Praise God we are very excited in offering you what we hope honors the LORD, His Son Yeshua, and educates, equips, and encourages you! How?
Directly from the incredibly rich, deep, and unmatched Hebrew and often Hebraic & Jewish Koine “Common” Greek Bible text!
As well as including for you the historical & cultural setting and the context of the Text. This is always extremely “key” for both properly understanding and applying the Text to those around us – and our own lives!
In short, in Romans 15:20 (a verse I’ve always tried to keep in mind in teaching), Paul writes the Romans from Corinth (in Greece, south of Athens). Paul hoped to pass through Rome on his way west to Spain. Paul would not stop in Rome to proclaim the Good News of Yeshua, since other Jewish brothers were already doing so!
Speaking of brothers; did you know there are 370 uses in Greek of forms of adelphoi/adelphos “brothers” (including of course sisters); yet only three uses of Xristianos “Christians”? Did you know Paul uses forms of brothers or sisters between 125 and 150 times? Did you know Paul never uses “Xristianos” – period? Never calls himself that nor anyone else. (Paul also never uses in Greek, “tithe”, “doctrine”, or “convert/conversion”).
Would I (your Jewish brother Jacob) really benefit you, if I merely teach you about the same things already taught; and especially as the majority of good-hearted Bible teachers do, who teach from English – rather than Hebrew or Greek?
By learning together from the original languages, we learn uniquely deep insights and truth – and the most accurate and authentic Message given to us! Plus – as I hope you’ll learn below, learning from the Bible’s original languages of Hebrew & Koine Greek (with a few chapters in Hebrew’s very close sister language Aramaic), clears up many many misunderstandings – and thus misapplications – of Scripture!
What are the Bible’s Actual Languages? Why They’re So Important!
We’d be remiss if we didn’t point out quickly that the Koine Greek of the Renewed Covenant Scriptures – a much more accurate name than “New Testament”, as we explain in our teaching – is different than that of the classics and Greek philosophers’ Attic Greek.
Koine Greek frequently contains Hebraic thought expressed in KG (my shorthand for Koine Greek), Hebraic type expressions, and Jewish thinking and expression. Most especially so in Yochanon’s writings and Revelation, and the Gospels; as well as Paul. Hebraic and very Jewish understanding, thinking, and expression is naturally found throughout the words and teaching of our wonderful Yeshua!
Speaking the truth in love, the expression “it loses something in the translation” is never more true than when it comes to the Hebrew of the Bible!
Although done with the best of intentions, the Bible is far far far too often taught as though the Bible was actually originally given to us in English.
This results in everyone in the Bible – most especially perhaps Yeshua – coming across as though English was their native language and the lived in the 19th-century American Bible Belt. This is no more accurate – or authentic (!) – than portraying William Shakespeare as an Orthodox Jew who lived in Jerusalem,and wrote Hamlet in Hebrew!
Teaching and learning from the original languages – and including the historical cultural context of Scripture also (!), would prevent disagreements that result in splintering the Body of Yeshua!
A Very Key Reason Why Teaching from the Original Languages is So Very Important
One very key way is that using the KG (again, my shorthand for Koine Greek) text shows us that 63% of the uses of “you” are plural. A KG concordance shows us there are 778 more uses of “you” plural – than “you” singular. Did you know that? Have you ever heard that?
This demonstrates – as do the 865 uses of “we us our” in KG – that the actual Biblical message is a “we” message – not the typically taught “me” message! Did you know that? Have you been taught that?
A Greek concordance also shows us that 9 of the 10 uses of God (as) Savior are Savior of we/us.
In short; while followers of Yeshua are overwhelmingly taught a “me” message, the original languages very clearly show us that Yeshua’s model – and that of the Bible as a whole – is really a “we” model!
Why We Learn Scripture Together from the Hebrew & Koine “Common” Greek