March 13, 2011© Homer Kizer
To view or print Greek and Hebrew characters
End Notes
Truth Always has an Agenda
Part Three
____________
“A little while, and you will see me no longer; and again a little while, and you will see me.” So some of his disciples said to one another, “What is this that he says to us, ‘A little while, and you will not see me, and again a little while, and you will see me’; and, ‘because I am going to the Father’?” So they were saying, “What does he mean by ‘a little while’? We do not know what he is talking about.” Jesus knew that they wanted to ask him, so he said to them, “Is this what you are asking yourselves, what I meant by saying, ‘A little while and you will not see me, and again a little while and you will see me’? Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy. When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world. So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you. In that day you will ask nothing of me. Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full. / I have said these things to you in figures of speech. The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures of speech but will tell you plainly about the Father.” (John 16:16–25)
___________
6.
—an enduring legacy —
The following is from the Preface of the English Standard Version of The Holy Bible (2001),
The English Standard Version (ESV) stands in the classic mainstream of English Bible translations over the past half-millennium. The fountainhead of that stream was William Tyndale’s New Testament of 1526; marking its course were the King James Version of 1611 (KJV), the English Revised Version of 1885 (RV), the American Standard Version of 1901 (ASV), and the Revised Standard Version of 1952 and 1971 (RSV). In that stream, faithfulness to the text and vigorous pursuit of accuracy were combined with simplicity, beauty, and dignity of expression. Our goal has been to carry forward this legacy for a new century.
To this end each word and phrase in the ESV has been carefully weighed against the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, to ensure the fullest accuracy and clarity and to avoid under-translating or overlooking any nuance of the original text. The words and phrases themselves grow out of the Tyndale–King James legacy, and most recently out of the RSV, with the 1971 RSV text providing the starting point for our work. Archaic language has been brought to current usage and significant corrections have been made in the translation of key texts. But throughout, our goal has been to retain the depth of meaning and enduring language that have made their indelible mark on the English-speaking world and have defined the life and doctrine of the church over the last four centuries. (vii)
When the stated goal of a translation is to retain the depth of meaning and enduring language that have made their indelible mark on the English-speaking world and have defined the life and doctrine of the church over the last four centuries—and when that enduring language has imprisoned Christians through controlling the language in which their thoughts are made known to themselves and expressed to other people—and when no attempt is made to deny or conceal the translators’ agenda, the “life and doctrine of the church” becomes the expression of the translators, not of Christ or of the ¦6680F\"; for the “church” is not outside the ¦6680F\", but is the ¦6680F\". And if the language of a translation defines the doctrine of the “church,” this language of the translators also defines the ¦6680F\", an aspect of Christianity that became apparent to me in 1972, when I was drafted into the Body of Christ. For suddenly, I was being defined by others in a manner that was contrary to Holy Writ.
If translators do not claim divine inspiration and they do not, then it isn’t God who establishes sound doctrine for the ¦6680F\"—my complaint in 1972—but human translators. So note what else the translators say in the Preface:
We know that no Bible translation is perfect or final; but we also know that God uses imperfect and inadequate things to his honor and praise. So to our triune God and to his people we offer what we have done, with our prayers that it may prove useful, with gratitude for much help given, and with ongoing wonder that our God should ever have entrusted to us so momentous a task. (x) (emphasis added)
Every translation is imperfect and inadequate and still of use to Christians in establishing sound doctrine, but a triune deity is a fiction, a lie promulgated by the Adversary … when translators acknowledge their use of language has “defined the life and doctrine of the church over the last four centuries,” and when translators dedicate their translation to their triune God, do these translators differ any from the ancient Hebrew who inscribed on his pottery [in translation], “I have blessed you by YHWH of Samaria and Asherah [his consort]” (found on a pottery ostracon in a 1975 excavation at Kuntillet ’Ajrud in the Sinai)? Do these translators differ from the ancient Hebrew who inscribed on a building wall, “YHVH and Asherah,” or the Hebrew who inscribed, “Blessed be Uriyahu by YHWH and by his Asherah; from his enemies he saved him” at Khirbet el-Qom (near Hebron)? They do not differ a whit! Following in the tradition of the King James translators, the translators of the English Standard Version of Holy Writ, which is a good translation, are guilty of a similar though more sophisticated form of blasphemy as were ancient Hebrews who wedded the Lord to the Queen of Heaven, the mother of God, Asherah. For these translators have assigned personhood and deity to the breath [B<,Ø:"] of God, which is as great of a theological fault as wedding the Lord to a pagan mother goddess, a fertility goddess, the goddess of the cult of prostitution.
