Joseph Farah Puffs “Hebrew Roots” Teacher Michael Rood

From WND:

If you’re not familiar with [Michael] Rood’s amazingly insightful teachings of Hebrew roots, there’s plenty more that will “blow you away,” says WND founder Joseph Farah.  Rood has earned a reputation as the “Messianic Matador,” who waves his tattered red cape in the face of the religious “bull” of his generation. His television series, “Prepare for A Rood Awakening from Israel,” has been heralded as the most energetic exposition of scriptural truth to come out of Israel in over a millennium.

In particular, Farah is enthusing over a new video:

Seldom has there been such an overwhelming response to a video offered in the WND Superstore.

And that’s understandable.

This one presents stunning visual evidence of Egyptian chariot wheels at the bottom of the Red Sea – archaeological finds that support the biblical account of the miracle parting described by Moses in the book of Exodus.

In fact, there’s nothing new here – the “stunning visual evidence” appears to consist of interpretations previously made by the late pseudo-archaeologist Ron Wyatt, whose purported discoveries of ancient relics rival Indiana Jones and the mother of Constantine combined: the list includes the Ark of the Covenant; Noah’s Ark, house and grave; pre-flood wood without tree rings; sulphur balls from Sodom and Gomorrrah; and even a sample of Jesus’ blood (which contained 23 chromosomes from Mary and one from God). Wyatt’s legacy is today primarily embodied by Richard Rives, who is a regular WND pundit.

But what of Rood’s “amazingly insightful teachings of Hebrew roots”? Members of the “Hebrew Roots” movement appropriate Jewish rituals and cultural forms – members believe that this brings them into alignment with Biblical teaching, and they are often scathing about the “paganism” of mainstream Christianity; for instance, Rood claims that the Good Friday is in reality “the day that the Philistines sacrificed to Dagon, the Philistine fish god,” and that this explains the Catholic practice of eating fish rather than meat on this day. Protestants don’t get off lightly, either, though: according to a purported quote on critical websites, Rood claims to have escaped the “Baptist cult”.

However, Rood seems to be a particularly divisive figure within the movement; in 2007 he was involved in a dispute with the former administrator of his ministry, which led to an arbitration finding against him and legal action. More generally, conservative Christians have complained about his behaviour and his teachings, and allege past links to a non-Trinitarian  group called The Way International.

Rood’s website certainly appears overheated:

Michael Rood, a former U.S. Marine, has declared war on every self-serving, man-made religious system on the planet. In his 1995 live seminars, “From Here to Eternity – the Book of The Revelation exposes the New World Order Michael began revealing the many tentacled monstrosity of “Mystery Babylon” that had buried itself inside every religious system on the planet. On March 4, 1996, he commenced his final assault on fossilized “Churchianity” when he presented the groundbreaking 20-hour seminar, “The Prophetic Fulfillment of the Feasts of the LORD” which exhorted the spiritually wilting Christian world to graft back into the Hebrew roots of their faith – while exposing the man-made traditions of modern Phariseeism.  Then, in 2001, Michael hit the television airwaves with “A Rood Awakening from Israel,” which enunciated “the original faith once delivered unto the Saints” and took believers to the next level in their spiritual walk – being filled with the Holy Spirit and walking in obedience to the Torah.  

The immediate accolades from Christian leaders around the globe were soon followed by Mystery Babylon’s full-scale retaliation.  In a concerted effort to protect its sheeple from the truth, manufactured lies were fed to ignorant false witnesses manning the long-range guns of the Internet. In the safety of anonymity and often across international borders where libel and slander go unpunished, the hordes of hell (falsely attired as sincere Christians) continue to fire barrages of deceitful propaganda upon innocent believers who are earnestly searching for truth. 

According to his book The Mystery of Iniquity (as quoted in The Silence Is Broken! God Hooks Ezekiel’s Gog & Magog), Rood also looks forward to Israel nuking Damascus:

 When the Islamic terrorists step over the line, the nation of Israel will come down with the equivalent of millions of tons of TNT… The inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem will stand up against the aggression and incinerate their enemies round about. Damascus will become a ruinous heap of radioactive rubble.

Rood also promotes an “Astronomically and Agriculturally Corrected Biblical Calendar”:

The western Gentile Christian world has forsaken God’s calendar. Instead, it has adopted a pagan reckoning of time in which every day of the week and month of the year is named after a pagan god or fallen angel.

