Dear Dennis,
Like many, I have appreciated you and your work for a very long time. I’m your age and have been a staunchly conservative, pro-Israel journalist and author for the past four-plus decades. The news organization I help lead, WorldNetDaily, has published your weekly commentaries continuously – from 2002 until your injury in late 2024 forced you to stop writing. Three generations of my family benefit from PragerU. And – I don’t know if you’ll remember this – my son Joshua was the very last questioner you answered on your “Fireside Chat” (a question about the Sabbath) before you suffered your terrible accident.
So again, I’m grateful for what you do – all of it.
I’m also one of the many Christians who – as you so often point out with undisguised warmth and appreciation – pray for you, that you might one day come to embrace Jesus Christ as the promised messiah and savior of mankind. You’ve often remarked that you’re “probably the most prayed-for person in America” for this very reason.
And of course, since your injury, all those good people have another reason to pray for you – as I do – for your recovery. I gladly follow the hard-won progress you’ve made. In fact, your recent on-air appearances prompt me to think this might be the time to share something with you I’ve wanted to for a long time.
I know you’ve had endless good-natured interactions with Christians over every aspect of both the similarities and differences between how Judaism and Christianity view everything important, including Jesus – from casual conversations to deep discussions to public debates like your annual “Ask a Jew, Ask a Gentile” forums.
So, encouraged by your openness and warmth toward respectful debate regarding the identity and meaning of the life of Jesus, I’d like to bring up something that just possibly no one has brought up to you before. And I’d like to offer it in the context of your own yardstick, as showcased by your “Rational Bible” series of books (two of which I own) on the Torah.
And that would be the standard for spiritual truth being not just something requiring “blind faith” – nor being just “what Christianity teaches” or “what Judaism teaches” – but rather, being eminently rational. It has to actually and profoundly make sense.
I believe what I want to share with you is powerfully rational. Maybe you’ll agree, maybe not – but here goes.
Let’s start at (or at least near) the beginning:
“And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” (Genesis 2:16-17)
And then, after the first man – and woman – were tempted by the serpent to sin by disobeying God’s command, came the promised consequence:
“In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” (Genesis 3:19)
In short, as Scripture makes plain, sin and death are mankind’s inheritance from the first man.
Question: If God created Adam, whose disobedience introduced sin and death into the world, is there some reason the same Creator God could not choose to give mankind a “second Adam” with the mission of taking sin and death out of the world? This is the Apostle Paul’s premise in Romans 5, and it seems eminently rational.
Let me restate the proposition a little differently: If the first man was disobedient and the consequences of his disobedience flowed out unto the many who came after him – why then is it not rational to consider that a great, loving and compassionate God could choose to reverse Adam’s epic and supremely consequential disobedience by allowing His own Son to do the exact opposite – to be obedient, even unto death – and thereby mercifully allow the consequence of His obedience to God to flow out unto the many? It’s hard to conceive of anything more rational, cosmically simple and understandable – and demonstrative of great love for mankind on God’s part.
I know that as an adherent to Judaism, you don’t consider the New Testament scriptures to be the product of divine revelation like the Hebrew Bible. Yet I think you’ll agree that what I’m going to quote now is just universally understood to be true: “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends,” said Jesus (John 15:13). A courageous young soldier who sacrifices his own life by intentionally throwing himself onto a live enemy grenade on the battlefield to save his fellow soldiers from being blown up is regarded as having demonstrated the highest form of love we can know as humans. He has literally died that others might live.
Dennis, you’ve said, “My biggest issue is, I don’t believe that anybody could die for my sins,” essentially holding that individuals are responsible for their own actions and that repentance directly to God brings forgiveness. This premise is clearly true, as far as it goes; that is, without genuine contrition and repentance, there can be no divine forgiveness.
However, if God is both merciful and just – as evidenced throughout the Hebrew scriptures – how does the scenario of the Divine Judge choosing to just drop all charges against a terribly sinful human being, who may have committed great crimes, satisfy the requirement for justice?
If, in our world, you or I committed grievous crimes but then truly repented and humbly confessed our crimes to a judge, would the judge say, “Well, you seem genuinely sorry – that’s great – so I’m dropping all the charges”? No, it would probably go more like: “I’m glad you’re repentant, that’s good for your soul, your family and your victims’ families. But I’m still compelled to sentence you to prison because you committed all those terrible crimes.”
In other words, sorrow and repentance are vital, but that doesn’t necessarily clear our record before a just God. However, what if the divine Judge’s own much-beloved and sinless Son offers to take our punishment on Himself, and the Father/Judge, in a great act of clemency, agrees to accept that sacrifice? Not only freedom, but a new and redeemed life is then possible for us, a life grounded in endless gratitude to the Son Who saved us, and a sincere desire to emulate Him.
It’s hard to deny the elegant rationality of Paul’s argument, which essentially asks (and answers) the question: If, by the first man, sin came into the world, which Genesis clearly teaches, why would not the perfect answer and resolution to that problem be that another man – a better man, the long-promised messiah – has come to undo all that, enabling us to inherit a blessing that brings us life, instead of a curse that delivers us over to death?
Also Dennis, one more relevant question nobody seems to ask: Why did God make the sinful nature of the first man and woman pass on to all of their progeny down through the ages? (I know Judaism doesn’t exactly teach this, but hey, you and I have hopefully agreed to temporarily drop “What Judaism teaches” and “What Christianity teaches” and to stick with Scripture and “What is rational?” And it’s way beyond obvious that we’re all born with a tendency toward sin.)
Here’s my point: Why wouldn’t God let each new person be born totally sinless, like Adam and Eve were before the fall? Maybe it’s because the infinitely wise and all-knowing Creator God foresaw that every new man and woman would fall for the same temptation that Adam and Eve did. Remember, the first man and woman were created perfect and without sin – and yet, because they were created “in God’s image,” evidently something in them wanted to become gods or god-like. And not foreseeing the consequences, they took the serpent’s bait.
So perhaps our infinitely wise and benevolent God acted mercifully, and instead of allowing every human being to tragically fail in the same way Adam and Eve did, He knew the only way His children could come to true wholeness, understanding, obedience and right relationship with Him was through first experiencing all the vexing fruits of sin and disobedience. To go from slavery to freedom, so to speak, instead of from freedom to slavery.
Bottom line: Why would a truly great God – Yahweh, He who was, is and will be – not go all-out and demonstrate that the Creator of infinite distances and space and time was willing, in order to redeem His wayward children, to manifest the greatest possible love that human beings can ever comprehend? If voluntarily giving oneself over to an excruciating death so that others may live is the ultimate demonstration of love that we humans can experience, why on earth would the Creator of all not resort to using it to draw us back to Him?
Dennis, I submit that this ultimate expression of love – the suffering and sacrificial death of His own Son – is the most rational thing the Good Lord, the Creator of all, could do to demonstrate His great love … and to lead his wayward children back to Him.
Please consider my humble thoughts expressed here. May the Good Lord bless you and heal you in every way.
With kindest regards and prayers,
David Kupelian
Editor-in-Chief, WND News Center
Editor, Whistleblower magazine
Author, “The Marketing of Evil,” “How Evil Works” and “The Snapping of the American Mind”
