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For quite a while now I have had requests from some of you studying with us or those who only receive the newsletters to address the topic of "Why should I study the Hebrew roots of the Christian faith" or "How can I get started in this area". Many have asked me to give them something to pass on to their friends, or to their pastors. It seems like there is so much that comes to light in such a study that it literally scares people away.
Answer for yourself: How do we launch out?
We will come to answer these questions with ease as our study increases.
Since I found myself called of God to reveal these truths to my fellow Christians and followers of "the Christ" I decided that I would try to reach back in my memory of my twenty years of study and try to be basic with you and to kick things off for you in such a vein. It is my desire to take you step by step as you are introduced to this magnificent and rich world of the study of our Jewish and Egyptian roots that lay hidden under a Roman reinterpretation of Christianity as it so stand today. So I want to risk erring on the side of clarity and simplicity, assuming you possess little background.
Though I have been working in these areas of study for many years, I've learned that you can't take anything for granted when you try to teach others for we are all at different levels of spiritual growth and maturity. We at Bet Emet Ministries are confident that this letter will be a beginning point for many of you. It will be a refresher course for others of you. I do believe, however, it will be a useful overview for growing deeper in our understanding of the Foundations of our Faith; Biblical Judaism in the first century. My aim is to make this a "practical, hands on, how to" type of teaching. The theoretical is important but I'm concerned with helping people in this particular area to get started, because if we never start restoring our lost Spiritual heritage, we can never be, in my estimation, truly what God desires for us to become during our Earthly incarnation.
So let us begin to provoke ourselves to "think"; possibly think thoughts we have never thought before.
So up front I want to give very careful attention to these questions concerning motivation and why we bother to study Hebrew Roots.
The first reason I would give for motivating Christians in this task is the realization that the Bible cannot make sense to anyone who is not spiritually a Jew. This needs to repeated a thousand times or more.
The Bible cannot make sense to anyone who is not spiritually a Jew and who does not study the texts in their original language. You know that this is true. By your own experience reading the Bible for yourself you have come to see that many parts are cloudy and full of terms that simply don't make sense in English. Many are confused when reading a document that is not written from a "Western Mind Set". Words, ideas, customs, and language differs from ours and they should be since this Bible is an Egyptian-Jewish Spiritual Revelation. Boy, do I have news for you. Archeology today has verified that whom we think are Jewish Patriarchs in our Bible, men like Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, Ephraim, David, Solomon, etc., are really not Jewish at all; rather they are historically Egyptian Pharaohs whose true identities have been altered by Ezra in the rewriting of the Hebrew Scriptures and traditions when the Persian "captive Jews" were returned home after the Babylonian war. That means that the vast majority of our Hebrew Scriptures is Egyptian Region filtered through "Jewish Eyes"; thus the importance of understanding the "Jewish Roots" of our Bible because it is the retelling of the ancient and most glorious religion of Metaphysical Truth ever given mankind, the great Egyptian Religion. That means the Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Judges, I and II Samuel, I and II Kings, I and II Chronicles, the Song of Solomon, Psalms, Proverbs and Ecclesties is in reality Egyptian Religion filtered later through the "Jewish people" who departed from ancient Egypt under Moses (the Pharaoh Akhenaten).
Answer for yourself: Let me ask you a simple question? Do you know your relatives? Who are our relatives in our Christian Faith? Is it our Church Fathers or should it rather be the Jewish people and their Egyptian parents (again archeology and history shows us that the Jewish people as late as the first century were "black skinned" offspring of ancient Egypt). There is no denying archeological facts and these "lighter skinned Jewish people of today" are the later European converts to Judaism, itself a world religion).
There are a lot of people in the church today who do not know their relatives. It appears that sadly means us in our Churches today who can look no further than Rome for their origins.
Answer for yourself: Do you know those in your own family?
The non-Jewish believer, the Christian, has been grafted into the Israel of God (Rom 11). Most of us are not naturally-born Jewish people, but spiritually we're all Semites and Hebrews ("Hebrew" means one who crossed over…as Gentiles we have "turned from idols to serve the living God" (1 Thess. 1:9). So, in a similar way every "non-Jew" who has turned to God has had his "personal Exodus" or sorts and has "crossed over from death unto life".
