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Get ready for an "eye-opening" experience as you will be led to "think" deeper thoughts about our Christian Bible than possibly ever before. But first, let us ask a few questions.
Answer for yourself: What is the most powerful agent in the world known to man? Can you guess what it is? Is it the atomic bomb or the eboli virus? It is a hurricane with its tornado force winds? Is it a volcano that erupts with such fierceness? Is it an earthquake that can level a city in ten seconds? Could it possibly be that small book between two black leather covers you carry to church each Sunday or the "RELIGIOUS BELIEF SYSTEM" it generates? This bears investigation.
Answer for yourself: Have you guessed what it is? Let me give you a clue. It is the same thing in each example: a "RELIGIOUS BELIEF SYSTEM." Each of the above examples have another thing in common; each of those people listed above more than likely confesses a "belief" in the Bible! Think and ponder that thought for a minute!
Answer for yourself: Now let me ask you another question? How can one book ("the Bible") be behind each of the above scenarios? Did you notice that the Bible elicited extreme reactions in the above 8 examples? How could one book be behind each of these "religious belief systems?" How can one book produce such extremes in religious practices; from death to the followers of David Koresh and Jim Jones to life for the followers of Mother Teresa?
Noticed I said "presently" for our "religious belief system" changes as we grow and learn truth (or at least it should).
This may be a new term for you when I say "religious belief system," but you have one every day of your life and it impacts almost everything you do or say. To others they may consider it to be no great revelation that they have a capacity to believe or that they have a "belief system." However, very few people seem to realize that this system operates every second of every day of our lives. It is almost like we are on "auto-pilot" with our "belief system" setting our course for our lives.Our "belief system" determines how we use our time, our money, expend our energy, and practice our faith. Our "belief system" influences such important decisions as marriage, divorce, birth control, abortion, education, relationships, and even death.
Answer for yourself: Now can you begin to understand how important that our “religious belief system” be founded on truth and not error?
We are never aware of our "religious belief system" until a situation arises which challenges us and what we believe. Let us examine one issue as an example.
From the Jewish community the response to such a question would be another question; they would ask you to define what you mean by "saved" or "salvation". They would want to know from what one needs to be saved, why one would need to be saved and what would be the purpose of being saved. For them, the Christian perspective of salvation is not an issue, because Judaism does not have a doctrine of salvation (heavenly Salvation as does the Christian). For a Jew "to be saved" is synonymous with being safe here on Earth. On the other hand, the more zealous Evangelical community believes that they have a divine calling to "save" everybody on the earth from a fiery Hell. To them "saved" means spending eternity with God in Heaven rather than spending eternity burning in Hell.
Answer for yourself: Do these two religious communities with such an opposing view of "salvation" have anything in common? Yes they do, although they have different "belief systems", each community will tell you that "their belief system" is based upon a Bible!
Since so many religious communities say that the authority for their beliefs is a Bible, it would seem that the world should be full of peace, harmony, and unity. Its not! They all worship the same God, use a Bible to guide their life, and agree upon the validity of the Ten Commandments. However, in reality we are confronted with a world full of confusion, conflict, and chaos.
Let us investigate this question at length!
First of all, we must recognize that there is no such thing as "the Bible." We must face the fact that there are several Bibles. Basically, three religious communities account for most of the modern Bibles-Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant. Each community (Jewish, Catholic, Protestant) considers its Bible as sacred and thus different from other group's Bibles. Each believes that its Bible has an authority that exceeds that of any other document, even the Bibles of other religious communities. Therefore, each religious communities' Bible occupies an official position in the life of that particular religious community. Each religious community understands its Bible to present a "truer" or "better reflection" and "understanding of reality" than is the case with other's writings. Each community declares that its "belief system" is identical with and obviously authorized by the teachings of "the" Bible belonging to that community. Therefore each community believes its "religious belief system" is divinely ordained because its Bible was divinely given. In reality, however, we fail to understand that it isn't the Bible that ultimately determines the validity of one's "belief system;" its the TRUTH of "one's religious belief system" which is product of the "interpretation" of our Bibles!
