When I began writing this article a few weeks ago, I would have defined "Hebrew Roots" as a spontaneous, worldwide movement of people from mostly Christian backgrounds drawn to return to the Hebraic roots of Christianity and to discover and apply the original intent of the writings in the Bible. Now I'm not sure that's accurate or even helpful, but I'll keep it for the next few paragraphs and backtrack at the end.
Sue me.
People place the origins of the Hebrew Roots Movement anywhere from the end of the 19th century to the end of the 20th century, but the nature of such movements make their precise origins very difficult to pin down. It is not a denomination or cult by any useful definition because it has no central leadership and no unified doctrinal statement or creed. It truly appears to be a spontaneous movement of people all over the world responding to God's Spirit calling them back to the "Old Paths" of Jeremiah 6:16. It did not begin with Herbert Armstrong and the Worldwide Church of God, nor with Messianic Judaism, nor any other specific religious organization or event, although many of those things might be manifestations of that response to some extent.
The organic character of the movement is both good and bad. It's good in that people everywhere are responding to a movement of God's Holy Spirit. It's bad in that the lack of leadership and unity has created some definite chaos, just as God was behind the conquest of Canaan before King David, but "every man did what was right in his own eyes." The Hebrew Roots Movement is a mix of ugly and beautiful right now. I believe this is a period of refining and that God is going to bring something much better out of it.
Since it is so chaotic, everybody seems to have a different idea of what "Hebrew Roots" is, even among HR people. Some people lump Messianic Judaism and Hebrew Roots together as a monolithic conspiracy to corrupt The Church (an actual, extreme view I read just this morning from someone I won't hesitate to label an anti-Christ liar). Others view Messianic Judaism as distinctly Jewish and Hebrew Roots as distinctly Christian or as a spectrum with no clear distinction. My experience has been somewhere in the middle and also very different than that of others in the movement.
In an effort go get a little more objective idea of what HR people really believe, I posted a series of polls at The Torah Network. This exercise was far from scientific and truly objective. For one thing, there weren't enough responses. For another, TTN isn't explicitly Hebrew Roots as opposed to Messianic Jewish, but its users believe that Yeshua (aka Jesus) is the Messiah and that all believers in Yeshua should be keeping God's Law (aka Torah). That's about the best "lowest common denominator" definition of Hebrew Roots you're going to find.
2023-02-10 Update: I asked these questions again in one of the larger Hebrew Roots groups on Facebook. Polls on social media will always produce "fuzzy" results, but I got mostly the same responses on both sites. Facebook has the added complication that I couldn't find a way to expire my polls, so the numbers below are a snapshot, not a final result.
In the end, though, what I really learned isn't what I expected. I think it actually tells me a lot more about the people who talk about Hebrew Roots people than it does about Hebrew Roots people themselves.
The Questions and Answers:
Do you believe that understanding the pictographic meanings of the Hebrew letters that make up a word are an important aspect of understanding the Tanakh (the Old Testament)? (30 votes)
- 50% Definitely.
- 30% Somewhat. (God and the Biblical authors understood the pictographic origins of the letters and could have used that understanding to add another layer of meaning to the text.)
- 20% Not at all.
Do you believe that a person can only be saved if he correctly pronounces the name of God (aka the Tetragrammaton) and/or of the Messiah? (31 votes)
- 96% Pronunciation is important for accuracy and meaning, but it's irrelevant to salvation.
- 4% It doesn't matter what you call God or the Messiah.
- 0% You must pronounce both names correctly.
- 0% You must pronounce one or the other correctly.
Do you believe the earth is flat or ovoid? (91 votes)
- 74% The earth is ovoid/spherical.
- 20% The earth is flat.
- 6% I don't know.
Do you believe that Paul (aka Saul of Tarsus) was a false prophet and/or a false teacher? (140 votes)
- 97% Paul was a legitimate Apostle.
- 2% Paul was a false teacher/prophet.
- 1% Undecided
Do you believe the Bible is missing some books? (87 votes)
- 48% The Bible is fine as it is.
- 34% Anything that was in any ancient edition of the Septuagint should be in the Bible.
- 17% The Bible is missing a few books, like Enoch, Jubilees, and Sirach.
Do you believe that Yeshua is God? (82 votes)
- 66% Yeshua is God.
- 28% Yeshua is the only begotten Son of God, but not God.
- 6% Yeshua was a normal man, who was elevated by God to the role of Messiah.
Do you believe in "Two House" Theology?
For this question, I presented multiple, nuanced varieties of "Two House" theology that I have encountered over the last three decades. Apparently, there is so little agreement about what this term means that almost nobody was even able to answer the question.
When do you observe the weekly Sabbath? (172 votes)
- 85% Sunset Friday to sunset Saturday
- 7% According to the phases of the moon
- 5% Some other time
- 3% Sunday
- 2% Sunrise to sunset on Saturday
Which label do you most closely identify with? (90 votes)
- 61% Something else
- 19% Hebrew Roots
- 15% Christian
- 5% Messianic Jew
What do you believe about the Jewish Talmuds? (69 votes)
- 50% Useful
- 30% Evil
- 15% Irrelevant
- 5% Inspired/Authoritative
Although all of these people would probably be labeled "Hebrew Roots" by those who label themselves "Messianic Jews" or some variety of mainstream Christian, that's not how they identify themselves. In the comments to that question, people specified Natsarim, Messianic Gentile, and Hebrew Christian as their preferred labels. With the one exception of "pictographic meanings", most Hebrew Roots people don't believe any of the things that the rest of the world ascribes to them.
Understanding that the natures of both polls and social media make any conclusions somewhat dubious, the best conclusion I can make is that "Hebrew Roots" seems to be a label that is most commonly used as a catchall pejorative applied to anyone who 1) believes that Yeshua (aka Jesus) is the Messiah and Son of God, 2) is pronomian (in favor of keeping God's Law), 3) practices some religious traditions that Christians associate with Judaism or has adopted more Hebrew or Hebrew-ish vocabulary, and 4) holds any belief that the speaker/writer finds offensive or embarrassing.
Most people whom the rest of the religious world would label as "Hebrew Roots" don't even call themselves that. It's very similar to how the term "racist" is used by most people on the political left to mean "someone who doesn't agree with me", which makes the term nearly useless. No wonder so few people want to identify themselves as Hebrew Roots.
