Hide It In Your Heart
Recently, I purchased a new book from Jerusalemperspective.com. The book is a collaborative effort of Christian scholars fluent in Hebrew and living in the land of Israel, along with Jewish scholars. They have worked for the past half-century examining the sayings of Jesus from a Judaic and Hebraic perspective.
However, this is not a book I would advise to those with more faith in the Bible than in God. It is not a book I would advise for those who think that all there is to know is known about the Bible, its history, and its translators.
“In antiquity, before the invention of printing, the situation of the readers facilitated the method of falsification. There existed at that time a way to falsify texts which today is practically impossible. As manuscripts were often rare, one had to return the book to its first owner. Meanwhile a falsifier could be at work, and if a reader borrowed another (falsified) copy of the book, he would be easily misled. In reading the false passage he could believe that in the prior reading the real meaning of the passage was not preserved. The Christian reviser of Josephus’ testimony about Jesus applied such a method of falsifying. He used the original wording of Josephus and ‘corrected’ them to become unequivocally Christian. By this he reveals an exceptional cunning. Josephus became popular precisely because all Greek manuscripts of Josephus accepted the Christianized text of the passage.”—Jesus’ Last Week, pg 31, paragraph 2
The excuse often used by some to defend what is read in the Bible is that God has perfectly preserved the printed text. Should this be the case, then we would have to ask why Jews regarded memorization above written record throughout their history, including today.
We would also have to wonder why we are able to remember every word of hundreds, even thousands of songs, yet we, Westerners, are unable to adequately quote more than a sentence or a paragraph of more than a few books that we’ve read, without intentionally committing a portion of the text to memory.
Finally, we would have to wonder why a child, loved by the same God who ‘protects’ His printed word, can be abused and raped, yet we assume the ink of a book can never be misprinted or purposefully corrupted.
Over and over God tells us to hide his Word in our hearts, yet we constantly commit His Word to paper, trusting it to those we assume are keeping their word to keep His Word.
Don’t be afraid to question human beings who are responsible for preserving writings that are vital to our being. More people have spent time investigating the original meaning of rock songs than they have the origin of God's Word.
Hide it in your heart where no one can destroy it. This is the true meaning of treasures in heaven.
Forever learning,
17 comments:
Are you saying that you believe the people who were entrusted with recording the bible as we know it did not do so accurately?
I'm just a little confused...
Sounds like a slippery slope to me. Once you start questioning the authenticity of scripture you leave room to question the authenticity of the Christian faith. If we do not believe that the word is inerant than we could believe that Jesus never preformed miracles or raised from the dead. Some things we just need to take by faith Gods word being compleatley and 100% true is one of them.
I can agree with with you're saying. I don't doubt that there is human error in the interpretations of the Bible. Going from one language to another, often there are no words in one language to match a word from another language. I think it's accepting the process of binding and loosing what the scriptures tell us.
With the printing press not being invented until the 1400s, scriptures were heard in rooms full of people listening to one person reading.
My other comment stems from a small comment you made about why can't we memorize scripture and yet we memorize hundreds of lyrics to songs. This is something that has always bugged me - especially as a child when sunday school teachers would make this argument. The reason we can memorize so many lyrics is because there's music behind it. You can memorize anything - even songs in a different language if you can sing it.
"The rhythmic nature of music can apparently stimulate parts of your brain that ordinary studying cannot reach, and this makes words and phrases stick in your memory. Moreover, listening to music is something that most people enjoy, so it can make learning enjoyable and perhaps makes you more receptive to new information."
And if I was a Jewish child being taught the scriptures from my youth like I learned my ABCs and nursery rhymes (and even those things are a song and poems), I would probably know the scriptures word for word. I remember books from my childhood that were read to me over and over again. It's just not an encouraging argument to make (for kids).
Anyway, just wanted to throw that plea out there for all those sunday school teachers who still use this argument with their kids when they don't have their memory verse memorized so they don't get a piece of candy...but I'm not bitter about my lack of suger intake in sunday school...
i think we need to trust in the power of God to preserve His word inspite of human errors....i believe that when it comes to any other ancient writings we can look at commmon sense, communication problems, and evidence out the wazoo as to why written word can loose it's authenticity over the years but when we're talking about spiritual matters and God's word, we need to trust that in His infinite power, He preserved it wholly and completely.
i know that even our english versions of scripture differ slightly from The King James to The Message and being taught regularly by someone who has studied the ancient text in both the Hebrew and the Greek, i know that there are slight variations with words and phrases, but we have to believe that the history, the teachings, and the facts are just that....facts....if we don't we have nothing to go by, we have nothing to tell us who God is, what He's done, how He wants us to live or what's to come.
God is bigger then human error.
i consider myself to be a fairly intellegent person, but this is a scenerio when heart knowledge has to over power head knowledge because sometimes the answer is just "because He's God and He can do anything."
I don't think that's ignorance, i think it's faith.