Answer for yourself: Which Bible is the correct one...the Jewish, Catholic, or Protestant?
The "religious belief system" of each group above (Jewish, Catholic, Protestant) not only gave validity to its own version of the Bible but decided which Bible was chosen as "the" Bible; which books were included and in what order they were to be placed. The Jewish Bible consists of the same books as the Christian Old Testament, but they are not in the same order. The Jewish Bible has three divisions-Torah (Genesis through Deuteronomy), Prophets, and Writings with priority being assigned to the Torah (the first 5 books of the Hebrew Scriptures and Old Testament). Maimonides described these divisions as three concentric circles with the Torah in the center and the other two divisions as illustrative commentary arranged in descending order of authority. The structure and its underlying assumptions show that the books in the second and third divisions are read looking backward toward the Torah. The Jewish community reads the Prophets and the Writings in light of the Torah.
On the other hand, the Christian Old Testament, taken from the Greek, is structured into four divisions-Torah, History, Poetry, and Prophets. But there is a difference in the placing of the Old Testament books in the Christian Bible?
Answer for yourself: Why didn't the Christians just take the Jewish Bible and use it in the same order as did the Jewish people and their Rabbis? Simply because that simply by placing the Prophets with their predictions last in order, Christianity distances themselves from the Old Testament and the Torah and makes is appear that it has "passed away" thus allowing Christianity to look beyond the Old Testament to the New Testament. The reader is directed forward from the Prophets to Matthew rather than backward to the Torah for understanding of all that comes later. A passage from the book of Isaiah will be read in the synagogue in consideration of the Torah. However, the same passage will be read in the church in consideration of the New Testament. It is this approach along with the practice of reading one's preconceived beliefs and "religious belief system" into the Bible that produces the tendency for most religious groups to ignore or overlook textual differences, or textual problems instead of addressing them or trying to understand the origin for them.
Bet Emet Ministries does not "dodge bullets!" Let us give a very important example of where the Christian church reads into a text their "religious belief system" that the text was never meant to teach. Let me say that space nor time does not allow for a full accounting of these hundreds of deviations in interpretation of the Jewish Scriptures which Judaism has relied upon for thousands of year but we will look at one presently. Let me preface with this caution: "We should always teach what the Bible says but we should never say what the Bible never teaches!"
Answer for yourself: Would you agree with this maxim?
I hope you do for it is sound wisdom.
There are sadly too many examples to list where we, as Christians, are guilty of teaching what the Bible never says; my only concern is if you will be so agreeable after you see the perversions to the text of Isaiah that have been taught by the Christian church for centuries. Let us look at Isa. 7:14.
As taken from the KJV Old Testament we find:
Isa 7:14 14 Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. (KJV)
There is a major, a major problem with this above verse as taken from the Christian translation of the Hebrew Scriptures!
Looking at the Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew Lexicon we find:
#5959 `almah- a virgin, a young woman
Notice if you will that this word when properly translated reveals that there is no instance where it can be proved that this word designates that such a young woman must be a "virgin". This word in the Hebrew, from which it was taken, simply does not carry the idea that such a girl is a "virgin" or "only a virgin".
