Sons of Thunder…the Voice of YHVH…the Testimony of Yeshua (NT)

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Mark 3:16–17, Surnamed Peter … sons of thunder. Yeshua chose twelve apostles, but the first three of the twelve that he chose were unique. This trio—Peter, James and John—formed the innermost circle of Yeshua’s associates, and ten times the Scriptures record their names together, as a group. Beyond that, Yeshua spoke prophetically over each one which, we can now see in retrospect, pertained to the calling he was giving them to canonize what would later become known as the New Testament. Let’s now examine the scriptural evidence for this assertion.

To Simon, Yeshua gave the nickname Peter, which means “a stone” (Gr. petros meaning “stone” as opposed to petra meaning “rock, cliff, ledge, large stone.” See Matthew 16:18 where juxtaposes these two words—the former he attributes to Peter, the latter to himself.

To James and John, the two sons of Zebedee, he gave the nickname Sons of Thunder (Aram. Boanerges). Did you ever wonder why he dubbed only these three disciples with sobriquets and not the others? Was Yeshua just having fun and playing games, or was he declaring over them, in these nicknames, what their prophetic mission was to be years later? “These are the original apostles Continue reading

 

Did the Catholic Church Canonize the New Testament? NO!

Who canonized the New Testament?

Who canonized the New Testament?

2 Peter 2:12– 21, Near the end of Peter’s life (in the mid sixties of the first century) Peter was concerned with preserving the true and precious Gospel message for posterity. The principal subject of Peter’s Second Epistle was “the precious and exceeding great promises” of Messiah (2 Pet. 1:12) (Martin, p. 285). Second Peter 1:12-21 records Peter’s thoughts on this subject. In this passage, Martin calls our attention to several key phrases that express Peter’s intentions in this regard. Please note them.

12 Wherefore I will not be negligent to remind you of these things [the Gospel message], though ye know them, and be firmly fixed in the present truth. 13 Yea, I think it meet, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remembrance; 14 knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle, even as our Master Yeshua Messiah hath showed me. 15 Moreover I will endeavor that ye may be able after my decease to have these things always in remembrance. [or, But I will give diligence that at each time you may be able after my death to recall these things to remembrance.] 16 For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Master Yeshua Messiah, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty. 17 For he received from Elohim the Father honor and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. 18 And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount [the Mount of Transfiguration]. 19 We have also a more sure word of prophecy [as opposed to those who propagate fables]; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed [to what we are saying, as opposed to those who propagate heretical fables] as unto a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts: 20 knowing this first, that no prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation. 21 For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but set-apart men of Elohim spoke as they were moved by the Set-apart Spirit. (emphasis added)

What Peter is saying here is that believers would always have the truth with them. According to Ernest Martin, the only way this could rationally be accomplished is for Peter to leave some authorized written record. He alludes to this when he says, “But I will give diligence that at each time you may be able after my death to recall these things to remembrance … The phrase “at each time” means that the reader could return again and Continue reading

 

Prophecies Concerning the Jews and Christians; the Formation of the NT

Isaiah 8:14–16, In the following several verses we see an amazing prophecy concerning the two houses of Israel who, generically speaking, have become the modern church and the rabbinic Jews.

Here Isaiah prophesies about the canonization of the Bible into two subdivision—the Torah (or loosely speaking, the Old Testament) and the Testimony (the New Testament). He also predicts that each of these two religious groups (the Jew and he Christians) would spiritually stumble over or have a problem with the identity of the Messiah, who is the Stone of Stumbling and the Rock of Offense. In general, as we shall see, the Christians struggle with the pro-Torah message of the Old Testament (or Word of Elohim), and the Jews reject the message of the New Testament (or Testimony of Yeshua) about the Messiahship of Yeshua.

Isaiah 8:14, Stone of stumbling. Both houses of Israel (Ephraim and Judah; i.e., the Christian [see notes at Gen 48:14,16] 48: and the Jews) have stumbled over the stone of stumbling, who later on is identified as Yeshua, the Messiah (1 Pet 2:4–8; Rom 9:32–33; 1 Cor 1:23). The non-believing Jews stumbling over the Messiahship of Yeshua who is the Living Torah-Word of Elohim incarnate (John 1:1,14), while the Christians stumble over the Written Torah, which they claim was abolished and is minimally relevant to them.

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This stone of stumbling is an obvious reference to Yeshua who is a stone of stumbling to both houses of Israel (i.e., the non-believing Jews and the Christians.) The Christians stumble over or reject (at least, in part) Yeshua who is the Written Torah-Word of Elohim (John 1:1). The non-believing Jews, on the other hand, reject Yeshua, the Living Torah-Word of Elohim who came in flesh form (John 1:14).

