How close are you to what you desire and yearn for, to what you seek and want, to knowing who you are and what you want to be? How many degrees of separation are there before you get there? In meeting people, there are supposedly six degrees of separation between any two people on earth. Theories have been concocted, plays have been conceived and performed, even PhD dissertations have been written on the subject. But how many degrees of separation are there between the Creator of the Universe and man? Because we always want to know the truth. We want to get to the bottom of things. We want to know.
We want to know, so we write. Writing was invented so property could be defined -- the coordinates of one's land. Numbers were invented so space could be calculated, and eventually goods were exchanged based on the number of things bought and sold, and the whole transaction could be recorded. These were the practical beginnings, but soon writing became the tool of the prophet, the seer and, ultimately, the diviner. The early star gazers were able to record their observations accurately and describe the celestial bodies. Where did we come from, who created us? These were such profound questions. We have always wanted to know the origin of things.
But now we know so much and it would be nice to determine the degrees of separation that are between us and what we really want to know: who are we individually, where are we headed and is there anything beyond our own conciseness. In short, is there life after death, or is there life after life? This question was the genesis of the Scriptures. The Jewish writers of the Scriptures were the masters of this knowledge. They systematized it and made it into a science called religion.
Many people today think that science is something new, the product of the modern age; however, the Scriptures were the first books of science. The Greek philosophers who followed the Jewish tradition of seeking knowledge, wrote down their philosophies based on their observations of nature and the world around them. Modern science goes back to the Greek philosophers' work of observation. Today, science studies everything in the minutest details and on the most grandiose scale possible. Well, it's always been like that -- exponential growth and continued diversification.
Now we've reached the point of overflow. There is no more space for the data being collected. There is too much to consider and not enough time to reach a conclusion to anything. Our fingers are getting numb typing on computer keyboards. The information is endless. So instead of finding out what we're looking for, we find out new answers to old questions, and the old answers don't satisfy us anymore. We assume that what's new is truer. And here we go off the deep end.
Who catches us? We're in a freefall. There is no one to catch us. Everyone we trusted is gone. Our parents are too old or have died, our teachers have lost their jobs or keep repeating the same mantra, our politicians are lying to us, our economists are blowing bubbles that burst in the air before they hit the ground. Finally, we hit rock bottom, in more ways than one, and somehow we miraculously survive the fall. The saying is: we are all fallen.
We crawl at the bottom of the abyss for answers but there are none. Then we look up and there it is, the answer that was eluding us. It can't be! This is too simple! The Scriptures reconsidered? Sounds pretty idiotic: Adam and Eve and the apple tree. God said don't eat of the tree of knowledge; Satan said it's okay.
We are virtually separated from the truth.
In the Gospel of John 18:36-38, Eashoa (Jesus) says to Pilate that His Kingdom is not of this world.
"So you are a king?" Pilate asks.
"You are saying that I am a King," Eashoa replies. "I was born for this, and for this I came to the world ... so as to testify to the Truth. Whoever came from the Truth hears my voice."
Pilate asks him, "Who is the Truth?"
What's the degree of separation between Eashoa and the Truth? It's zero. In other words, there is no separation. There is one degree of separation between what a man thinks and the words that come out of his mouth. But when Eashoa spoke there was no separation, because He was the Truth; He spoke through the Holy Spirit.
When the words that Eashoa spoke were recorded in the New Testament Scriptures, there was no separation between what He said and the meaning of what He said. When the words were interpreted later by someone, even if they were the disciples, there was a first degree of separation, because the words were applied to new situations. As long as the words of Eashoa were quoted in the original language that He spoke, the meanings carried a first degree of separation as they were being interpreted. When the Ancient Aramaic language became obsolete, after centuries of use, there was a second degree of separation, because the words had to be interpreted again into the subsequent vernacular. That's why I'm translating from the Ancient Aramaic, the original language that Eashoa spoke.
So my translation is a first degree of separation as I translate directly into English. The interpretations of my translation then are a second degree of separation.
The English language translations have gone through many degrees of separation. First there is the Greek translation; Eashoa didn't speak in Greek and so His words had to be translated to end up as Greek in the Greek New Testament. The Greek was the second degree of separation. The interpretation in the Greek idiom was the third degree of separation. So each step in the languages from which the New Testament was translated carries two degrees of separation; one is the translation itself and the other is the interpretation. Then from Greek to Latin was another two degrees of separation, and from Latin to English was another two. Therefore, there are six degrees of separation between the words of Eashoa and most American Bibles. The errors multiply; the meaning is lost.
But then there are various sects of Christianity that stray from the six degrees of separation of the American Bibles. For example, those sects that have introduced significantly different doctrines into the Scriptures.
The 7th Day Adventists put the Sabbath above the words of Eashoa, when He said, "The Sabbath was made for man; man was not made for the Sabbath." Eashoa worked most of His miracles on the Sabbath. It was partly to prove that He was above the Sabbath. So the 7th Day Adventists apparently don't see Eashoa as "God in the Flesh" like other mainstream churches.