The Hebrew word translated which is translated "virgin" in the English Christian Bible version of Isa. 7:14 is incorrect. This "virginous" idea is not the correct meaning of the term at all! In Hebrew, "almah" means a "young woman", of which she may or may not have had prior sexual experience. It does not mandate she be a virgin. Anytime the Bible wants to make a distinction between a "virgin" and "non-virgin" for legal reasons (in a court of law and in matters of divorce), God uses the term "betulah" and never "almah." Christianity claims that Jesus was born of a virgin, and bases such belief off a verse in the New Testament as well as Isa. 7:14. However, there is no linguistic reason to translate "almah" as virgin in Isa. 7:14. The idea of "virgin" and the birth of "the Krst/Christ" or "Christ Mind" in "matter" comes from the ancient Spiritual Wisdom which teaches the "fall of God" into "material manifestation". In other words, God "incarnates" Himself "into matter". The "Divine Idea" in Genesis chapter 1 finds "material expression" in Genesis chapter 2. That is why there are two separate and similar "creation accounts". God incarnated Himself "into matter" and "material being". The word for "matter" is originally taken from the ancient Egyptian word for "mud"; the derivative of this today provides us the name "Mary"! Wow! The ancient Spiritual Wisdom always taught that in the Cosmos "virginous matter", (mud/Mary), devoid of the "Fire" or "Solar Energy" of this "Intelligent Uncreated Eternal Energy and Life-Force" of the Cosmos (God), awaiting the movement of God that would "birth" in it "material existence" and all "life-forms" in the fullness of time. Here is where we get the idea of "virgin" or "virginous" in its original meaning. It would be the combination of the "Fire of God" and the "mud/matter/Mary" that would produce the Mind of God, the "Mind of Krst/Christ" that is contained in all material manifestations. Thus we see now when looking at the Isaiah 7:14 text a "preformed religious belief" was of such a strength that it cause the mistranslation and corruption of a previous Hebrew Scripture in our Christian Bibles; an idea that was never meant in the original. This corruption of the Hebrew Scriptures began with their translation into the Greek and later only carried over into the Latin and English translations of our Bibles by Rome. Had they been honest with the Hebrew instead of relying on their "religious belief system" the our Bibles today would have carried the correct idea which sadly they do not!
Now please pay close attention to what comes next.
Proverbs 30:19 tells of four paths or four ways:
All four of these examples have in common that there is absolutely no way to demonstrate where an eagle has flown, where a ship has sailed, where a serpent has crawled on a hard rock, or a sexual experience after a woman has had other prior sexual experiences. Since a virgin has demonstrable differences in her physical body both before and following her first sexual encounter, the term to make distinction regarding the virginous state of a women in Hebrew would not be "almah" but "betulah" as mentioned above. Likewise, Isaiah tell us that a young woman (with prior sexual experience since he used "almah") shall conceive and bear a child, and before that child (verse 16) shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land that you dread (the Assyrian invaders) will be forsaken by both her kings. Notice if you will that a child beings to learns right from wrong usually by the age of 2-3 years. If you keep reading the passage you will find that within about two to three years (before the child learns good from bad) God will bring His Presence (called "Immanuel"-of whom the child was a picture) upon Israel and destroy the attacking Assyrian army and both the evil kings that threatened Judah will be deposed. This is a long, long time before the birth of a supposed "literal" and "historical" Jesus as found in the New Testament. The time period given in this text is around 715 B.C.E.; not the first century. We are off almost 700 years in making this verse apply to Jesus. Let us not forget that Isaiah was speaking to King Ahaz of Israel who was being attacked by these two kings.Isaiah brings assurance to him to not to worry, that God was bringing a "sign" to Israel that before a small child (who would be born not of a virgin) learns to choose right from wrong, the battle will be won for Israel. The young woman's pregnancy was a "good sign" that something good was going to happen to Israel and very soon! The child was a sign of the soon coming delivering Presence of God as He liberates His people from Assyrian aggression. The civil war and its threat will be over for Judah. God's Presence (Immanuel-God with Israel) would come and destroy Israel's enemy (not Jesus). This passage has absolutely nothing to do with Jesus! The child was not to destroy them either. God was to destroy them. Thus we see that to adhere to a virgin birth as taught in Isa. 7:14 in front of such solid evidence is foolishness and to believe that this child is Jesus (as spoken of in this passage) is utterly ridiculous, because the Jesus of the New Testament is not made to be "historical" or "literally" born for another seven hundred more years! There is no fulfillment of any prophecy here as connected to the New Testament Jesus!
Answer for yourself: Don't you think the Christian church should be told the truth about their Bibles?
I have just demonstrated for you an approach to your Bibles where one reads one's preconceived religious beliefs into Biblical passages where such ideas never existed in the first place. In so doing we always are guaranteed of not obtaining the Truth that God desires we receive. This is often called "proof-texting." This erroneous way of reading our Bibles is done more than you know and you will not be able to discern the difference if you don't study.
