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Why dogma, doctrine and foundational beliefs/convictions should
not be based wholly on the “New” Testament.
By
Jason Allen
To
start, I am not what some would consider a “Sacred Namer”,
per se. I do, however, know that the Creator’s
name isn’t “God,” ”LORD,” or any other title
mankind has given him. While that doesn’t mean I know exactly,
100% how Adam referred to Him or the exact pronunciation or enunciation
of the name of the Creator, the fact is that it is not now nor ever
was “LORD,” “God,” “LORD God,” etc.
Also, the Messiah was a Hebrew man, living in a Hebrew culture,
with a Hebrew name, period. Common sense would dictate that just because
a translations (English) are based on Greek (copies of copies nonetheless),
doesn’t mean that the originals were Greek, contrary to the flawed
logic used on this site and by many others.
Even if the originals were penned in Greek, (though
doubtful, since NO ONE KNOWS FOR SURE…NO MAN, NO SCHOLAR, NOT ME
…NO ONE KNOWS. They have
never seen one. They weren’t there. All we have left are fragments of copies with
few to none in total agreement. No
one knows what language was originally used or what these copies were
copied from [the only people who
KNOW were those who viewed the documents being
written firsthand], as our existing records are far from conclusive. At best we have secondary information in the
“New Testament.” At worst, it contains out-right forgeries
to promote various agendas. Many
earnestly speculate but NO ONE KNOWS what language the original autographs
were penned in, although, the authors were Hebrew men so Hebrew would
make sense [or Aramaic], though, there is the possibility they were
in Greek. Though, that does
not make them ‘inspired.’) that does not make the Messiah’s
name “JESUS.” It seems
absurd to think the angel ‘Gabriel’ came down to Miriam (mistranslated as Mary, but a Hebrew woman with a Hebrew name)
and told her to name her firstborn Hebrew man-child “JESUS,”
which, can arguably be translated as ‘hail Zeus.’
Keep in mind that the original 1611 King James Version language
(an early form of ‘English’) wrote the
name of the Messiah as “Iesus.”
The letter ‘J’ is only about 500 years old…see
an encyclopedia.
But
do you KNOW who ‘canonized’ the New Testament books? How do we KNOW they are authentic? Were some forged? There
were some writings of antiquity that were claimed as forgeries or of
completely unknown origin but were later admitted to the canon. How do we KNOW that whomever ‘canonized’ them did not
have their own political or religious agenda?
Were there other faiths or ‘Christianities’ of the
time that believed slightly differently than does our current ‘modern’
version of ‘orthodoxy’ (Trinity, notion of Pre-Trib Rapture, Sunday worship, modern
liturgical practices and hierarchy, etc…) ranging from devout
Catholics to fundamental Baptists to Church of God etc…? Some of these faiths were completely baseless
and nothing more than a few peoples’ ability to deceive others,
while other 1st century ‘Christianities’ were even
more historically and Scripturally sound than are even today’s
501(c)3 tax exempt, State corporations, called churches, with their
licentious interpretation of ‘grace.’ Have you, the reader, honestly done an in-depth study, or even a
casual one, looking at all sides, to see where our different versions
of the “Bible” come from (how
about what the tax codes say a church can’t talk about)?
Do you simply base your decision on which Bible to use flippantly
by how `easy to read’ it is, rather then educate yourself as to
WHERE it came from, WHY you should trust it’s accuracy, and then,
if needed, try to read at a higher level?
Just because “church” leaders since about the 3rd
or 4th Century (stemming mostly from the Roman Catholic Church, Nicene
creed/council; Council of Trent; Constantine; etc…) have
promoted the “New Testament” as incontrovertible, infallible
‘fact’ or Scripture, does that mean it is?
WHY? Did those that lived around the times the New
Testament manuscripts were written, regardless of their convictions,
view these writings as ‘inspired’ or did they even go so far
as to consider these writings to be infallible Scripture, on the same
level as the Books of Moses (Genesis-Deuteronomy a/k/a Torah) and the “Old”
Testament (a/k/a the TaNaKh)? Or did they just think they were simply
letters, good for edification but not overriding the existing Scriptures?
The
“New Testament,” depending on the version of the “Bible”
used, is based upon copies that were, for the most part, written/copied
in the Greek various times over. Some
versions use the Alexandrian (or Minority) texts, which are older texts,
that were fairly recently found. These
are questionable at best and trash at worst.
There is the Textus Receptus that the KJV and few others use
as their basis for the “New Testament.”
The “New Testament Textus Receptus is basically a collation
document of approximately 5,400+ Greek documents (Papyrus,
Unicles, Cursives, Manuscripts, Fragments, etc…).
