Is Jesus God in Psalm 110:1, Debate Between Dr. Al Garza and Carlos Xavier

Praise the Lord! Hello everyone. Welcome to the Integrity Syndicate broadcast. We have an exciting debate tonight with Dr. Al Garza and Carlos Xavier on the topic: Is God? Is Jesus God in Psalms 110 verse 1? Is Jesus God in Psalms 110 verse 1? Praise the Lord!

So, that being the topic, the format of tonight's debate is a 10-minute opening statement for each, followed by 25 minutes of cross-examination in which they can rebut the opening statement as well as cross-examine their opponent, followed by 15 minutes of Q&A. Dr. Al Garza will be in the affirmative, so I'll let him introduce himself here for a minute, and then Carlos Xavier will also give an introduction.

Welcome, Dr. Al Garza. Please let the audience know who you are.

Yeah, my name is Dr. Al Garza. I am a student of the scripture now for over 30 years. Also a graduate of the linguistic context of the Bible in Hebrew, Aramaic, and New Testament Greek from Hebrew University's Institute of Biblical Studies. Also have certifications in Jewish context of the Bible in regards to context and culture, Jewish New Testament studies, the New Testament, as well as the Hebrew Bible.

Thanks for joining us tonight and preparing for this debate.

Thank you. Next here, we'll add Carlos to the stream. Welcome, Carlos. Can you introduce yourself?

Thank you, Josiah. Thank you, Dr. Al, for being here. I grew up agnostic before converting to, uh, the non-Trinitarian, if you will, Christian view in 2006. I live here in Atlanta, Georgia, or near Atlanta, Georgia. I work for, as you can see there, Restoration Fellowship, and I'm the online media manager for the various websites we have, primarily the homepage focus on thekingdom.org. We also have thehumanjesus.org, christenemylove.com, jesuskingdomgospel.com. And I also host, once a month, a Q&A with Sir Anthony Buzzard, who's the founder of Restoration Fellowship. And I've hosted notable evangelical authors that Al might know, like Dr. Daniel Kirk, the late Larry Rutarro, and the historian Richard Rubenstein or Rubenstein. And I've debated amongst many people now, Jonathan McGlotchy, Michael Burgos, and Matt Slick recently.

Thank you. Thank you, Carlos. Now, we'll proceed with the debate. First is Dr. Al Garza, affirmative that Jesus is God in Psalms 110. He has 10 minutes to provide his opening statement. When the 10 minutes are up, I will appear on screen with him to let him know that he needs to finish up his final thoughts.

Perfect. When you're ready, I'll start the timer.

All right, I am ready to go.

Okay, so my, my presentation of the opening here is a textual critique of Psalm 110:1. It's not a theological interpretation or commentary. So, we can look at the opening as far as Psalm 110, as mentioned in the Gospels, Matthew 22, Mark 12, or Luke 20. And we're going to start with Matthew 22, where Jesus quotes Psalm 110:1 in its context. It states, "Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them a question, saying, 'What do you think about the Messiah, whose son is he?' They said to him, 'The Son of David.' He said to them, 'How was it then that David, in the Spirit, calls him Lord, saying, "Yahweh said to my Lord, sit in My right hand until I put Your enemies under Your feet"? If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son?'"

So, here we look at Jesus did not say in referring to David that David is calling him my Lord as *adoni*, but he says Lord. And the Greek changes back to the root *kurios*. So, most Trinitarian Christian scholars agree that Jesus pointed to Messiah's divinity and pre-existence in Psalm 110:1. But there is no direct reference to rabbis. That Psalm 110:1 refers to the Messiah, according to Rashi, a famous Rabbinic scholar. "Are rabbis interpreted as referring to Abraham, our Father." And I shall explain it according to their words. "The Lord to Abraham, whom the world called my master, as it is written in Genesis 23:6, 'hearken to us, my master.'" And that's Rashi's commentary.

So, according to Rabbinic tradition, Psalm 110:1 refers to Abraham. Hence, the term *adoni* instead of *adonai*. When the scribe was adding the *nikud*, or pointing to the Hebrew letters, he was following the tradition of the rabbis, as admitted by Rashi. When *adoni* and *adonai* are read without pointings, there's no distinction between them regarding their spelling. Both are spelled the same in Hebrew. Only by tradition or belief can one read either *adoni*, singular, "my Lord," or *adonai*, plural, "my Lords." Psalm 110:1 is the only place where David supposedly wrote *la'adoni* instead of *la'adonai*. David wrote *la'adonai*, *adonai* for Yahweh, and every other place in the Psalms. You can look at Psalm 22 and 130 as a cross-reference. One can see the tradition added to Psalm 110:1 by the scribe and rabbis.

When we look at all the places in the book of Psalms where *adonai* appears, we can see what David intended to write. David did not intend to write *la'adoni* in any other place in all 150 Psalms. To make the point stronger, in Psalm 5, David describes *Adonai* at the right hand of Yahweh, referencing back to verse 1. The New Testament only refers to the Messiah, Jesus, who is at the right hand of God. Yahweh is never mentioned to be at the right hand of the Messiah. You could also cross-reference Psalm 2 as a messianic and Psalm 11:5, where it's the Messiah's wrath that pours out.

So, the Aramaic Targum, another source, is a Rabbinic commentary of the Hebrew Tanakh. It refers to *adoni* as the word, "At the hand of David, a praise. Yahweh said at him or with him." The word there is a noun, third person masculine singular. If we cross-reference with Genesis 15, where Abraham calls the word the Lord, *Adonai*, Yahweh, literally "my Lord's Yahweh," and we cross-reference John 1:1-3 and 14, it reads, "In the beginning, He was the Word, and the Word, He was with and next to God, and the Word, He was God. And the Word became flesh. All things were created by His hands." I'm also referencing Hebrew New Testament manuscripts of John. Jewish scholars also agree that the Word is a name for the Messiah. Paul refers to the authority of the Targum tradition in 2 Timothy 3:8 by naming Jannes and Jambres, which is only found in the Targum of Exodus 7:11.

So, with conclusion, the scribes copying the New Testament follow the Rabbinic tradition from both the Hebrew Old Testament and the Greek Septuagint. We can safely conclude that *adoni* in Psalm 110:1 is based on Rabbinic tradition. If we reject the Rabbinic tradition and interpretation with the pointing, then we cannot rely on *adoni* but on *adonai* by David. Also, Jesus refers to David calling the Messiah Lord or *kurios*, the root word, and not *kurio mou* or "my Lord." Jesus is *Adonai* and God, and God in Psalm 110, as the evidence shows. And Jesus also said, "I have come down from heaven not to do My own desire, but the desire of Him who sent Me" (John 6:38). With that, I will say thank you.

Okay, that was a surprise. That was less than five minutes for your opening statement. Are you ready, Carlos, to pop in here and give your opening statement?

Yes. Uh, thank you for that. I gotta have a PowerPoint presentation. Let me get it up and I'll start.

Is Jesus God in Psalm 110 verse 1? No, because the second Lord is called *adoni*, not *adonai*. That is Yahweh. As a result, Jesus is the Lord Messiah and not the Lord God. That is why God commands Jesus to sit at His right hand.

Dr. Michael Brown, a Messianic Jew and Christian apologist, in his Volume 3 of Jewish Objections to Jesus, notes that a tradition developed among the Jewish people that the Hebrew name for God, the four letters YHWH or Jehovah, was too sacred to pronounce. Thus, whenever a Jew would read this name in the Bible, he would say *Adonai*, meaning Lord (capital L). Thus, the opening verse of Psalm 110 would have been recited out loud as, "Adonai said to *adoni*." When Jesus quoted Psalm 110:1 to the Pharisees, this would have been the way he said it, referring to Yahweh as *Adonai*. There were no tricks here, no sleight of hand, no cover-up, no deception, no mistranslation, just a straightforward recitation of the Hebrew text. No one would have thought that Jesus was claiming to be Yahweh, since his hearers certainly knew the text by heart as well, and since they distinctly heard two different words for capital L Lord and lowercase lord: that is, *Adonai*, meaning Yahweh, the first Lord, and *adoni*, meaning "my Lord."

Dr. Brown adds that just as Jewish readers distinguished between the two Lords, virtually all modern Christian translations follow a similar translation pattern. Since the English custom for more than 500 years has been to render the divine name with all caps, "LORD." Furthermore, the article under the word "Lord" in the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia verifies Dr. Brown's claims by saying that the form *adoni*, "my Lord" (with a small L), is a royal title, for example, 1 Samuel 29:8, and is to be carefully distinguished from the divine title *Adonai*, again, which is translated as capital L Lord or all caps LORD.