Answer for yourself: Have you come to know the family that gave you spiritual birth and life and wisdom? Most likely not if you attend typical Christian Churches today. Few, if any teach "Jewish Roots" and if they do they will "dress up" like Jewish people and sing and dance to "Jewish Music" but at their very core they still teach Roman Replacement Religion as their main Spiritual Dogmas. This is tragic and deceptive beyond belief and needs to stop immediately and be seen for what is truly is; Carnal Worship that appeals more to the senses of our animal nature than our Spiritual Nature.
John 4:22 says, "Salvation is from the Jews," and not of the Christian Church (Catholic or Protestant)! This means your life, your deliverance and all that you have makes you part of the redeemed community today has come from the Jewish people who only repeats for us in the pages of our Bible the ancient Egyptian Spiritual Concepts given the race of mankind in its very beginning. The realization of this fact in my own life prompted me to study what it means to claim a Jewish heritage in the faith of Christianity. This is especially important in light of the fact that along comes Rome in the 2nd through the 5th century and "radically reinterprets" the existing Divine Spiritual Wisdom regarding the Soul which had remained intact for over 10,000 years "basically unchanged".
Answer for yourself: What difference should this make to you?
It seems to me it ought to make a great difference in the way we READ, the way we INTERPRET OUR BIBLES, the way we UNDERSTAND, and the way that we LIVE and OBEY the Bible. This means it should make a great difference in how we LIVE our lives. The Bible is a Jewish-Egyptian book. It cannot be read, understood and expounded correctly unless we are prepared to become spiritual Jews and Hebrews with the Jews of today (in thinking, understanding, attitudes, ideas, etc.). Many Christians fail to see this their whole lives. Our faith is tied to the Jewish Scriptures and to the Jewish people and as our studies increase we see the connections within Judaism with the ancient Spiritual Wisdom of the Egyptians and other ancient nations who likewise possessed this Sacred Science.
Tertullian asked, "What indeed has Athens to do with Jerusalem".
Buy the way he would not only renounce entirely Christianity toward the end of his life but he also answered his own question incorrectly; it has everything to do with the Jewish people for it was the Greeks who were at first taught these Divine Spiritual Truths whose children several hundred years later will invade Egypt and steal the world's Sacred knowledge from the Egyptians who are also the very "fathers" of the later Jewish race. Take time to read a great book entitled by George James entitled The Stolen Legacy and see how ancient Egypt is the cradle of world for almost all of human advancement for over 10,000 years and the very core of all Sacred Knowledge originally imparted to mankind. This Sacred Spiritual Knowledge was later entrusted to the children of their intermarriage with Semites which form the later Jewish Nation once they left Egypt. Add the later Roman "reinterpretation" of this Jewish Sacred Wisdom along with their boast that it was Rome who was the source for this knowledge and the world would lose these precious Divine truths and their original meanings held sacred for thousands of years by both Egypt and the Jews. Be not mistaken this Sacred Wisdom lies sadly misunderstood and tragically misinterpreted through the "literal" interpretation of these same Sacred Texts at the hands of Rome. This later Roman "reinterpretation" which we have in our approach to our Bibles which carry this Sacred Wisdom down the halls of Egyptian and Jewish Religions is tragic beyond belief. You can deny such ever happened, you can pretend it never occurred, you even think you can debate others about what I say but those who have done the studies and seen this personally realizes the folly of such ignorance. The facts speak for themselves, you just have to know them.
The bedrock of the early church, the bedrock of "the Christ" and his teachings, was the Hebrew Scriptures which are to be seen by the reader later to be the same Divine Revelation given in The Egyptian Book of the Dead and Egyptian Religion. It may not be the tradition of the Roman Church but it sure is the facts of history and archeology that the early church was ALL Jewish for many years until the "Constantine problem". So the Biblical view of reality was profoundly Egyptian and Hebraic, not Western-American, Greek, or Roman until very late.
