Tag Archives: Bible

The Torah Connection

Posted on by
3

The Link Between the Infinite and the Finite — A New Paradigm in Which to View the Bible

The Torah Connection

If you were the infinite, omniscient and loving Creator of the universe who made man in his own image to have a relationship with him, how would communicate with finite man? How could you pour all that you know and are into man, so that he could experience the love, joy, peace, goodness, holiness, wisdom, understanding and truth that you have? It would be like trying to pour the world’s oceans into a thimble. The best you could do would be to distill down the essence of who you are and what you know into the simplest and most basic form and then give it to man in hopes that he would accept and understand it and then apply it to his life.

Torah scroll open 2

This is exactly what YHVH Elohim did when he gave man his Torah. The Torah is a small kernel representing the essence of the very mind, will, character and heart of the Creator, and it’s his gift to man, for man to live an abundant leading to immortality in Elohim’s eternal kingdom.

How do we know this? The Bible likens the Torah that emanates from the Eternal Creator to divine light that pierces the spiritual darkness of the man’s physical existence. Moreover, the Torah is like a path that leads man to YHVH Elohim, the Creator. It is the epitome of all wisdom, knowledge and understanding that when embraced and obeyed leads man to the fulfillment of his highest desires. This very Torah is revealed in the pages of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. Yes, not just in the books of the law of Moses, but in the New Testament or Testimony of Yeshua as well! It is there for those who will remove their religious blinders and open their eyes to the truth that has always been there.

The Living and the Written Torah Is the Central Theme of the Bible

The Living (Yeshua the Messiah) and Written Torah (specifically the biblical books of Genesis to Deuteronomy, and in the larger sense, the entire Old Testament or Tankah) is the dominant theme of the Bible. They are one in the same thing—totally unified and absolutely indivisible, which is why I used the singular verb is and not the grammatically correct plural form of the vert to be in the previous sentence. Another way to say this is that the whole Bible is about Yeshua the Torah-Word of Elohim who was made flesh (John 1:1, 14).

To illustrate this point, as we shall discuss later, we find this dominant theme prominently highlighted at the beginning, middle and end of the Scriptures. This brief study is, by no Continue reading →

 

New Blog Scripture Reading Schedule Is Now Available

Posted on by
Reply

Sukkot is almost here! The Feast begins later this week and each year the Parashah readings begin anew at this time because of the instruction in Deuteronomy 31:10-13. This means our “Read Through The Scriptures in a Year” plan also begins again!

On the blog’s right sidebar under “Helpful Links” is where you will find the link to this year’s “Read The Scriptures in a Year” plan throughout the year if you want to just print one sheet at a time. We will continue to post the weekly overview on the blog at the beginning of each week.

We’re looking forward to studying along with you this year as we read through the Bible in a year.

Why study the Bible? I can think of a million reasons, but how about this one? — The future of the world depends on it! The Bible is YHVH’s answer to all the problems of the world both individually and collectively. It holds the keys to a bright future for this world. And YHVH’s kingdom spreads one life at a time starting with you. That’s how his plan of redemption and the imposition of his kingdom on earth works.

As always, some of my blog posts will be “the best of” from previous years. But I’m also always coming up with new stuff. I’m a perpetual Bible studier and have an active and inquisitive mind. So I’m always studying. Been doing so since I was eight and have never stopped up to this point. I’m also a writer and Bible teacher, so I like to share the insights YHVH has graciously given. As Yeshua said, “Freely we receive and so freely we give.”

Be blessed and we invite you to join us on this spiritual journey!

 

What Is Truth?

Posted on by
1

John 17:17, Truth. Yeshua, the One sent to this earth from Elohim in heaven, says here, “Thy [Elohim’s] Word is truth.” In Matthew 4:4, Yeshua said, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of Elohim.”

32351753

So what is truth? The word in Hebrew for truth is emet (spelled aleph, mem, tav), which is comprised of the first, middle and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Truth embodies everything from the beginning to the very end of YHVH’s Word (literally, his Torah or the first five books of the Bible, and secondarily, the whole Bible from Genesis to Revelation).

Interestingly, the Scriptures call Yeshua “the beginning and the end of our faith” (Heb 12:2), and likens him metaphorically to alpha and omega (Rev 1:8, 11; 21:6; 22:13), which are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet. These letters corresponds in symbolic meaning to the aleph and tav, which are the first and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet.

