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For everyone reading this series of articles please understand that I grew up as a fundamentalist Christian. Not only that but I attended Southwestern Theological Seminary in Ft. Worth, Texas, and received a M.Div. degree. Upon completion of my degree I was quickly ordained and began in earnest my Pastoral Career. While in Seminary I encountered what seemed to me a hodgepodge of religious beliefs that seemed more disjointed than in unity. Things just did not add up and contradictions abounded. I constantly wondered how a perfect God allowed or fostered such confusion of religious beliefs; much of which seemed to consistently disagree and contradict what Israel had previously been taught by God and I could not seem to find peace about all this especially in light of the constant reiteration in the Jewish Scriptures that Israel was to be "the" light for all the world concerning the "truth" about YHVH. Prior to Seminary I read a book called Understanding the Difficult Words of Jesus and this book showed me that behind passages which I had heard preached my whole life were Hebraic meanings that I have never heard. Realizing that Jesus is a Jew I quickly saw that unless I understood the passages as Jesus the Jew understood them that I did not have the actual meaning of the passage that God intended I know and understand. I had to find out the Jewish meaning of my faith. All was well until I began to further my studies in related religious studies concerning the above issues. Over the next few years I had my legs cut out from under me as I studied and encountered spiritual truths and facts that often contradicted what I had been led to believe by both the New Testament as well as other religious authority figures. I was shocked to find that what I had been told since a child was not true in many instance; I quickly realized that much of what I had "accepted by faith" was without substance and that many things taught me by my Pastor as a child and even at conservative Baptist Seminary was in error. Understand I was fortunate enough to know some professors well enough in Seminary who confided in me that "all is not as it appears" but they had to hold the "party line" in order to insure that they continued their employment and received their pay checks. But even then they were preparing me for what I would discover on my own in my personal studies into the difficult areas of Christianity and the New Testament which they would not touch in class due to the explosive nature of the subject.
It is a tragic and sad fact that most church-going Christians open their New Testaments and read without ever once considering that they are absorbing the words of a translation from the pens of biased, often politically motivated monks and ministers as transmitted through countless centuries of numerous councils and corrupt church fathers. They are unaware that the New Testament they believe to be "inspired", "infallible", and "inerrant" and which they hold so near and dear contains hundreds of many shocking contradictions and errors when compared line upon line and precept upon precept with the Jewish Scriptures that Jesus used. Understand that a superficial reading of the text once a week will illuminate this sad fact to no one. Only when one undertakes a serious investigation and study of the New Testament will one be able to see the truth about the document he relies upon for his faith and practice in this life. When one sees this for himself one is overwhelmed with the deceptions uncovered. But few ever encounter such truths and facts concerning the New Testament which sheds the light of truth upon it's many problems. When one undertakes such a comparative study where the Jewish texts are compared with the Christian texts one quickly will see that many dogmas and beliefs in one's Christian religious belief system are in error and often this results in a conduct or behavior is violates what God commanded in the Jewish Scriptures; such erroneous conduct based upon false beliefs is "sin" according to the Jewish Bible and these false beliefs and conducts pass unnoticed by the vast majority of Gentile Christianity....unnoticed that is until we die and meet God face to face and receive our Eternal Condemnation. God calls much of this "sin" and we are not aware because we never "question" what is written in our Christian translations of the Jewish texts as to if God really endorses such. Sadly we never knew there were problems; let me assure you that there are and many of them are critical problems in doctrines and dogmas that just might affect one's eternal salvation such as hidden idolatry that passes for orthodoxy in Gentile Christianity. I am here to tell you that I have questioned such "dogmas" and "doctrines" only because in my studies I ran upon conclusive contradictory evidence and factual data which brought much of the New Testament into question regarding it's validity for faith and practice. Understand both you and I originally took everything in the New Testament "by faith" as being true. It is way past time we investigate whether our faith be sound or if we have built our relationship with God on sinking sand. Again let us understand our faiths as New Testament Christians and followers of Jesus is built off the Christian document; the New Testament. Let me quote a New Testament passage which speaks the truth on the matter:
2 Cor 13:5 Examine yourselves, whether ye be in "the" faith; prove your own selves.
This requires we examine the Christian documents as to their truth as it is responsible for Christians beliefs, dogmas, and doctrines!