His book, Dr. Brown continues, saying that if Jesus quoted the verse in Aramaic, he could well have said *mari*, meaning Yahweh said to *mari*, again, "my Lord" (with a small L), following the exact same custom as in Hebrew. The same distinctions are borne out by both the LXX and New Testament Greek when they translate the divine name as *kurios* and *la'adoni* as *tokurio mou*. This phrase *tokurio mou* is never used for God, but only humans like Abraham, David, and others. The noted Word Biblical Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, which some call the state of the art in theology, says that underlying the two uses of *kurios* are two different Hebrew words. The first is the Tetragrammaton, the divine name, which was not spoken by the Jews, who substituted the word *Adonai*. The second is *adonim*, "my Lord" (again, small L for Lord). David calls his son, not Yahweh, but *adoni*, "my Lord." Yahweh said to my Lord. We find the same information in the commentary to the Gospel of Mark. The LXX approximates the Hebrew, which uses different words for the title Lord: Yahweh, *la'adoni*, that is, "an oracle of Yahweh to my Lord" (with a small L).

The reason Psalm 110:1 is the key, controlling, and definitional Christological verse in the New Testament is that the title "Lord" is used with the title "Christ" well over 200 times in the New Testament. For example, Luke 2:11 says, "The Lord Messiah is born," and Paul repeatedly greets the churches with "the God of our Lord Messiah Jesus." So, instead of concluding that the Son of God is somehow God himself, another Yahweh, it's more likely, as the late Dr. James Dunn put it in his book, *Did the First Christians Worship Jesus?*, that Yahweh has bestowed His own unique saving power on the Lord who sits on His right side. The exalted Jesus is himself the embodiment, as well as the executive, of that saving power. Dr. Dunn added in his book, *The Christ and the Spirit*, that to call Jesus "Lord" was as much a way of distinguishing Christ from the One God as of attributing to Him God's agency.

These observations align with the fact that ancient Judaism applied Psalm 110:1 to various human figures: from Adam, Abraham, the prophet Elijah, and even the saints. In other words, no Jew would ever have read the verse as saying *Adonai* says to *Adonai*. Lastly, to sit at the right hand connotes conferred authority in a royal setting. That is, a person who has been told to sit in a place of honor. Therefore, that person remains subordinate to the one who commanded him in the first place to sit at the right hand. The NET Bible notes that "to sit at the right hand of the king was an honor" (see 1 Kings 2:19). Reflects the king's position as the Lord's vice-regent, denoted British Bishop Anthony Wright in his preface to *How God Became King*. Notes that Jesus, through His ascension, was seated at the right hand of the Father. In ancient Jewish thought, with echoes of Daniel 7, this could only mean that from that moment, Jesus was the Father's right-hand man, the Father's accredited and appointed agent. The point is that in Psalm 110:1, God grants David's human Lord unprecedented authority and power because He is the Lord's Messiah, as Luke 2:26 shows. The royal imagery and setting goes back to the most used Old Testament verses by the New Testament writers: Daniel 7:13 and Daniel 7:14. Here we find yet another prophecy where Daniel sees a glorified human figure presented to the Ancient of Days, that is God, and to him is given dominion, glory, and a kingdom, so that all peoples should serve Him. The Abingdon Commentary on the Bible best explains what this vision meant: as the human being described in Daniel 7, the human being to whom divine authority is granted, Jesus has authority to forgive sins. Jesus has not claimed to be God. If he had, the scribes would have reacted much more violently. Jesus has claimed to be God's vice-regent on earth. And while the Son of Man figure is similar to the Ancient of Days in John's vision of the resurrected Jesus in the Book of Revelation, there is no equivalency or identification. In fact, the giving of authority, power, glory to the Son of Man implies that his status is subject and therefore different from that of the Ancient of Days, who again is God.

So, to summarize: Jesus is David's *adoni*, not another *Adonai*, that is, another Yahweh. Ancient Judaism confirms this by applying Psalm 110:1 to other prominent human figures like Abraham, David, and never to *Adonai* God. In the New Testament, the title "Lord" for Jesus is linked with the title "Christ" hundreds of times, meaning Jesus is the Lord Messiah, the Lord Christ, not the Lord God. And lastly, God commands His Messiah to sit at His right hand, which means he remains subordinate to the One God, and any authority or power he possesses is given by that One God, *Adonai*. Thank you.

Thank you, Carlos. Uh, now we'll proceed with the cross-examination. Bringing, uh, Al back in. And, uh, I'll hide behind. So, this is 25 minutes. You can start out with your rebuttal and then also ask Carlos questions and engage with him whenever you're ready.

Okay, yeah. Let me, let me make this point here. Carlos, a question I have regarding the presentation: What is the difference between *adoni* and *adonai* regarding grammar in your, in your, in your understanding?

Do you mean the vowel points? When it comes to a vowel point, if you were translating in *Adonai*, how would you translate them?

Well, as I said in my opening, uh, if you're translating in Greek, which is one of, uh, predates the Christian movement, the LXX Septuagint, they translated that as *tokurio mou*, which is "to my Lord." And they would have translated the divine name or *Adonai* as simply *kurios* or *ho kurios*, "the Lord."

Okay. And you would agree then, if I said *Adonai* singular, "my Lord," versus *Adonai*, "my Lords," plural?

Well, uh, that's the literal, literal understanding of the term. If I translate "Lords," *Adonai* is plural, right? "My Lord's," possessive?

Yeah, but no English translation says "Lords."

No, I'm not. I'm saying grammatically, though, it is a plural. While *adoni* is a singular, correct?

Well, the plural in, in Hebrew, as you know, uh, there are many words that are plural in form but singular in meaning.

Is it plural grammatically? Yes or no?

I mean, but it's singular in meaning when it comes to the One God of Israel.

Well, we could, that's a different topic or debate. But if it has a modified "of," then you know it could be plural.

Other questions I want to have is basically, let me, let me ask you this question. In Matthew 22:43 and 45, Jesus asked why David called the Messiah Lord, correct?

Yes.

And what was the Greek word used for Lord there?

*Kurios*.

Okay. And what is *kurios* in the Septuagint of Psalm 110:1?

The just simply *kurios* is translated. The divine name is translated.

So Jesus said that that David is calling the Messiah *kurios*?

Well, Jesus also quotes Psalm 110. And Jesus also says *adoni*, right? He also says "to my Lord," right?

That's the question. He said Jesus did not say "my Lord," by the way, right? He didn't. He quoted Psalms.

Hold on. He quoted Psalms. Let me explain. He quoted Psalms. We don't have the original manuscript. We're talking about scribal tradition writing the New Testament. So if you have scribes writing and copying, following Rabbinic tradition, which you even cited yourself as being put to Abraham, then of course they're going to follow the Septuagint, which is a Rabbinic tradition of Abraham, as to all the rabbis said, as well as *adoni* with the *nikud*, with the vowel pointing. Without the vowel pointing, you can't just, you can't discern either one unless traditionally you decide. If the rabbis come along, they know the tradition of Abraham being Psalm 110:1, and they put *adoni*. It's not a messianic verse to them. So for them, it's not regarding Messiah in that sense.

So, again, my question goes: If Jesus is saying David called him Lord, and it's *kurios*, which is what you find in Psalm 110:1 for the divine name, and he finishes with that he calls him Lord again, a scribe translating the New Testament in Greek obviously is going to write based on Rabbinic tradition. So we don't know the actual word that Jesus would have said because we're having Rabbinic tradition based on the following. But here's my question: Is it possible that if the New Testament scribe, following some scripture, mentions the opening, is it possible that that's what they're following based on their understanding of it being Abraham?

Well, the question in Matthew 22, if I may, I'll just read some of it. "While the Pharisees were assembled, Jesus questioned them, 'What do you think about not Abraham, right? Not David, not Melchizedek, the Christ?' And they say, 'He's the Son of David.' And then Jesus quotes, 'But what, what did David say? Did David, I mean, Jesus said David called him what? *Kurios* or *mou*?' Which one did which one did Jesus say that David was affirming?"

Well, again, Jesus quotes Psalm 110. As most everyone would concede, the Greek reads as *tokurio mou*. Rabbinic tradition, that's what it is, because these are Jewish scribes who are not Messianic, by the way. When you come to the Aleppo and the, and the, uh, and the Leningrad Codex, if these are not Messianic, yes, you are believing scribes. They're following Rabbinic tradition. So my point is, *Adonai* and *adoni* are spelled the same. It's only the scribe who's putting the points there that's going to tell you what they believe. And all Jewish commentaries, whether it's in the Talmud, which predates, by the way, the Leningrad and Aleppo, the Talmud, oral tradition says it's Abraham. They believed it to be Abraham. The Targum has it as David. None of them refer as a Messiah. Jesus is correcting them, obviously, by saying David called him *kurios*.