Isaiah 8:16, 20 Bind up the testimony…my disciples. Heb. testimony means “confirmation, attestation.” This appears to be a prophecy concerning Yeshua’s disciples, whom he commissioned to “seal the Torah” (loosely speaking, the Old Testament or OT) and add to it the Testimony about him (the New Testament or NT).

Here Isaiah is prophesying the canonization of the NT by the disciples of Yeshua (who are mentioned in verse 13). Did you know that the NT’s name for the NT isn’t the NT, but the Testimony of Yeshua—a name that John who finalized the NT canon gave it when he was writing the Book of Revelation? There, he calls the OT or Tanakh the “Word of Elohim” and the NT “the Testimony of Yeshua” (see Rev 1:2, 9; 6:9; 12:17; 14:12; 20:4).

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What do the words bind and seal signify? The Hebrew for the word bind means “to close.” The word seal means practically the same: “to cap off, to enclose.” This is exactly what the apostles did with the message which Yeshua the Stone and Rock of Isaiah 8:14 gave them. They were to complete it. Bind it up. Close it shut. The authority to perform such an important job may have been reflected in Messiah’s teaching that the apostles had power to ‘bind on earth’ (Matthew 16:19). The word to bind has the significance of authorization or giving judgment, just as the word unbind means “not to receive or not accept. …” In a word, the apostles felt that they had authority, even from the Old Testament, to bind, seal, authorize and canonize the Law and Testimony of Messiah. This meant to put the teachings of Messiah in a book, just like the Old Testament was given to the early Jews (Restoring the Original Bible, by Ernest Martin, pp. 298–299). (For more on this subject, see notes at John 16:12–15; Rom 16:25–26 and Mark 3:16–17.)

 

Can you trust Greek?

I just received this question from one of this blog’s readers. Since I’ve never been asked this before, and found it to be an interesting one, I thought I’d answer it on the blog.

Shalom,

My husband has been questioning why you have been using Greek explanations when he thought we were doing everything Hebrew.

Or can you give him an explanation as to why sometimes you use the greek meanings to words in the NT and sometimes you also give a hebrew meaning to words in the NT?

First, I’d like to address a common misconception among some folks who are new to the Hebrew roots movement. Some thing there is something wrong or evil with the Greek language. If so, then why did YHVH allow the Testimony of Yeshua (New Testament) to come down to us in the Greek language? Obviously, he didn’t think it was evil.

Second, why do I use definitions to Greek words when teaching from the Testimony? Simply this, all we have is Greek. We don’t have the Testimony in Hebrew. I can’t give a definition in Hebrew when all we have is the Greek.

Some Bible teachers will go back into the Septuagint (LXX) translation of the Hebrew language Tanakh (Old Testament) translated into Greek more than a couple hundred before the birth of Yeshua to try to figure out what words in the Greek Testimony of Yeshua might be the same as the Greek words in the LXX, and then go from there back to Hebrew. The problem with this is that it’s usually a guess as to a Greek word’s potential meaning. The problem is that the LXX translators lived hundreds of years before the Testimony of Yeshua writers, and languages evolve and some word meanings change over the centuries, so one has to be careful when doing this. Colloquial expressions and figures of speech also change with time. Many times we don’t know what Hebrew word is behind the Greek word in the Testimony even with the LXX available to us.

For these reasons, I primarily stick with the Greek language and word definitions when teaching from the Testimony because that’s all I can do. I have no other choices.

I can go to the Aramaic language New Testament Peshitta, but most of us don’t know how to read Aramaic, and I’m not aware of any Aramaic lexicons or word dictionaries. So we’re still stuck with the Greek.

Having said all this, it is my belief that some if not much of the Testimony of Yeshua was written originally either in Hebrew or Aramaic. This, however, is hard to prove since we don’t have any autographs in Hebrew, and the there’s a debate raging alone scholars about the age and the origin of the Aramaic texts, so their reliability has been called into question. Nonetheless, the Testimony writers were probably all Jewish, knew Hebrew and/or Aramaic and thought and wrote using Hebraic thought patterns (as opposed to Greek) and Hebraic terms and idioms. Knowing this is essential when reading and trying to understand the Testimony.

In summary,we do our best to understand the Testimony of Yeshua from a Hebraic perspective, even though we only have the Greek language to work from. This isn’t always easy to do, and it’s sometimes easy to add two and two and get five. This is why we have to be so careful when handling the Word of Elohim, so that we don’t make it say something that it didn’t mean.

Thankfully, Yeshua sent us his Holy Spirit who he promised would guide us, convict us of sin and lead us into all truth (John 16:5–15). I believe that if a person is Spirit-filled and Spirit-led, and wants to serve and obey YHVH unconditionally, that the true meaning and intent of a scriptural passage will be revealed to the person regardless of the language it was written in.

