09-22-2008, 03:53 PM
Shlama Akhi Spyridon,
If you think the Jews for Jesus folks are "premiere Messianics" then you don't know anything at all about the real Nazarenes. No wonder you are confused.
You have now forced my hand. Let me speak plainly. You have compelled me to go into places I did not want to and speak in a way that I normally do my very best to avoid here. As I said, I have no choice.
I don't give a rip if you think you can prove what the "early churches" believed. I don't even care if you think you can prove the COE believed in Trinity or does believe in Trinity. Let's just say for the sake of argument you are right there--IT DOESN'T MEAN SQUAT TO ME. And you still don't get it: Without the statment of PERSONS for YHWH, there is no trinity by my definition. Akhan Paul has said the COE does not call YHWH parsopa-prosopon-personna-person. As long as that is the case, NO TRINITY. I stand on that.
With divine PERSONS, it is IDOLATRY, and a violation of the First Commandment that Y'shua and all the NT writers respected, so think on that. I care about tradition only when it is truthful. And no lie, regardless as to where it comes from, gets a free pass.
I am a NAZARENE. My faith is older than yours. My faith is more original than yours (Acts 24:12-14). And guess what the original name of the COE was too before they made a lot of these changes--Nazarenes! Look it up. My assembly fathers are the actual apostles and my Rabbi is Y'shua Himself, okay? I know YHWH is no respecter of persons, Jewish or Gentile, but that doesn't mean I don't have the right to my beliefs and that doesn't mean I tolerate disrespect from people who will not discuss from a level playing field. Are you hearing me? You keep saying you don't mean disrespect but I think you do. You have not engaged me fairly. You have not acknowledged my points or shown Scripture for your points. You have not done the work nor have you accepted my work. That will not do. As long as you persist in your METHODS, your protestations to the contrary are worthless.
Please don't think that by your repeated re-statement of things that I will ignore what is really going on. I am not fooled--nor is anyone else here.
My job is to scrub 2000 years of GENTILE cutlural accretions off of the True Word and RESTORE it from perversion. I don't care WHERE that perversion comes from. I have rebuked it from Rabbinic, Gnostic, Christian, Pagan, Manacheistic, and any other thing you can think of for more than 20 years. I will challenge the COE, the RCC the SOC, the Protestants, the Catholics, the atheists, the secular humanists, whomever and wherever I need to. That's what I do, and if you don't like it, that's just too bad. I am not selling to you nor do I want a thing from you. You obviously have no interest in any theology other than your own, so you know what, stick with your KJV.
I think you are gravely mistaken about Trinity in MIDDLE EASTERN ancient assemblies. I am aware of early WESTERN beliefs in Trinity from Tertullian and such but just because its early doesn't make it right, and I still say those individual beliefs do not form a codified catechism until the Council of Nicea. But again, let's be generous and say again you are right and this "true trinitarian belief" goes back to within the first generations of the faithful. The difference between us may be one of semantics and not ignorance. I can accept that possibility.
But, such acceptance doesn't impact this discussion. Gnosticism was an early perversion too as was pagan "god man" ideology and BOTH were rebuked by Y'shua and his talmidim IN WRITING in the NT.
So just drop this. You believe what you want about Trinity. I will continue to say that: I DON'T CARE WHERE TRINITY CAME FROM IT IS WRONG, WRONG, WRONG. Murder is ancient and rebuked in Scripture too.
And finally, as I have said many times, I don't care about "converting" you. I don't care that there are 1.7 billion Catholics or however many Greek or other Western Orthodox. I don't care that your church fathers have said this or that since the late first century. It is not Scripture. It is NOT what Y'shua and the NT writers taught:
6 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Messiah and are turning to a different gospel-- 7 which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Messiah. 8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! 9 As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned! 10 Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of Elohim? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Messiah.
Galatians 1:6-10
1 I hope you will put up with a little of my foolishness; but you are already doing that. 2 I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy. I promised you to one husband, to Messiah, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him. 3 But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent's cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Messiah. 4 For if someone comes to you and preaches a Y'shua other than the Y'shua we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough...10 As surely as the truth of Messsiah is in me, nobody in the regions of Achaia will stop this boasting of mine. 11 Why? Because I do not love you? Elohim knows I do! 12 And I will keep on doing what I am doing in order to cut the ground from under those who want an opportunity to be considered equal with us in the things they boast about. 13 For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, masquerading as apostles of Messiah. 14 And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. 15 It is not surprising, then, if his servants masquerade as servants of righteousness. Their end will be what their actions deserve.
2 Corinthians 11:1-4, 10-15
If you don't know about me as a translator, I submit you never will. The first rule of translating is to stay faithful to the text. This I have tried to do but I have also been extremely honest and transparent about where that comes from. I don't let Origen, or Jerome or even a great Eastern saint like Mar Ephraim or Hillel or Shammai, dictate the way I read that Aramaic. Again, you don't like that, it's too bad.
