- May 3, 2022
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All of the men I quoted would claim they were "men of God" who strove to teach Scripture to the common people. All of them are held in high esteem, not just in the Catholic Church (except Luther), but among many historians and commentators. I doubt if any of them were true believers! To say the horrible, evil, and wicked things they said and thought cannot be reconciled with how Scripture portrays a believer, especially how a teacher of Scripture should think and speak. Yeshua clearly taught that a believer should "love his enemies," and even if these wicked men thought the Jews to be their enemies, they had been commanded to love the Jews!
Concerning the teaching of Scripture, by their very words they all showed that they knew very well the importance of the teaching in the O.T. They knew that if the people discovered the truth of this that the people would find out that they were being taught a false image of Scripture and would reject their teaching.
Everything they worked toward was to create a picture that God hated the Jews, had rejected the Jewish people as a whole, sent Jesus to create, start from scratch, the "Church," which was strictly Gentile in nature, that the "Church" had replaced Israel. The promises and blessings for the Jewish people had been transferred to Gentiles and the "Church" represented the "true Israel", the Israel God had "imagined."
It wasn't enough to eliminate any trace of Judaism when "presenting" the gospel to pagan Gentiles, the had to present a faith that would appeal to the Hellenistic view of life, philosophy and religion (Hellenism was the dominate cultural influence among all Gentiles, regardless of nationality or bloodline). To the average Gentile, even if they did not personally dislike the Jews, the "religion" of the Jews was strange and unlike any of the pagan religions. So, to make "Christianty" more appealing, it was presented as if it was Greek in nature.
And today, the fact that the New Testament ended up as thousands of Greek manuscripts, to the point that most people believe that the writers of the New Testament all spoke and wrote in Greek. That the New Testament was specifically written in Greek because it was a language used by many different cultures in the known world and this would enable Gentiles to be able to read the New Testament for themselves, or for those who literate, the New Testament could be read to them in Greek.
The separation sought by those evil men hundreds of years ago has borne much fruit. The idea that the O.T. and N.T. are separate books of the bible, that the O.T. is only concerned mostly with Jewish history and presented as if its main goal was to show how Yeshua, prophesized and pointed to by the festivals and sacrifices, had finally arrived. and the New Testament is completely focused on the "Church" and future events, the end times and that Jesus never looked back to the O.T. As if Judaism no longer played any role in the N.T era. I distinctly remember "pastors" talking about theology when in the N.T., but I can't recall any talk about the "theology" of the O.T. I only discovered this when at a book store and I saw a book titled Old Testament Theology, a few weeks after I began to study.
However, what those men started, others got on that train and added to what had been accomplished. The testaments had not only been separated, men had turned things around to the point where not only the two books not connected, that God acted one way in the O.T. and in a completely different way in the N.T. That with the Jews He was harsh, mean, vindictive and demanding. In the N.T. He is all about love, love, mercy, and kindness. In the O.T. He told you what to do and if you disobeyed, there was a price to pay. In the N.T. He hopes you will choose to obey Him. In the O.T. God did as he saw fit, He did as He wanted to. In the N.T., God can only have a desire, "God wants to..." They went so far as to create a "personal devil" who acts in the same way, with the same power, as God did in the O.T. in an effort to explain how and why the "bad things" that happened in the O.T. and are still happening in the N.T., were no longer a direct result of God taking action, but were the work of "the enemy." Let me show some examples of how things are taught in the O.T. compared to the N.T
O.T. God is sovereign
N.T. God is only in control.
O.T. Worship was to bow down and obey God.
N.T. Worship is singing, playing music and giving money.
O.T. God punished sin
N.T. God overlooks sin.
O.T. God doesn't love all people, only the Jews and a few Gentiles.
N.T. God loves everybody.
O.T. God was angry, vengeful and filled with wrath.
N.T. God is all about love, kindness and mercy.
O.T. Temple
N.T. Church
O.T. the tithe was on food, food products and livestock, not every Jew tithed.
N.T., the tithe is 10% of everybody's income.
O.T. The tithe was to be eaten.
N.T. the tithe is put into the bank.