Now, here's my other question, because this is, I only have time, so I'm going to move forward here. You state in the opening, "The same distinctions are borne out by both the Septuagint and New Testament Greek when they translate Yahweh as *kurios* and *la'adoni* as *tokurio mou*." You said the latter is never used for God and only humans like Abraham, David, et cetera. And you also use Luke 2:11 as an example of "Lord" being used well over 200 times. Is that correct?

Yes.

So, what is the Greek word used in Luke 2:11 for Lord? Which you quote in your opening, is it *kurios* for Yahweh, or *kurio mou*? Which one is it?

*Kurios*.

*Kurios*? Is that used for Yahweh also in the Septuagint?

Yes.

So you don't, you don't see *kurio mou* there, right?

*Kurio mou*, you don't see that there in Luke 2:11?

No. That would be, which would be "my Lord," correct? But that would be, it wouldn't, right? But no, but that would be to say that whenever someone is called, quoting scripture here, Luke used *kurios*.

You use *kurios*, which you said is for the divine name and the Septuagint. That's what Luke said. And you're saying 200 times or more, that's now my question. Here's, here's one question I have: How many times in the New Testament is Jesus called *tokurio mou* in the New Testament total?

I don't know. That's a good question. Actually, I don't know the answer to this.

Zero. He's always called *kurios*.

Or *kurion* for the accusative. But the root word is always. He's never called as in the Septuagint or even *kurios*. He's never called that in the New Testament. He's only called by what we have stated, substitute divine name, *kurios*.

If I, if I may, if I may, in answer to your question about my, my point is that the word Lord, *kurios*, is connected or used with the word Christos, Christ, according to James Dunn, a Trinitarian, almost 200 times, if not more. The point is, I don't think Luke was saying that the Anointed Yahweh or the Anointed Jehovah was born. First of all, how do you have an Anointed Yahweh? I, I hope that's just...

I agree. That was my point. My point is that Luke did not say, as the Septuagint in Psalm 110 says, *kurio mou*. He did not say that. He said *kurios*, which you said in your opening is a substitute name for God, Yahweh. That's what you said. And that's what Luke 2:11 does not cite it as the Psalms as *adoni*'s substitute or from the Greek. That's, I'm just saying what Luke said, because you made that point in your opening, which I'm pointing back. That's *kurios*.

Now, you also call it the Peshitta, and you use Dr. Brown. But I'm going to ask you, in the same verses before Psalm, that Jesus said David, in the Spirit, calls him what? What was the Aramaic word that Jesus said David called him before he quoted the Psalm? Was it *mari*? Or in the other? Or was it...? Which one was it?

I'm not sure it was.

Well, if you look at the Peshitta, which I did, it uses what is called in Psalm, Yahweh, the divine name, in the Peshitta before he quotes the Rabbinic tradition of Psalm 110. So if you look at the Peshitta, it's agreeing that David called him by the divine name in the Aramaic before quoting Psalm 110. And even after, which shows that the Psalm itself is being copied and translated as a Rabbinic tradition text. So the Peshitta itself calls Jesus, and out of Jesus' mouth that you quoted Dr. Brown as, and Jesus called him both by the divine name in the Peshitta before quoting Psalm. So that's something I think is very important here, because this points to the position that I'm making, that the Rabbinic tradition within the Psalm is based on Abraham. How the Jews are interpreting it, because the Peshitta and the Greek are always affirming Jesus by the divine title in both translations.

And to make my point even somewhat stronger, yes, I mentioned before, I do have Hebrew New Testament manuscripts, about close to 4,000 or so, that all affirm the same thing: that Jesus is referenced many times as *Adonai* by the divine name, but never in the sense from the Greek or as, as the Peshitta said, referring to "my Lord" in that sense. So that's important.

Now, my other question goes to you: Is this? So we understand from the Peshitta standpoint that both said the divine name, then you have the Psalm quoted, and Rabbinic tradition. And I asked you before, here's my question: Can you point to any verse in the New Testament where Yahweh or God is at Messiah's right hand? Or is it only the Messiah who is at the right hand of God Yahweh in the New Testament?

Yes. Yes. The Messiah is at the right hand of God in the New Testament. Is God ever referred to as being at His right side in the New Testament?

Yes. No, I don't think so.

Okay. So then Psalm 110:5 says, "*Adonai*, who is at Your right hand?" Referring obviously back to verse 1, because that's the context. And cross-reference again goes back to my point: *Adonai* is in the text. *Adonai* is at Your right hand. The New Testament only affirms the Messiah who is at the right hand. And then we have the opening of Psalm, "Sit at My right hand," referring to the Messiah that Jesus is quoting. So we have again, *Adonai* pointing back to verse 1. We have *Adonai* affirmed in the tradition of reading it without the *nikud* that we can say. And it is only by Rabbinic tradition that we have *adoni*. Because the rabbis who are transcribing this from going to the Aleppo to the Leningrad, four before on, and even the Talmud, which predates it all, say that Psalm 110 refers to *adoni* Abraham. It's not messianic. So I wouldn't expect it.

So when Jesus questions them, we see Jesus correcting them by saying, "Whose son is he?" They say, "The Messiah is the Son of David." That would only make them, as you pointed out, being only human. Jesus then says, "And how is it that David, in the Spirit, calls him *kurios*?" Which again, as you stated, is a substitute for the name in the Greek for the divine name, and used in Psalm 110 and Septuagint. It's in the Peshitta as well. And both. And then he quotes the Psalm, which again, you and I know a scribe who's translating that is going to follow the tradition of the rabbis. And that tradition follows, of course, *adoni*. That's the only way to explain why you have Jesus saying before and after that he's using the Greek for Lord, for the divine name, and even the Peshitta is using the divine name. Therefore, himself, of course, when you get to the scribes, which I refute, I deny this, I don't believe it. So either, if you accept *adoni*, then you have to accept the reason behind it, which is Rabbinic tradition. If you reject Abraham as being in Psalm 110:1, the context, then you can't have it the other way and say, "Well, for the Messiah, it's not the need." But I reject how they, why they wrote it. It's either or. And then for at that point, then you're stuck with *Adonai*, because that's the only other word you can look at. And there are nine.

So my whole point is, and also, here's the other thing I want to mention. You mentioned about Dr. Brown and mentioned the divine name and so forth. You've had Dr. Nehemia Gordon as a guest, who's an expert on the divine name. And doesn't he believe, based on Jewish sources, that God's name was being pronounced during the time of Jesus?

Sorry, can you...? Who is an expert on the divine name, spent 20 years researching this? Yep. Doesn't he believe, based on Jewish sources, that God's name was being pronounced during the time of Jesus?

The divine name was being pronounced? Yes, as he has Yahweh, but he believes it was being pronounced. I'm not sure. As far as I know, they adopted *Adonai* as a referential, you know.

Okay. And he's also a Hebrew scholar, expert. He actually quotes the Talmud on this, where the Talmud states that the divine name was being mentioned privately, and that they were forbidden by the Romans to not say it at all, or keep Torah. And when one did, he was... and of course, he was killed. And the debate was, he wasn't, he was saying it out loud rather than privately. And that's in the Talmud. So we do have sources to say that the divine name was being mentioned during the time of Jesus. That it could have been very well said as being Yahweh says to either *Adonai* or following Rabbinic tradition, if you're going to follow Abraham as *adoni*.

So I would say even Nehemia, who's an expert on this, spent 20 years researching the divine name, he agrees the divine name is mentioned. The Talmud mentions this, which again predates the 15th century before the Leningrad and Aleppo Codex. We have, uh, the Rabbinic tradition that if we reject the Rabbinic tradition, we cannot hold to *adoni*, because that's why they put it there. So the only thing we're left with is *Adonai*, which Jesus says before quoting the Psalm, *kurios*, *kurios*. In the Peshitta, the same, the divine name, as well as what we have in the Septuagint. He never, he never, he's never called in the Septuagint *kurio mou* in my Lord, anywhere in there, from Psalm. He's always referenced that as *kurios*.

So I think that's important, because if we're going to say, if we're going to hold to the position that the divine name is a substitute, substituted by *kurios*, then I don't think we can just pick and choose and say, "Well, *kurios* here means this." If *adoni* is being translated as *tokurio mou*, then I think we should keep it that way, which you won't find Jesus ever being mentioned that. But yet he is said to be said *kurios*, either the accusative, the nominative, and so forth. So I think we need to understand and then we need to agree that we can't have it both ways. Either we reject Rabbinic tradition of Abraham as *adoni*, either, and we have to either reevaluate it. And in my position, it's going to be *Adonai*. So we think, and as you already alluded to, that yes, we can, he does say *kurios*, he does say that's the divine name, we do have that in there, as well as the grammatical structure for "my Lord."