Continue reading →

 

My 1790 Bible

Posted on by
6

Here’s the story of my 1790 KJV Bible:

In 2008 my family and I were visiting friends in Vancouver, British Columbia in Canada. My friend Ed and I decided to escape the noise of the house (6 kids and our 2 wives) and do what guys like us love to do. No, not sneak out to a sports bar to watch a game and have a beer! We headed for the used book stores in search a rare or hard to find biblical books—something you never have enough of!

We came to this old bookstore with several floors of musty smelling books. Let me emphasize the word musty! I checked out the religious section and found nothing I couldn’t live without. I then went down into the basement where there multiple piles of thousands of old books that weren’t even shelved or catalogued. After checking the shelves along the perimeter and finding nothing, I began quickly scanning the stacks of old books laying on tables that were covering the entire center of the floor of the basement. It would have been impossible to read so many titles quickly, so I simply programmed my eyes to look for anything that looked old.

Suddenly in the middle of one pile, an old book caught my eye. I wondered if it might be a Bible. I dug it out, and sure enough it was. I looked for a publishing date, and found some Roman numerals. It’s not often that I have to read Roman numeral dates, and at first I thought it said 1740. Wow! I thought. This is way cool.

I grabbed the book and headed upstairs to the counter. The clerk told me that the Bible’s date was 1790 and that I could have it for $125. “Deal,” I said, and out I went with my new treasure. It’s a KJV Bible from England, and when it was printed, George Washington had been the president of the United States for just one year.

A couple of years later, I had a friend restore the Bible. Here are the before and after photos. Enjoy!

Before Restoration

IMG_5612

 

 

IMG_5611IMG_5615

 

 

 

 

 

 

After Restoration

IMG_0042IMG_0043

IMG_0044

IMG_0045

 

Which Bible Translation Do I Use?

Posted on by
9

Which is the best Bible translation to use? Though I’ve been asked this question many times over the years, I still don’t have a good answer. Let me explain why, and what my best recommendations are about which Bible translation to use.

Bible, studying the

The Word of Elohim is something I take very seriously. It is something to be trembled before with a contrite heart (Isa 66:2). Sadly, there are numerous designer Bible translations out there that claim to cater to the needs of the Messianic or Hebrew roots community. Often these Bible translations are being peddled by money-grubbing charlatans who are duping many who are unsuspecting and naive. Most of these “translators” have little or no academic training in the ancient biblical languages, yet this doesn’t stop them from peddling their wares. I have some academic background in foreign and biblical languages, so the subject is dear to my heart, although I’m no expert.

There is not a single Bible I can unreservedly recommend. David Stern’s Complete Jewish Bible is probably the best, since he’s forthright about his academic background—and he has an earned degree in Koine Greek from a recognized academic institution (he discloses this information in the introduction to his Bible translation). Furthermore, he has been living in Israel for a long time, and so has a good knowledge of, at least, modern Hebrew, which is, basically, an expanded version of biblical Hebrew. His New Testament translation takes some liberties with the Greek, but in his New Testament commentary (The Jewish New Testament Commentary), he explains why he translates things as he does. I usually agree with his interpretations, but how he translates the Greek at times is a bit libertine—some might even say, unscholarly. That’s a matter of opinion.

Beyond that, there is no translation I can recommend with the possible exception of Jay P. Green’s The Interlinear Bible, but you’ll need your reading glasses when viewing this Bible, since the print is so small. Some of the more popular designer Hebrew roots Bibles have been translated by questionable individuals who have little or no academic training, and they refuse to tell you what their qualifications are for translating the Bible. I find this to be a huge red flag. If you have qualifications, why not state them? If you don’t, then it’s probably because you have none. I suspect that most of the translators of these fad-Bibles sat down with a copyright-free English version of the Bible (e.g., the KJV) and along with the help of a concordance and a few other lexical aids, came up with a new translation by making a few changes to the copyright-free translation. Voila, they have their own “Bible translation,” which they now peddle for big bucks. To me this is unrighteousness, and total dishonesty. It certainly will not pass muster in the linguistic and academic community! One of the more absurd examples of this is one author (who has little or no linguistic background) who apparently sat down with the English Bible and prayed over each verse and claims the Holy Spirit gave him the translation. He translated each verse how he “felt led” to do so by the Holy Spirit. He’s probably sold thousands of his “Bible translation” by now. Now the Holy Spirit is to blame for his faulty translation. This is totally disgusting unacceptable, to say the least!

