

"Prepare the Way for the LORD"