 

The Torah and Testimony—A Stone of Stumbling

In the following several verses we see an amazing prophecy concerning the two houses of Israel who, generically speaking, have become the modern church and the rabbinic Jews.

Here Isaiah prophesies about the canonization of the Bible into two subdivision—the Torah (or loosely speaking, the Old Testament) and the Testimony (the New Testament). He also predicts that each of these two religious groups (the Jew and he Christians) would spiritually stumble over or have a problem with the identity of the Messiah, who is the Stone of Stumbling and the Rock of Offense. In general, as we shall see, the Christians struggle with the pro-Torah message of the Old Testament (or Word of Elohim), and the Jews reject the message of the New Testament (or Testimony of Yeshua) about the Messiahship of Yeshua.

Bible for the world

Isaiah 8:14–15, Stone of stumbling. Both houses of Israel (Ephraim and Judah; i.e., the Christian [see notes at Gen 48:14,16] 48: and the Jews) have stumbled over the stone of stumbling, who later on is identified as Yeshua, the Messiah (1 Pet 2:4–8; Rom 9:32–33; 1 Cor 1:23). The non-believing Jews stumbling over the Messiahship of Yeshua who is the Living Torah-Word of Elohim incarnate (John 1:1,14), while the Christians stumble over the Written Torah, which they claim was abolished and is minimally relevant to them.  This stone of stumbling is an obvious reference to Yeshua who is a stone of stumbling to both houses of Israel (i.e., the non-believing Jews and the Christians.) The Christians stumble over or reject (at least, in part)Yeshua who is the Written Torah-Word of Elohim (John 1:1). The non-believing Jews, on the other hand, reject Yeshua, the Living Torah-Word of Elohim who came in flesh form (John 1:14). Continue reading

 

The Torah—The Elephant in the Room of the NT

The Torah in the Testimony of Yeshua (New Testament)

Though the primary theme of the Testimony of Yeshua (the name John gives to the New Testament in the Book of Revelation—e.g. Rev 1:2; 6:9; 12:17; 20:4) is the testimony of Yeshua the Messiah, the Torah is, nevertheless, the elephant in the room.

Though not mentioned outrightly as often as one would think in the Testimony of Yeshua, the Torah is implied, assumed, or referred to in on countless occasions using coded Hebraisms. Why, one might ask, is this the case with the apostolic writers? The answer is simple: They were writing to Jews as well as to non-Jewish people who either already operated within a Torah-centric religious paradigm or were being brought into it. The obvious didn’t have to be mentioned over and over again, for Torah was not a strange or foreign thing to the first century believers as it is to most in the church today. The Torah was their way of life and frame of reference for all that they thought and did!

The word law as used in the Testimony of Yeshua is the first aspect of this “elephant” we need to examine. It is the Greek word nomos which in the Septuagint (the third century B.C. Greek translation of the Tanakh [Old Testament Scriptures]) is used in place of the Hebrew word Torah. Therefore, we know that the Jewish scholars who translated the Tanakh into the Greek language considered the words Nomos and Torah to be equivalent. Also, contextually, in the Testimony of Yeshua, we can see that the word law means Torah. To the Messianic Jews who wrote the entire Testimony of Yeshua, when the Greek word nomos is used this is not a reference to Roman, Greek or Babylonian law, but to the biblical Hebrew law or the Torah, or Torah-law of Moses.

Let us not forget that the Bible was written, for the most part, if not totally, in the Hebrew (or Aramaic) language by Hebrew people who spoke Hebrew, lived in a Hebrew culture, practiced the Hebrew religion and worshipped and served YHVH Elohim, the God of the Hebrews. What defined the Israelites’ spiritual relationship to their God – YHVH Elohim? It was the Torah, which by definition and to the Hebrew mindset of the first-century referred specifically to the instructions in righteousness of Elohim as delivered through his servant and prophet Moses to his people, the children of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Israel), known as Israelites. As noted above, the Torah is recorded in what is commonly called the Books of the Law, the Books of Moses, the Pentateuch or the Chumash, or what we would call the first five books of the Hebrew Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. These books contain YHVH’s instructions in righteousness, which were delivered letter-for-letter and word-for-word from the very mouth of Elohim to Moses and the Hebrew children of Israel and forms the foundation for the entire Bible: both sections which Christians commonly call the Tanakh and the Testimony of Yeshua.

For the people of Israel in Yeshua’s day, including the apostles who, under the inspiration of the Ruach HaKodesh (the Spirit of Elohim), the Torah of Elohim, given through Elohim’s servant Moses, formed the central teaching document that regulated and governed every aspect of life, culture, family relationship, marriage, society, religion and relationship with surrounding nations. Therefore, law for them was Torah. Nothing more nor less.