Gentiles have been grafted into an all Jewish olive tree (Rom 11) according to Paul. Israel is the root which supports us (Rom. 11:18), so every Christian has, or should have a Jerusalem Connection. The church was born in Jerusalem. The New Testament depicts "the Christ" teaching this ancient Sacred Spiritual Wisdom thought Judaism as a Jew in Jerusalem. It was from Jerusalem that momentous outreaches were made to the "non-Jews" of the world whereby they were taken the Covenant of Noah within Judaism along with the Laws of Noah whereby a "non-Jew" might make himself acceptable to God. You don't know yet but these same Laws of Noah, so called for convenience, can be traced as far back as Sumer and before ancient Egypt. So we should have a Jewish history and link today as Christians but our Churches and Roman theology and religious calendar seems to be absent in most if not all of our Christian Churches. Israel's history is our history. Israel's patriarchs, ever if they are in reality Egyptian Pharaohs, have become ours. Israel's prophets have become ours. Israel's Scriptures, even if they can be shown to have Egyptian origins and affinity with the great Egyptian Religion, have become ours because we have become grafted into this people of God, this olive tree, the Jewish people. Abraham is our father. Little did we know that he most most likely a Pharaoh according to some traditions.
Answer for yourself: Have you read Galatians lately? Gal. 3:29, "If you belong to Christ," Paul says, "then you are Abraham's seed." You do not have an option. Abraham is our Spiritual father. He is the father of all who believe (Rom. 4:11...the father of believing Gentiles; Rom. 4:12...also the father of believing Jews). So we are Abraham's spiritual children and before we can become fully "Christian" and "follower of the Christ" we must also know what it means to be a Jew and understand they were entrusted with the "Pattern of Worship" and Spiritual Knowledge for the whole world! I believe to the degree that one understands and models the truths of Biblical Judaism then the stronger a person's Christian faith will be. This is a huge problem since most Christian religious beliefs are "contradictions" of earlier Jewish Spiritual Beliefs. Here is where our study begins. We have to come to terms with why the Christian faith, a faith that can be shown beyond any doubt to be a Jewish expression of Sacred Truth given to the non-Jews in the earliest centuries of our epic, has today become antisemitic to the core and an antithesis of the Jewish Biblical Faith. Here is where we start. Only by getting to the core of this "radical reinterpretation" by Rome and seeing it yourself can you then be freed from fear, ignorance, and oppressive Religious darkness that has ruled mankind for the last 1,800 years.
In summary, the Bible cannot make correct sense to anyone who is not spiritually a Jew. We are Abraham's spiritual children, we have been grafted in the Jewish people. The consequences of this in-grafting is that we take on the likeness of the Olive Tree. We need to "look a like Israel" and not Rome.
Answer for yourself: Have you as a Christian taken on the likeness of the Olive Tree? If not, why not?
As Gentile Christians we haven't taken over the olive tree, we haven't replaced it, but we have been grafted into it and we partake of the richness of that olive tree, the fat, the sap of the olive tree, to use the Apostle Paul's metaphor. The result of all this is that the Biblical view of reality is profoundly Hebraic (actually hidden Egyptian Region as we shall see much later).
As believers in "the Christ" or the example of "Jesus" we have a Jerusalem connection. If we're Christians we'd better find out what this is all about.
In the second place we ought to study Jewish Roots in order to live a more authentic Biblical life-style. We need to know we have a Jewish family and that the Bible is a Jewish document, but the study of our Hebrew heritage and the things we will learn from such a study should motive us to live a more authentic Biblical life-style according to the "Divine Pattern" given to the whole of mankind in the beginning of time, a "pattern" which was later entrusted to the Jewish People and which remains intact today due to their staunch integrity of being a "people of God" and not a "people of the world".
As John, in his very Hebraic way puts it, we must LEARN TO DO THE TRUTH (1 Jn). Some may study Hebrew and Jewish culture in order to impress others with their learning, others because of prophetic or end-time reasons in regard to Israel. Some in this category view the Jewish people as the key piece to some kind of eschatological jigsaw puzzle which they have devised. Unfortunately such motives have usually had very little to say about how to live in the "here" and "now". Our study of the Jewish people and Jewish history ought to impact how we live; this is the goal of such Hebraic study. Such Hebraic, and even Egyptian study, ought to make us love God more and to aid us in emulating in our lives what He taught about the Kingdom of God, about spirituality, about love, about compassion, about forgiveness, about marriage and the family, about the celebration of life, about the festivals, about faith, even about salvation.