Thus the scholarly realisation that to understand Jesus and the New Testament properly one ought to know about the First Century Jewish context is transformed into the idea that the supposed recovery of mystical secrets from the Jewish tradition somehow provides special esoteric insight into spiritual reality.

Rood’s close associates include Nehemia Gordon and Keith Johnson. Gordon is of Orthodox Jewish background, but now identifies as a Karaite (and as a “former Pharisee”); he has a “Masters Degree in Biblical Studies and a Bachelors Degree in Archaeology from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem” and has worked academically on the Dead Sea Scrolls. His association with Rood appears to be controversial on both sides; a Karaite petition complains

about the ever growing reaction on part of Christians who, due to the activities of Messianic teachers like Michael Rood, various Hebrew-roots preachers and our own Karaite Jew Nehemia Gordon, develop misunderstandings regarding the Israelite God, religion and people in the form of a new religion called, Messianic Karaism.

Some of Rood’s critics, meanwhile, complain that he is working with “a non-Christian, non-Messianic Jew who rejects Jesus”.

Nehemia is the author of The Hebrew Yeshua vs the Greek Jesus, which extols the virtues of a medieval Hebrew translation of the Gospel of Matthew over the Greek New Testament text, which is regarded as corrupt. The book comes with an introduction by Rood and a preface by Avi Ben Mordechai; I came across Ben Mordechai in 2009, when another Hebrew Roots enthusiast, Jim Barfield, claimed that Ben Mordechai had endorsed his (undisclosed) theory about how the Copper Scroll could be used to find lost treasure from the Jerusalem Temple (ludicrous archaeological claims seem to be endemic to the movement).

Keith Johnson, meanwhile, was quoted in the press earlier this year after a Hebrew Roots teacher named Ralph Messer wrapped Eddie Long in a Torah scroll after giving an eccentric phallic interpretation of the scroll’s significance. Johnson accused Messer of “exploiting African-Americans and making a mockery of the Hebrew roots of the faith”, and of allegedly charging a friend for Hebrew lessons that never materialised.

13 Responses

  1. Ron Wyatt was not the only one who discovered
    the Israelites true journey from Egypt.
    The film contains the chariot wheels under the Red sea – the clearly burned top of mount Sinai in Saudi
    Arabia – the smitten rock of Moses split in two and Joshua’s alter.
    The youtube film is worth a look. The mount Sinai
    that is so named today was chosen by Constantine wife but is not burned on the top.

    The rest of the controversies seem to be between
    the law and walking by the golden rule which fulfils
    the law by the Holy Spirit.

    Some of the Christian worship has been invented
    eg Christmas seems to be the worship of consumerism.

    • Many things could be said concerning the Unorthodox teachings of Michael Rood. To keep this short, I would encourage every believer to read some of Dr. John Juede’s excellent reviews of Rood’s “False Teachings” at http://abouttheway.org Under Roods picture click on his name.

      Concerning Ron Wyatt, I encourage not only Charles Allan, but again all believers to read the excellent articles that has been shown to show Wyatt to be “Unreliable” and not “Trustworthy”
      http://tccsa.tc/articles (Scroll Down)

      Rood, even though he left the anti-Deity of Christ-anti-Trinitarian-anti-Hell Way International, He still does not proclaim the Deity of the Messiah on his site. I see no statement of faith proclaiming this cardinal teaching of the Historic Christian faith. Many will be duped thinking his ministry is Biblical, because Keith Johnson (Mentioned in the article above) is a graduate of Trinity Evangelical Seminary. Why a graduate from an Evangelical Seminary would want to be one of the main speakers with Michael Rood?, causes for concern.

      • This view on Michael Rood and Ron Wyatt, and Joseph Farah, expose a mindset that the Roman Catholic Church of the Pagan Vatican smiles approvingly over.

        The facts, however, divide down a line between where respect and obedience to Him Who created Man, and gave Himself to atone for the sins of all men who choose to believe upon Him, in His True name, do not suffer just judgement and Eternal Death for their disobedience.

