In this episode of Hebrew Voices #240 - The Chair of Moses: Part 1, Nehemia is joined by Rev. Dr. Philip Thomas Mohr to discuss his doctoral dissertation on the infamous “Seat of Moses” in Matthew 23, how individuals project their own assumptions onto the person of Jesus, and how martyrdom functions as a powerful form of witness.

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Hebrew Voices #240 – The Chair of Moses: Part 1

You are listening to Hebrew Voices with Nehemia Gordon. Thank you for supporting Nehemia Gordon's Makor Hebrew Foundation. Learn more at NehemiasWall.com.

Rev. Dr. Philip Thomas “Pip” Mohr: This project of doing that, you pick your favorite theology, and you cut away the things that you don’t like to get to the true Jesus, who looks just like you. That’s been going on for, well, a lot longer than the modern period, but definitely in the modern period. And so, these scholars who are doing that kind of thing with Matthew 23 are right in line with, “I’ve picked the Jesus I prefer. Let me get rid of the things I don’t like.”

Nehemia: Look, I mean, there’s something about this Jesus fellow, I’ll just say it like that, where Mao Tse-Tung, who doesn’t come from a Christian culture, is making the early church and Jesus out to be like proto communists, right? And I don’t have an answer, I’m just thinking out loud. There’s something here where people from around the world are trying to engage with this historical figure and recast him in their own kind of, you know, mold. That’s really interesting.

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Nehemia: Shalom, and welcome to Hebrew Voices. I’m here today with Reverend Dr. Philip Thomas Mohr, who goes by the name Pip. He is an assistant professor of biblical and theological studies at Erskine College in Due West, South Carolina. He’s also a Minister of the Word at the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church. And… shalom, and welcome to the program, Pip. Thank you for joining us.

Pip: Thank you. Good to be here.

Nehemia: I don’t know if the audience sees this, but I noticed on your Zoom it says your name is Philip Thomas Mohr, and in parentheses, it has Nehemiah with vowels. And I thought to myself, “Oh, he put my name in there to remind himself who he’s talking to.” But, no, you actually used that name. So, tell the audience about that.

Pip: Yeah, yeah. So, one of my roles I’ve been doing for a number of years, teaching Hebrew, the third level of Hebrew, for Westminster Theological Seminary online. So, students online would see me in Zoom, and I forgot to change it. But we have Hebrew names in the course because we, you know, talk to each other, and as I call on students… And so, they would call me Nehemiah…

Nehemia: Okay. Oh, and you pronounced that even with the correct Tiberian… well, let’s say the correct emphasis.

Pip: Yeah.

Nehemia: NehemiAH, instead of the Eastern European, NeHEMiah.

Pip: Yeah, yeah.

Nehemia: So, it’s funny, I once interviewed a gentleman who told me his name was NeheMIah, and I said, “Wow, it’s very unusual for, you know, someone from your background.” He said, “Well, I went through a very difficult time in life, and my community gave me that name. My original name is…” I don’t remember, it was like Bill or something, right?

Pip: Yeah, yeah.

Nehemia: And I said, “The same thing happened to me. A man came at me with a scalpel when I was eight days old, and I was given the name Nehemia. Right? I went through a difficult thing.”

Pip: A traumatic experience.

Nehemia: Yeah, exactly. There you go. Because for those who don’t know, Jews are given their name at eight days old. So, the reason I wanted to interview you is, I get this, like, newsletter announcement from the Society of Biblical Literature, and they had an announcement about a new dissertation that had come out from one of their members, and it was you. I mean, there’s a bunch of them. I read through them and I’m usually not interested. And here I’m like, “I need to talk to this guy!”

So, your dissertation for your PhD was called “The ‘Chair of Moses’ Saying (Matthew 23:2–3): Historical Concerns, Providential Applications, and Present Understanding; a Dissertation”. And it’s actually from the Catholic University of America, so, until five minutes ago, I thought you were Catholic. Then I found out you are part of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, which I’ve never heard of until five minutes ago.

So, Pip, tell us about the Chair of Moses. You probably don’t know this, but I have a profound and deep interest in that, both as an academic, but also from kind of a personal perspective, because I’ve approached the Chair of Moses from the Jewish perspective, which I don’t think you discussed that in your dissertation. I don’t remember. You had some interesting things in your dissertation which I wouldn&...