It is a sore task that God has given to the sons of men with which to occupy themselves.--Kohelet

Thursday, November 19, 2015

I Wish My Christian Friends Knew This

A Heartfelt Welcome

Do you know that I still love you? Do you know that I would never do anything to hurt you? Do you know that I feel guilty for holding on to something that will change your life forever like it has done mine? Do you know that I am willing to risk losing every one of you and face being shunned by you in order to bring you this information? While I hope that is not the outcome, I feel that strongly that you have a right to know the things that I know. It is with this in mind that I am going to enlighten you to several things in the Holy Scriptures. While going through these, I don't want you to take my word for any of this. I ask that you look these things up for yourself. I will try and use the King James version for your convenience except in places where that version was changed. Yes, the King James version of the Bible has been changed. For these passages, I will employ the JPS Tanakh and the Complete Jewish Bible. These can be found on some of the online Bible services available. If you are unfamiliar with these books, they contain three sections of scriptures; Torah, Prophets, and Writings. All of the books in your King James version of the Old Testament are in the Tanakh but they have not been changed to fit the Christian narrative. The versions I am using are in English so you won't need to read Hebrew.

It is widely accepted that the Septuagint (Greek) version of the Hebrew Scriptures was translated during the reign of Ptolemy II (309–246 BCE) for the library at Alexandria. That original translation was lost when the library was destroyed. (date is speculative) Jerome (ca.347- 420 CE) is credited with translating the Septuagint from Greek into Latin. Jerome is remembered as saying that there were many different Septuagints. When he did his translation it was some five hundred years after the original Septuagint was completed by the Hebrew fathers in Alexandria. He did not translate from the original but rather several uniquely different versions. Later, in 1611, the King James Bible was first released. "For their Old Testament, the translators used a text originating in the editions of the Hebrew Rabbinic Bible by Daniel Bomberg (1524/5), but adjusted this to conform to the Greek LXX or Latin Vulgate in passages to which Christian tradition had attached a Christological interpretation."wikipedia This means they rewrote parts of the Bible to say what they wanted it to say. Many people believe that the King James version of the Bible is the inspired word of God. It is not. It is a translation of a translation of a translation, etc with various changes made along the way to fit Christian beliefs. It was created for use in the Church of England.

With all of this in mind, remember that I am coming to you in love and genuine concern for you and at the risk of losing all or some of my family and friends. Let's continue. I used to believe the same things you do right now. I believed Jesus was the messiah. I believed he died for my sins. I believed he was coming back someday. I believed it because my parents taught it to me. We learned it in Sunday school. In short, it was handed down to us from those well-intentioned souls that received it from their fathers before them. The prophet Jeremiah wrote "... to You nations will come from the ends of the earth and say, 'Only lies have our fathers handed down to us, emptiness in which there is nothing of any avail!'" (Jeremiah 16:19 CJB) If you want to know what it's all about, please keep reading.

What is a Messiah

Messiah is the English translation of the Hebrew word Mashiach. It means anointed. In the Hebrew Bible, there are several people called a Mashiach. All of the kings of Israel and Judah were anointed, not only David. Cyrus King of Persia was also called God's Mashiach. (Isaiah 45:1) Messiah in no way means that the person is the son of God, or a savior, or anything but someone who has been anointed. There is a Mashiach who will come at some time in the future. This is mentioned throughout the Bible. This is the Mashiach the church claims to be Jesus. Scripture tells us that the messiah will do several things. He will build the Third Temple (Ezekiel 37:26-28), gather all Jews back to the Land of Israel (Isaiah 43:5-6), usher in an era of world peace (Isaiah 2:4), spread universal knowledge of the God of Israel (Zechariah 14:9). As yet, not one of these things has happened.

Now, I know what you are thinking. Jesus will do all of these things when he returns. That's what we were told in church. There is no mention of a second coming in any of the Hebrew Scriptures anywhere. You will undoubtedly, counter with Isaiah 53. This is one of four prophecies of the suffering servant. This is one of those places where the King James Bible was changed to fit the Christian narrative. When you read Isaiah 53 in the Hebrew Bible it tells a very different story. The suffering servant is Israel, not Jesus. Isaiah 53:10 Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand. (KJV) If Jesus is the suffering servant of Isaiah 53 how can he see his seed? Jesus didn't have any children! This is straight out of your Bible. In fact, as to ushering in an era of world peace, Jesus said in Matthew 10 "34 Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. 35 For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. 36 And a man's foes shall be they of his own household." This is not the language of the messiah. This is in violation of the commandment to honor one's father and mother. How can this be the messiah of God? It cannot.

