More In Depth About What We Are Not About
And What We Are
Question:
Is your website speaking about God in philosophical, theoretical, theological, abstract terms?
Answer:
No. “Philosophical”, theoretical, and abstractions postulating theories and “ideas” “about” God are we would strongly posit, based on the post-Bible Greek and Latin influence on the West after Early Gentile Leadership. The Early Gentile Fathers, having rejected Jerusalem for Athens as the source of truth, literally turned to the Greek philosophers Plato, later to Aristotle. The Early Gentile Fathers also incorporated in the thinking and approach of the post-Biblical pagan mystery cults that were widely popular in the centuries following the first century.
Western Tradition’s emphasis on “theology” and the intellectually based “understanding” “of” God, is very much due to the influence of Plato. Later, Plato’s influence was replaced by Aristotle’s emphasis on “reason and logic”.
Neither Plato or Aristotle are mentioned in the Bible – nor authored a word of the Bible! Though their works are considered classics of Western civilization, none – none – of the Greek or other philosophers had or claimed the personal experience with the Personal LORD of the Universe, such as the real Patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, Moshe (Moses), Aaron, Joshua, the People of Israel, the Hebrew Prophets, the Matriarchs, lest God forbid we forget (!), Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, and Leah, as well as Elizabeth (Moshe and Aaron’s sister; see Exodus 15, Numbers 12) and Deborah (Judges, see Judges 5), the kings of Israel, including David, who also wrote almost half the Psalms, Solomon who wrote “Ecclesiastes” (in Hebrew called “Preacher”), Proverbs, and the Song of Solomon, and other great men of Israel such as Daniel, Ezra and Nehemiah.
In the Renewed Covenant Scriptures (a more accurate name than “New Testament”) the greatness of the Jewish people continues. This in part is through the young Jewish (earthly) and Israeli (Galilee) parents of Yeshua, and the exclusively Jewish “Taught Ones” (translated “Disciples”, which is English not Hebrew), as well as Paul.
In short, far, far, far more people have been named after the above because of their great godly character, than Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, or Homer, because of their great “Intellect”.
You may be surprised / find of interest, that Athens is only mentioned 4 times – in the entire Bible – whereas Jerusalem is mentioned over 700 times! Athens is found only in one chapter in the entire Bible; Acts 17. If one looks there beginning at Acts 17:16, one finds not a single complementary thing about finding God through Athens.
In fact, Acts 17:22 says Paul says the Athenians had a statue to a “agnesto Theo” “an unknown God”. This is after Luke, the author of Acts, writes in Acts 17:16 that Paul was, in Koine Greek, “distressed of himself, “because wholly full of idols”, specifically referring to the city” (Athens).
Luke places a specific reference at the end of Acts 17:16 in order to place emphasis on, “the city”.
The Greeks are a wonderful, full of life people who have contributed much to Western civilization. However, based on the above, should we look for the Personal LORD from Plato, Aristotle, and Athens; or, through the personal experience of the greats of the Bible and Jerusalem?
Ironically then where, from and through whom would “reason and logic” dictate we are to seek and serve the LORD and Man? Where should our approach to Mashiach be from – Athens, Rome, Western Europe, the American Bible Belt – or Israel and Jerusalem?
The “Re-former” Martin Luther, a vicious anti-Semite late in his career whose anti-semitic writing the Nazis exploited, nonetheless said the following. “Those who study the Bible in Hebrew drink from the source, those in Greek from the brook, those in Latin, further downstream.” This last remark should apply also to English.
Thus, should we “drink” from the Styx, the Tiber, the Thames or the Mississippi Rivers, or from the Jordan River (metaphorically of course)?
“Know” in Hebrew means by “experience, intimacy, personal relationship” (see Genesis 4:1, the Greek of Luke 1:34 (“I have not known a man” “andra ou gnosko” not “virgin”) and Matthew 7:21-24, verse 23!)
How do all of us wish and desire to know God; intellectually or in our heart? If we are seeking, if we are hurting or in need, is it our “head” that needs “intellectual comprehension” or our heart that needs understanding?
In short the last we read of Mashiach is in Acts 1, where he spends 40 days – as Moshe spent 40 days on Mount Sinai with the LORD (Exodus 24:16-18, v. 18) – on the Mount of Olives, one mile south across the Kidron Valley from the East Gate of Jerusalem. Yeshua spent 40 days teaching about the Kingdom and Hebraically concretely demonstrating he was the Son of God (Acts 1:3) on the Mount of Olives.
Yeshua does not spend 40 days laying out an “intellectually compelling argument” on top of the Acropolis in Athens, the seven hills of Rome, or the Swiss or Austrian Alps or the American or Canadian Rockies.
Where then is he to be found?
If the great philosophers of Western civilization could credibly claim – they in fact make no claim – a “personal experience” with the LORD rather than through their limited Intellect, perhaps we could consider their approach to God. However, none of them claim that experience.
Should we consider the Intellect of Western Man greater than the wisdom of the Bible? It may surprise you to learn that the RCS (again, Renewed Covenant Scriptures) speaks of the heart far more than the mind. Our Greek concordance of the RCS lists 156 uses of “kardia” “heart” to only 29 of “nous” “mind”.
In the Gospel, “heart” is used 56 times. “Mind” in fact is never on the lips of Mashiach. “Nous” “mind” is only used once – in the entire Gospel! (Luke 24:45). Did you know Paul uses “heart” 2 ½ times more than “mind”; 56 to 21.
Even in the Book of Romans Paul uses “heart” more than “mind”, 10 to 7. Surprising given how Paul is typically viewed in non-Jewish settings.