Asherah [????] was a Semitic mother goddess, the mother of god and the consort of El. In the 8th-Century BCE, apparently her priests (400 of whom ate Jezebel’s food) taught that Asherah was the female consort of the Hebrew God represented by the Tetragrammaton YHWH. Her priests taught the people to use the epitaph, Blessed by YHWH and Asherah, and today, her priests teach that she is the mother of God, the blessed virgin whom God impregnated, the virgin mother of Jesus … the work of Elijah isn’t finished—
Christ Jesus, the last Elijah, will finish the work of the first Elijah, with the order of presentation disclosing much of what has been concealed by translators: A little while and you will not see me, and again a little while and you will see me—in Jesus saying, You will not see me, followed by Jesus saying, You will see me, Jesus confirms what has already been stated: with God, death and darkness precedes life and light. Light comes from darkness and does not precede the darkness. Metaphorical speech that is of God places the natural before the heavenly; places that which has mass and is of this creation before that which is not of this creation. Therefore, the problem with eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil wasn’t in processing knowledge of both, but was in the order in which knowledge was acquired: the thought precedes expression of the thought.
Expression of a thought should not precede the thought, but does when words pop to mind before the thought fully develops, with these words effectively dictating what the thought will be … again, using the example of “going to Church” when the ¦6680F\" is the “church” and disciples need to go nowhere for wherever they are is where the “church” is, the language and language usage that the person has consumed [ingested] dictates how the person expresses his or her thoughts. I consciously encountered this in 1989, when as a middle aged student in University of Alaska Fairbanks’ graduate writing program, I took five 600-level Literature courses one semester, one of which required reading the published poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins, whose sprung rhyme language is striking. My language usage was not “academic,” but was that of a logger, mill worker, commercial fisherman, gunmaker, mathematician. Yet that semester, when immersed in rhymed poetry, my thoughts began to come in rhymed verse, and I wrote the 109 stanzas of At Abby Creek, a sonnet cycle, in a little over two weeks: the words were just there. No struggle for the right word was necessary. I wrote memories as they came to me, and I wrote in a form of sprung rhyme.
When words come before the thought comes—and this is the case when a person allows whatever words that pop to mind to sculpt the thought—a serious problem exists, a problem akin to light preceding darkness: a thought is only known darkly as a feeling, an intuition, a sensing before the thought is expressed in words. Using an example that I will more fully address in following paragraphs, I know intuitively that the adoration of the Virgin Mary by the Catholic Church is idolatry, but before I can express what I intuitively know—through having the indwelling of the parakletos—I need language in which I can express what I feel. And because of how many sincere but deceived Christians are guilty of active idolatry when it comes to Mary, I need to hear my thoughts in my inner ear before I express them so that they can be heard by my outer ear. Hence, what the parakletos discloses as internal “feelings” will be manifested in inner words over which I have less control than I would like. Therefore, I have to wrestle with these inner words, suppressing some, searching for others until I have a “text” that agrees with inner “feelings” before I express this inner text as uttered words, with writing being perhaps the easiest form of wrestling inner words into submission, especially when the production of written text is slow as it is for me … I type with my right index finger and two fingers and the thumb of my left hand—I never learned to type in school, and only began to type using a portable typewriter while living aboard a fishing vessel tied to the Old Sub Dock at Dutch Harbor in 1979.
It is extremely unlikely that the person who types rapidly will ever write anything worth reading; for this person will type [or speak] whatever words pop into the person’s mind, thereby permitting the language of others—of King James translators—to control the text that the person writes. Yes, this person will have his or her words controlled by the words he or she has heard from others. And the person who reads only the words of King James translators will always feel a need to go to church, even when this person has no one near who shares the person’s beliefs … my grandfather attended The Church of Christ that fellowshipped a mile from his Indiana farm not because he believed their doctrines, but because there was no near Baptist fellowship and it was important to him to go to church every Sunday. He could not have imagined that he was imprisoned by thoughts expressed in the language of King James translators who, with forethought decreed by the human king, had rendered the ¦6680F\" as the church.