Life Without Jesus

We were told in church that, if we do not accept Jesus as our savior we would be cast into hell, either at our death or at the end of the age. This is a scare tactic used by the church. The church tells us that Satan is somehow the adversary of God. This simply isn't possible. How can something He created be an adversary. If the satan (a title, not a name) were an adversary, he would have to be on the same level as God. To put anything on the same level as God is saying it is equal to God in some way. Since God is a deity, to put something on His level is to deify it. This is the very definition of idolatry. This is very problematic for Christianity since Christians believe Satan has power over them and only believing in Jesus will save them from him. Hebrew thought tells is the satan is more like what we would think of as a prosecuting attorney in a trial, an accuser. This same idea of idolatry also applies to Jesus when you equate him with God.

The idea of the trinity is nowhere in the Hebrew Bible. On the contrary, Deuteronomy 6: 4 tells us, "4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: (KJV) Now read it in the Hebrew Bible "4 Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God; the Lord is one." (CJB) You can see that the Hebrew Bible teaches us that God is one; not three. The King James Bible seems to gloss over this very important aspect. Not only is the trinity not mentioned in the Hebrew text, in this verse, it is refuted. The earliest church writings, those of Paul, don't even mention the trinity or put forth the idea that Jesus is God.

I remember the day I finally decided to leave Christianity. After learning that Isaiah 53 was not about Jesus, which really is the glue holding Christianity together, I spent that day reading the Bible. Later that day I had to ride to the store for something. Do you know that feeling you get when it's just you in the car? The rest of the world seems to slip away when you close the door and that pleasant silence takes over. I remember driving up the road and such a great feeling of freedom came over me. It was like nothing I've ever felt before. Now I live in that freedom every day and you can too.

Do you remember in the New Testament where it says that the Law of Moses is a burden? The church will tell you that Jesus did away with the law. Paul will tell you that it was too hard for anyone to keep. In my experience, it has been anything but hard. Duet. 30:11 says, "For this commandment which I command thee this day, it is not too hard for thee, neither is it far off." (JPS) Would you rather believe Paul, a man, or the God of Israel who gave us the law in the first place? He made us. He knows our abilities and our limitations.

If He says it's not too hard we ought to believe Him, at least, try.

There are six hundred and thirteen commandments. That sounds like a lot of rules to follow. The fact is that all of them don't apply to everyone. Some apply only to farmers, some apply to kings, some are for men while others are only for women. Many are specifically for the priests and some are only for the high priest. Have a look at this list. 613 commandments. Do these really look that hard to keep? Did you know that there are over one-thousand commandments given in the new testament? Most of these apply to everyone. New Testament CommandmentsThere is true freedom in the Law of Moses.

Your church will never tell you this.

With all of this in mind, know that the Law of Moses was only given for the Jewish people. Christianity attempted to superimpose itself into the Jewish tradition. The truth is that if you are not a Jew, you don't have to follow the Law of Moses. So what does someone do when they realize that Christianity is a false doctrine? You actually have two choices. You can convert to Judaism or you can be a Noahide. Converting to Judaism is not something to enter into lightly. Unlike Christianity which only takes a public profession of faith, Judaism takes quite some time to complete a conversion. Noahide is a term the vast majority have never heard before. After the flood, God gave Noah seven laws by which to live. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were all Noahides. Everyone in the Bible prior to Sinai was a Noahide. It is the oldest belief system in the world. Gentiles, who keep the seven laws, are guaranteed a place in the world to come.

Noahides

The Noahide laws also called The Seven Universal Laws are a very simple code.

1. Do not deny God. There is only one. Idolatry is forbidden.

2. Do not blaspheme God.

3. Do not murder.

4. Do not engage in incest, adultery, pederasty or bestiality, as well as homosexual relations.

5. Do not steal.

6. Do not eat of a live animal.

7. Establish courts/legal system to ensure obedience to the law.

Please follow the link for more information on Noahides For a video on Noahides, follow this link.