I will close with this idea. You probably have no problem with rebuking ancient RABBINIC opinions that you feel are outside of Holy Writ right? Truth be told, as I said, neither do I. So does the fact that a great rabbi OUTSIDE of Scripture said this or that make it right if it doesn't line up with the Word? Think carefully before you answer me. Was it right, for example, for the rabbis to say that their word be taken over 1000 prophets of the stature of Elijah? In my view, this is also perversion. I am consistent.
My question is, are you also conistent? Is it only the rabbis who can be at fault or can the "early church" also have error whether it be eastern, western or whatever? This is the bottom line for me. I oppose ERROR and if it is wrapped in any tradition I don't care. Appeal to your saints all you want it won't move me, any more than appealing to Eruvin 21b or Rambam will move me if I feel they are wrong.
What's true for one, is true FOR ALL:
10 "When you tell these people all this and they ask you, 'Why has YHWH decreed such a great disaster against us? What wrong have we done? What sin have we committed against YHWH our Elohim?' 11 then say to them, 'It is because your fathers forsook me,' declares YHWH, 'and followed other gods and served and worshiped them. They forsook me and did not keep my law. 12 But you have behaved more wickedly than your fathers. See how each of you is following the stubbornness of his evil heart instead of obeying me. 13 So I will throw you out of this land into a land neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you will serve other gods day and night, for I will show you no favor.'
14 "However, the days are coming," declares YHWH, "when men will no longer say, 'As surely as YHWH lives, who brought the Israelites up out of Egypt,' 15 but they will say, 'As surely as YHWH lives, who brought the Israelites up out of the land of the north and out of all the countries where he had banished them.' For I will restore them to the land I gave their forefathers. 16 "But now I will send for many fishermen," declares YHWH, "and they will catch them. After that I will send for many hunters, and they will hunt them down on every mountain and hill and from the crevices of the rocks. 17 My eyes are on all their ways; they are not hidden from me, nor is their sin concealed from my eyes. 18 I will repay them double for their wickedness and their sin, because they have defiled my land with the lifeless forms of their vile images and have filled my inheritance with their detestable idols.19. O YHWH, 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.
Jeremiah 16:14-19
And lest you also forget:
21 "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' 23 Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!' 24 "Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. 26 But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. 27 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash."
Matthew 7:21-27
How's THAT for translation?
Shlama w'burkate
Andrew Gabriel Roth
If you think the Jews for Jesus folks are "premiere Messianics" then you don't know anything at all about the real Nazarenes. No wonder you are confused.
You have now forced my hand. Let me speak plainly. You have compelled me to go into places I did not want to and speak in a way that I normally do my very best to avoid here. As I said, I have no choice.
I don't give a rip if you think you can prove what the "early churches" believed. I don't even care if you think you can prove the COE believed in Trinity or does believe in Trinity. Let's just say for the sake of argument you are right there--IT DOESN'T MEAN SQUAT TO ME. And you still don't get it: Without the statment of PERSONS for YHWH, there is no trinity by my definition. Akhan Paul has said the COE does not call YHWH parsopa-prosopon-personna-person. As long as that is the case, NO TRINITY. I stand on that.
With divine PERSONS, it is IDOLATRY, and a violation of the First Commandment that Y'shua and all the NT writers respected, so think on that. I care about tradition only when it is truthful. And no lie, regardless as to where it comes from, gets a free pass.
I am a NAZARENE. My faith is older than yours. My faith is more original than yours (Acts 24:12-14). And guess what the original name of the COE was too before they made a lot of these changes--Nazarenes! Look it up. My assembly fathers are the actual apostles and my Rabbi is Y'shua Himself, okay? I know YHWH is no respecter of persons, Jewish or Gentile, but that doesn't mean I don't have the right to my beliefs and that doesn't mean I tolerate disrespect from people who will not discuss from a level playing field. Are you hearing me? You keep saying you don't mean disrespect but I think you do. You have not engaged me fairly. You have not acknowledged my points or shown Scripture for your points. You have not done the work nor have you accepted my work. That will not do. As long as you persist in your METHODS, your protestations to the contrary are worthless.
Please don't think that by your repeated re-statement of things that I will ignore what is really going on. I am not fooled--nor is anyone else here.
My job is to scrub 2000 years of GENTILE cutlural accretions off of the True Word and RESTORE it from perversion. I don't care WHERE that perversion comes from. I have rebuked it from Rabbinic, Gnostic, Christian, Pagan, Manacheistic, and any other thing you can think of for more than 20 years. I will challenge the COE, the RCC the SOC, the Protestants, the Catholics, the atheists, the secular humanists, whomever and wherever I need to. That's what I do, and if you don't like it, that's just too bad. I am not selling to you nor do I want a thing from you. You obviously have no interest in any theology other than your own, so you know what, stick with your KJV.