Now, to transform a publicly intuited feeling into a constructed thought: the Apostle Paul wrote,
I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling; likewise also that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, but with what is proper for women who profess godliness—with good works. Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control. (1 Tim 2:8–15 emphasis added)
Paul doesn’t justify—well support—his reason for not permitting women to teach other than to reference Adam and Eve in the Garden, which hasn’t been enough justification for, especially, American women who are not inclined to learn quietly in all submissiveness, a cultural attribute going back at least as far as Colonial days when French officers serving with General Washington were amazed by American women who held and expressed well reasoned political opinions.
But the problem with women teaching is one of “order,” for godly knowledge [as opposed to worldly knowledge] comes from Christ Jesus, the Head of Christ, and the head of every Christian man, with the woman [the wife] representing the ¦6680F\". Therefore, godly knowledge should come first through the man, the husband (who, again, represents Christ) and not through the woman, the wife, who represents the ¦6680F\". And while the order in which knowledge is acquired or presented would seem to be a small thing, akin to the thin silence that the prophet Elijah recognized as being of God (1 Kings 19:12), it is the indicator of whether the person acquires knowledge from the Adversary or from God.
The word of the Lord came to Elijah and asked the prophet the same question that the voice of the Lord would ask Elijah (cf. 1 Kings 19:9, 13), and the prophet gave the same answer both times to the question,
There he came to a cave and lodged in it. And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, and He said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” He said, “I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away.” (1 Kings 19:9–10)
But there is a difference between these two question-and-answer incidents in the response of the Lord: when the question was asked as a thought (the word of the Lord), the response Elijah received to his answer was the command, “‘Go out and stand on the mount before the Lord’” (v. 11), whereas the response Elijah received when the Lord was present was not an interim command, but,
Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus. And when you arrive, you shall anoint Hazael to be king over Syria. And Jehu the son of Nimshi you shall anoint to be king over Israel, and Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah you shall anoint to be prophet in your place. And the one who escapes from the sword of Hazael shall Jehu put to death, and the one who escapes from the sword of Jehu shall Elisha put to death. Yet I will leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him. (1 Kings 19:15–18)
Elijah would be replaced by Elisha: the second response introduced a second prophet that was like Elijah but a prophet who would do twice as much as Elijah did. Whereas Elijah had been very jealous for the Lord, even to slaying 450 prophets of Baal—
There is here a lacunae [the Latinate word the Literature community uses for the common English word, gap] here that permits the insertion of a deuterocanonical text:
After Ahab had sought Elijah in the kingdoms of the world, requiring that each take an oath that Elijah wasn’t in the king’s domain, Elijah appeared to Obadiah, and told Obadiah to tell Ahab that he, Elijah, is here (1 Kings 18:8), that Elijah wanted to meet with the king that day (v. 15). And when Ahab saw Elijah,
Ahab said to him, “Is it you, you troubler of Israel?” And he answered, “I have not troubled Israel, but you have, and your father's house, because you have abandoned the commandments of the Lord and followed the Baals. Now therefore send and gather all Israel to me at Mount Carmel, and the 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of Asherah, who eat at Jezebel's table.” (1 Kings 18:17–19)
Remember, the order of presentation that would seem to be a small thing, like thin silence, has importance, and the 450 prophets of Baal precede in order the 400 prophets of Asherah, who eat at Jezebel’s table.
