Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
To Andrew Gabriel Roth About Mari/PEACE
#16
Shlama Akhi Spyridon,

That makes a lot of sense--no worries.

But understand please where I am coming from before I move on. Of course you have a right to ask me about theology, methodology, etc. However, up until now you have not asked me. You have, instead, made blanket statements as if they are facts and you were caught in a few, shall we say, misperceptions. You have furthermore in those statements not qualfied what you meant by "out of the mainstream", etc. That is what I was calling you on. Again, you can ASK me anything you like, but you simply proclaimed instead. But you can quote my writings online or here and ask what I mean, surely.

Now, I don't take offense at you using just my last name either. I just prefer you call me "Andrew". Believe me when I tell you I am not your typical "public figure" (I doubt I am that at all) in that I have no use for titles. I don't even let people call me "rabbi" okay, even though I know they mean it with deep respect.

Finally, I appreciate your admission in terms of knowledge of Nazarene history and not being able to analyze my work at this present time. The thing is, I don't like to get theological here for a variety of reasons even though over the years people here and investigating my writings know where I stand. But when I perceived a "Judaizing" attack, I felt my back was against the wall.

On the other hand, I may have overreacted to you a little, first because I didn't know you, second because I just didn't like the way you addressed yourself and third mostly because I have had too many folks saying mis-information about my beliefs of late. I am sorry if I was overly harsh, because I think some of that negative energy was not caused by you. Nevertheless, I still think you could have worded things a bit better. I don't have to agree with you to respect or even like you a lot, and certainly not to explain myself, which I am fine doing with you.

Do we have an understanding then? Friends?

Shlama w'burkate
Andrew Gabriel Roth
Reply
#17
Yes, I do believe we have an understanding. Have you visited Orthodox churches? I'm not asking to disparage your faith tradition.
Reply
#18
Shlama Akhi Spyridon,

Over the years I have visited a great many kinds of churches, including many of the Orthodox bent including, Greek, Russianm Armenian and of course the COE. I have also been to Protestant and Evangelical churches and Catholic ones too.

Shlama w'burkate
Andrew Gabriel Roth
Reply
#19
How did you ultimately decide on being Nazarene?
Reply
#20
Shlama Akhi Spyridon,

I have written about my journey on my website. Here is an excerpt from my article, LEARNING THE BASICS:

1) Why am I doing this?

Well, to open on a personal note, I think it only fair to inform the reader about certain aspects of my life so that they will have some idea where much of my emphases are coming from. Put simply, the greatest misconception I have encountered is when people confuse my criticism of the Greek New Testament as an attack on the New Testament as a whole. This erroneous idea has more to do with people who believe the terms "Greek New Testament" and "original New Testament" refer to the same thing rather than any of my beliefs, methodology or evidence.

But where did it all start? Well, first of all, it should take little effort for many to realize that I am a Jew who, since a very early age, developed a passion for both my heritage and its two sacred languages of Hebrew and Aramaic. From the age of four and onwards, I have always loved Jewish prayer and found my spirit extremely moved by the cantors, whose songs formed the soundtrack of my childhood.

By my freshman year in college, my Judaism took a bit of an activist turn, and I became the president of Hillel, the Jewish youth service group on campus. In that capacity, I began to network with various synagogues in the area, and soon found that certain rabbis liked my Torah views. It was at that point that I was introduced to the counter-missionary movement and was asked on a few occasions to "witness" to Jews by dissuading them from believing in Y'shua Ha Moshiakh.

I also frequently engaged in debates with Christians, venting my outrage that they would dare tell me what my book written by my people in my language was really supposed to say. Just who did these goyim think they were anyway? I can remember one of them inviting me to their religious group, and when I asked what it was called he said, "Campus Crusade for Christ", to which I replied, "Don???t ever try to tell a Jew that a crusade is a good thing!"

Although, over a two-year period, I must admit that I began to make Christian friends almost in spite of myself, and they invited me to their meetings to "hear my perspective on the Hebrew".
On another occasion I was asked to go to hear a "Christian Rabbi" speak1, and I remember answering, "Great, I have a square circle in my pocket." I also began musing about how clever these Christians were by not sharing verses from the Greek New Testament, which they knew I would tear apart as a pagan text.

Furthermore, I sort of took a slight dark pleasure in pointing out things that my hosts clearly did not want to think about, like how Jeremiah 10:1-6 appeared to view Christmas trees, how "Sabbath" means Saturday and not Sunday, and so on. Through it all they were very patient and caring, and each time I met them I walked away with a greater admiration for their sincerity of faith, even if to me it appeared misguided.

