I began my journey of studying scripture in the original languages after listening to a sermon in church one Sunday in the late-1980s or early 1990s. I can’t honestly remember what that sermon was about, but it motivated me to dig deeper into scripture in an attempt to understand the subject. I remember going to a Christian bookstore in Bellevue, Washington to look for study resources, whereupon I came across a software program called Logos. At the time, there were limited internet tools compared to today’s offering. The Logos program was on discs, and I purchased it, as it offered cross referencing English translations of scripture with the original languages.
To my surprise, I found that the teaching I had heard in church wasn’t what the original scriptures actually said. To clarify that statement, the church I went to was one of the largest in the State of Washington with a large pastoral staff, all of whom were seminary educated. The head pastor held a PhD from Biola University’s Talbot Theological Seminary. He was a great man and led tens of thousands of believers over the years. Regardless, there were issues with his exegesis, his explanation of the verse, because the Hebrew wasn’t accurately translated in The Bible.
That was my first exposure to the issues with theology as taught in seminaries. I once heard a comment that seminaries taught people about God, not how to know him. This is not the paper to fully explore that subject, but it is clear that the authorities of the church have been wrong on many subjects over the course of history.
That experience, having seen that what was being taught did NOT represent the original message of the scripture, pushed me to try and understand how that could happen. As the authors of the book Misreading Scripture With Western Eyes explained so well, the cultural, literal, and translation issues surrounding The Bible have resulted in a long history of errant teaching that began as early as the original apostles. I know this sounds arrogant and insane, but when we look at history and compare what Christians believe to what scripture actually says, I can come to no other conclusion. Now that errant teaching is so ingrained within the church that the principles of those errors have become the tenants of our faith.
One of the biggest issues is that Hebrew and Greek are highly accurate languages, but English is not. One example is that nearly forty different words and nuances in Hebrew scriptures were all translated into one word: Wife. That word has a very limited meaning in English, but their culture the original words conveyed MANY different nuances.
I also suggest that we keep in mind that these misdirected church leaders were the ones who translated and assembled the current Bible and almost certainly some of that bias became part of the translations. Even the insertion of a comma or connecting phrase that wasn’t there in the original language can change the implication of a translation. This is why I suggest studying for yourself and not relying on the traditions of the church, nor on classically trained theologians. They have a long history of being in error.
Some people claim that I am denying the tenants of the faith, and a heretic. Fine, but you then must explain how a logical God who created and ordered trillions of universes, suddenly decided that people should be unproductive self-abusive zealots. If you disagree with my findings, then come up with an explanation for how modern society has collapsed.
Some have written the entire mess off as being part of mankind’s “sin nature.” Then explain how for thousands of years Hebrew society didn’t share the problems we have now. Explain why the anabaptist societies avoid the problems the rest of Christian society is dealing with. Why are there no single teenage mothers? Why is giving birth an honor, and in the Hebrew cultures, families with many wives were celebrated?
There are those who might say the answer is that humans have no hope outside of Christ’s return. Perhaps. That conclusion, however, is fearfully agnostic and leads to fatalism. There MUST be answers to questions, and those answers need to be logical. If not, how then can we evaluate our lives and live in a morally successful manner?
If we can’t find legitimate answers, then we are condemned to an inevitable submission to fate, which is a rebuke of our faith, and I can’t accept that.
So, there is the dilemma, one I have not solved. It is a circular reference and not solving questions is a torment. Nevertheless, the discovery of the truth is before us, so let’s proceed.
I am an unconventional Christian. I am comfortable with my faith and conclusions, but conflicted by how the faith has been presented to history. I hear other Christians talk and preach, but too often, as I will show you, there is no alignment with scripture. As I study Christ’s message, I can’t find any instructions to build enormous, gilded buildings, or global trillion-dollar church organizations. I don’t want to get too far ahead of the topic, however. Let’s take this step by step and I pray you will walk alongside me on this journey, and please feel free to disagree, but if you do, bring the kind of deliberate evidence I am sharing with you.
There are always people who disagree, that is natural. What I often encounter is that people who dissent from my findings ask for examples to support my statements. For this reason I have provided detailed analysis of the points that I make, both herein and in the references section that follows. If you disagree with me, and I pray you think about this subject enough to develop an informed opinion, bring the conversation. Please, though, do research. I am going to give you serious documentation from history and written records. I appreciate others who do the same and not just call me a heretic without substantial rebuttal.