The people of Israel and the 450 prophets of Baal met with Elijah on Mount Carmel, but the 400 prophets of Asherah that ate at Jezebel’s table (1 Kings 18:19) are missing from the narrative of Elijah slaying the prophets of Baal:
So Ahab sent to all the people of Israel and gathered the prophets together at Mount Carmel. And Elijah came near to all the people and said, “How long will you go limping between two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him.” And the people did not answer him a word. Then Elijah said to the people, “I, even I only, am left a prophet of the Lord, but Baal's prophets are 450 men. Let two bulls be given to us, and let them choose one bull for themselves and cut it in pieces and lay it on the wood, but put no fire to it. And I will prepare the other bull and lay it on the wood and put no fire to it. And you call upon the name of your god, and I will call upon the name of the Lord, and the God who answers by fire, he is God.” …
And at the time of the offering of the oblation, Elijah the prophet came near and said, “O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel, and that I am your servant, and that I have done all these things at your word. Answer me, O Lord, answer me, that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you have turned their hearts back.” Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt offering and the wood and the stones and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench. And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces and said, “The Lord, he is God; the Lord, he is God.” And Elijah said to them, “Seize the prophets of Baal; let not one of them escape.” And they seized them. And Elijah brought them down to the brook Kishon and slaughtered them there. (1 Kings 18:20–24, 36–40)
After Elijah finished slaying the prophets of Baal at the brook Kishon, the rains came and the three and a half year long drought was suddenly and dramatically broken, but broken before Elijah had the opportunity to slay the 400 prophets of Asherah, the mother goddess, the Mother of God:
And Elijah said to Ahab, “Go up, eat and drink, for there is a sound of the rushing of rain.” So Ahab went up to eat and to drink. And Elijah went up to the top of Mount Carmel. And he bowed himself down on the earth and put his face between his knees. And he said to his servant, “Go up now, look toward the sea.” And he went up and looked and said, “There is nothing.” And he said, “Go again,” seven times. And at the seventh time he said, “Behold, a little cloud like a man's hand is rising from the sea.” And he said, “Go up, say to Ahab, ‘Prepare your chariot and go down, lest the rain stop you.’” And in a little while the heavens grew black with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain. And Ahab rode and went to Jezreel. And the hand of the Lord was on Elijah, and he gathered up his garment and ran before Ahab to the entrance of Jezreel. (1 Kings 18:41–46)
Elijah outran Ahab in his horse drawn chariot, both going to Jezreel, where Ahab told Jezebel “all that Elijah had done, and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword” (1 Kings 19:1) … Jezebel knew that the 400 prophets of Asherah that she had fed throughout the long drought were in trouble if she did not intervene to protect them; so she threatened Elijah’s life—and Elijah fled, which means that the 400 prophets of Asherah remained to be slain.
The prophets/priests of Asherah were no-shows when Elijah slew the 450 prophets of Baal. There was no third bull for the 400 prophets of Asherah.
But when archeology reveals that at least some Hebrews in this era believed that Asherah was the consort of the Lord, the theology of the period would deify sticks and stones as the mother of God, thereby elevating Asherah to a status properly reserved for the Lord alone.
Although Jehu ordered Jezebel thrown from her upstairs window, with his horses trampling her body and dogs eating her flesh (2 Kings 9:30–37), Jezebel, however, doesn’t disappear from history: in Christ Jesus’ message to the angel of the ¦6680F\" at Thyatira, He says,
I know your works, your love and faith and service and patient endurance, and that your latter works exceed the first. But I have this against you, that you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols. I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her sexual immorality. Behold, I will throw her onto a sickbed, and those who commit adultery with her I will throw into great tribulation, unless they repent of her works, and I will strike her children dead. And all the churches will know that I am he who searches mind and heart, and I will give to each of you according to your works. But to the rest of you in Thyatira, who do not hold this teaching, who have not learned what some call the deep things of Satan, to you I say, I do not lay on you any other burden. (Rev 2:19–24 emphasis added)
The physical woman Jezebel, the daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Sidonians—the Lord hid Elijah in the house of the widow of Zarephath, a town in Sidon, until it was time to end the drought—forms the shadow and type [the left hand enantiomer] of a heavenly Jezebel, whose table continues to feed the 400 priests of Asherah that remain to be slain by the last Elijah, the glorified Christ Jesus.
At the Second Passover liberation of Israel, the New Covenant will finally be implemented: the Law of God [the Torah] will be written on hearts and placed in minds of Israelites to be circumcised of heart (Heb 8:10). No longer will any translation of Holy Writ be needed. The long drought will be over. And the 400 prophets/priests of Asherah will be slain by the last Elijah.
The 400 prophets of Asherah eat at Jezebel’s table; they eat her food. And by the structure of the claim in this context, Asherah is a goddess, not a carved image or a grove. And endtime Christians who eat at Jezebel’s table practice sexual immorality and eat what has been sacrificed to idols: they shall be condemned. They shall not enter into the kingdom. And it isn’t Jezebel that is the goddess, for she calls herself a prophetess, a priestess, a woman that represents the goddess in this world.
Jezebel represents that woman that as an institution, that as a Church, teaches the servants of God to eat food sacrificed to idols; i.e., to eat the food of Asherah, the Mother of God, the Blessed Virgin … in stealth and over the course of Israel’s affairs, those 400 prophets of Asherah who ate at Jezebel’s table and their descendants have continued to exercise authority over Israel as Jezebel continues to the end of the age: the slaying of priests, the slaying of the Catholic hierarchy because of the Roman’s Church’s claim of being first, the legal firstborn of the ¦6680F\", is certain to occur at the Second Passover liberation of Israel.