O.T. The tithe went to the Levites first.
N.T. The tithe goes to the church leaders.
O.T. God caused sickness, disease and natural disasters.
N.T. Satan/demons cause these things.
O.T. God made man in His image.
N.T. Man made God in his image.
O.T. God chose who He purposed to be saved.
N.T. Man decides if he gets saved or not and God has no say about it.
O.T. God's will is the most powerful force in the universe and no man can stop God from preforming His will
N.T. Man's will is the most powerful force in the universe and God is unable to go against man's will
When I started to study, I greatly emphasized the Greek language and Greek words. I believed this because this has been the main attitude among scholars and others for many years and the Greek words gave a more exact meaning of Scripture. So, when I was in the O.T., Hebrew was the focus, and Greek words in the N.T. I had thought that every Greek word used was the exact equivalent to the Hebrew words spoken in the N.T.
But the longer I studied, the more I learned. But, I also became aware that things I didn't know were in play, things that directly affect the study of Scripture. The first and most important fact was that everything in the New Testament is Jewish! There is nothing from the Gentile world that is taught in the N.T. Then I learned that everything taught in the New Testament (Except for Paul's teaching of marriage between an unbeliever and believer) comes straight from the Old Testament. And then I learned that Strong's Concordance and Thayer's Lexicon were not 100% accurate. Not only did they give the wrong definitions, Strong's included made-up words!
And then today, I came across something that showed why Strong's included made up words. From a site called The Torah Source, "...the "definitions given for any particular Hebrew and Greek word listed in the Strong's Dictionary are simply all of the English words chosen by the KJV translators for a particular word. Thus Strong's "Dictionary" is not actually a dictionary at all, and clearly not a lexicon, but rather a listing of the words that the KJV translators deemed appropriate.
Rather than Strong coming up with a dictionary of his own on the Greek language and how the Greek words were used by the KJV translators, he was forced to define the words as the translators used them in the KJV! That explains why he had to make up definitions. He didn't makeup words, the KJV translators made up words! And then Strong had to make up definitions to fit the KJV! And, I have to cut those translators some slack as their knowledge of the ancient Hebrew and Greek available to them was very limited to what is now known.
In the next post, I will start addressing the subject of baptism, but I had to first lay down the background and groundwork of what I am about to show. So, hang in there.
End of part 6
Concerning the teaching of Scripture, by their very words they all showed that they knew very well the importance of the teaching in the O.T. They knew that if the people discovered the truth of this that the people would find out that they were being taught a false image of Scripture and would reject their teaching.
Everything they worked toward was to create a picture that God hated the Jews, had rejected the Jewish people as a whole, sent Jesus to create, start from scratch, the "Church," which was strictly Gentile in nature, that the "Church" had replaced Israel. The promises and blessings for the Jewish people had been transferred to Gentiles and the "Church" represented the "true Israel", the Israel God had "imagined."
It wasn't enough to eliminate any trace of Judaism when "presenting" the gospel to pagan Gentiles, the had to present a faith that would appeal to the Hellenistic view of life, philosophy and religion (Hellenism was the dominate cultural influence among all Gentiles, regardless of nationality or bloodline). To the average Gentile, even if they did not personally dislike the Jews, the "religion" of the Jews was strange and unlike any of the pagan religions. So, to make "Christianty" more appealing, it was presented as if it was Greek in nature.
And today, the fact that the New Testament ended up as thousands of Greek manuscripts, to the point that most people believe that the writers of the New Testament all spoke and wrote in Greek. That the New Testament was specifically written in Greek because it was a language used by many different cultures in the known world and this would enable Gentiles to be able to read the New Testament for themselves, or for those who literate, the New Testament could be read to them in Greek.
The separation sought by those evil men hundreds of years ago has borne much fruit. The idea that the O.T. and N.T. are separate books of the bible, that the O.T. is only concerned mostly with Jewish history and presented as if its main goal was to show how Yeshua, prophesized and pointed to by the festivals and sacrifices, had finally arrived. and the New Testament is completely focused on the "Church" and future events, the end times and that Jesus never looked back to the O.T. As if Judaism no longer played any role in the N.T era. I distinctly remember "pastors" talking about theology when in the N.T., but I can't recall any talk about the "theology" of the O.T. I only discovered this when at a book store and I saw a book titled Old Testament Theology, a few weeks after I began to study.