The canonization process of the Christian Bible created many of these problems. Not only did canonization determine the books and their order, but it also separated the meaning of the texts from dependence on their historical or original use! We can find no greater deception than the placing of the book of Malachi at the end of the Christian's Old Testament right before the beginning of the New Testament when it is originally placed by the Rabbis as the last book of the Prophets yet before the "Writings" in the Hebrew Tanakh. Malachi for the Rabbis was not the "last word" before New Testament times as it is made to appear for the sake of Christian theological agendas (the announcement for the coming Christ). The result of this separation is that one does not read a passage as part of that Bible in its entirety, rather as a often disjointed or independent unit. Each passage is part of a Biblical book which becomes part of an even larger entity. The whole is thus greater and more authoritative than any of its parts.
This mutual interplay produces an accumulative effort which transcends any part of the text. The understanding and interpretation of an individual part must conform to the constraints resulting from that section's existence as part of a group's Bible. It is this process that creates many of the problems which the belief system attempts to answer. A Bible only has relative authority since its words are subject to the "interpretational" framework of the belief system of the religious community. Each community provides a method of assigning priorities to the Scriptures which it uses as the authority for its religious dogmas and doctrines. Traditions develop in each community as the Bible and the community interact with each other over time. The longer the time the more traditions! The result of this process is that religious communities tend to "read their beliefs into their respective Bibles" (eisegesis) instead of reading the writer's message out of the Bible (exegesis). When the members of "the community" read their Bibles, they do so with a common bond since they have accepted the faith of their religious community and understand the words of their Bibles as interpreted by this group. But there is one big problem here; their religious community may not have interpreted their Bible correctly and led people into error. The Isaiah 7:14 is one case in point out of hundreds in our Christian Bibles today when compared to the Hebrew Scriptures. Therefore the use and interpretation of a Scripture will vary depending upon which religious community is doing the reading, which Bible it uses, and what its belief system allows.
Let us consider the chronological order in which biblical books originated. Even though First Thessalonians was the first of Paul's epistles to be written, Romans (some scholars believe to be his last epistle) preceded the earlier writing in Protestant Bibles.
Answer for yourself: Why is this done?
By establishing this order, the early church predisposed the reader to interpret the remainder of Paul's writings in consideration of the theology expressed in the book of Romans. Since the Roman Church was ultimately responsible for determining which books would be included in the New Testament, and their order, it is not surprising to find one of their major doctrines embedded within the canonization process. This is not surprising since Roman Catholicism is responsible for the canonization of your Christian Bible! Now you might need to set down for this one. Little do we know at the present stage of our studies that there are two opposing and conflicting Pauline theologies in the New Testament; one Gnostic and one anti-Gnostic. Rome places the anti-Gnostic "Romanized Pauline" theology of their making first in our New Testaments in order to set the foundation for one's "thinking" the rest of the way in the New Testament. In so doing when later reading the purely mystical and metaphysical writings of the true Gnostic Paul we are previously indoctrinated to read and interpret them "literally" and "historically" through the eyes of the "Romanized Paul" instead of the way that the authentic Paul intended. Lost in all this "placement" of religions ideas in an "ordered" sequence is the ancient Spiritual Wisdom which has remained cherished and intact for over 13,000 years.
The belief system of the Roman Catholic Church claimed that its authority could be traced from Jesus through the apostles to the leadership of the Roman Church. It is this apostolic line of authority that we see embedded in the canon of the New Testament. First we read about Jesus in the Gospels. Next we encounter the Jewish Apostles in the Book of Acts. But the Book of Acts starts out as a Jewish Expression of Faith in God only to end up as a Gentile expression of Faith in God. Then we move on to the heart of the Roman Empire, Rome, as we read the book of Romans. The reader encounters the tradition and succession of Apostolic Authority, or so it seems as planned by the Roman Church. Cleverly the reader has had his gaze moved from Jerusalem to Rome. Judaism is replaced by Roman Christianity. Let us not forget that Judaism was considered a world religion in the first century and had a place for the "non-Jew" within it. We are led by Rome to easily follow the transmission of authority from Yeshua, to the Apostles, to Rome, or if said differently, the removal of authority that had originally been given to the Jerusalem to the Gentiles and Rome ultimately.