Did You Know

Now I'd like to give you some general information which you will, hopefully, find interesting. Please take the time to look up the verses and read them in context. That means read what is written before and after the verses being quoted. Studying the Bible in context will open up the full meaning that God is giving us. Quoting one verse is sometimes useful when making a specific point within a bigger work. Quoting one verse as the subject for an entire work is not. When you quote one verse without any supporting text, that is taking scripture out of context. When quoting out of context, you can make a verse mean almost anything you like. Many preachers do this for their sermons. I have seen this many times. It is wrong.

The New Testament gives two completely different genealogies for Jesus. One is in Matthew chapter one. The second is in Luke chapter three. Both of these lineages disqualify him as the messiah. Matthew puts Jeconiah in the list. Jeconiah was cursed by God (Jeremiah 22:24-30). In Luke, the line goes back to David's son Nathan and not Solomon. Both of these genealogies disqualify Jesus to sit on the throne of Israel. Furthermore, If Jesus is the son of God through the virgin birth, he cannot be a son of David. In the Bible, inheritance is determined by the father's side. Many say the lineage in Luke is really Mary's. But the text doesn't say that. Also, Luke's version has fifteen more generations listed. Read the names. Most people just skip over the names and trust that it is correct. They are hard to pronounce. It's easier not to read them. Why do I need to know all these names anyway? Learning who these people were and what they did will expand your knowledge of the Bible. Give it a try.

According to Daniel Chapter two, the messiah will not come until after the split of the Roman Empire. Jesus came before the split. Dn 2: 40-46 44. "And in the days of these kings [separate kings of Rome] shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever."(CJB) Read it for yourself. When you read Daniel, go through the first few chapters. You will see that the Roman Empire will be in place until the Messiah comes. The kingdom of Rome that is still standing today is the church. Notice how Daniel says, "2:43 And what you saw, iron mixed with clay, [connotes] that they will mingle with the seed of men, but they will not cleave one to the other, as iron does not mix with clay." (CJB) The Catholic Church has mingled with many others. How many different denominations of Christianity are there? None of them cleave together. If you are a Protestant, what is your feeling about the Catholic Church? If you are Catholic, what do you think about Protestants? Do you ever see your churches joining together?

If you've gotten this far, please remember what I told you in the beginning. Do you know that I still love you? Do you know that I would never do anything to hurt you? Do you know that I feel guilty for holding on to something that will change your life forever like it has done mine? Do you know that I am willing to risk losing every one of you and face being shunned by you in order to bring you this information? If you are not willing to question your beliefs how can you know what you truly believe?

Nowhere in the New Testament does it say it is the word of God. All through the Hebrew scriptures, it says such things like, "the word of the Lord came to...", and "Thus says the Lord." Phrases like this are not found in the New Testament. Wonder why? This is because the writers were writing after the fact. None of them were eyewitnesses to the life of Jesus.

The gospels were written at the end of the first century. Jesus died around the year 33. At least, fifty years passed. Ask yourself, if you were writing about something that happened fifty years ago, how accurate could you be? Do you think you could accurately quote as much as is attributed to Jesus? The New Testament, as we have it today was compiled in the year 325. That is almost three hundred years after the death of Jesus if he actually lived at all. There is no record of him. Oddly, there are records of John, the Baptizer and James. (see the writings of Josephus) Did you know Paul's writings were written before the gospels? Paul doesn't say Jesus is the son of God. That idea came later. The book of John was later and has more of a Roman influence. We notice that the Romans are almost viewed as the good guys. Pilate, the cruelest of the rulers over Judea, found nothing wrong with Jesus. Five days before his trial, Jesus was hailed by throngs of people as the king of the Jews. (At his trial they are screaming, "crucify him!") This would be a threat to the Roman authority and would have been dealt with severely by Pilate, which is exactly what happened. The Romans crucified Jesus. Crucifixion was reserved for enemies of the state.

I have given you a small taste of the information I have learned. There is life outside of the church. I will leave you with a quote from Jeremiah. Make sure you read the entire chapter to get the full context. Jeremiah 16:19 "O Lord, my strength, and my fortress, and my refuge in the day of affliction, the Gentiles shall come unto thee from the ends of the earth, and shall say, Surely our fathers have inherited lies, vanity, and things wherein there is no profit."