It seems to me if this is one of our primary motivations for studying Jewish roots that we will reap great dividends.
Marcion, a second-century Greek Gnostic church father around 130-140, is a very complicated man; a man misunderstood by most except those fluent with Gnosticism. Those unknowing of Gnosticism, or the early attackers of the earliest Chrestians and Gnostic "Christians" tell us today in their writings that Marcion sought to do away with the entire Hebrew Bible and to divest the church of all traces of Jewishness. They say that he wanted to rid Christianity of anything of Jewish flavor. That is not the case. Marcion saw the world with a higher Spiritual Consciousness than most of the Romans in his day. Eventually he was condemned as a heretic by this early evolving Roman Church. Justin Martyr, a church father of the second century, considered Marcionism one of the most dangerous heresies of his day, but ironically Justin was an antisemite. Go figure.
Answer for yourself: So what is the truth about Marcion?
The issues here are very complicated as to why an "anti-Law" stance would be taken both by Marcion and Justin yet they opposed each other "theologically". Let me say in summary fashion that once you understand why Marcion, a Gnostic, considered the Laws of God not "applying to him" any longer and having passed away for Spiritual Gnostics, as the Gnostic Paul often responds as well, then you will come to see that it is possible for men and women to live at level of Spirituality whereby they live the "laws of God" on their hearts as a total expression of the love of God and need not a "blue-print" any longer. This, dear one is a Goal to be reached not easily accomplished by all. Let me give you an example, Moses, a Pharaoh himself who grew up with "images" and a religion full of "symbolic images" that represented various aspects of the Creator would later turn and say that no longer are they to use such "images", or even make them. There comes a time when we hopefully evolve Spiritually whereby we progress beyond the primary understanding of God and evolve from "flesh" to "Spirit" within ourselves, no longer needed visual reminders of God but have become in our actual experience the living manifestation of the Divine in this animal body.
Rom 8:14 14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. (KJV)
These Gnostics were "mystics" and were known for a special level of righteousness that made others uncomfortable and make them second guess their own Spiritual attainment. It was not that Marcion was wicked; quite the reverse, he lived "in the Spirit" at such a high level and understanding that he has moved beyond simple "do's" and "don't's" that less spiritually inclined people still need as a pattern for themselves to "mature" their Souls. Marcion is an example of one who understood what Paul mentioned in Galatians:
Gal 4:19 19 My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you, (KJV)
But most of us don't attain this level in our actual existences for many reasons and still need teaching in the "elementary" things of God and the "milk of the Word" never arriving at the "meat of the Word". The Torah severed that purpose in maturing the Soul within mankind only so far in hopes that the evolving Spirit within would transform the believer into the fullness of the stature of the Christ. So before you read anti-Marcion comments from early Church Fathers it is important to thoroughly understand just what these Christian Gnostics believed and when you do then you will understand why "carnal" Christians like Justin and Irenaeus, these early Church Father and others opposed them so viciously. These Gnostic Christians like Marcion and Paul lived at a level in the Spirit that dwarfed others who would not "pay the price" for such a relationship with the living God.
Today the churches are full of modern "Justins" and "Marcionists" who decry anything Jewish or the Laws of God. There are many of them around as we can see them when they try to relegate the Hebrew Scriptures, the Old Testament, the Biblical Feasts and Festivals, and the Sabbaths to secondary importance in preaching and teaching. Neo-Marcionism manifests itself in many ways today in the Christian church and needs to be rejected because this is the "elementary school" of the Spirit that helps mold us into living examples of God. Such Mystical and Spiritual secrets lie behind these so called "Jewish customs" that in time can be opened to the minds of Christians and in so doing in reality take their breath away. But that is a level to be obtained through a lot of "unlearning" and further "learning of the truths" which have been kept from us in Christianity today by a totally anti-Jewish tradition in Christianity that has been the foundation for Christianity now for over 1,800 years. This anti-Judaism can an be seen in the local churches that tend to have almost exclusively classes in the New Testament and rarely in the Old Testament. It is seen in preachers who get up and you can almost predict like a clock on Sunday morning the text is going to come from the last twenty percent of the Bible rather than from the first eighty percent of the Bible. Check the courses taught at Christian colleges and seminaries around the country. Greek is often required and Hebrew, as best, is offered at all or at best it is optional. Or, you have twice the courses in New Testament studies than you do in the history of the Jewish people and Old Testament studies.