Which Bible version do I personally use, one may ask? Honestly I still use the King James Version and New King James Version, since at least they were translated by competent linguists. Because I’ve been studying Greek and Hebrew for  more than 40 years, I know where a lot of the poor translations are, and I know the Greek and Hebrew words behind many of the English words. For example, as I’m reading from the KJV (when teaching publicly) or quoting it (in the articles I write), I correct the faulty translations (based on what expert linguists have to say about it) by inserting Hebrew words in place of some of the English ones. It takes some practice, but it can be done. For example, in the Old Testament (or Tanakh),  the word law becomes Torah, God become Elohim or El, and LORD becomes Yehovah or Yehowah. Likewise in the New Testament (or the Testimony of Yeshua), Jesus becomes Yeshua, Christ becomes Messiah, and so on.

Obviously, much more could be said on this subject, but I’ll leave you with this. Stick to a major Bible version that was translated by a team of linguistic experts (this helps to avoid translation bias, more or less), and that is not promoted by a publishing house that has tampered with the text for profit motive purposes (this is another discussion in itself!).

Again, consider Isaiah 66:2 when choosing a Bible translation.

For all those things hath mine hand made, and all those things have been, saith YHVH: but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word. (emphasis added)

 

66 or 49 Books in the Bible?

Posted on by
Reply

The Number of the Books of the Bible and the Symmetry of the Scriptures

The first point in determining the symmetry of the Scriptures is to realize that originally the Tanakh (Old Testament) was subdivided into 22 books, not the 39 in our present Bible. There was no difference in the content between then and now but only in how the books were categorized. The Book of Jubilees, a Jewish pseudepigraphic work dating to the second century B.C., attests to the fact (Jubilees 2:23) of there originally being 22 books in the Tanakh, as does Josephus in his Contra Apion (Book 1.8), and as do many early Church fathers and other early Christian scholars (In Restoring the Original Bible, Ernest L. Martin references 22 such early Christian writers, including Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History, 4.26.14, Martin, pp. 58–60).

It is believed that Ezra the scribe originally arranged the books of the Old Testament in this manner. Thus, books such as Samuel, Kings and Chronicles were combined into one book each and the 12 Minor Prophets were combined into one book as well. We will discuss the significance of the number 22 in the Scriptures momentarily, but for now, how did the Tanakh get expanded from 22 to 39 books? According to Martin, the Jewish translators of the Greek version of the Tanakh (the Septuagint) in the second and third century b.c. subdivided the books of the Tanakh into the pattern we have today. There were, however, no Hebrew manuscripts that followed the Greek version (Martin, p. 65). Sometime in the last part of the first century or beginning of the second century a.d. Jewish authorities decided to re-divide the Tanakh into 24 books rather than to maintain the 22 (Martin, pp. 67–68). Eventually the Jews adopted the Christian numbering system of the books of the Tanakh found in the modern Protestant Christian Bible.

“There may well have been political and religious reasons why the Jewish authorities made the change when they did. When the New Testament books were being accepted as divine literature by great numbers of people within the Roman world, all could see that the 27 New Testament books added to the original 22 of the Old Testament reached the significant number 49 [7 x 7]. This was a powerful indication that the world now had the complete revelation from God with the inclusion of those New Testament books. Since Jewish officials were powerless to do anything with the New Testament (the Testimony of Yeshua), the only recourse they saw possible was to alter the traditional numbering” (Martin, p. 68).

The Significance of the Number 22 in Hebrew Thought

Martin next draws our attention to the ancient Jewish Book of Jubilees which mentions the significance of the number 22 in Hebraic biblical thought. Annotated to the restored text of Jubilees 2:23 is the remark that Elohim made 22 things on the six days of creation with man being the twenty-second created thing—the crowning achievement of YHVH’s creative activities. These 22 events paralleled the 22 generations from Adam to Jacob (i.e., the Israelite nation being the crowning achievement of YHVH’s work among the nations of the world with Israel being the vehicle through which redemption would occur), the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet, and the 22 books of the Holy Scriptures (Martin, p. 57).

The 22 numbering is most interesting and fits in well with the literary and symbolic meaning of “completion” as understood by early Jews. The Book of Jubilees put forth that this number represented the “final” and “complete” creation of Elohim. Adam was the last creation of Elohim (being the 22nd). Jacob, whose name was changed to Israel, was the 22nd generation from Adam; and Jacob was acknowledged as the father of the spiritual nation of Elohim. Also the Hebrew language became the means by which Elohim communicated his divine will to mankind. It had an alphabet of 22 letters. And, finally, when Elohim wished to give his complete Old Testament revelation to humanity, that divine canon was presented in 22 authorized books. The medieval Jewish scholar Sixtus Senensis explained the significance of this matter (Martin, pp. 57–58).
As with the Hebrew there are twenty-two letters, in which all that can be said and written is comprehended, so there are twenty-two books in which are contained all that can be known and uttered of divine things.