However, a turning point came when one particular Christian by the name of Brian came up to me and said, "Andrew, I have an idea. We are going to do a Messianic Prophecy Seminar at the Campus Crus--uh--our group you know. At first I thought you should go, but then I worried that you might think everything would be coming from biased Christian translations, so how about this? I will go and take notes on all the verses they talk about, and then you can look them up in Hebrew to see what they say. Then, perhaps you might consider asking God to grant you true understanding to your mind and heart. After that, just tell me what happens, okay?"

I thought for a moment and said to myself, "Great, I can disprove this thing once and for all", and therefore agreed to the challenge. I got the list of verses a week later and began my study. Suffice to say that when I checked out their claims I was stunned, and my eyes were opened.
Clearly shaken, I returned to my friend Brian and told him, in no uncertain terms, that I was scared. They seemed to be right, but I felt that their rituals and certain ideas behind their beliefs in Y'shua as Messiah were wrong. Then, when I was shown a Greek New Testament, I immediately found a major problem. I had thought that the text, like some other documents I had seen, would simply transliterate the divine name of YHWH into Greek. However, to my shock, I found they used the word kurios--a title for Zeus--in its place! As a Jew, this was horrendous to me. I would not bend knee to a book that called on Zeus as the Almighty!2 And yet, I was equally convinced that the Messiah, as he was portrayed in the Torah, had to be
the same guy they believed in.

Seeing that I was upset, my friend Brian showed great wisdom in the way that he comforted me. He told me that if the only Messiah I could believe in was the one painted by more than 300 prophecies in the Old Testament, that I should reach out in faith to that extent and pray for guidance as my walk progressed.

When I protested again the use of kurios in his part of the Bible he said, "Andrew, if anyone can possibly learn to resolve a contradiction like that and maybe show others how to also, it will be someone like you. But you must open yourself up to the Holy Spirit first. Believe in the best, and have faith in the rest." It was then that I accepted Y'shua as the Master of my life. [Once this happened I never became "Christian". I was always filtering my faith in Y'shua the Messiah through the prism of my Jewish belief. However, as others have pointed out, when it comes to beliefs about who Y'shua is, my outlook is very Orthodox and similar to the COE.]

However, in the years that followed, my faith became severely tested. Somehow I came across the countermissionaries again, and this time I was the target that they were trying to turn around. Not only did they point out the kurios problem to me again, they began also to show me dozens of errors in the Greek, including tons of places where the text got critical Torah details wrong. My head began to spin as my faith in Y'shua came into opposition with the text most believed to contain his original teachings and, after a decade of struggle, my faith began to wane. I despaired as my clear understanding of who the Messiah described in Torah was conflicted with a group of seemingly pagan writings about him. I also could not understand how my Elohim could reveal half of His Word in the holy tongue of Hebrew and the other half
in the language of Greek paganism and the "educated" Romans, who burned Jerusalem to the ground.

Nor was I the only new Messianic Jew to be beset with these kinds of issues. My good friend Dean Dana, who was raised Orthodox, wrote the following on <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.peshitta.org">http://www.peshitta.org</a><!-- m -->:

What difference does the Aramaic New Testament make?
There is a rather important reason why the existence and survival of the Aramaic New Testament is crucial and foundational to the message of Christianity as a whole and the difference it makes. Now, this difference (as akhi Paul rightly stated3) is not so much an issue of salvation or even understanding the basic message of the bible. Rather it???s about the credibility of the claims of Christianity and a much-needed correction in the understanding of the context and connection under which Christianity (or more correctly stated, ???Messianity???) was first proclaimed!

Firstly, lets remember some of the last words of the last OT prophet. Malakhi 4:4-5 ???Remember the law of Moses My servant, even the statutes and ordinances which I commanded him in Khoreb for all Israel. ???Behold, I am going to send you Eliyah the prophet before the coming of the great day of YHWH???.

There was virtual silence for about 400 years between the last prophet of the OT era and the words of Mattai 1:1 which begins to proclaim THE most important event in world history -the coming of Meshikha and the beginning of the fulfillment of all that GOD promised throughout Tanakh times. From Bereshit to Malakhi (or Bereshit to Chronicles-however you reckon it) GOD unfolded, among other things, specific information about WHO HE IS and WHO HE IS NOT. GOD used very specific names, titles and descriptive names about HIMSELF so as to not create confusion as it is written, ???for God is not a God of confusion but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints??? (1 Corinthians 14:33) .