What I felt at an intuited level—that genuflecting to plaster statuary of the Virgin Mother & Child was pagan idolatry—was a thought that came from the parakletos, but a thought that was initially expressed inwardly in words of loathing for all Catholic Christians, words received from Baptist and Seventh Day Adventist pastors. These words that quickly popped into my mind were harsh, without mercy, and reflected the concept taught especially by Adventists that the pope represented the Antichrist, and that Sunday worship was the mark of the beast (from Rev 13:18). But those were not words I had carefully considered: those were words I had heard since I was a youth. They were words that expressed received opinions, and not thoughts based upon Holy Writ.
Now, decades later, my opinion concerning the Roman Catholic Church is no higher than it was when I was quick to say that Sunday worship was the mark of the beast, which is not at all true: the mark of the beast, P>lr (Strong’s #G5516) is the tattoo [lr — stigma] of Christ’s [P— chi] cross [>], the tattoo of the crucifix, and is an easily read icon if the person can first free him or herself from the words that initially pop into the person’s mind when encountering the expression, Mark of the Beast. I now know that the man of perdition will be a human being, an Arian Christian, a Mormon, possessed by Satan; whereas the true Antichrist will be Satan, himself, cast from heaven halfway through the seven endtime years of tribulation. I now realize that the man of perdition will be the shadow and type [again, the left hand enantiomer] of the true Antichrist, who will be given the mind of a man when he is cast from heaven.
Sunday observance is a matter of the Woman attempting to rule over Her Husband, nothing more. But that alone is enough to keep Christians out of the kingdom once the Second Passover occurs.
Regardless of whether the 400 prophets/priests of Asherah are read as 400 daughters of the Roman Church or as the 400 years when Christendom has been afflicted as the heavenly seed of Abram—either reading can be supported—these 400 priests will be slain by the last Elijah at the Second Passover; for endtime Asherah is the pagan Mother of God, the Blessed Virgin.
In what Jesus told His disciples about not seeing Him, then seeing Him, is the basis for that which is first being slain or rejected by God [Cain, Esau, Ishmael, today’s greater Christian Church] and that which is second being accepted [Abel, Jacob, Isaac, the third part of humankind — from Zech 13:9]. All uncovered legal and biological firstborns in heaven and on earth will be slain at the Second Passover, when Christendom is freed from indwelling Sin and Death. Then, except for the Remnant—Christians who keep the commandments and have the spirit of prophecy (from Rev 12:17)—all of Christendom that has been liberated from indwelling Sin and Death will be slain either physically or spiritually during the first 1260 days of the seven endtime years. And a second nation of circumcised of heart Israel will be formed from the third part of humankind when the breath of God is poured out on all flesh (Joel 2:28) when the single kingdom of this world is given to the Son of Man on the doubled day 1260 of the seven endtime years.
The slaying of the priests of Asherah remains before Israel as the words of Elijah again come into play: How long will you go limping between two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Asherah, then follow her. But don’t be mingling worship of the Lord with worship for the mother of God. Such worship is of the Adversary. And the glorified Christ Jesus, the last Elijah, promises to strike dead Jezebel’s children, Christians who pray to or through the mother of God, Asherah, the Blessed Virgin.
The end of the age is near. This is not the time for Christians to play games with God, or for the one called to reread prophecy to speak soft words to deceived Christians who are as rebelling angels were. Soft words were spoken long ago. It has become time to not simply warn, but to condemn in advance those who will be slain for mingling the sacred with the profane, in that order, mingling Christ Jesus with the day of the invincible sun/the birthday of the invincible sun as ancient Israelites mingled YHWH with trees and cows (with calves) that represented Asherah, his consort.