Kristy - i totally agree with you about song memorization...i think more Sunday School teachers need to incorporate a creative style of memorizing scripture if kids are ever going to have any chance of owning their own jolly ranchers....i too lacked in that department during those years. poor us....but at least we can sing Barry Manilow songs off the top of our heads!
Thanks for all of your comments.
Imagine for a moment the fact that a redactor has the ability to put his biases into his translations, causing Scripture to include anti-Semitisms, such as the Jews saying, "We will take responsibility for the death of Jesus." This is obviously the input of a non-Jewish Christian after the destruction of the Temple who wants to sever the ties between Jewish and non-Jewish Christians.
For centuries we have been told to fear questioning the translations of our Bibles, when this is exactly what has allowed such sinister changes to be made without question.
More and more ancient writings are being found, of which many of these anti-Jewish passages do not exist.
It has been discovered through extensive research by deeply committed Christian scholars and archeologists that Luke has not received the same anti-Jewish additions of later translations that are found in Matthew and Mark.
Great point, Kristy. You made a clear argument for the fact that we have the ability to memorize great amounts of information when we are willing to use the tools.
Ancient Hebrews always used memorization techniques to pour the Word of God into their minds and hearts, so that no matter how many times they were exiled, the Word would always be preserved within God's people. Upon being released from their bondage, they would put the scribes to work rewriting the Torah, the prophets, and the writings of their Bible.
They knew exactly what the word said, and no one could corrupt it.
But once the Word of God was entrusted to Greek minds, the emphasis of memorization was not nearly as great, and the Greek Christians were heavily reliant upon print, which was not as accurate as the memorization abilities of the Hebrews. This allowed for personal interpretations of Hebrew idioms and other sayings of Jesus to be misinterpreted as well as other agenda items to be added.
Scary, I know, but very likely true. There are people who are working hard to recognize these fragments of Scripture that have been changed and/or added and new insights are coming to light daily.
That is all very interesting and what you are saying about the human capability to create biases and opinions and error in written word is absolutly true...however we are forgetting one very real and important element...the greatness of God to override these types of errors...I believe with all of me that God in His miraculous wonder kept His word throughout the ages and did not allow man to mess it up. I know human error is likely in history, but not when it comes to the word that God has kept sacred. To question His word is to question everything...and I do not believe what I believe for fear of believing otherwise...I believe it because God said so.
His word is what I have to live by in order to call myself Christian.
I have to say I disagree, but love you anyway :)
Hey Johnny,
Do have any examples? You mentioned the inclusion of anti-Semitisms, such as the Jews saying, "We will take responsibility for the death of Jesus."
What are some scriptural references of false interpretations and what are the correct interpretations?
Are these scholars going to write a new translation? If so, I hope they get it right . . . I just preached that Jesus was able to handle any problem, use any person and satisfy any hunger . . . I hope I didn’t mislead anyone . . . Hope you catch the sarcasm :)
Blessings,
Bret
Whoever the final redactor of Matthew was, he worked very hard to change the chosen people of God from Israel to the Gentiles. This was a common attitude among sectarian non-Jewish Christians after the destruction of the Temple.
From the research, it is obvious that one of those sectarian individuals had an agenda to place the Gentiles in the seat of being the root, rather than the grafted branches.
In Matthew 8:10-12, the final redactor transformed Jesus' condemnation of his insincere followers and the mention of the final gathering of the dispersed Israel (Luke 13:29 = Ps 107:3) into a promise to Gentiles and a condemnation of Israel, 'the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness' (Matt 8:12). He replaced the Jewish people with Christian Gentiles who would come from east and west and sit--instead of the Jews--at the table with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Matt 8:11). --David Flusser
This is just a very small example.
The way to recognize these discrepancies is easier than we may think. It's not miracles and other teachings of Jesus that have been changed and that we need to wonder about.
The changes are a matter of anti-Jewish language and doctrines. They are also additions of Platonic and pagan rituals, such as not marrying in order to give your self fully to God. These are not godly ideas, but pagan influences on the Scriptures, which were used to manipulate power within the church.
Also, it's not God's job to protect His Word; it's our job to prevent perversion through effective preservation.
There are no such discrepancies in the Old Testament due to the memorization methods of the Jews that exist until this very day. We could write anything we want in the Old Testament and almost any Orthodox Jew could point out the smallest flaw. This is not the case for the New Testament, because after the last half of the second century, the writings were the sole property of the church leaders. The Old Testament was the property of all Jews, which they preserved in their hearts and minds, making the writings impossible to change.
"We believe that the Scriptures of the Old testament and the New Testament were given by the inspiration of God and that they only constitute the divine rule of the Christian faith and practice."
If you compromise on this issue where else will you compromise? If we believe that the scriptures are God inspired than we must believe that they are accurate and exactley what God wanted to reveal to mankind. I fear that what you are teaching is not sound docterine and could infact cause those that are weak in their faith to stumble. I think we should hide his word in our hearts and trust that his word is his word. I love you but respectfully disagree with you on this point.
