yiri@ucf-cs.UUCP (Yirmiyahu BenDavid) (09/25/84)
Asking me how the writings of the N'tzarim sect of Jews (the 'misconstrusion' of which is popularly called the New Testament) is rather like asking the PhD what s/he learned in college. I've spent a couple of decades in the study and you want an instant answer. The bad news is that it's just not that simple nor easy. If it were, it would be common knowledge. All translations suffer from the attempts of non-Jewish translators trying futilly to understand the Judaic concepts of an early group of Jews (a sect of Judaism known as the N'tzarim - a word muchly bastardized since). Beyond that, the extant source mss. also suffer from the concious and deliberate editing of Christian redactors to PUT the writings into harmony with Christian doctrines! Since you apparently will not read the texts I recommended for yourself, I suppose I'll have to read a bit of it for you: quotes from the Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible (Abingdon, 1962), under "Text, NT"; p. 595: "A study of 150 Greek MSS of the Gospel of Luke has revealed more than 30,000 different readings.", "It is safe to say that there is not one sentence in the NT in which the MS tradition is wholly uniform.", "...there are many thousands which have a definite effect upon the meaning of the text.", "It is equally true that many of them do have theological significance and were introduced into the text intentionally.", "Many thousands of the variants which are found in the MSS of the NT were put there deliberately. They are not merely the result of error or of care- less handling of the text. Many were created for theological or dogmatic reasons". Now for the laugher: we have deliberate redactions to the MSS by Christians for the express purpose of PUTTING the MSS into harmony with ad hoc Christian doctrines and the article has the hutzpa to add in parentheses: "(even though they may not affect the substance of *Christian dogma*)" [as- terisks supplied]. No, I suppose not! I suspect that you cannot even tell me without looking it up what these various English versions use for their source? It appears to me that the various notion of all of these mss is a shocking sur- prise? If not, then deal with it! I'll include my previous article since you have failed to acknowledge everything in it. Abridgement of articles follow: Having spent several years translating both the Tanakh and the "New Testament" (more appropriately the writings of the N'tzarim sect of Jews), I'm always amazed at how much confidence is placed in the version ordered and supervised by an anti-semitic Episcopalian king of England. Certainly it should not be astonishing to find that this, and subsequent versions, are sympathetic to the established Christian doctrines. Yet, the earliest mss. such as the codex sinaiticus, vaticanus and various papyrii translate quite differently unless they are strongly colored by first assuming Christian doctrines and then attempting to justify them. If one, rather, simply puts the various passages in harmony, one learns that these early followers of Yeshua were observant Jews some 40 years after the execution of Yeshua - keeping the seventh day Sabbath (while meeting on other days as well and collecting monies on the first day - certainly not Shabbat - as Jews today still do). They even continued to sacrifice in the Temple. Christian doctrines of today originate in the paganism of the Roman Empire - not with the authentic early group of Jewish followers. One should read "The Conlfict Between the Church and the Synagogue" Oxford doctoral thesis (Atheneum Books), "The Church from the Circumcision" by Bagotti (from the Biblical Archaeology Society), and vol 2 of "The Social and Religious History of the Jews" by Baron (Jewish Publ. Society). I would suggest that a good place to begin, if one wants to be knowledgable in this area, would be to define exactly what the Bible is: the KJV? Is it English? Based on the Textus Receptus? Perhaps one might read the section on "Text, NT" in the Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, Abingdon, 1962. One of the major problems with citing passages from modern versions is that there it is slanted by so many interpretations from the Roman Empire which were alien to the early N'tzarim sect - are are alien to Judaism today. Relying upon "Christianized" versions promulgates the muddying of the distinction between Christian and Jew - one cannot be both at the same time. (The notion that Jews are merely a race has, I hope, been recognized as falsehood.) Similarly, as the teachings espoused by the early N'tzarim sect are distorted in modern versions, so also is the picture presented of Y'shua. The two different versions present two different pictures: one of an