Yes, soft words have been tried, and these words have been ignored as they were in the days of Ahab and Jezebel. Warnings were given, but were couched in niceness, in politeness, in language that wasn’t overtly offensive. But these warnings fell on deaf ears and dumb minds. And the heavenly seed of Abram continued in affliction, hemorrhaging its youth, as the vulgar Church continues in noisy disobedience and the quiet people that have come from the Radical Reformers continue in silence, singing their hymns in German, their plain dress making their only statement—a statement about their cowardice—in confronting the priests of Asherah. These quiet folk have licked their wounds and the feet of the Adversary for long enough. It has become time to again kick the dog to see if there is life left in the old beast: it is again time for enthusiasm. It is long past time to turn the world upside down as the Radical Reformers once did, and as the last Elijah will again do when He slays the 400 priests of Asherah by ending the affliction of Abram’s heavenly seed through writing the Torah on hearts and placing it in minds so that even the most quiet of the quiet people begin to keep the Sabbaths of God at the end of their work week and not the Sabbath of the Adversary at the beginning of their week. It is long past time for the gentle folk, the quiet people to proclaim to the world that they truly are of God and are not dogs of the Adversary as they have become.
I come from those Christians that quit the quiet folk two centuries ago because they could no longer keep quiet—
By English translators’ own admission, their word and phrase selections are not small and trivial matters, but are what has created the Christian Church as it has become known in the 21st-Century, with the Church remaining that institution where salvation is found through the administration of its sacraments. In this scenario, the “church” is separate and distinct from the ¦6680F\", with the greater Christian Church as Christians now receive it being the creation of deliberate language selections.
Although the world is larger than England and the Christian Church is greater than the sum of the Christians who speak English, the Kenyan pastor who can barely construct a sentence in English will seek affiliation with an American fellowship, asking the Americans for support of his ministry by sending to Kenya Bibles and hymnals in English to further the advancement of Christ among the rural peoples of isolated villages. Someone there will know enough English to translate King James’ prose into the language of the people—so inexpensive copies of the King James’ 1611 Authorized Version of the Holy Bible are sent to Kenya, not realizing that the Authorized Version was produced with an agenda, that of promoting the ecclesiology of the Church of England; that of supporting a triune deity when no such deity exists in Holy Writ.
In Martin Luther’s translation of the New Testament in German, Luther added the word allein [alone] to Romans 3:28 to support his contention that faith alone was sufficient for salvation, that the Christian did not need to walk as Jesus walked or to take the Passover sacraments on the night that Jesus was betrayed. And Lutherans do not walk as Jesus walked; nor do Lutherans take the Passover sacraments as Jesus left His example with His disciples. … The word “alone” doesn’t appear in its Greek form in Romans 3:28, the language in which Paul wrote. But Luther defended his addition to Holy Writ by claiming that was Paul’s intended meaning—Luther never understood Paul. Luther’s intention was to correct the abuses of Scriptures that had taken the vulgar Church so far from Christ Jesus that Christians were buying indulgences.
The ¦6680F\" is what Scripture says it is, but Scripture isn’t necessarily what it seems, especially when meaning [linguistic objects or signifieds] is assigned to words [linguistic icons or signifiers] and translation is an art practiced by propagandists, not a science. When a people—when most all of Christendom—is dependent upon translators to assign meanings to words received in Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek, and then take those meanings to another language and assign comprehendible signifiers to those meanings, a lacunae opens in Holy Writ, a rent large enough for that old serpent, Satan the devil, who deceives the whole world (Rev 12:9), to use Scripture as his preferred means of imprisoning the people dependent upon the translation. … The ecclesiology of the Church of England, ecclesiology that holds that the ¦6680F\" is an institution, the Church, effectively enforced theological slavery upon 16th-Century Puritans and on English speaking Christians ever since. But what, pray tell, is theological slavery? To use the linguistic icon slavery hardly seems appropriate when addressing Christians who have been set free, with sin no longer having dominion over the Christian. But being set free from sin implies that Sin did have dominion (as a slave master has dominion over a slave) over the Christian. And if Sin did have dominion, then translators are Sin’s slave catchers. And when Christians are theologically enslaved, they go to church for they intuitively realize that they are not the “Church.”
When the ¦6680F\" are taught by bishops, priests, and pastors that they are not truly the ¦6680F\" but that some organization is, the ¦6680F\" inevitably become content to parade in their Sunday/Easter finery down the long road to the fires of Gehenna … such social parading gave rise to Jonathan Edwards’ sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, preached 8 July 1741, in Enfield, Connecticut, and many times afterwards, with this sermon giving substance to the theology of the Great Awakening in the 18th-Century.
* * *
This End Note still has additional sections; thus, the End Note will be continued with a Part Four.
*
"Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved."
* * * * *
[ Archived End Notes ] [ Home ]