Larger Issues in the Humanities

"The project's relationship to larger themes or issues in the humanities is the renewed historical perspective this translation offers, an airing of the prejudicial considerations of the so-called "Gentile" converts and the resulting jealousy and prejudice directed at the original Jewish Christians and their customs" -- Project Proposal, 1997.

It's not difficult to discern the prejudice of the Western nations against the Jewish converts to Christianity in the Acts and the Letters of the Apostles. During the Apostolic Age, the Disciples and the Apostles preached to Jews and non-Jews alike. Most of the early converts, as would be expected considering their language and culture, were Jews and Aramaic speaking peoples in the Holy Lands and throughout the world. When Greeks and Romans were converted to Christianity, both of whom being religiously and culturally polytheistic, there emerged the prejudice based on language and culture. The Latin language of the Roman Empire was based on the Greek, and so the Greeks and the Romans became alienated because the scribal language was Aramaic. This feeling of alienation was cross-cultural and everybody felt it, the Westerners as well as the Easterners. This feeling is with us to this day. Jesus Christ preached to his followers, "Love one another as I have loved you." In other words, don't discriminate on the basis of culture, language and heritage. But this teaching fell on deaf ears in the emergence of modern-day Christianity.

Western discrimination against Jews was not only because of circumcision and the dietary Laws. The prejudice was based on the language and customs of the Jews. The Law's interpretation was based on the Ancient Aramaic Scriptures, therefore, the West had to destroy the notion that the Scripture had to be interpreted in the Ancient Aramaic and that its interpretation would remain fixed in the Jewish idiom. That's the basis for the Greek Original and the Latin Vulgate. Then later we had the King James Version of 1611, and now we have a whole host of translations. Some cling to the mainstream, like the translators of the New International Version (NIV.) Others are more revisionist, like the Jehovah's Witnesses' The World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, which abandons the holy Trinity and revokes the title of Jesus Christ, "Yahweh," or Jehovah, and applies it to the Father, not even being aware that the supreme title of the Father is "Eil." Ironically, in following modern Judaism in its rejection of "Yahweh" as the title of Christ, the Jehovah's Witnesses have become one of the few Christian sects that rejects the holy Trinity. On the other hand the Mormon's Scripture contains the Book of Mormon and abandons the New Testament entirely! Then there are the Seventh Day Adventists who hold the Sabbath of supreme importance, thus emphasizing the righteousness of works based on the Law over the Faith in Jesus Christ. These last sects of Christianity I have mentioned are the closest to the modern mainstream churches. There are many that have strayed even more off the course.

My purpose is not to put down anybody, but to get back to a true interpretation of Scriptures based on the original teachings of Jesus Christ and what the Disciples and the Apostles recorded. I believe that when Westerners claim that the New Testament was recorded in Greek, they're essentially rejecting the true Gospel of Jesus Christ. It's a form of racism. And this is not the racism of the Greeks against the Jews or the Aramaic speaking people, because the Greek Church is Orthodox and in line with Eastern Christianity.

The prejudice of the West is based on their rejection of the language of Jesus Christ and his Hebrew heritage. That's one of the reasons why the modern churches had to come up with the term "Gentiles."

"Subsequently much of the alienation of the Jews in Europe owes to the continued emphasis on and the tangential interpretation of the Scriptures as God's gift to the "Gentiles," a totally erroneous concept if there ever was one" -- Project Proposal.

There's not one word in the Bible that can possibly be translated as gentiles. The word "gentiles" is a misleading and useless term. The word "nations" is frequently translated in the modern-day New Testaments as "gentiles." Most of the time this usage of the word "nations" in the Ancient Aramaic manuscripts clearly refers to the nations subject to the Roman Empire. Sometimes, the word "nations" refers to "non-Jews." However, it should never have been translated as "gentiles." There's absolutely no linguistic justification for it, except as a prejudicial term.

Was Paul preaching to "the nations" anti-Jewish propaganda? Was he out to get the Jews? Heaven forbid, as he would say; he extolled his Jewish ancestors for proclaiming the coming of the Messiah. Paul always remained the most Jewish of the Jews. His interpretation of the Law conforms the Old Testament to the New Testament. The Old Testament does not supercede the New Testament and vice-versa. No one clarifies the misinterpretation of Scriptures in this regard better than Paul. By reading Paul's Letters, we can understand why Jesus came to the world as a Jew. Even though Jesus fulfilled the Old Covenant, He also transformed it for all time. There's no returning to the Old Covenant, except the New Covenant is the rebirth of the Old Covenant.

The Letters of the Apostles have been the target of the modern translators from the very beginning. It's said about Paul that he hardly converted anybody to Christianity. Yet the contrary is true. Paul trained many disciples and sent out many apostles. The writers of the Four Gospels were instructed and nurtured by him. He built many churches, including the church in Rome, which became the Catholic Church. However, there's so much animosity towards Paul among some theologians that one would think that Paul was not a bona fide Gospel writer or perhaps that his works are apocryphal. Paul's Letters go into detail about discrimination between Jews and non-Jews in the early churches, yet he addresses errors with compassion and Christian love.