Anselm, the great Christian theologian of the Middle Ages, is famous in part for his “Ten Proofs For The Existence of God”. Moshe, again, spends 40 days in the cloud with the LORD on Mount Sinai. Moshe has no intellectual revelation, claims no “vision” or “ecstatic experience “leading him to the “conclusion” “there is a God”.
Moshe opens the Torah, which is given him by the LORD (see Exodus 23:12, 31:18, 34:1) with in Hebrew in Genesis 1:1 “In beginning – head great rushing movement in time, created – created healthy, stout, open – (pertaining to Creation not to God) God,(the) essence and substance and everything, about in an encompassing way, the “positive bearer of existence” actuality, the Heavens and – in connection – (the) essence and substance and everything about, in an encompassing way, the “positive bearer of existence – actuality the Earth”.
In Hebrew it is 7 words. Hebrew, as we point out repeatedly in our teaching cannot be “translated”. Literally too much of its truth, richness, depth, wisdom, beauty, accuracy and authenticity is “lost in translation”. Hebrew must be “rendered” – that is, “opened up to reveal what is much more deeply inside”.
There is a plethora these days of English translations; Christian as well as an increasing number of Jewish ones. It should be quickly noted that unlike Christian teaching which is largely based on English (outside of seminary anyway), Jewish teachers, especially Orthodox Jewish teaching, is based on the Hebrew or Aramaic text; not “English”.
A number of great Jewish works in Hebrew or Aramaic have not even been translated!
In short, you can probably read English as well as we can. Why would working from English help you to do something most of which you can do for yourself? What benefit would that be to you?
Thus, with great trepidation and out of love and fear of the LORD and in order to serve Him, in the name of Mashiach Yeshua by serving you, we work exclusively from the original languages.
Further, the only language the Father communicates directly to Man in, is “b’ivrit” “in Hebrew”; and does so through the Jewish People and the Jewish brothers personally chosen by the Mashiach in Israel.
The original languages are absolutely “key” to clearing up misunderstandings and thus misapplications of Scripture!
A prime example is the greatly misunderstood “an eye for an eye” Exodus 21:24. In our teaching on “Keys To Understanding The Key Differences Between Hebrew And Greek – Without Knowing A Single Letter”, we point out that Hebrew begins with the Universal, the “Big Picture” and moves to concrete specifics.
Greek by the way begins with “concrete specifics” and moves to “abstract concepts”. This is a “key” reason that Western Tradition focuses on “theology” and “how many angels can dance on the head of a pin”.
It may surprise you to learn that our Greek concordance lists 669 uses of forms of “ginomai” “be” and 568 (technically 583) uses of “poio” “do” in the RCS. Roughly 62% of these in fact are found in the Gospel. Thus, there are hundreds of uses of “be” and “do” in the Gospel of Yeshua Hamashiach, which reflects the Torah. Please see our forthcoming teaching “Torah – The Single Major Misunderstood And “Key” Word Incorrectly Taught”.
Torah does not mean “Law” in the sense of “Western legal code of legal laws”. We explain in our teaching how and why this misunderstanding came about, the loss of Torah as “Teaching, Direction, Revelation, Law, Instruction, Guidance” and more deeply, as related to “absorb seed in order to promote growth”.
How does this relate to the misunderstanding of “an eye for an eye” being thought of as “you poked out my eye, so I poke out yours”? The rabbis correctly point out that taken as English “if any eye for an eye were taken literally, the whole World would be blind”.
The “key” is to first look at the Big Picture context where something is said. Thus, we will often bring other relevant Scriptures in context in order to facilitate our understanding of the subject, topic, or verse at hand.
In the case of “eye for eye” the rabbis also correctly and astutely point out the context of Exodus 21 where “eye for eye” is found in the Torah’s “key” placement of the LORD’s revelatory teaching of Exodus 21 immediately following Exodus 20. What do we find in Exodus 20?
What is known in Hebrew as “Ten Of The Words” called in English “The Ten Commandments”. The rabbis correctly point out that immediately following the “universal, Big Picture” of the “Ten Of The Words”, the Torah turns to concrete specifics. That is in Exodus 21, the “on the ground” godly everyday practical way a Hebrew is to treat a Hebrew servant and how the Israelites “shall treat one another”.
Thus, rather than “eye for eye” as typically thought and especially seen in the context of the Torah speaking in this section about specific compensation for an injured party, we can get, through the combination of context and the original language, what it really means!
In short it is “key” to keep in mind that the Torah is not about “legal compensation” as though it were an ancient forerunner of Western laws; but rather it is about justice.
As a quick but “key” note; our Translators Edition RCS Greek Text Index of Quotations lists 167 citations of the Torah in the Gospel and 190-195 by Paul (and see 1 Corinthians 14:34!!). Can the Gospel and Paul be correctly and more deeply and accurately and authentically understood and applied apart from the Torah?
We hope the above will not only give some detail and depth to what the website is about, but is also illuminating and helpful – and not found everywhere else. (If so, why repeat and duplicate what is already out there? See Paul in Romans 15:20, a “key” verse for our approach.
Speaking of “not building on another’s foundation”, why, again, merely duplicate or replicate what else is or has been already done?
There is a screaming need – a screaming need – for the Jewish followers of Yeshua to produce works of real, in Hebrew, “substance”. To produce the type of works that are considered classics in Judaism. These need to be done at that level regarding the Torah in the context of Yeshua – as the Mashiach; and the way the great Torah teachers and philosophers of Jewish thought and teaching would have explained the Gospel and the RCS, had they been followers of Yeshua and seen the RCS as part of the Hebrew Bible.
As inadequate as we are to do this, nonetheless the effort has to be made. With the LORD’s strength help and guidance our goal for His glory is to produce teaching and works and instructions of real substance for you and for all.