And then here's the other point. Translate, if you can, for me, uh, briefly, which I don't think you know the name. You mentioned how *adoni* is never referred to God, it's only referred to Abraham, the man, the king's royal title. How is that compound name translated?

Yeah, so *Adoniyah* is what's known as a theophoric name. And in Hebrew, as I understand it from reading the commentaries and the literature, theophoric names don't do not behave the way verbs and nouns do. So, as far as I know, and as far as I've read, *Adoniyah* is a compound, it's a word of a compound word made up of two Hebrew words: *adon* plus *yah*, which is the shortened form of the divine name, as you know. And they added the extra letter, the *heh*, in order to facilitate, I believe, the Hebrew pronunciation, because in Hebrew, you cannot pronounce *adon yah*. And it's similar to, I believe, the Elijah name. I think Elijah works the same way, right? You have El, which is the singular of Elohim, and Yah, and you have a *heh* and a connector. They call it. That's what I've heard from Nehemia Gordon, by the way.

Right. Like, yeah, or "my Lord," right? So, so you can actually ask, if you're in contact with Nehemia, it's interesting because it's actually not the word *adoni* being used, but what's happening is, in our translations of the name *Adoniyah* and Elijah, for example, it looks like it's *adoni*.

Well, you should, you should ask people like, uh, Nehemia Gordon. But again, I've heard that it's *adon*, which is just a generic word for "lord," right? And a possessive, right, connector letter, then you have the *yah*, which is the shortened, right? And if you look at Ginsburg's work on this, he brings in the translation of the names and he translates *Adoniyah* as "my Lord" (small L) Yahweh. That's how he translates it. That's how most Hebrew translators would translate. If you ask him, the compound name, it would be *adoni* as "my Lord" possessive is Yahweh.

Yeah. So if I may finish. So, uh, I believe it's Holman and Hastings Dictionary actually translates it as either "the Lord that is *adon* is Yah Jehovah" or "Yah is the Lord." And that's from Holman and Hastings. It's not the word. Well, I have this great, I have Ginsburg's, uh, who did extensive work on the manuscripts and situation. Have his work in Volume 1. He translates it that way. I can give you other translational dictionaries. But I don't need to use as *adoni*, "my Lord," like we would say, you know, "my," you know, Eliyahoo or Elia or Elijah, "my God is Yahweh," as we would literally translate. Or even like other names. So, I mean, *adoni* is spelled there in the Hebrew. It's a compound. We can look at that. Like I said, I can give you Volume 1 of Ginsburg's work as well.

Okay. But we can go back to the point. How much time do I have by the way? Is we have a, uh, five minutes remaining.

Five minutes. Okay. I'll make this. I don't think I'll need five minutes. Okay. So, to recap real quick, you pointed to the fact that again, you kind of agreed in a number of places where Jesus is using *kurios* to himself before quoting the Psalm. You agree that Luke is using *kurios*. And in your presentation, you made a point that *kurios* is the substitute name of God in the Septuagint. You also didn't know, but I would say you should research that on the, on the *adoni* Greek for *tokurio mou*, that that is not used in the New Testament regarding Jesus. Actually, it is used. Where is it used at? It's used in John 20:13 where Mary says, "They have taken away my *kurios mou*." By the way, I'm using the Greek modern pronunciation. And you're, I believe, using the Erasmian, perhaps? Right? So John 20:13. I would ask you to look at that. That is *kurios mou*. Luke 14:3 where, let me quickly see, Elizabeth says, "The mother of *kurios mou* should come to me." Oh, it's *kurion mou*. And it's grammatically it's not the same as a Septuagint *kurio mou*.

Yes, it is. No, grammatically it's an idiom. *Mou*.

No, grammatically in the Greek, which I look at, I'm looking at it in the internet, into my hearing, Bible Hub, one it... Okay, if you look at the Septuagint and you look at how it's used in the data... Well, you're asking about *kurios mou*, not *tokurios*. This is *kurion*. It's not. It's *kurion*. It's not grammatically the same as a Septuagint *kurio mou*.

One is, if you look at the dative case, and one is, right? You're talking about the cases, right? The cases, the tenses, which is not following the Psalm tenses. That's...

I'm not saying. I'm saying that I, and this is not "my Lord," is never used for Jesus. He's called "my Lord." I said the Greek from the Septuagint, which is using yours, is *kurio mou*. I thought you're asking about the New Testament. And the New Testament, he's *kurion*. The tenses are not the same. There's not following the Psalms.

Yeah, but Al, it's still "my Lord." Jesus is still called "my Lord" there, but not as in the Psalms. That's what I'm afraid to the Psalms. The Psalm references here. And now "my," in other words, "my Lord," and not in the same way it's being used in Psalms. My point grammatically is not the same. It's *kurion* here, which is again, go back to *kurios*. So, just ask the audience to look at John 20:13 and Luke 14:3. Right? And look at grammatically the tenses. Compare it to Psalm 110. It's not the same. It's not translated as the same way as "my" as in the Psalms.

This is *kurion*, and *kurion* is again, a substitute for *kurios*. So my *kurios* would be more apt to what she said. My *kurios*. You said Yahweh substitute for the God. My Lord. It's translated as "my Lord" in Luke 14:3. It's *kurion*. It's the substitute for *kurios*. It's in the grammatical saying "my Lord," "my Yahweh." You said that's exactly how the tense how it's used in translation for the divine nature. She literally said "my Yahweh" or if you want to say "my Adonai," that's what she said. She didn't... You apply it the way it's found in Psalm 110. Elizabeth did not say "my Yahweh."

Well, I, I, again, in every sense of the Hebrew *adon*, the Lord, I have seen the Lord on it. It is only expressed in the Old Testament for only God himself. So when you find the women saying, you know, "I have seen the Lord," the Hebrew *adon*, that is only given to Yahweh himself. And *Adonai* is never put towards a mere man or a human being. So you find this also in the New Testament from not only from the Greek with with the article, but as well as in the Hebrew text. So again, this is not what I asked in regards to the same as being in the Hebrew that you had mentioned from the Psalm. This is not the same because I am expressing the grammatical as well as the exact pronunciation, which you will not find in the New Testament as in Psalm 110.

How much time do I have? Am I up? Oh, you're up. Yeah, time's up.

So, Carlos, it's your turn to, uh, direct the cross-examination.

Thank you. Thank you, Josiah. Thank you, Al, for the questions. Uh, let me make a couple of statements here. As Bible believers, it's important to say this, that we cannot use any scripture and say that this or that is not right, that this scripture is not what it's supposed to say, unless there is obvious major corruption or changes to the scripture. And a classic example is the so-called Johannine Comma, John 5:7-8, where there's a classic case of Trinitarian corruption. So we can't do that with other texts unless we have evidence. And I have not heard one shred of evidence tonight from my opponent. There's not a hint. There's zero. There's, for a Spanish audience, *nada*, zilch.

If Psalm 110:1 says what my opponent is claiming that it should say, that would be two who are God at the same time. Now, we know God cannot be told to do anything, let alone sit at the right hand of someone who's greater than Him, because sitting at the right hand is clearly a subordinate position that the other person is taking. So if you tell, if I tell Al, "Al, sit on my right hand," we're not the same. We're not co-equal. We're not on the same level. That's just, if you read any, you know, storybook about the monarchs, you know, King Arthur or something. So it would be nonsensical to me, if not blasphemous, to say that the second Lord of Psalm 110:1 is God as well. Again, I know Trinitarians say, "No, no, we don't believe in two gods," but it sounds like you believe in two gods. Actually, it sounds like you believe in two Yahwehs. So I think my opponent has failed to show that his interpretation was actually the ancient, therefore original, interpretation of the Psalm. When he keeps talking about Rabbinical tradition, well, it sounds like it sounds like we're saying that not only the Septuagint was not right to translate the Hebrew there the way it does, we're also implying that the New Testament Greek in Matthew 20, sir, Matthew 22:44 is somehow not right. And we're also questioning what Jesus said. Did Jesus really say what he said? Did Jesus say "my Lord"? Well, he's only quoting Psalm 110. Well, Jesus didn't really say "my Lord," he only said "the Lord." Well, the scripture is the scripture, and it's there. And I'm a solid *sola scriptura* kind of person. I'm a, I'm a pure, uh, reformer, if you will, radical. But I do accept what scripture says, unless, again, there is obvious evidence and proof of either tampering with a text or a corruption of any type.

Some Jewish scholars, and even non-Jewish scholars, agree that Psalm 110 is a picture of what we call an enthronement of an Israelite human king. And the image there in Psalm 110 is similar to Psalm 2, where you have this picture of one person who is God, Yahweh, Jehovah, Almighty, addressing His Son in Psalm 2, in this case. And the same is true there in Psalm 110, where obviously He goes on to talk about this *adoni*, the second Lord, as the one begotten, according to the Greek translation of Psalm 110. This figure has been begotten by God Himself.