However, what those men started, others got on that train and added to what had been accomplished. The testaments had not only been separated, men had turned things around to the point where not only the two books not connected, that God acted one way in the O.T. and in a completely different way in the N.T. That with the Jews He was harsh, mean, vindictive and demanding. In the N.T. He is all about love, love, mercy, and kindness. In the O.T. He told you what to do and if you disobeyed, there was a price to pay. In the N.T. He hopes you will choose to obey Him. In the O.T. God did as he saw fit, He did as He wanted to. In the N.T., God can only have a desire, "God wants to..." They went so far as to create a "personal devil" who acts in the same way, with the same power, as God did in the O.T. in an effort to explain how and why the "bad things" that happened in the O.T. and are still happening in the N.T., were no longer a direct result of God taking action, but were the work of "the enemy." Let me show some examples of how things are taught in the O.T. compared to the N.T
O.T. God is sovereign
N.T. God is only in control.
O.T. Worship was to bow down and obey God.
N.T. Worship is singing, playing music and giving money.
O.T. God punished sin
N.T. God overlooks sin.
O.T. God doesn't love all people, only the Jews and a few Gentiles.
N.T. God loves everybody.
O.T. God was angry, vengeful and filled with wrath.
N.T. God is all about love, kindness and mercy.
O.T. Temple
N.T. Church
O.T. the tithe was on food, food products and livestock, not every Jew tithed.
N.T., the tithe is 10% of everybody's income.
O.T. The tithe was to be eaten.
N.T. the tithe is put into the bank.
O.T. The tithe went to the Levites first.
N.T. The tithe goes to the church leaders.
O.T. God caused sickness, disease and natural disasters.
N.T. Satan/demons cause these things.
O.T. God made man in His image.
N.T. Man made God in his image.
O.T. God chose who He purposed to be saved.
N.T. Man decides if he gets saved or not and God has no say about it.
O.T. God's will is the most powerful force in the universe and no man can stop God from preforming His will
N.T. Man's will is the most powerful force in the universe and God is unable to go against man's will
When I started to study, I greatly emphasized the Greek language and Greek words. I believed this because this has been the main attitude among scholars and others for many years and the Greek words gave a more exact meaning of Scripture. So, when I was in the O.T., Hebrew was the focus, and Greek words in the N.T. I had thought that every Greek word used was the exact equivalent to the Hebrew words spoken in the N.T.
But the longer I studied, the more I learned. But, I also became aware that things I didn't know were in play, things that directly affect the study of Scripture. The first and most important fact was that everything in the New Testament is Jewish! There is nothing from the Gentile world that is taught in the N.T. Then I learned that everything taught in the New Testament (Except for Paul's teaching of marriage between an unbeliever and believer) comes straight from the Old Testament. And then I learned that Strong's Concordance and Thayer's Lexicon were not 100% accurate. Not only did they give the wrong definitions, Strong's included made-up words!
And then today, I came across something that showed why Strong's included made up words. From a site called The Torah Source, "...the "definitions given for any particular Hebrew and Greek word listed in the Strong's Dictionary are simply all of the English words chosen by the KJV translators for a particular word. Thus Strong's "Dictionary" is not actually a dictionary at all, and clearly not a lexicon, but rather a listing of the words that the KJV translators deemed appropriate.
Rather than Strong coming up with a dictionary of his own on the Greek language and how the Greek words were used by the KJV translators, he was forced to define the words as the translators used them in the KJV! That explains why he had to make up definitions. He didn't makeup words, the KJV translators made up words! And then Strong had to make up definitions to fit the KJV! And, I have to cut those translators some slack as their knowledge of the ancient Hebrew and Greek available to them was very limited to what is now known.
In the next post, I will start addressing the subject of baptism, but I had to first lay down the background and groundwork of what I am about to show. So, hang in there.
End of part 6
