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The Bible is the religious canon of the Western Churches. It is a collection of books translated from the Greek Septuagint Old Testament, the Latin Vulgate, and the Greek New Testament. Ironically it is referred to as the Greek Original. Even the modern Jewish Torah has been translated from the Septuagint. The Ancient Aramaic Scriptures are the religious canon of the Ancient Church of the East. Many Eastern Churches also retain the Scriptures in the Ancient Aramaic language. The modern Church of the East, the Chaldean Church, and many Orthodox Churches derive their Bibles from the Hebrew and Greek Bibles, translated into various dialects and languages, such as the Syriac, Chaldean, Coptic, Ethiopian and others. But to my knowledge, the Ancient Church of the East was the last Church to retain the Jewish Scriptures in their original language, which is the only scribal language, designated as the Ancient Aramaic by Western theologians. This language is the original language of Mesopotamia, before the Arabs came. The real name of this language is Ashurit. In my opinion, the Western nations of Christianity have waged a fifteen centuries' war against Eastern Christianity and the Ancient Aramaic Scriptures. By adopting an altered version of the Scriptures, which they called the Bible, the Western Churches have laid the claim to a parallel form of Christianity. The Western Churches have been able to fudge the line between Western Christianity and Eastern Christianity successfully, when it suited their purposes. The Eastern Churches are not fully aware of this anomaly regarding the use of the Scriptures by the Western Churches. As for the Western Churches, the rejection of the Ancient Aramaic Scriptures has had profound implications for Western Christianity. The Bibles derived from the Greek and Latin versions have strayed from the teachings of Eashoa the Messiah and the Apostles. There are profound changes in the Bibles as translated by the Western Churches. For example, excepting for the name of Adam, all the names have been changed. At first these changes may be regarded as a harmless convention, the mere changing of names to make it easy for other cultures to pronounce the names, but if we study these changes in pronunciation carefully there is a phenomenon at work here. For example, the name of the Jewish people, and the Land of the Jews, comes from the name "Judah," the son of Jacob. In the Western Bibles "Judah" is always translated as Judah, except for Judah Iscariot. This "Judah" is translated as "Judas." At first, we may consider this a good thing, because the name Judah is very common anyway and it should not be mixed up with the name of Judas the Betrayer of Jesus. However, the name "Judas" in the Hebrew and Aramaic language is still Judah, so the prejudice against Judeans still stands, and this is one of the problems of changing names. Another example is the name of Jacob. Jacob is always translated as James, except for Jacob the son of Isaac. There are many such cases, and it is always for a reason that the names are thus distorted. More significantly, the name Eashoa the Messiah has been changed to Jesus Christ. Eashoa (pronounced E-sho) means "life-giver." Jesus, on the other hand, does not mean anything in English or any of the languages derived from Greek and Latin. Eashoa is a sacred name and should not be used to name anybody else. However, in Spanish, the name "Jesus" is used as a common name. This would not have happened if Christians understood what the original name of the Lord signified. In the Aramaic language, after the Christian Era, the name Eashoa was retired and has been reserved as a reference to the Lord only. Moreover, the word Christian comes from the Greek word for "oil." In the Aramaic, "Msheekhah," or the Messiah, means the Anointed One. In English, "Christ" does not mean the Anointed One. "Christians" has been adopted as the name for the followers of the Messiah. It is alright to use this term, but the name "Messiah" is more meaningful than "Christ." At least, "Messiah" is closer to "Msheekhah," the correct transliteration of the title of Eashoa. Furthermore, the word for the Creator is Elohim in the Hebrew language and "Allaheh" in the Ancient Aramaic. In English the word for Elohim is "God." God is derived from the word "good." As a title, "God" is alright, as long as it is understood that it is only a title. Therefore, it is wrong to say to Aramaic-speaking Christians and Arab-speaking Muslims, (who use the similar designation "Allah,") that the name of our god is God, but your god is Allah. In one sense, God and Allah are the same designation. It is a recognition that there is one God. Another point is that, in the English Bibles, the name "Eashoa" is always translated as Joshua; however, in the New Testament, the name "Joshua" is always translated as "Jesus." Thus the Western churches claim that the name Jesus never appeared in the Old Testament. It is not only the distortions of the names in the Western Bibles that are at odds with the teachings of the Scriptures, the Western churches have distorted major concepts of the Scriptures, such as the Trinity. I have written about this extensively in this website. To add insult to injury, the Western churches have branded the Eastern churches, especially the Ancient Church of the East, as heretical, when it is they that have distorted the Scriptures and driven the wedge between the East and the West. One of the biggest mistakes the Western Bible translators made, when they translated the Scriptures into their languages, was to separate the Old Testament from the New Testament, treating the Old Testament as a history of prophesy and the New Testament as the fulfillment of that prophesy. But the truth is that the Old Testament and the New Testament are an integral part of the same Scriptures that was given to humanity by our Lord, to teach through the power of the Holy Spirit everything the human being needs to know about living in the body as well as living in the spirit. To use the Bible as a weapon against the Scriptures is a mistake. The authentic Ancient Aramaic Scriptures do not contain the contradictions of the Western Bibles. That is why there is one Book called the Ancient Aramaic Scriptures but thousands that are called the Bible. |