The Weekly Bible Commentary, again, a Trinitarian, I'm quoting Trinitarians, by the way. I'm not quoting Sir Anthony Buzzard, I'm not quoting, uh, Dr. Dale Tuggy. I'm quoting James Dunn. I'm quoting the Word Biblical Commentary, who some consider the state of the art in modern-day evangelical scholarship. So I'm siding with those people who are clearly saying that the word there is *adoni*, and there is no corruption, there is no tampering. The Jews long recognized this as a, as a Messianic Psalm. You can check the Weekly Bible Commentary again, a Trinitarian source, and just read what it says in Matthew 22. The question is about the Messiah. The Jews did not stop Jesus and say, "Hey, Jesus, why are you quoting that? We don't apply that to our Messiah." They could have said that. They could have said, "What are you talking about, Jesus? Psalm 110? No, no, that's about David. That's about Abraham." No, no, they're aware of the Messianic implications of Psalm 110.

There are ancient Rabbinical works talking about how in the age to come, the Holy One, Yahweh, Jehovah, will make King His Messiah, and His Messiah will sit on His right hand. So I hope you can look at the literature and the commentary on this. They even have stories about how Father Abraham will weep to see that one of his descendants, that is the Messiah to come, will sit in such a lofty place beside God Almighty, Yahweh, or Jehovah. So I, I'd ask you to look at the literature on that as well on Psalm 110:5.

And now I will get to my questions, Al. No problem.

In Psalm 115, it's interesting again, outside another Trinitarian evangelical standard commentary, Ellicott's Commentary, says that the change of position in verse 5, where Jehovah is now seen to be at the right hand of, of the of the King, it says that this is simply due to the usage of the language. To sit at the right hand was an emblem of honor. To stand at the right hand was a figure of protecting might. And you have many places in the Old Testament where God, or Yahweh, or *Adonai*, is standing at the right hand of someone else. Just in the previous Psalm, in Psalm 109:31, you have this picture of God standing at the right hand of the one who needs Him. Ellicott's Commentary goes on to say that this is the imagery of a battle here in Psalm 110, into which now the picture plunges, as they say, into the battle that will take place as we continue to read the Psalm, Psalm 110. And again, throughout the Old Testament, God works with human agents to defeat the enemies of Israel. This happens throughout in the book of Numbers, the book of Judges, and the books of Samuel.

Dr. Daniel Kirk, again, another man I interviewed myself, he wrote a very interesting book. He's a Trinitarian, but he wrote a book called *A Man Tested by God*. He says in this book that Psalm 110, as a whole, is a picture of an idealized priestly king, and God's own activity on the earth is executed through the wars the human king leads. And Dr. Kirk even quotes one of the Qumran scrolls. These were the, the scrolls found before the Christian era in the caves of Qumran. Dr. Kirk quotes one of the scrolls that say that Melchizedek, another human figure, plays the role of savior, conqueror of the cosmic age, that is, the age to come.

This human figure occupies the place of guiding judgment and battle throughout this Qumran scroll. He says, "Quote: It may well be that the heavenly enthronement with which that Psalm 110 begins provides a framework for an exalted human to play the world of God as depicted in the Qumran scrolls."

The point here is that there is meaning that this second Lord is a human person. True rabbis identified him with various characters. But that the psalm gained, at least at the time when Matthew 22 rolls around, that the psalm gained a messianic tone to it, if you will, that it was used in messianic expectation, is clear from that conversation in Matthew 22.

Jesus questioned also in Matthew 22, that a son would receive greater honor than his father, may sound weird to us, even to this day. Now, some argue that, well, that's unprecedented in Judaism. In Judaism, you don't see sons becoming greater than their father. But actually, you do. If you check Genesis 37, it says that Joseph's father is told of a dream that his father would worship his son. Again, look at that story, Genesis 37. It's a very interesting type. These things are called typologies. They're they're called examples of things to come, right? And his father, Joseph's father, actually rebukes his son and said, "Wait, wait a minute. Where, uh, I think the text says, uh, I'm your mother, you know, your brothers and I were, we're going to worship you. What's that all about?" But then the father seems to understand that this is all a plan of God, and he accepts it.

I would ask you to look at modern Hebrew translations of the New Testament. I know Al is pleading for an original Hebrew New Testament. But modern Hebrew translations by Christian organizations, by the way, in Matthew 22:44, where Jesus cites Psalm 110, verse 1, guess what they have? Modern Hebrew translations of Matthew 22 by Christians, not Jews, not rabbinic tradition Jews, they have "la'adonai" there. "La'adonai." Check it out. Matthew 22:44, Mark 12:36, Luke 20:42, and even in Acts 2:34. Whenever Psalm 110 is mentioned in the New Testament, keep your translation. Have "la'adonai." I even have a Hebrew translation of the Gospel of John where Thomas calls Jesus "Adonai" in John 20:28. So either these Christian organizations are not agreeing with Al, or or maybe they have it right.

So here are, just to sum up, and I'll get to my questions. Here are some undeniable facts I'd like the audience to look for here. There is no evidence of a change, let alone corruption, to verse one. Oh, Al has not presented one single shred in this whole conversation. The Septuagint, known as the LXX, and the New Testament Greek, they evidence the fact that the unpointed Hebrew text clearly originally distinguished between God, the divine name, and David's Lord, "Adonai." They're evidence to this. Note also that the phrase "to my Lord" in Hebrew, again, "la'adonai," the same as the Greek phrase "ton kurion," is never used for God, ever. This explains why the earliest Jews applied this verse to other human figures like Abraham and David and so on. By the way, John 20:28 in the Greek is "kurios mou." "Kurios mou." So Thomas calls Jesus "kurios mou," my Lord. Check it out. All ancient translations, all of them, except, I will concede, Jerome's Latin in the 6th century, so almost 6, 700 years. But apart from that, all translations are made, Greek, etc., understood the second Lord as "Adonai," a human person. And note that many modern translations do the same by distinguishing the the two Lords in Psalm 110. Either you will see all caps, Lord, L-O-R-D, and they would translate "my Lord" with a lowercase L. So check out the NIV, the NET, the NAB, and the NRSV. They all do that.