observant and thoroughly Jewish Y'shua and another of a Christian Christ (Jesus). For clarity it is really necessary to distinguish whether one is speaking of Y'shua or Jesus - they are so diametrically different (Y'shua teaching Torah in synagogues to Jews while Jesus came and freed everyone from the Jewish law of sin, the observance of which causes one to lose one's salvation - one Torah- observant, the other antinomian.) We're talking about a figure (Jesus) who differs considerably between the historical figure (Yeshua or Y'shua) and the (mythical) image created of him later by pagans of the Roman Empire (the Christian Jesus). It seems to me that we are inundated with "instant experts" who have all the answers, yet in reality cannot even tell you WHAT the Bible is - much less quote the first word of it! Do you recog- nize the KJV by an anti-semitic medeival Christian king of England? Is that the Bible? Is it the textus receptus by the medeival Catholic Church. These have little to do with the N'tzarim sect of Jews of 2 millenia ago. And the interpretations have been dras- tically distorted and perverted in the interim. But you wouldn't know that unless you had learned to translate greek and hebrew for yourself and translated it for yourself as I did. If you will read the texts recommended in the other article you will have a little better basis for understanding what I'm talking about. These writings were deliberately twisted over the centuries to conform to the prevailing evolution of Christian dogma - see The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, Text NT by Abingdon (at least in the old edition). Before you set off telling the world the way, you should educate yourself about your way rather than taking the word of your co-religionists. In fact, the way you point is toward a mythical image conceived in the paganism of the Roman Empire which is diametrically antithetical to the historical figure. Thus, if Y'shua is the messiah then Jesus is the contra- messiah or antichrist. Y'shua taught Torah in synagogues while Jesus died to save the world from the Jewish law of sin and death. The historical N'tzarim sect which followed Y'shua kept the Sabbath and even offerred sacri- fices in the Temple until the Temple was destroyed in 70 CE. The heretical evolution of Christianity didn't get rolling well until 110 CE when the N'tzarim leader- ship was booted out of Jerusalem with the other Jews and the first gentile "bishop" was installed (and has remained gentile ever since). You have every right to practice Christianity if you want, but I don't think you should disguise it in a mantle of pseudo-scholarship.
mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate) (09/27/84)
Since it will take me some time to do the research to reply to the factual portion of Yirmiyahu's article, this reply will deal only with the form of the argument. Yirmiyahu is very dogged about the use of Hebrew names (if only in transliteration) rather than the established English names. Now I can understand this in net.religion.jewish, where there simply are no English words for many of the things discussed. But the notion that the Hebrew names somehow represent different entities than their English equivalents is just wrong. Yirmiyahu insists that somehow Y'shua and Jesus are different. The fact is, however, that we have Jesus in English because the root languages of Christendom are Greek, and then Latin, and in these languages there is no way to represent many of the sounds in Hebrew. Transliteration as it now exists is a quite recent phenomenon. For people who spoke no Hebrew, it was necessary to make up a Greek name for someone or something to be discussed. Hence we speak of the prophet Jeremiah instead of Yirmiyahu, and Jesus instead of Y'shua. This doesn't for an instant mean that there are suddenly two people; Jews who talk about Y'shua are just as capable of misrepresenting him as Christians who say Jesus. No book I have ever read EVER mentioned N'tzarim as such, which is not suprising since books written English tend to use the ENglish names for things. Now to my ear, "N'tzarim" sounds supiciously like "Nazarite". Could this be who Yirmiyahu is really talking about? If so, why can't he use the correct English name? Since I don't happen to have an "Interpreter's Bible" set in my room, it will take me a while to do my research. I do have one question, Yirmiyahu: since you are so adamant about Jewish scholars doing the translations, perhaps you could tell me what you think of the so-called "New Jewish Version" of the Hebrew bible, put out by JPS? Charles son of Clarence son of Clarence
yiri@ucf-cs.UUCP (Yirmiyahu BenDavid) (09/28/84)
The new version of the Tanakh put out by JPS is, in my opinion, better than its predecessors.