It's obvious why Paul's Letter to the Hebrews is the most distorted in modern-day translations. My translation of Hebrews should be studied by the modern-day churches diligently. All the churches need confession. The prejudice against Eastern Christianity is deplorable. Paul writes in his First Letter to the Corinthians, Chapter 1:13, "Why, are we going to divide Jesus between us? Why, was Paul crucified on your behalf? Or was it by the name of Paul you were baptized?"

"One need not go into all the ramifications of the constant repression against the Jews throughout history, based on strictly non-Scriptural misinterpretations of the European establishment, in order to see the humanitarian need for a non-prejudicial and therefore, by definition, authentic translation of the holy Scriptures" -- Project Proposal.

It was Peter, however, who built the church in Babylon and other churches in the East. Even his Epistles are written from Babylon. The Ancient Church of the East, where the Scriptures were preserved, became enveloped by the Arab invasion of the Fertile Crescent when they spurned Christianity and turned to Islam. The persecution of Christianity in the East is what Jesus Christ talked about when He said, "You will be hated for the sake of my name." However, this persecution also happened in Europe and later in the Western Hemisphere, and it's still with us to this day. Those modern-day Christians who reject Eastern Christianity, are the persecutors of the Faith of Jesus Christ. The rejection of the Ancient Aramaic Scriptures is at the heart of this persecution.

The hatred against the Jews was always the hatred of the powers to be against a people that held fast to their faith. We see this from the very beginning. In the Book of Tobit. Tobia was the treasurer of the king of Nineveh approximately seven centuries before Christ. The Jewish community in Nineveh was the most devoted in their faith in the true God. Tobia is a pillar of the community with his many charitable acts. This Book in the Old Testament has been removed to the Apocrypha because of religious prejudice against the Ashurai and the Church of the East. Tobia is a hero of Nineveh because of his faith in the true God. Throughout ancient history we see many kings who were righteous, who represented God's authority on earth, and those kings that were evil, who acted on their own authority. This cycle of righteous kings and evil kings and rulers continued throughout the history of the Bible era and beyond. History is full of atrocities that evil kings and rulers committed against God's people.

Jesus didn't want the Christians to avenge His death on the Cross, so the persecution of the Jews by the Westerners is one of the great evil acts of history. But the modern-day churches, kings and rulers didn't just stop at the persecution of the Jews, they also persecuted the Christians that did not submit to their authority.

The Crusaders, who attacked Jerusalem in one thousand AD and killed the priests and parishioners of the Ancient Church of the East as they were celebrating Mass, were they not evil men? How could the Roman church have blessed their exploits?

Jesus Christ never condones the killing of people for not believing in Him. When did this idea get started?

When the modern-day churches did not lift a finger to stop Hitler and the Nazis from conducting the genocide against the Jews, were they avenging the death of Jesus on the Cross? I know, there were some that did risk their lives to save Jews from the concentration camps, but which church officially condemned the Nazi regime when it began?

I've heard many Christian evangelists talk on TV about the Holocaust as some kind of punishment against the Jews for crucifying Jesus, but the Jews didn't crucify Him. The Pharisees called for His crucifixion and it was the Romans that carried out the deed. In the ensuing centuries the Greeks and Romans turned to Christianity and Rome claimed the seat of Peter. The Jews who preached the faith meanwhile were left out of the picture. What became of the Disciples and the Apostles of Jesus Christ? Did they not spread Christianity to all corners of the world? What happened to the disciples of Paul and the apostles who came after him? Were they not all Galileans who witnessed Jesus Christ ascend to heaven on the Pentecost? Were they not Jews who proclaimed Jesus in the early centuries of Christianity? Was not the Ancient Aramaic their scribal language? Why were then the Jews hated in Europe? Was it because they spread Christianity or was it because they were alienated by the Roman church's claim to religious authority?

Did the six million Jews who were burned in the furnaces of the Nazis go to hell because they didn't accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Master? Where did their Nazi murderers go then, to heaven because they may have repented in the eleventh hour?

I rather think that the Jews went to heaven for never relinquishing their faith in God, as they understood Him, and the Nazis went to hell for their submission to their god, as they understood him. The Nazi's god was Satan, because only Satan would set fire to innocent people.

The Lord is God of heaven and all who worship Him, worship Him in Spirit. He is faithful and immutable. The reality of faith is based on the Truth, and the truth of faith is based on the reality of the Scriptures.

Jesus told the Pharisees about the son who was asked to go and work in the fields and he refused, but he felt sorry later and went out and did the work anyway. Jesus asked them, "Who did the will of the father, the son who said no, but went out and did the work anyway or the son who said yes, but didn't?" They said, the former. The Truth cannot be denied, even though the Pharisees thought they were the authorities over the Scriptures.

Why is the genocide of six million Jews called the Holocaust? A holocaust is a burnt offering to God in thanksgiving. Who offered the Jews as holocaust and on what altar? Jesus Christ was the ultimate sacrifice, He was the sacrificial lamb slain before the foundations of the universe. Jesus Christ fulfilled the Old Covenant. There are to be no more holocausts after Jesus. The New Covenant is His Blood. The Cross is His altar.

April 5, 2002