Now let me ask you, Al, you said that David did not intend to write "la'adonai." Is that right? Correct. So what word are you saying David originally wrote? Well, from the Hebrew, if you look at, again, "Adonai" is the exact same spelling of "Adonai." We only get the interpretation or the what it, or the pronunciation, by the vowel points, which again follows our rabbinic tradition. If this was Abraham, so Abraham is my Lord. There, David everywhere else in the Psalms only uses "la'adonai." Everywhere else. You do not find anywhere else in the Psalms. So David originally meant to write "la'adonai," right? Not meant to write, but the understanding was. In other words, David's intention was when writing it for me. And then again, going back to the, what Jia said, is going back to the original "Adonai." And do you have any textual evidence for this? Does any scholar agree with you on this? I just gave you multiple Jewish sources that tell you why it's "Adonai." None of which has Messiah. You talk about interpretation. I'm asking, that's right. Evidence that the text actually reads "Adonai." Yeah, again, if you, if you reject the Jewish interpretation, which I have. Yeah, I'm not talking about Jewish interpretation. I'm talking about textual. Yeah, that's how you get "Adonai" by the by the Jews writing it in there because they believed it was speaking of Abraham. That's the only reason why they have it there. They don't say this is the Messiah. They say this is David, therefore it's "Adonai." And I even quote the Mishnah. I have the Talmud, the Midrash. I have it all here. What they interpret as being. And by the way, it's "kurion." I'm looking at the transliteration for John 20:13. You, you said when "Adonai" and "Adonai" read without the pointings. Now those are the, if you, for our audience, when you look at the Hebrew, you will see a series either of lines or points, so dots. Thank you. So you said, uh, without those to distinguish, uh, the the words or to make it easier to pronounce the words, there is no distinction between "Adonai" and "Adonai." Is that correct? And the spelling? Correct. Okay. So when it comes to verse five, how do you distinguish that it says "Adonai" and "Adonai" in verse five, but not in other words without the points that you criticize? It seems in verse one. How do you know verse five says that "Adonai"? Because like I said, the rest of Psalms never uses it. It's five would would fit the context of nowhere else in the Psalms of David do you find that. Which is a challenge because why only is it? What is the reason? And you get that from the scribes who put the "nikud" there. They tell you why it's why they decide to put that there. If you reject that, then you have to reject. You can't have it both ways. You have to accept or reject both. Um, so you're left with only "Adonai" and "la'Adonai." "La'Adonai" is all over Psalms. When the passages, there's there's places where it's only "Adonai." So how do you pronounce Psalm 110, verse 1? How would you pronounce it as the rest of the other Psalms? So, so, so the Lord says to my Lord. How do you pronounce it? Yahweh. The divine name. Yahweh said to "la'Adonai." You find "la'Adonai" in all, in the other Psalms that I mentioned. Okay. And and and that's how they pronounced it during the Second Temple period, according to the Talmud. They were the divine name was being pronounced into the Romans put a ban. No, no, I'm saying during the time of Jesus, the rabbis in the synagogue were saying Yahweh says to "Adonai." "Adonai." "Adonai" is that what you're saying? That would be the original. That would be the correct way versus what Jesus said. David. Jesus said David said "kurios." That is, as you stated, the divine name. So why, so why did Jesus, or why does Matthew record Jesus as, as citing the psalm as "ton kurion" and not "kurios to kurion"? Well, again, I have Hebrew Matthew texts that date back to many. Well, that says no, no, I'm talking about the, the Greek manuscripts that we have of Matthew 22:44. If you're saying that Jesus pronounced it in Hebrew, Yahweh says to "la'Adonai," why does Matthew record something different than that? Matthew has "ton kurion," which is not, obviously. Well, I gotta disagree. We don't have Matthew, which, which a Hebrew text would have been or translated. We don't have the original Matthew. We have what the scribe recorded. Do you accept, do you accept what we have as New Testament scripture recorded? When it comes to Psalm 110, verse 1, I believe, I hold, I hold to why it's put there and why scribes copy it. Yes, scribes copied it for a reason. Just like I know you're aware that there are variants. You, you point to variants between the Trinitarian, you know, using corruption. But you won't accept that. So if a Trinitarian translates the Bible that way, but yet if we question, if we question Psalm 110 based on rabbinic understanding, interpretation, that you won't accept, but you'll accept rejecting Trinitarian. So, so a Christian during the time of Jesus who could read the Greek, right? They would have said "ton kurion." We don't know. As far as I mean, you don't know. We know by the Gospels now. We know Matthew, Mark, the book of Acts. Again, Jesus did not say that though, as far as the first point. Jesus could have easily said, which I think excited the verse. And my question, question, did Jesus say "ton kurion"? I would agree with you if Jesus said that in 43 and 45. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. So let me ask you, so Jesus is Yahweh, right? Jesus is Jehovah by nature. Yes. The Father is Jehovah. Yes. How many fingers do you see? I see two. Okay. So there's two Yahwehs, there's two Jehovahs by title and name. Yes. Thank you. Is the Shema Trinitarian? Is it a Trinitarian statement of faith, the Shema, where you have the one Yahweh, one Lord? It depends on who you're going to ask. Yes. It's some Trinitarians and even rabbinic Trinitarian scholars would point that as being a type of Trinitarian concept as well. And then if you ask, of course, non-Trinitarian rabbis who don't believe issue, or then they would reject it. Of course, it depends who you ask and how you want to translate it. Thank you. How many persons is one Lord? So "echad" Yahweh is translated one Lord. The Lord our God is one Lord. How many persons is one Lord? Three persons who are again co-eternal, co-equal, who shared the divine "echad" as unity, who are one in unity, which I think, I mean, you're well aware of the unity of not just solitary one in Hebrew, and we get that from the marriage of a husband and wife being two people who are one flesh. God, one spirit, three persons who are your God. Okay. Well, "echad" is just, it's just used for a numeral one. So that's not hard. That's not true. So Abraham is Abraham is "echad." I think it's a text in Ezekiel. Abraham is "echad." So Abraham is not multi-person. Men and women are "echad." Um, let me, let me ask you, my, my last question. Time running out. So the persons of your Trinity are co-equal, you know, co-eternal, and so on. So why is the one person of your Trinity in Psalm 110? Why is Yahweh giving a command to "Adonai," as you read it? Yahweh. This is again, this is a messianic verse referring to "Adonai" who will be at the right hand at the incarnation. And this is what Jesus says. And before recording Psalms, that Jesus, he, Messiah is "kurios." Right? If the persons of the Trinity are equal, why is one telling the other to take a subordinate position to them? Well, I mean, you could, you could say subordinate position. I don't, again, the incarnation is the most, at the right hand, it's not a subordinate position. Yes, at the incarnation, as Paul says, he emptied himself, became a servant, obedient to the Father. You claim this is a pre-existence verse as well. Of course, because it's the Word in the Torah, right? In the Word. This is the two persons, right, of your Trinity. Why is the one asking the other to take a super, a clearly subordinate position at the right hand, as the, as the forthcoming Messiah? Yes, that's what you find. The Word who became flesh, the Word who, Jesus says, "I he, I have come down from heaven," and he has done the will of, to do the will of the Father. What you find, the messianic incarnation of the giving up to be servant to the Father. Why does the Greek Septuagint, the Greek translation, consistently render "la'adonai" as "ton kurion" and never as "la'adonai" "kurion" or "ton kurion"? Because it's following the rabbinic tradition of the Hebrew, obviously. That's what they're doing. And the Jews tell you that. Again, David never says anywhere else in Psalms. I mean, you, you failed to bring that. Show that that nowhere else do you find David's. He does say "la'adonai," but he does not say "la'Adonai" anywhere else. That didn't include there. That's a problem. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Carlos. That concludes the cross-examination for both participants. We'll finish this off with a 15-minute portion of Q&A. Thanks to the audience for some good questions. Let's limit the responses to one minute each, starting with the first question that's being displayed on the screen. Dr. L. Garza, do you believe this is the only misplaced Masoretic marking out of all the markings of the Hebrew Bible? Do you know of any others? You would disagree with what they are. I didn't, I didn't claim to be misplaced. I, I said that, and then most Jews will agree that this is "nikud," or the, or the pointing, is a commentary. It's not misplacement. It is a commentary, and the Jews put that pointing there to point to Abraham. So we have to understand, we're not saying misplaced or incorrect in the sense of being mistaken, like, "Oops, I did it wrong." This is a clear admission that the Jews themselves who are writing the Masoretic text, and their lip was put there because they believed it was Abraham and not of the Messiah. They make this in all, and pretty much in the rabbinic commentaries that I have dating from the second to fifth century. Even Rabbi Akiva, who's from the first, the second century, he makes that same point. So this was a Jewish tradition and not a misplacement. If you want to look at more of that type of textual criticism, look at Manuel Tov's work on the Hebrew Bible and textual criticism. Thanks, Al. Do you want to follow up with that, Carlos, or move on to the next? Yeah, just quickly. It is misplaced. It is a corruption because that's not what David intended to say. That's what, uh, Al just admitted to tonight. So it obviously would be, it would be true. You call it a misplacement. No, it's a corruption of the text because the rap, this rabbinic tradition that I keep hearing has corrupted the scriptures as we know them. Not only the Hebrew, by the way. They've also corrupted the Greek translation of the Hebrew, the LXX, and somehow New Testament Greek has been corrupted or misplaced as well, because apparently we don't know what Jesus said in Matthew 22:44. We don't know if Jesus said "to my Lord." We don't