Our dependence upon the printed text makes us very vulnerable to changes in the Scriptures, and we rarely ever notice.
If you use a New International Version, which is the number one selling and owned Bible among Christians, you are reading a Bible with at least 8 deletions from the Gospels alone. These deletions were made by scholars, who have found that they were added later, and were not a part of the original letters.
Look them up for yourself:
Matthew 17:21; 23:14
Mark 7:16; 9:46; 11:26; 15:28
Luke 17:36
John 5:4;
And I’d be willing to bet, you never even missed them.
If it is that easy now, just imagine a time when only one person per community had a copy.
Forever learning,
THAT is a very interesting point Johnny...
Johnny,
You definitely opened a can of worms on this one. Good job.
If what you are suggesting is true . . . then how does this change the truth? Another way of asking . . . does this really affect us? Does it change who Jesus is . . . change God’s mission . . . change the timeless principles taught in scripture . . . etc . . . ?
Ok . . . so some guy had an ax to grind with the Jews . . . how does that affect us today?
The Scriptures that are no longer existent in the NIV are an example of what has gone on throughout the history of the New Testament. This should not cause us to fear the authenticity of the message for a few reasons.
The changes are usually made for obvious reasons and are recognized by anyone willing to see them, as exemplified in the 8 missing passages that I listed.
Most people fear that this means we can no longer trust any of the Words, but this isn't true.
Always the changes have had to do with biases. Many of the passages that I listed have been removed because they have to do with pagan beliefs concerning angels and other obvious Greek distortions.
The reason scholars are able to recognize these changes is usually because they don't fit with the overall theme and message of the Bible, which includes the Old Testament.
Another anti-thematic addition is the idea of "elect ones." This was added by someone who was a part of a sectarian group, like the "Dead Sea" sect, who believed that they were the only ones who would be saved. These additions have added great confusion concerning predestination and the "chosen of God." Christ's message was that all who call on His name will be saved.
Along with the "elect ones," passages, Anti-Semitisms are now being very closely scrutinized, due to the fact that Jesus was a Jew and His message was "first" for the Jews.
In the first 2 chapters of Hosea we read that God tells his people, Israel, that they are called “my people” and one day they will be called "not my people" and then in the future, those called "not my people (the scattered tribes of Israel)" will again be called "my people." Often we confuse this passage in the letters of Peter, and teach that God is talking about the Gentiles. That's because of the additions of anti-Jewish writings that have led us to believe that the Gentiles have replaced the Jews as God's people.
We are reminded by Paul to never become arrogant about our position as non-Jews who are branches, which have been "grafted in" to the "root," Israel. It has never been God's plan to replace Israel as His favored people, though the Messiah, Jesus, has made it possible for the non-Jews to join our brothers and sisters of Israel.
The changes do not affect the fundamental truths of God’s message; they change our view of the Jews and how we are to love and be loved as people of God. The changes bring us back to the original message of Christ coming to gather Israel and offer adoption to all nations in the process.
They also change how we view the covenant for the Jews, as we recognize that they are privileged to continue following and obeying the instructions of the Old Testament, other than offering animal sacrifices and refusing to see that the non-Jews are also a part of the promise. Read Acts 15 for the covenant to the non-Jew given by Peter and Paul, which is actually the covenant given to Noah after the flood.
It also changes how we think of and treat the Jews. Often we try to get them back to Israel or help them rebuild the Temple in order to hurry the coming of Christ. But this is only using them as a part of a selfish puzzle. The Jews are people who God loves and we are to love as well.
Finally, the greatest change will be the hate and hurt that the Jews have sustained by radical, so-called Christians who have been influenced by the writer who so cleverly added his propoganda of hate into the pages of God’s Word.
You just answered my original question...I think that what I thought you were saying is not what you were actually saying so I take great comfort in knowing that you are not a heretic. haha.
I think it is important when discussing things like this that we affirm the realness and authenticity of God's message and the history of Christ because up until that comment I thought the entire basis of our faith was being questioned...I've heard many people argue against the Christian faith by using the case of the the missing scriptures and the missing gospels as a way of saying the bible is bogus. Dan Brown uses the Gospel of Thomas in his book "The Davinci Code" to make a point that is both un-true and unscriptural ...you are right in saying that alot of these things were removed because they did not hold up historically or accurately with the teachings and character of God, but alot of people struggling in their faith do not understand that and an argument like this could seriously cause people to question God. I'm just going to pray that new or struggling believers do not run across this discussion and begin to question who God is.
This has been an interesting chat.
I look forward to future posts from the mind of Johnny.
Johnny,
Good stuff . . . Keep opening the worms!
Johnny man . . . I've deliberately not commented on any of this. I love how you react when the cross hairs are on you . . . I love your passion for education and getting to know the spiritual and historical Jesus.
Love you, buddy.
Thanks Desmond,
I appreciate the encouragement. It's also great to see you comment on one of these articles.
I love you too.
Grace and peace.
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