I think you are gravely mistaken about Trinity in MIDDLE EASTERN ancient assemblies. I am aware of early WESTERN beliefs in Trinity from Tertullian and such but just because its early doesn't make it right, and I still say those individual beliefs do not form a codified catechism until the Council of Nicea. But again, let's be generous and say again you are right and this "true trinitarian belief" goes back to within the first generations of the faithful. The difference between us may be one of semantics and not ignorance. I can accept that possibility.
But, such acceptance doesn't impact this discussion. Gnosticism was an early perversion too as was pagan "god man" ideology and BOTH were rebuked by Y'shua and his talmidim IN WRITING in the NT.
So just drop this. You believe what you want about Trinity. I will continue to say that: I DON'T CARE WHERE TRINITY CAME FROM IT IS WRONG, WRONG, WRONG. Murder is ancient and rebuked in Scripture too.
And finally, as I have said many times, I don't care about "converting" you. I don't care that there are 1.7 billion Catholics or however many Greek or other Western Orthodox. I don't care that your church fathers have said this or that since the late first century. It is not Scripture. It is NOT what Y'shua and the NT writers taught:
6 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Messiah and are turning to a different gospel-- 7 which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Messiah. 8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! 9 As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned! 10 Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of Elohim? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Messiah.
Galatians 1:6-10
1 I hope you will put up with a little of my foolishness; but you are already doing that. 2 I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy. I promised you to one husband, to Messiah, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him. 3 But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent's cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Messiah. 4 For if someone comes to you and preaches a Y'shua other than the Y'shua we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough...10 As surely as the truth of Messsiah is in me, nobody in the regions of Achaia will stop this boasting of mine. 11 Why? Because I do not love you? Elohim knows I do! 12 And I will keep on doing what I am doing in order to cut the ground from under those who want an opportunity to be considered equal with us in the things they boast about. 13 For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, masquerading as apostles of Messiah. 14 And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. 15 It is not surprising, then, if his servants masquerade as servants of righteousness. Their end will be what their actions deserve.
2 Corinthians 11:1-4, 10-15
If you don't know about me as a translator, I submit you never will. The first rule of translating is to stay faithful to the text. This I have tried to do but I have also been extremely honest and transparent about where that comes from. I don't let Origen, or Jerome or even a great Eastern saint like Mar Ephraim or Hillel or Shammai, dictate the way I read that Aramaic. Again, you don't like that, it's too bad.
I will close with this idea. You probably have no problem with rebuking ancient RABBINIC opinions that you feel are outside of Holy Writ right? Truth be told, as I said, neither do I. So does the fact that a great rabbi OUTSIDE of Scripture said this or that make it right if it doesn't line up with the Word? Think carefully before you answer me. Was it right, for example, for the rabbis to say that their word be taken over 1000 prophets of the stature of Elijah? In my view, this is also perversion. I am consistent.
My question is, are you also conistent? Is it only the rabbis who can be at fault or can the "early church" also have error whether it be eastern, western or whatever? This is the bottom line for me. I oppose ERROR and if it is wrapped in any tradition I don't care. Appeal to your saints all you want it won't move me, any more than appealing to Eruvin 21b or Rambam will move me if I feel they are wrong.
What's true for one, is true FOR ALL:
10 "When you tell these people all this and they ask you, 'Why has YHWH decreed such a great disaster against us? What wrong have we done? What sin have we committed against YHWH our Elohim?' 11 then say to them, 'It is because your fathers forsook me,' declares YHWH, 'and followed other gods and served and worshiped them. They forsook me and did not keep my law. 12 But you have behaved more wickedly than your fathers. See how each of you is following the stubbornness of his evil heart instead of obeying me. 13 So I will throw you out of this land into a land neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you will serve other gods day and night, for I will show you no favor.'
14 "However, the days are coming," declares YHWH, "when men will no longer say, 'As surely as YHWH lives, who brought the Israelites up out of Egypt,' 15 but they will say, 'As surely as YHWH lives, who brought the Israelites up out of the land of the north and out of all the countries where he had banished them.' For I will restore them to the land I gave their forefathers. 16 "But now I will send for many fishermen," declares YHWH, "and they will catch them. After that I will send for many hunters, and they will hunt them down on every mountain and hill and from the crevices of the rocks. 17 My eyes are on all their ways; they are not hidden from me, nor is their sin concealed from my eyes. 18 I will repay them double for their wickedness and their sin, because they have defiled my land with the lifeless forms of their vile images and have filled my inheritance with their detestable idols.19. O YHWH, 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.
Jeremiah 16:14-19
And lest you also forget:
21 "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' 23 Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!' 24 "Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. 26 But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. 27 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash."
Matthew 7:21-27
How's THAT for translation?
Shlama w'burkate
Andrew Gabriel Roth