know this. So obviously, let me make one quick point. He talks about corruption, but he brings in corruption about the Greeks on the Trinity corruption verses. He won't accept that from Trinitarian scholars. He says they corrupted the text. So when I point out the same thing, or something close, of a commentary, he calls it, that's what I'm saying. And that the whole thing's corrupted. But he bases this whole thing on also corrupt, corruption of the of the Trinity verses that these are corrupted by these Greek scholars who put this, and they, it's the same argument. It's just a matter of why did they put the commentary there? For Abraham. Okay. Moving on to the next question, unless you want to follow up again on that. No, no, we'll just do the answer. Okay. This is to you, Carlos, to start. Yes, in your response, who is the "he" in verse 5, if not the Lord of the same verse, and whom also drinks from the brook? I believe it's, uh, it reverts to the "Adonai," the king. You can have it two ways. Uh, there are options. Uh, I would ask you to see the NET Bible commentary. It's good. It gives you a couple of options there. But I would think it, it's God at the right hand of the king, the human king, and then it refers to the human king that will strike down the enemies and so on. Although it is, it really doesn't matter because what the king does, God does. So in the New, sorry, in the Old Testament, you often see this, and this is part of what we call the principle of "shaliach" or agency. You often see where a human actor, let's say, is doing something, but then the text might say, "Oh, God did it." A good example is Moses took the people out, right? In the Exodus, he, uh, Moses led us out, but actually other scriptures, Old Testament scriptures, say it was God who led the people out. And still other scriptures say it was an angel, a messenger, and a non-human angelic figure that that took them out. But so it really doesn't matter at the end because the function of the one who is being supported by God is God as well. So thank you. Al, would you want to respond to that? It does matter because the context matters. "Adonai" and David, in other Psalms, writes, and it's the messianic verse. It's only the Messiah who's at the right hand of the Father all throughout the New Testament, which this is a fulfillment of. So it doesn't matter how you want to put it in the rest of the Old Testament and point to the various other applications. This is a messianic verse that says the Messiah is at the right hand. And him as "Adonai" is also. You will not find anywhere in the New Testament where it says "Adonai" or God or Elohim, or in the Greek, is at the right hand of the Messiah. It's always the Messiah, the Messiah, the Messiah. And this is a fulfillment. So it matters in context that "Adonai" fits perfectly with verse 5. It's "Adonai" who is at the right hand. So it's a perfect contextual, no problem with the rest of Psalms of Allah. In the rest of David's Psalms, never again does David write "la'Adonai," according to the, to the pointings. It is always "la'Adonai." Oh, now we're going according to the pointings. Okay. Versus. Yes. Related, related question to you, Dr. Garza. Are you saying that manuscripts didn't correctly record what Jesus said? There's some sort of I'm saying, and Carlos makes the same assumptions about Greek Trinitarians, you know, saying it shouldn't say this, it shouldn't say that. So I'm bringing the same argument. Of course, that we don't have the originals. Obviously, we have copies of copies of copies. And of course, these copies, when they're going back to the Septuagint or to the Masoretic text, they are following the tradition of what is how it reads. This is why I pointed out why Jesus says before he quotes the psalm, he says it's "kurios," and then afterward it's "kurios." It's only the psalms that they're saying Jesus said exactly this way, which I would say is is based on rabbinic tradition that's being copied and not based on what Jesus said before and after. You have to answer the question, why did Jesus say David said the Messiah is "kurios" right before, in which he, which again, Carlos agreed that that's the substitute name for God in Greek. He agreed to that. He said that's true. Yet that's what Jesus said before quoting Psalms, which described writing it was following rabbinic tradition. They're not going to correct rabbinic tradition at that point. They're going to leave it as is, and that's what you find throughout the text. Carlos, your follow-up response on that? Yeah. Um, yes, that is exactly what Al is saying, although in a sort of roundabout way. Um, notice what just, just happened a few seconds, minutes before that. Yes, we do follow the bad rabbinic tradition of the pointings in other places, but not when it comes to verse one. And again, I'd just like to say that in John 20:28, the Greek has "kurios mou." That's what the Greek has. John 20:28. The Hebrew translation of that is, guess what? "Adonai." And I again, I have a copy of the Hebrew Gospel of John where Thomas addresses Jesus as "my Lord," "Adonai" in Hebrew. "Kurios mou," which is again, uh, translates "Adonai." So yeah, I believe it's in something called the sufficiency of Scripture, as well, like most reformers and Protestants of times gone by. I, I do know what Jesus said in Matthew 22:44. Al says he's not sure. He doesn't know if Jesus actually did say "ton kurion," "to my Lord." Apparently, it's not clear. I am, I, I believe Jesus quoted Psalm 110 as Matthew, Mark, in the book of Acts record him saying. I'm looking at John 20:28. It says "kurios." Yeah, again, again, in the vocative, of course. And we're looking at, anyway, the audience can check that out. Well, I think it's important because there could be a correction of of how it's being used. "Kurios," which you admitted is the divine name. Well, we'll go on to the questions. All right. Dr. Garza, is Jesus ever called or known as "Yohanan"? "Yohanan" is "Adonai," not "Adonai." I'm not quite sure what the question's getting at. "Dome," uh, I think it's the Greek, uh, translation of the divine name, "El Shaddai." You know, the Septuagint, Exodus 3, what is it, 3:14? So if Jesus ever called the, uh, the Eternal One. I, I believe it's a translation. Oh, that's what they mean. I, I would only, well, I'm not going to comment. If, briefly, and I know you mentioned modern Hebrew, I would say the old, not the modern Hebrew, but the Hebrew manuscripts we have that date after between the 9th century to the 17th, 18th century of the Gospels, as well as New Testament, all refer to Jesus as "Adonai." A number of verses has "Adonai" as well as by the divine name. So, uh, if he's referring to 3:14 Septuagint, okay. Uh, yeah. So again, from the Hebrew, I would say when John, when, which one referenced Jesus saying that before Abraham was, "I am." Again, going back to the Hebrew again, Jesus, in the Hebrew manuscripts, is affirmed by those titles and names and multiple Hebrew masculines that were written by Jews, by the way, written by Jewish scribes copying the New Testament. So they understood it that way. And it's perfectly clear in every title that these manuscripts that predate the modern Hebrew, because they weren't, they weren't looking at anything Hebrewish in the Middle Ages or beyond. They, we now have them, and we can confirm this just with the manuscripts we have between the 9th and 16th, 17th century. Carlos, any response? Yeah, of course. Jesus is never called "Adonai." I believe that's the question. The Greek translation of the four-letter or the Tetragrammaton of the Hebrew, "Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh." And then in the Greek, God says to Moses, "Tell Pharaoh, tell them sent you." And various translations, the Eternal One, the only one who is eternal, etc. Jesus obviously is not ever called that. The "ego eimi" is is another debate. You know, it's it's not an illusion. Well, let me say, it's not, it's not a correct, it's not correct to say that "ego eimi" means that Jesus was saying he's Yahweh. That's incorrect. "Ego eimi" simply means "I am." Only in John 8:58, by the way, do they capitalize it as all caps, "I AM." Nowhere else when anyone or everyone uses "ego eimi," the blind man in John 9 says, "I am." "Ego eimi." He healed me. In John 4, the Samaritan woman, Jesus says, "Ego eimi" in a conversation about is the Messiah. So "ego eimi" is used to simply as a self-designation of Jesus, who is the Messiah. He's never the Eternal One, the "Ehyeh." That's, yeah, you're muted. You're muted. Sorry. Moving on to the next question with for Dr. Garza. Since Acts 2:36 is the fulfillment of Psalms 110:1, is Jesus being made God in Acts 2:36? Again, it's it's referenced as "kurios" and "kurion" in the grammatical sense, but it's "kurios" of the root word. It's it's not the same. As previously mentioned, this is "kurios," the root word. And even in the Hebrew manuscripts that we do have, they they put it as either "Adonai" or "Adon," which again refers to him as the divine, as God himself. So yes, Acts is a fulfillment, and it's showing not only from the Greek, which again, Carlos admitted it being that the substantive name is "kurios," and that's what we find there, in the sense of "kurion." So again, Acts 2:36 is, "God has made him both Lord and Messiah." And this again is "kurion." And again, the manuscripts that we have in the New Testament is "the Lord." So this is Peter in Acts 2, the famous speech at Pentecost. Therefore, let Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus whom you crucified, killed, both "Adonai" and Messiah. Is that really what Peter said? That's what the Greeks said. I don't think so. I don't, first of all, I have a problem with a dead "Adonai," a crucified "Adonai," by the way. I have a problem with an anointed "Adonai." How do you anoint Jehovah God? I mean, just saying that gives me shivers. To me, it's blasphemous. And then the question about, well, what are we saying that God made someone Jehovah "Adonai"? I mean, I think you really have to look into this. And these are serious matters, by the way. If we believe in a God, and that God is the God of our Lord and Savior Jesus, we have to be very careful what we're saying here. Okay. This is again for Dr. Garza. Wasn't Jesus called "my Lord and my God" in John 20:28? Uh, most definitely. And as I cited it from the Greek, it is "kurios." It is "hakurios," referring to "my Adonai" more literally, or "my Adonai." This is how it's expressed in in the Greek, as well as in the Hebrew manuscripts. We have about 10 Hebrew manuscripts of John, which reflects them as as as "Adonai." So this is definitely confirmation. "My Lord and my God." And and if Carlos, I know admits sometimes that that Jesus in a couple of occasions or rare occasions is called God, then doesn't that make two Gods? And Carlos's finger point of Jesus is called God in a couple places, that's accepted versus God only one God, but yet we have two. I mean, it's, we can't just simply go through