In this passage you are told to "examine" yourselves….from the Greek:
3985 peirazo (pi-rad'-zo); from 3984; to test (objectively), i.e. endeavor, scrutinize, entice, discipline: assay, examine, go about, prove, try.
The root word is: 3984 peira (pi'-rah); from the base of 4008 (through the idea of piercing); a test, i.e. attempt, experience: assaying, trial.
Understand this is what this series of articles will accomplish. I will put the New Testament on trial as the evidence will be presented to determine if what you have accepted "by faith" is warranted or if you possibly need to reconsider what "you believe" to be true.
Also we are told to "prove" to yourself that you be in "the" faith of the early church…from the Greek;
1381 dokimazo-
Understand that just because something is written in the New Testament does not mean it is true. This is a sad fact you will quickly come to realize. This is true even though the information is openly taught in major religious colleges in comparative religion classes and is readily available in most public libraries. But Christians believe that they have no need to look into such things since they are falsely reassured by their clergy that they have "the truth". I wish it were true, but my research over the years has proved such a statement totally false. In reality, it is the Jews who have the truth, have always had the truth, and will be the nation to lead the world in repentance at the advent of Messiah. The church-going public labors under deception because any damaging information about the bible has been purposely and systematically hidden by a clergy that has no illusions as to how their flocks would react if they knew the truth about "God's infallible word. "
As a prime example of this deception fundamentalist Christian ministers are notorious for attacking secular and so-called liberal Christian scholarship, which openly and bluntly publishes the truth about the state of the New Testament. Let me give you an example of such attacks by fundamentalist Christians upon the truth. In A Creationist's Defense of the King James Bible, which was written by the noted fundamentalist Christian educator, Henry M. Morris, he states:
"In any case, one of the serious problems with almost all modern English translations is that they rely heavily on Hebrew and Greek manuscripts of the Bible developed by liberals, rationalists, and evolutionists, none of whom believed in the verbal inspiration of the Bible."
The question I guess I hear the most from my readers is this: "Are we to believe that God would entrust the preservation of His eternal Word to men such as these?" This is nothing more than an assumption; one which fails to take into consideration the free-will of men to defy God and His commandments. As you study with us you will see beyond a shadow of doubt that God does oversee His Word to preserve it; however, it is not the New Testament nor the Christian Old Testament which has been preserved but the Jewish Masoretic Text which is the backbone of the Jewish Bible today (JPS Translation and the Stone Edition Tanakh). For over thousands of years only minute differences appear in these Jewish texts where as the New Testament and the Christian's Old Testament has hundreds of thousands of conflicts and disagreements...many, many of which are in crucial and particular places that affect not only atonement, forgiveness, but Messianic beliefs as well. Simply said the Christian's Bible has been "fixed" long ago and few today know of this tragic adulteration of God's Holy Word! One thing is for certain: the Jewish Scholars and the Jewish people know of it and that is why the vast majority of them cannot accept many things taught about the Messiah in the Christian documents.
What you must understand after reading such a quote above is that Dr. Morris' idea of the perfect bible translation was the King James Version (El Cajon, Ca.: Institute For Creation Research, 1996, p. 5). I know, many of you are thinking "what is so wrong with that"? When you come to the knowledge of the hundreds of corruptions and outright purposeful mistranslations and misquotations in the King James Bible (both OT and NT) which does severe injustice to the Jewish Hebrew Scriptures, you will not longer ask such a question. As you read this series of informative articles you will see that one of the most severe violations of intellectual integrity by the founders of Christianity is shown by their gross distortions of the Old Testament for purposes of indoctrination. In their never-ending quest for religious legitimacy and status, the writers of the New Testament have not hesitated to twist, distort, pervert, and concoct Old Testament verses as expediency dictated. Here the true colors of the creators of Christianity come through in all their radiant splendor. Examples of their dishonest display of propagandistic propensities are abundantly evident to anyone with a reasonably critical eye. You need to know that although it is not my purpose in this series of article to expose individual examples of such errors we at Bet Emet have demonstrated hundreds of such errors in these textual fabrications and purposeful mistranslations for theological advantage in two of our other websites in order for you to see these examples for yourself:
http://returningtofaithofyeshua.freeservers.com &
http://paulproblem.faithweb.com
Upon your individual and persistent study you will come to see without a doubt an overall scheme of dishonesty by the writers of the New Testament and the translators of the Jewish Old Testament Scriptures.