Sometimes Neo-Marcionism displays itself today with the teaching that Israel has been permanently cast aside, displaced forever, and the church now has been given her blessings and has replaced Israel.
Answer for yourself: How many theological faculties espouse that view? Way too many! We have some in this city of Dallas, at Dallas Baptist Seminary for example, that are very popular but tragically stand upon faulty exegesis of the text as well as Biblical History. Sometimes the position of anti-Zionism denouncing Israel's right to a national homeland may be nothing more than Neo-Marcionism in disguise.
However, when Neo-Marcionism rears its head in today's church, Christians who know the origins of their own faith in the Jewish people and in the Hebrew Bible will be prepared to call people back to the Old Testament, the Jewish Scriptures, the Hebraic foundation of the early Gentile church for almost five centuries. You studies will reveal this to you as we continue.
We desperately need to improve Christian-Jewish relations. You may not be aware of the statistics of antisemitism in this country, but they are rapidly on the rise in the last few years. There is a dark side to the history of Christian-Jewish relations about which most Christians are uninformed. A dark side that goes back to the early Christian centuries and has extended to this very day and lie concealed behind many of the religious dogmas of our Churches.
Anti-Judaism in the teaching of the early fathers of the Christian Church that led to a long history of anti-Semitism, hostility and hatred tragically acted out toward the Jewish people. That was climaxed in that indescribable event which we know today as the Holocaust. The Holocaust years are 1933 to 1945. During those years six million Jews were slaughtered by German Christians simply because they were Jews! Most of the church stood idly by and that includes the Vatican who later sheltered the Nazis from the world courts. No wonder the credibility of the Christian message has suffered great damage when exposed to Jewish ears over the centuries.
Many within the early church sent the same message through the Crusades, Inquisitions, pogroms, torturings, expulsions, and other such things; or simply by the guilty silence of the church in the face of these atrocities.
There are bridges that need to be repaired between our communities. It is time that a new image of a true "Jewish-Christianity" emerge, and this takes time and is impossible without knowledge. Misunderstandings and hostility between Christians and Jews must give way to a new relationship. That relationship will be thoroughly informed about the history of the past. But it will also seek to ensure the future of the Jewish people by maintaining a strong and secure Israel.
In America Christians and Jews really don't know each other, largely, because of geographical isolation. We have a need to dispel faulty images and popular stereotypes and caricatures that we have one for the other. Lack of personal encounter has resulted in the creation of these prejudices and distortions and faulty perceptions that we have one for the other. Jews have been called Christ killers, Pharisees, elders of Zion, money grubbers, legalists, and a whole host of other offensive labels. Christians have been called red necks, anti-intellectuals, Bible thumpers, narrow-minded bigots, and you can add to these lists.
We are tragically strengthening that barrier that has divided us for nearly two thousand years when we tolerate and condone this type of language or behavior or theology in our Churches, but who knows this without serious study since the early Church Fathers did much to disguise their antisemitism within the New Testament texts which underwent redaction by the pens of the Monks. When we don't speak out against antisemitism our silence condemns us.
We must acknowledge our debt to the Jewish people, but we must also seek meaningful and constructive ways to repay it. One of the most important ways our debt to the Jewish people can be repaid is by informing the Church about the history of antisemitism and the Holocaust and by encouraging opportunities where Christians and Jews can come together in our communities and learn from each other.
I have developed for you four reasons why we must study and reclaim our Jewish Roots:
Let us ponder these reasons for the rest of our lives.