The Jehovah's Witnesses don't see Eashoa as "God in the Flesh" either. They identify Eashoa as the angel Michael, the angel who fought the rebellious Lucifer. The word Michael in the Hebrew is pronounced, "Mi-kha-yil," which can be translated to mean, "Like Eil," or, in other words, "Like God." Therefore, they commit the error (bordering the blaspheming of the Holy Spirit) of denying that Eashoa is one with the Father, and therefore denying the Trinity.
The Mormons see Eashoa through a vision of their prophet and founder Joseph Smith, who as a youth saw the Father and the Son in heaven, as they gave him the instruction: "Do not follow the teachings of any of the pastors you heard in the churches...." Young Joseph went on to build a dynamic ministry and church of the Latter Day Saints. He saw the Native Americans as the foundation of early Christianity. He thus denigrated the Jewish origins of the Faith in the Name of Eashoa Msheekhah (Jesus the Messiah.) This variance with the Faith of the Apostles nurtured Anti-Semitism in the Mormon religion, which led to one of the Neo Fascist doctrines of American Christianity. It also led to prejudice against the Black people who were brought as slaves to America; however, the Mormons have shed this prejudice to a great extent, now that they are on the verge of entering the White House. One of the peculiarities of the Mormon faith is their patriotism; Mormons are devoted to the land where their faith was founded.
There are other sects, each deny the divinity of Eashoa in a different way. The central anomaly is the rejection of the Trinity, because the word for "the Trinity," or "Tlee-tayootah," did not survive the Greek translation, nor the subsequent translations from the Greek language.
So what are the degrees of separation between the various belief systems and the truth? For everyone the degree of separation is at least one. Because what we say as human beings is always dependant on what we mean. The meaning of what we express is the first interpretation. The situations we are going through are always different.
We receive our information from many sources. There are millions of sources on the Internet now. We can find out something about an event from one or more sources. We go to the most reliable source for our current news. We choose our sources. We investigate to the extent that we have time or interest. Then we reach our own interpretations. We may have many degrees of separation between us and the truth. We see a video, watch a broadcast, read an article or a book; most of the time we don't know. We wonder and keep following a story as it develops. In schools and universities, we learn new things all the time, and later after graduation we keep refreshing our knowledge. Sadly, most of the time we never find the truth. Or we find it when it's too late. A Chinese proverb comes to mind: experience is a golden comb which nature gives to men when they are bald.
But it was not like this at the beginning. Before Eashoa came, there was one degree of separation, as the prophets wrote about the coming of the Messiah. There was only one degree of separation between them and what they prophesied. They received the inspiration from the Creator of the Universe. They didn't have a name for Him yet. The first time that the name of Eil was mentioned was to Jacob, after he left for the land of Canaan, after he wrestled with the angel in a part-wakeful state.
Eil was someone who inspired them to live at peace, to prosper and grow. In times of trouble, the prophets admonished the people -- so as to survive. The prophesies of the Scriptures were the holy oracles that were collected and passed on to future generations.
Then after Eashoa came to the world, there would be no degree of separation between Eashoa and the Creator. Eashoa had two natures, His Divine nature as the Son of Eil (God) and His human nature as the Son of Man. Again, the Greek translators did not convey the Ancient Aramaic word "q'noomeh" correctly. The word was translated as "Qnomos." In other languages, this word was lost in translation. So the three personae of the Holy Trinity were not identified correctly: the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Thus, among the Western churches, nobody knows where the word "Trinity" comes from. It is mentioned in the Gospel of John (John 5:26) and described in all the Scriptures in various contexts. Several degrees of separation have, therefore, led to major errors in the interpretation of the Scriptures.
In reading the Old Testament Scriptures, it's clear that everything written therein foreshadows the coming of the Messiah. In fact, there was no other purpose for the Scriptures, except to prophesy about Eashoa Msheekhah (Jesus the Messiah.) The Laws were given as a preparation for the coming of the Messiah, to prepare a nation that would usher in the Messiah. The lessons of life had to be learned so people could do their job when the time came. However, there was always at least one degree of separation between the truth and the prophets. Everything they wrote had to be interpreted. As I said, this was the case until Eashoa came to the world. Then there was zero separation.
From then on, a human being could be certain that the word he or she read in the Scriptures were corroborated by the Holy Spirit. The job of a good translator is then to bring the reader as close to the truth as possible, with as little separation as possible. The interpretation of the words of Eashoa are very critical. I have endeavored to do this in my translating of the original Scriptures. Many people wonder, how do I know that what I'm translating from are the authentic Scriptures? I know because the Ancient Aramaic Scriptures state clearly that Eashoa is the prophesied Msheekhah (Messiah) and that He is the Son of Eil, the only name given in the Scriptures, mentioned, for example, in Genesis 33:20, and used by Eashoa on the Cross in Matthew 27:45. The word "Eil" itself has not been translated correctly in any of the Western Bibles, as it was lost in several degrees of separation from the original Scriptures.
What remains for Western Christianity to embrace in this age of misinformation and misrepresentation, is to pray and ask for deliverance. I offer my translation work for your consideration.
Jan. 25, 2012
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