None of these documents agree in whole, so, where there was a
majority of agreement or grammatical/textual indications and considerations
showed otherwise, the Textus Receptus was reputedly created to reflect
this agreement of the majority. As an actual manuscript, the Textus Receptus
does not exist as a relic, but as a relatively contemporary creation
based on what some thought the original would look like given all the
disagreements there are in the “New Testament” manuscripts.
These disagreements, some minor grammatical errors while others
are of quite significant theological importance, vary depending on the
scholarship but are agreeably, by all sides, in the range of 200,000
to 300,000 variances (more than the number of words in the “New
Testatment”). Note that just because a majority of anything agrees upon anything
does not make them right, accurate, or correct. Nor are the minority texts (e.g. Alexandrian, Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, etc…) correct
just because of their antiquity. These
minority texts seem to have survived due to lack of use. Most likely because those that had them available
knew they were flawed/slanted in favor of the authors/promoters, mostly
early Gnostic “Christians” (Origin
and Clement). One of
the Alexandrian texts was found being used as kindling, kind of odd
for something that, if it were accurate, should have been revered, even
by the ignorant. Even those who call themselves atheists aren’t
often seen going around burning ‘bibles.’ Motivation in all its forms needs to be examined especially when
dealing with man-made religiosity.
In
Acts of the Apostles, Chapter 17, we can clearly see, even from the
pages of the “New Testament” that any dogma, doctrine or spiritual
beliefs/convictions of those that were actually around the time of the
Messiah were based upon what Acts 17:2 calls “Scripture.”
If Shaul (“Paul”, another Hebrew man with a Hebrew name)
reasoned with them (Jews) in the
Synagogues on the Sabbath from “Scripture,” what Scripture
was he reasoning from? His doctrine was, out of necessity in dealing
with the audience at hand, solely based upon the Scriptures available
to him, a Jewish Pharisee. These
Scriptures are the “Old Testament” writings or as it was known
then and now as the Torah, the Prophets and the Writings.
(Torah means ‘instructions’
but is, arguably, mistranslated as ‘law’ (instead of instructions/directions)
in English versions of the “Old Testament.”
Many times when you see the word law in the “Bible”
it could be replaced with the Hebrew word Torah) as with the
TaNaK (TaNaK is a Hebrew acronym which,
in English, means the Torah, the Prophets (Jeremiah, Isaiah, etc…)
and other writings (Psalms, Proverbs, etc…).) Acts 17 goes on to say that the Bereans were
more noble than the Thessalonians in that they searched “Scripture”
daily to see if what Shaul (Paul)
said was true. Again the Scripture they were searching was
the Torah (Gen.-Deut.) and the TaNaK. Not the copies of writings canonized in the
“New Testament” 300-500A.D.
If ‘Paul’ was able to argue his dogma/doctrine from
those Scripture, then any argument or any reasoning or any doctrine
we make had better fall in line with those Scriptures also.
Modern ‘Christianity’ (Judeo-Christian) is loosely based on the guidelines
of the God of the Hebrew culture, referred to in the Hebrew tongue as
Yahuweh Elohim (click
here for more info).
History shows that the culture/people the Creator of the universe
seems to have chosen to share His ‘rules’ for a healthy, happy
life was through the Hebrews. More specifically the descendants of Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob or those grafted in, who would be the ones to preserve
the Scriptures he gave inspired. An
example is the Masoretic Text (specifically
the Ben Asher (sp.) Codex, housed in a museum in Jerusalem today, preserved
by the ‘Jews.’)
While,
contrary to the “Sacred Namers” some so vehemently and somewhat
violently condemn, it seems to me there are truths to be gleaned from
the “New Testament” as long as they are looked upon through
the lens of the culture at the time, using the TaNaK (esp.
the Torah) and knowing there are some errors in the Greek texts
and the English translations. To show that the New Testament has basic ‘errors’/mistranslations
(though the real question is were these
errors intentional or unintentional) and for those that think
the Messiah’s actual name was “JESUS” and not Yahushua
/Yeshua/Yashua (most variations are just Yahushua contracted, better
written as Yah’shua, et al) or some derivation thereof, look at
Hebrews 4:8 and Acts 7:45. Get a Strong’s concordance and compare
these verses with any of the other times the name “JESUS”
is translated in the “New Testament.”
It is the same word Iousus (Ἰησοῦς) in the Greek, Strong’s
#2424. Check it out. There is no “J” sound in Hebrew (or
Greek). Now Acts
7:45. Both of these verses are referring to Joshua
(Yahushua, another Hebrew man with a Hebrew
name) the ‘assistant’ or contemporary of Moses
(Moeshe, another mistranslation.) In
these verses ‘Joshua’ is completely mistranslated as “Jesus”
in the KJV (1970’s printing but has since been changed) but is
correctly transliterated as Joshua in the NASB.