        The article, and its position on the above men, when read in light of the Hegelian Order of Jesuit, reveals a purposed, designed plan to disseminate false information to confuse earnest truth-seekers, while lumping together those who spurn truth and deny the Deity of Creator and His manifest Person in Man’s flesh, with those who love and obey Creator and His Way of Truth, but who, in doing so, uncover deception that the author of this article adheres to, and disseminates as truth.

        Not so oddly, this article mirrors that wild melee some 2,000 years ago, where Man’s Savior proclaimed His Way to Truth, and those who served The Deceiver, Fallen Angel, Lucifer, declared Him AND His Believers to be heretics. This Hegelian, purposed confusion was no stranger to Man’s existence, then, as it was introduced to Mother Ishah, “Eve,” by Serpent, under the dark spiritual possession of Fallen Angel Lucifer, whose true, but hidden agenda is to destroy ALL mankind, and to even usurp the authority of Creator.

        Opposed to this article, then, is Creator’s Living Word, which states that man, possessed by evil-minded spirits, would attempt to confuse and mislead those who seek Creator and His Living Way of Truth to believe that both liars and truth-speakers are together, evil.

        I close this with my own witness of Ron Wyatt. In 1993, I listened to him, and then spoke with him about his work. A humble man, Ron’s best reflection is found in chapter 10 of the book he had published back then: “If there is one purpose to my life,” he wrote, and I fore shorten, “It is to proclaim the Good News of the Gospel of [Y’suah Ha Messiach] Jesus Christ, to all the earth.” And, Ron made good on this personal life-goal.

        In contrast to this clear personal goal of Ron Wyatt, Michael Rood reveals no such object, nor activity in his presentations. Rather, he uses guile and pomp to draw in, and captivate his audience with tinsel and flashing lights, and his wearing of unauthorized vestment reserved for only the Priesthood of the Temple of the Lord, in Y’ruashalom, and makes no attempt to seek true repentance in the hearts of those he so attracts.

        In fact, parallels what I observe about this website: focus primarily upon “dissing” everyone on a personal, arbitrary scale, without a primary mission to bring the audience to a point of surrender and repentance at the Cross Creator hung upon for the salvation of any who would turn to Him. Another sign of this Last Hour.

      • Comparing someone’s teaching to orthodox doctrine does not impress me. Articles of faith are not canonical Scripture. Over the years, I have become convinced that if one adjusts one’s opinion to match Scripture, one will certainly wind up an heretic, as many dogmas are merely decrees of synods. It’s not hard to massage the text to support any position. Open and honest debate, the “argument for the sake of Heaven,” is a much more reliable method than creedal litmus tests.

      • I just saw a You Tube video in which Michael Rood talks about the beginning of Jesus’s ministry. Several times he mentions that Jesus (Yeshua) is the son of God.

  2. Joseph Farah and Michael Rood: two peas in a pod. Or rather two Wingnuts sharing the same pea-brain.

  3. Just now hearing about this Michael Rood. We watched his testimonial video that was almost 2 hrs. long. He seems a man that has been on a long journey, becoming involved with different cults, etc. but seemed like God was bringing him to Himself. I waited to see that he was going to just be a simple brother in Christ but then it seems he has joined Judaism?? I cannot understand where he is really at and don’t think I will do more research into him because my research will be into Christ. I will pray for him, though. It seems he just needs to get with some brothers in the Lord and quit trying to be famous or something that he shouldn’t be. There are no Old Testament Prophets any more. We are all brothers and sisters in Christ. Stick with that and you’ll be safe, Michael.

  4. […] editor Joseph Farah also promotes “Hebrew Roots” teachers such as Michael Rood and Jonathan Cahn; Cahn, with Farah’s assistance, has come to wider attention due to a […]

  5. If believers can’t see through the deception of Michael Rood, then what hope do they have of knowing who the Antichrist is? Messianic believers in Israel wouldn’t touch Rood with a 20 foot pole!!!

  6. […] It should be remembered that Farah is great enthusiast of “Hebrew Roots”, which seeks to appropriate aspects of Judaism within Christianity. Working with Stephen Strang of Charisma magazine, Farah […]

  7. […] himself as having special insight into “Hebrew mysteries”. There is also a related Hebrew Roots movement which appropriates aspects of Judaism within evangelicalism, sometimes in highly […]

  8. Joesph Farah you had better take another look. Human frailties of pride and arrogance is driving the people of this organization apart from each other

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.