Keep in mind that the concept of Torah, to the Hebrew mind, did not have the pejorative connotation that the term law has to the traditional Christian mindset which tends to read a legalistic bias into the word law when reading the Testimony of Yeshua.

Although Yeshua, the Living Torah, and not the Law of Moses or the Written Torah, is the main theme of the Testimony of Yeshua, it can’t be denied that the Written Torah is woven throughout the fabric of the Testimony of Yeshua. In fact, it would be negligent of me to pass over the pro-Torah themes and statements found throughout the apostolic writings.

Examples of References to the Torah in the Testimony of Yeshua

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Yeshua— The Pre-eminent Theme of the NT

Have you ever wondered what the apostolic writers themselves called that part of the Bible the Christian church refers to as “The New Testament”? Assuredly the apostles didn’t call it “The New Testament” — a term that originated much later! John the apostle and the final canonizer of the Apostolic Scriptures (sorry folk, the early church fathers and the Catholic Church didn’t canonize the apostolic writings) in five places in the Book of Revelation refers to the “Old Testament” as the “Word of God [Elohim]” and the “New Testament” as the “Testimony of Yeshua” (Rev 1:2,9; 6:9; 12:17; 20:4). Since “The Testimony of Yeshua” was the title John the apostle under the inspiration of the Set-Apart Spirit of Elohim applied to this portion of the Scriptures, just perhaps the work and Person of Yeshua was its most important theme!

 For example, the proper name “Yeshua” [Hebrew for “Jesus”] is found 943 times in the Testimony of Yeshua (the New Testament). This number doesn’t include the use of personal pronouns (e.g., he, him, his) or any indirect references to, or other names that the Testimony apply to him (e.g., the Lamb, the Alpha and Omega, Chief Cornerstone, King of kings, Rabbi, Master, etc.). The title “Christ” (in Hebrew Maschiach or “Messiah” in English) is used 533 times. The title “Lord” is found 670 times in the Testimony of Yeshua and usually is a direct reference to Yeshua. In the Testimony of Yeshua (NT) there are 260 chapters and 7,958 verses. According to these statistics, the names Yeshua, Messiah, or Lord are found in more than one-quarter of the verses of the Testimony of Yeshua. This number doesn’t include the use of pronouns (who knows how many such references there are), or other descriptive titles (some 326 references!) and other names that the apostolic writers use for Yeshua. If it did, the references to Yeshua in relationship to the number of verses in the Testimony of Yeshua would be much higher! By comparison, direct references to the Torah (i.e., law, laws, commandment, commandments) occur only about 260 times in the Testimony of Yeshua, or on average, one time per chapter. God forbid that I should in any way demean the importance or centrality of the Torah in the redeemed believer’s life, but the statistics speak for themselves: the subject of Yeshua was front and center in the Testimony of Yeshua. His supernatural power in us enables us to live the Torah properly — in truth or letter and in spirit, and his life was a living testimony and example of how to walk out the Torah. John and Paul the apostles sum it up this way:

And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments. He that says, I know him, and keeps not his [Torah] commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoso keeps his word, in him verily is the love of Elohim perfected: hereby know we that we are in him. He that says he abides in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked. (1 John 2:3–6)

Elohim sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. (1 John 4:9)

And this is the record, that Elohim has given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.

(1 John 5:11)

He that has the Son has life; and he that has not the Son of Elohim has not life.… And we know that the Son of Elohim is come, and has given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Yeshua the Messiah. This is the true Eternal, and eternal life. (1 John 5:11–12,20)

I am crucified with the Messiah: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but the Messiah lives in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of Elohim, who loved me, and gave himself for me. (Gal 2:20)

The subject of the Person and work of Yeshua was so important that YHVH Elohim through his Set-Apart Spirit inspired four books of the Bible (i.e., the four Gospels) to be written all testifying to the life of Yeshua on earth based on eye witness accounts.

During his ministry on this earth, Yeshua spoke and taught about many subjects (136 to be exact) as recorded in the Gospels. What were the subjects he talked most about? The number one subject was himself! In Matthew’s and John’s Gospel accounts, there are 316 references to Yeshua speaking about himself as the way to the Father, the light of the world, the bread of life, the door to the sheepfold, the truth, the good shepherd, the one who would die to redeem man, and so on. Next, Yeshua talked about his Father (184 times). The Torah comes in seventh place with 44 direct or indirect references! Now I love the Torah and have devoted much of my life to teaching and writing about the Torah, but this subject was not number one on the list of important topics Yeshua or the apostles wrote or talked about. To be sure, they lived the Torah all the time although they weren’t always talking about it, unlike many in our day who talk about it all the time, but don’t live it! Obedience to the Torah is the result of coming into a loving relationship with Yeshua, and not the starting place according to the apostolic writers.