Such deceptions and distortions by the writers of the New Testament and the Essene translators of the Jewish Palestinian Masoretic text fall into three broad categories: misquotations, nonquotes, and misinterpretations. A misquotation is defined as deliberately misquoting an Old Testament passage; a nonquote consists of quoting a non-existent Old Testament passage, and a misinterpretation consists of correctly quoting an Old Testament passage while distorting the meaning intended. In these series of article I plan on dealing primarily with the New Testament and since doing so I plan on showing you that the crafters and writers of the New Testament are guilty on all the counts in hundred of places and only a reasonably critical eye and knowledge of true Jewish Masoretic text, called unfortunately today the "Old" Testament Scripture, is necessary to spot such perversions in the New Testament. If one is interested in individual examples of such New Testament distortions of the Old Testament and the Jewish Scriptures one needs only to examine not only this webpage but the documentation on this website as well as they contain evidence to prove our point.
But you must see it for yourself. This is the purpose of not only this series of articles but Bet Emet Ministries; to reveal the truth for New Testament believers by exposing the unsoundness of such a document in hopes one will repent of such false beliefs once he sees the truth for himself. Israel is the light of the world and God did not make a mistake in commissioning them to be so and it is high time we as Gentile believers learn our place in the economy of God. We must always remember that with every lie exposed and repented of one takes a closer step toward the God of Truth.
Answer for yourself: When one come to the truth behind the New Testament and sees for himself that God never said or gave mankind such dogmas and doctrines as contained in the New Testament, then why follow them?
Let us see what other fundamentalist Christians have to say on the matter. In an article entitled Modern Bible Versions Are Dangerous-Watch Out For Them!, the directors of the Fundamental Evangelistic Association of Los Osos, California has this to say about so-called liberal Christian scholarship:
"We must also be aware that the Bible is under attack. Satan, who succeeded in selling the first 'reviled' edition of God's Word to Eve in the Garden of Eden, has surely been busy in this 20th century along the same lines.... It was not until the publication of the Revised Standard Version in 1946 and 1952 that many Fundamentalists became aware of how effectively a new Bible version or translation could be used as a tool of Satan" (Modern Bible Versions Are Dangerous-Watch Out For Them! Fundamental Evangelistic Association, Los Osos, California, pp. 1,6).
Having Pastored for years I noticed that many fundamentalist ministers spend almost as much time denouncing so-called liberal scholarship as they do in preaching from "God's infallible word." Their time would be better served looking into what the Liberal Christian scholars have to say. I did. I started out to prove them wrong for after all the New Testament "says this" and "says that". But when I undertook such a task in defense of the New Testament I was quickly presented with evidence and facts which exposed my New Testament as a fraud in many but not all places! Read the last sentence again. I said many but not "all" places. God desires we have faith in truth and not fables or anti-Semitic lies. Having seen the evidence then repentance in many of my religious beliefs was the only course for me to take. Such condemnation by fundamentalist Christians who have not evaluated the evidence for themselves is a tactic which is sadly quite successful in warning Christians away from any damaging information, which in turn ensures the continued financial profitability of the Christian religion. Understand the basis for much repudiation of "factual truths" by the fundamentalist branch of Christianity. If they were to stand before their flocks and tell them that they were wrong and that their New Testament is flawed in hundreds of places, then they would lose their following and their financial backing. They would have to get a real job and that is beneath most who have lived off the ignorance of their flocks. Perhaps in fairness it should be said that the blame for such deception cannot be laid fully at the feet of the present-day clergy, because, as we shall now see, many of these men simply do not know these truths for themselves due to their lack of intense study and others are simply carrying on a long Christian tradition which they were never taught to question. Only by the grace of God did I run across materials in my years of study which challenged my Christian beliefs, and taking such challenges I responded to prove myself vindicated in my beliefs. I was overwhelmed at times at the evidence I uncovered which proved my "error laden" New Testament for what it really was…..a combination and mixture of anti-semitic religious lies carried over from pagan mystery religions and gnosticism along with small amounts of Jewish truth.
Let us continue our study in the next article in this series.