Answer for yourself: Was this God's plan or man's?
This "scheme" or "theological agenda" of the Roman Church is easily seen by viewing Matthew as a Jewish Gospel, Mark moving away form the Jewishness of Jesus to a more tolerable "Gentile-Gospel" (along with Luke who is believe incorrectly to be a Gentile author but isn't, for he was Jewish and is called Silas in the Bible), and lastly to the Gospel of John that totally removed Jesus from his Hebrew roots by identifying him as God! Next as we examine the Book of Acts we should be startled to find that the authority given to Peter and James and the Jewish church is totally removed in 28 chapters and now totally resides with a Gentile church! Then Romans establishes for all the epistles the authority of the Roman church as we again are asked to believe the authority of Moses' seat has been transplanted to Ceasar's throne in Rome.
Answer for yourself: Where do we find the books written by Jesus' Jewish brother, Yaakov or James? You guessed it, at the end of the New Testament along with another Jewish epistle from another brother of James. Of course I mean Jude.
Answer for yourself: Have we forgotten that the New Testament designates James to personally pastor the Jerusalem Synagogue/Church? Rome never forgot it, but tried to bury it by manipulation of what books would be included in their canon and ordered them in such a way to insure that the authority of Jerusalem would be replaced by Rome. It would not be long before Rome will announce to the world that "there is no salvation outside of the Bishop and Roman Christianity".
We can easily see conflicts between the Jewish and Gentile communities that are reflected in the canonization of the New Testament. The domination of the Gentile community over the Jewish community can be seen in the placement of the books; not only in the Old Testament but the New Testament as well. . Notice that from Romans through Philemon we have a concentration of writings which address issues in the Gentile churches. After these we encounter writings to the Jewish congregations or writings by the Jewish leaders to the Jerusalem church. It seems a bit unusual and odd to you to find the writing from the first leaders of the powerful Jerusalem Church relegated to a position inferior to all other writings in the New Testament.
Ultimately the "religious belief system" of the various religious communities provided the appropriate answers for any differences and difficulties which arise. Since the "belief system" is so very important, should we not ask the obvious question: "How do people acquire their belief system?" Some of the manners of receiving your belief system may be surprising to you:
Answer for yourself: Don't you find it strange that people, regardless of how they acquired their “religious belief system”, will defend it without understanding it?
Most people do not realize that they have a "religious belief system" or how they acquired it. Even those who do realize they have a "religious belief system" hardly have ever examined it and tested its validity. The reason for this, unfortunately, is that many people are not intellectually curious! These people prefer to let others do their thinking for them. These people, whether they know it or not, desire it or not, seek it or not, lean toward dogmatism. Dogma, by definition is:
Bet Emet Ministries believes in examining our "religious belief systems" to see if we are in "the faith." We, at Bet Emet, through educational newsletters, attempt to examine our "religious belief systems," our Bibles, its religious concepts, doctrines, ancient meanings of biblical words, and the influence of ancient culture on the writers of the Biblical text, and much more. After all, what are we to do one day when standing before the Judgment Seat of God and after confession that we have prophesied in his name, and in his name cast out demons and in his name done many wonderful works (we thought), and hear: "I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity?" This frightening example is to warn us that "many" will have a "belief system" that will guarantee their disqualification from entering the Kingdom of Heaven. Is that you? Could that be You? How can you prevent yourself from awaking from the dead and finding that you are personally fulfilling Matt. 7? I sure don't want that to be me.
2 Pet 1:10 10 Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall: (KJV)
Answer for yourself: Don't you think you better start examining YOUR "belief system" while you still can?
We at Bet Emet Ministries have had to repent of many doctrines we were taught in good faith that could not stand the text of critical examination. God desires we have faith in "truth" and not faith in "error or lies." We invite you to tell your friends that such an opportunity is available at Bet Emet Ministries.