Both are based of the same word, Strong’s
G2424 Ἰησοῦς
Ie¯sous ee-ay-sooce' Of Hebrew origin [H3091]; Jesus
(that is, Jehoshua), the name of our Lord and two (three) other
Israelites: - Jesus.
All agree that these two verses (Acts 7:45 and Hebrews 4:8) are referring to Moeshe’s
(Moses, this time seemingly a Hebrew man with an Egyptian name,
although that would be a study in and of itself) assistant/apprentice
transliterated as “Joshua” in the English.
In Numbers 13:16 ‘Joshua’ gets his name (which
is Yahushua in the Hebrew) from Moeshe who changes his name from
Oshea to Yahushua. If the Messiah’s
name and ‘Joshua’s’ name are the same in the Greek, and
transliterated from the same word and in Hebrew it seems as though they
had the same name, thus, establishing just two of many errors with the
English translations of Greek manuscripts.
When modern ‘Bible’ publishers discovered this error,
why didn’t they correct it ‘New Testament’ wide?
Why not restore the Jewish Messiah’s name as it was given
and as was indicated even in the Greek? Here is a perfect example of agenda trampling
truth.
It would reason that basing any religious
doctrine; dogma or conviction on any manuscripts/doctrines that have
even the slightest error or that are even arguably error ridden could
be an eternally grave mistake. We
should all seriously consider this fact.
Then there is the Torah, more specifically
the Masoretic Text. This manuscript,
more specifically the Ben Asher codex, of Torah has quite amazing characteristics
and properties, including equidistant letter sequencing. (see "Equidistant Letter Sequences in the Book of Genesis",
Statistical Science, August 1994, p.306. This is a secular, mathematical academia publication with absolutely
no religious affiliation or ‘ax to grind’, if you will). This website
Scientist Prove Divine
Author of Genesis provides some information but I recommend researching
the actual source for oneself. While
I do not agree with the conclusions of the author of the link, (a
King James Onlyist) which is that because the KJV “Old Testament”
is translated from this seemingly inspired Masoretic (Ben Asher) text/manuscript,
ergo the KJV is also inspired.
So, on one hand we have the “New Testament”
which is based on copies of copies, with some of these copies older
than others but all copies, with very well documented errors, omissions
and the like, with possible additions/deletions to fit the scribe’s
or copyist’s theology, and on the other hand we have the Torah,
with manuscripts that have been painstakingly preserved (by
Hebrews nonetheless) and have anomalies that cannot be explained
by any natural explanation. This same Torah (more specifically the
Masoretic Text/Ben Asher Codex) for thousands of years has been
considered to be the inspired ‘canon’ of Yahuweh Elohim, to
Moeshe (Moses) and the Israelites and has not had any contention
over it’s accuracy or content, with exception of a few pages missing
at the end of Torah.
Why, when presented with information of this gravity,
would someone base any doctrine, dogma or conviction on a text or translation
that has, at best, many unintentional errors or, at worst, has been
a tool used by “orthodox Christian’s” of the 3rd
and 4th Centuries till now to their own ends?
It would behoove any serious student of Scripture/Antiquity and
the layman alike to seriously analyze where the foundation of the text
they use to form doctrine/convictions comes from and why they believe
it to be infallible or worthy of ‘gambling’ their eternal
life on it. Shouldn’t we
be wise? Wisdom would look at
all information available and fit beliefs to the facts, not manipulate
or disregard facts to fit beliefs, as is commonly done. Bottom line is basing doctrine or beliefs on
a book, manuscript or treatise based on what any and all will have to
agree is flawed at best and downright deceptive at worst is just plain
foolish.
I am open to all criticism, although I hope it to be with
reason and creative. If someone
has information, well documented and verifiable facts, please forward
them to me or contact me. I
am willing to re-evaluate my understanding of truth in light of facts
I do not yet know. None of us have a corner on the “Truth”
market, not even Gary Mink. I
know I do not know it all, but am willing to ‘change my tune,’
if facts/Scripture dictate it. It
would be nothing short of being willingly ignorant
(a/k/a being dumb on purpose) not to change ones belief in light
of new knowledge.
In Peace and Truth with All Rights Reserved, with any
alterations, deletions, additions or change in text, even spelling,
in any form without express written permission from Jason Allen being
constituted as maligning my intangible asset and libel, and will be
pursued as such.
Jason Allen (661) 472-1742 |