Now imagine this, the last voice from Tanakh times (Malakhi) encourages the readers to basically remember who GOD is (YHWH) and what He did (reveal himself through Moses). But according to Greek Primacists and the GREEK NEW TESTAMENT and the majority position of Christianity the world over, this same GOD in Malakhi enters the scene in the so-called original, divinely inspired Greek Gospels calling himself Theos, Kurios, Iezeus Xristos, Pnuma Theon and Pnumotos Hagion.

WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE ?!?

Are these not well-documented pagan titles? What are these names doing in this book and why would the OT GOD (well now we must draw distinctions due the confusions introduced in the GREEK NEW TESTAMENT) transgress His own commandment as it is written ???Now concerning everything which I have said to you, be on your guard; and do not mention the name of other gods, nor let them be heard from your mouth??? (Exodus 23:13). By doing so, GOD also forces every NT writer to transgress and every person reading, translating and studying the GREEK NEW TESTAMENT to transgress as well!

At least with the Septuagint we all know it???s a translation, the translators knew it was a translation ???no one tried to dupe the world into believing that it was divinely inspired, that would have been laughable. So these titles & names were included (for better or for worse) as a means to accurately TRANSLATE the text into a foreign tongue, so the inclusion of foreign deities was to be expected. Much like it is in English. No one claims that ???LORD GOD??? is what YHWH Elohim called himself. SO WHY DO GREEK NEW TESTAMENT PRIMACISTS INSIST THAT GOD TOOK UPON HIMSELF THE NAMES OF PAGAN DEITIES?

I suppose it would have been possible, if the Greek NT was inspired, for the all names and titles of GOD to have been transliterated into Greek to have avoided this fundamental problem. THIS IS WHAT A DIVINELY INSPIRED GREEK NEW TESTAMENT WOULD HAVE LOOKED LIKE. I could flip through any book, chapter and verse of the Peshitta and NEVER have this problem ???I know who
Eloha is, I know who Y'shua is, I know who mar-YAH is, I know who Rukha d???Eloha is, I know who Meshikha is and I know who Rukha d???qudsha is.

Did theos speak the universe into existence?
Did kurios speak to Moses at the burning bush?
Did pnuma theon hover over the waters in Genesis 1:2?

I don???t think so, and If GOD went by these names during all the years of Tanakh times, we would have known it. Remember, the NT covers a short time span, it is inconceivable that there would be such a sudden shift in Deity identity during the few years of NT times against the backdrop of thousands of years during Tanakh times.

So this is what I see as a huge and fundamental difference that the Peshitta NT brings to the table -credibility and connection to the same GOD, the Creator revealed in the Old to the same GOD, the Savior revealed in the New! After all, only the Peshitta boldly declares, ???for today in the city of David there has been born for you a
Savior, who is YHWH the Messiah??? (Luqa 2:11). All other versions keep you guessing as to who the ???Lord??? is.

b???Meshikha,
Akhi Dean

(NOTE: Since writing this post, Dean is now a member of the Church of the East.)

Therefore, were it not for my discovery of the Aramaic New Testament, I would not have retained my faith. I found, in beautiful and majestic detail, the authentic Jewish writings left by the apostles. As for myself, the Peshitta strengthens, rather than weakens, our understanding of the New Testament. In the end though, all I can do is methodically lay out as many relevant details as I can and let the reader make up their own mind.
Reply
#21
Shlama all---next week I hope to know the time. Again sorry for the delay but here is what Baruch said in his own words. He starts commenting on teh Vulgate thread which I forwarded to him earlier:

Shlama Akhi Andrew,

Yes this is some very interesting material!!!
I'm very curious to see if there is a pattern here that goes beyond a few verses!!!

Yes I heard from the printer today.
The courier has picked up the pre-press proof and it will be delivered here tomorrow morning.
I have to sign off on that proof and send it back to them on Monday, I'm also told that the cover will be sent tomorrow and be here on Monday, so I will sign off both proofs and courier them back on Monday. Being as you've printed other books you probably know that they will not go to press unless the customer signs off on a hard copy so all the liability is passed onto the customer.

What I will do is check the first and last word on each page against my latest digital proof and then send it back to them.

I'm very happy the way things have been working with my broker Jorge and my customer service rep (CSR) Mark and Brad who works in the technical department, all three have been very professional and resolved things in a very timely manner so things are going at a very good pace thus far.

But when I hear any more news I'll pass it along to you.

Blessings,

Baruch


Shlama w'burkate
Andrew Gabriel Roth
Reply


Forum Jump:


Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)