straw man, red herrings about what he just mentioned about being anointed. We know that the incarnation, the Messiah, the Word became flesh, as the Messiah, gave up his glory, became a servant, and then at the resurrection, he was made again back to his rightful position as Messiah, as Lord, as God. Yeah, I don't think Thomas is said, Jesus, "My God, my God." I don't think Thomas repeated himself. I think Thomas is obviously saying "kurios mou." Please check the Greek "kurios mou," which translates, guess what? Again, please find a Hebrew translation of this verse, John 20:28, please, and see that even the Christian organizations behind modern-day Hebrew translations of the Gospels, they put there, they render that as "Adonai." They're not following rabbinic tradition. If we believe, Al, no, they're Christians. They're Trinitarians, most likely. So, no, Thomas said, most likely in Hebrew, "Adonai," and then he most probably said, maybe "Adonai," I don't know. But Thomas is not repeating him. So he's not saying "my God, my God." I mean, yeah, I have Hebrew manuscripts that don't, that don't agree with him. They predict the modern. These are 10 Hebrew manuscripts of the Gospel of John, and they don't have that what you're stating from Hebrew. There's a question here again to you, Dr. Garza. Why is Jesus never called "Pantocrator"? Again, that's again, we're looking at a position based on the incarnation. Jesus himself, becoming a man, becoming subject to the Father. His whole part of his mystery is based on that. It was not to take the place or go back to the point of where he pre-existed as the Word. So we're not looking for for that type of, you know, unless you go to Revelation, you can just, we can talk about the Almighty there. And references have been made if it was Jesus being a Trinitarian position or not. But again, we, we can look at different titles and names for the Messiah that was given to him in the New Testament. But as the Messiah, his fulfillment, he says, is that I have, I have come down from heaven. I mean, it's clear as day there, to do the will of him who sent me, not his own desire, but the one he sent me. So I come down from heaven is as clear as you're going to get as that he had pre-existed. And that's what we talked about Psalm 110. I know this is off-topic, so I don't want to go too far with this because this goes off to another, another area. But you have a book called "One Trinity" that deals with this a great deal. Excuse me. Yeah, Jesus is never, interestingly enough, Jesus is never called "Pantocrator" in the New Testament. Only the Father, God the Father, is in the book of Revelation, most prominently, or only, I think, "Pantocrator." So another interesting thing is that Jesus is never "latreuo." And yes, this is a bit of a separate, but "latreuo," which Trinitarians make a lot of. Hey, "latreuo" is a Greek word meaning sacred or or religious service. The Son is never "latreuo" in the New Testament. Yet you'll hear often that, well, in the Old Testament, in the book of Daniel, you know, the Greek translations have "latreuo" for the Son of Man. Okay, interesting. But why is he not "latreuo" in the New Testament? So this is similar to this "Pantocrator" work. I'll let you tackle this one first, Carlos. Is Jesus God in Hebrews 1:9? Please bring up the Greek interlinear to comment. Probably don't need to do that, but I think they mean verse 8. So about the Son, he says, "Your throne, O God, is forever and ever." Yes, yes, that's from Psalm 45, again, very well-known messianic psalm, giving the the messianic king the honorific title of God. By the way, just to clear something up, my finger test, hell yeah, obviously God in the absolute capital G sense of the word. Obviously, human. Humans are called God. Famously, Moses twice is called God. Exodus 4:16, Exodus 7:1. The judges of Israel in Psalm 82. Jesus himself in John 10 says, "Wait a minute, your law says, you know, they're gods. What's the deal?" So, yeah, he's given an honorific title here. And if you go and read Psalm 45, it's all about a human messianic king who happens to be obviously our Lord Jesus. Your response? Again, he affirms that it does refer to him as a divine title, which again goes against everything that he said, which makes more than one God. I mean, you call the others, they're not God. They're false gods or true gods. We have Jesus who is called God in the "kurios" and all the different ways in the Greek, as well as in the Peshitta, which he brought up, and he ignored the Peshitta before. The psalm brought up the Peshitta affirms him in that passage. We also have it in the modern Hebrew New Testament manuscripts that we have, not the modern translation, but the manuscripts we have that we discovered. So Hebrews 1 affirms the deity in a very strong way, that that Jesus is God, and that the Father calls him God, not in a false sense, but in a very true sense. So it goes back again to all the passages we discuss where "kurios," "kurios," "kurios," and "kurios mou," not the way it's pronounced in Psalms, is not found in the New Testament. Okay. I think that's about 15 minutes. We have some, the questions keep growing as people keep answering questions. Let's just finish with one more here. Dr. Garza, if you were granted that Jesus is God in Psalms 110, isn't that the same as Moses being made or called God in Exodus 7:1? If you look at the Hebrew, 7:1, it's actually where Moses is given to be God, given "Elohim," given "Elohim," not made "Elohim," but given "Elohim" in the sense of giving the power of God in the Hebrew. So that Hebrew, and Hebrew in Exodus 7:1, if the Hebrew is giving him the power, giving him "Elohim," it is also represents the power of God to be God in the sense of displaying. But Moses never said, "I am God," or they know, you know, he never accepted that title or anything like that. So I'm going by what the text says in Psalm 110, based on why the Jews put it. I don't need plain and simple. They admit it why they did it, and it had nothing to do with the Messiah. Carlos, your final response here? Yes, Jesus makes an interesting statement in John 10. Again, I, I mentioned this before, but please go and read that. The Jews, the the Pharisees say, "You, who are a man, just a man, declare yourself to be God." Now, there, they're talking about God in obviously the secondary sense. Why? Because Jesus goes on to cite Psalm 82. He says, "Is it not written in your law, 'I have said you are gods'?" That's Psalm 82. If he called them gods, that is God the Father, the supreme God, capital G God, so God, the supreme God, is calling humans, in this case, the judges of Israel, according to Jesus, gods, little G god, obviously, to whom the word of God came. So the question is, whether Jesus is an authorized agent of God who can have the honorific title of little G god. That's the question in the mind of his opponents. They're not asking, "Are you God Almighty?" I mean, just the question would be ridiculous. No, no, they're trying to ascertain whether this guy is, is an authorized agent of God. But then Jesus goes on to say, "Well, guess what? I'm the Son of God." He's even above those other people, like even Moses, obviously. I think Al would agree with me that Jesus is greater than Moses. So if they were called gods, how much more the Son of God? In other words, I have authority even over people like Moses, and obviously Abraham, and so on. So that's the real debate about Jesus. Is this guy not only a prophet of God, an agent of God, but is he actually the Messiah who would be even greater than David, when we go back to Matthew 22? Let me make a final comment, if I can, real quick, briefly. You could ask any rabbinic Jew about the Messiah, non-believing Jew. They have great words to say about the coming Messiah, not Jesus, obviously, not Yeshua, Jesus, but of the Messiah. They talk about him bringing about the resurrection of the dead, doing all these wonderful, great things. That's not the debate that Jesus is dealing with here, because even the Jews themselves, that Jesus is a man, just like Carlos believes, but he's going to be a great and exalted man. And Jews believe that today about about the Messiah in their own mind, and they have rabbinic texts about this about what the Messiah is going to do in miraculous ways. Jesus is affirming his pre-existence as the Word of God, the eternal Word, in Psalm 110, and he quotes it. That's why he doesn't quote Psalm 110 from the beginning. He says that David called him Lord, "kurios." This is, this is not a man. This is, this is more than a man. This is why Jesus is challenging them, because the rabbis and the Jews believe Jesus, or that the Messiah is a man, and he's going to be a great man in all the rabbinic literature. So they, they acknowledge what Carlos said as far as the Messiah's exaltedship and as a, as a man, but that's not what Jesus is challenging at all. Okay. Um, since you kind of had a last word there, Carlos, do you have a last word? Oh, yes. My last word is, well, first of all, thank you for those watching live. Thank you, Al, and obviously Josiah for moderating and hosting on your channel. I just like to say to people, don't believe anything I said. Don't believe me. What you do is you go and check it out for yourself, and then hopefully you will believe me. Now, these are serious matters here. I, I appreciate Dr. Al's spirit tonight. Very nice man. I can tell. I can see. We've been exchanging texts offline too, and you know, sometimes I wish we weren't in this business. Sometimes I wish, you know, with most of the people I debate, I feel like we can be great friends. We can, you know, go out and have a great time, laugh. But this is the business we have chosen for ourselves. It's a serious business. It's about salvation. It's about John 17:3. This is eternal life, that they may know you, Father, as the only true God, and Jesus, whom you have sent. You have commissioned, by the way, that's an agency word. So I, I appreciate the spirit of the debate tonight. I appreciate the viewers. But please, viewers, do not believe a single word I said. Check everything out for yourself. Don't fall into a cult mentality and just, you know, "Oh, this person says he knows Hebrew. This person says they know Greek," and blah, blah, blah. No, no. Check it out for yourself. God gave your brain common sense and the ability and gifts unique to all of us to look into these matters and and and come to our knowledge of the truth that will lead to salvation. So thank you once again, everyone. And I think we both agree on that 100%. Thank you. Thank you. Um, yeah, thank you both very much for a very cordial and respectable debate. It's very thoughtful. Thanks to the audience for tuning in and for the great questions. Um, there is a link to, um, the channels for, for Dr. Al Garza, his website, his YouTube channel, as well as for Carlos. So check those out if you'd like. Have a wonderful weekend. The Lord has risen. Thanks again, Al. God bless you. Until next time. Bye, everyone.