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You are about to see the anti-Semitism of the New Testament at its strongest, and from the pen of the Apostle Paul no less.
Answer for yourself: Why would Paul so twist the Jewish Scriptures to do this?
Paul proceeded with his argument against the Torah by asking Jews rhetorical questions regarding their observance of the Law. What escapes most readers, yet works negatively on our unconscious, is that the wording of his questions implied guilt on the Jews. He asked, for example whether Jews who preach against stealing, adultery, and idolatry do not steal, commit adultery, and rob temples. The inquiry became more like an inquisition and reached a crescendo in an indictment of the Jews as “blasphemers”!.
Answer for yourself: Are the Jewish people to whom Paul addressed actually “blasphemers” or is Paul taking great liberty with the Old Testament passage and saying something opposite to what God intended when He gave the passage originally to the Prophet? You will have to decide for yourself once you see the evidence.
Answer for yourself: Are we led astray by Paul when reading our Bibles because we are not competent students of the Hebrew Bible ourselves, thereby not able to discern when we have been manipulated and deceived by a writer for selfish motives, even Paul?
Tough questions I know, but the answers are equally difficult for most Christians. The following is just one of many examples where Paul has misquoted the Old Testament to further his agenda of establishing a Gentile expression of faith in which he is the recognized the leader since his apostleship was not accepted by the Jerusalem church to the degree he wished.
“As it is written,” he says in Rom. 2:24, quoting from Isaiah, God's name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you [referring to the Jews].
It is no secret the Jews rejected Paul's message of a dying and rising god in the form of a man who died for the salvation of his followers. They knew what we don't today; namely, this was thoroughly a pagan concept played out over and over in the false religions of the Gentiles through such deities like Osiris and Attis. The Gentiles were well aware of such concepts and it was easy for Paul to build bridges into their lives by using concepts and terminology already familiar to his audiences.
Answer for yourself: Does Paul, in Romans 2:24, misquote Isaiah and take what Isaiah said completely out of context to show the Jews in an unfavorable light because they failed to accept him and his "unique gospel"?
Now it is Isaiah's message which is twisted by Paul into the opposite of Isaiah’s intended meaning. Paul added words which are not found in the original verse. If this is not adding to the Word of God I don't know what it. It is one thing to add your thoughts to a Prophet's message, but let us not loose sight of the fact that we grew up being told that the New Testament is the infallible, inerrant, and inspired Word of God. You must judge that for yourself. Let us examine the text so I might prove that Paul changed the message of Isaiah, and in doing so, slanders the whole of the Jewish people, when in effect, Isaiah said just the opposite; that the persecutors of the Jews blasphemed God.
It is worthwhile to read the entire verse from which the above passage was selected (and altered) to better understand what the prophet was saying in God's name. Isaiah 52:5 reads as follows:
Now, therefore, what do I do here said the Lord Seeing that My people has been taken away for nought. They who rule over them howl, said the Lord And My name is continually blasphemed all the day.
All of Isaiah Chapter 52, including this verse, recognizes the necessity and promise of restoring Israel to a position of glory. Speaking in God's name, Isaiah said that the very enslavement of God's people by the heathen Gentiles had become a desecration of His name [and not the Jewish people themselves as Paul would have us believe]. The pagan rulers who conquered Israel did not realize that they were God's tools in the punishment of Israel. These pagan captors had become so boastful that they attributed their conquest of Judah to their own power and to God's weakness to protect His people.
That attribution of helplessness to the Almighty and the degradation of His people are the reasons God's name is blasphemed among the Gentiles, and not the supposed rejection of Yeshua as Messiah as we have been told and led to believe through the reading of Paul in the New Testament!
Answer for yourself: Does Paul throw us off tract and deceive the reader by saying “it is written,” thereby setting us up to believe that Isaiah the prophet not only described the Jews of Paul’s day in a bad light, but also had prophesied about the Jewish people and their rejection of Paul and his message? He sure does.
Take just a second and understand the seriousness of using "it is written" to give Prophetic authority to what Paul is saying, when in effect, the Prophets said no such thing. In Texas, we call this a lie! Paul is lying and most are not aware of the fact because they are not well-versed in the Old Testament. Their churches have spent way too much time in reading and preaching the slanted message of Paul in the New Testament which does great injustice to what the Prophets intended we know. I cannot speak for you, but I feel robbed and am upset about being lied to about the most important thing in the world…my relationship with God. The Bible should be the last place we look to find deception, but it isn't. The sad, sad fact of the matter is that millions of Christian believers have never compared what Paul wrote with the original writings of the Prophets in the Hebrew Bible. Until you do, you will never see what I am saying and you will be tempted to discount what I say because it is different from what you or your Pastor has said. I am not wrong. Look it up for yourself!
Answer for yourself: If I am to believe that the Holy Spirit led Paul in his writings, then how do I come to understand and reconcile how Paul takes a passage referring to the pagans' mistreatment of their Jewish captives and the pagan’s ridicule of the Jews’ God for not delivering them out of their confinement as stated in the context of Isaiah the Prophet and using the verses of Isaiah in the manner the way Paul does in blaspheming the whole Jewish people by subscribing to them corrupt ethical conduct?
Answer for yourself: I ask you, was Isaiah's intent to point out the ethical failures of the Jewish people in his original context? No.
Answer for yourself: So in reality when Paul said “it is written” he makes up something which the original author never intended and it is "not written after all"? He sure does.
Answer for yourself: Does Paul misquote Isaiah in Romans 2:24 on purpose? Either the Holy Spirit is poorly equipped to inspire the writings of those He chooses to promote His revelation, or else He had nothing to do with and we have only to look to Paul and his hidden agenda and motives to arrive at why he so badly misquotes and misrepresents the Isaiah passage in Romans.
For me, as well as many of the scholars I have studied agree….Paul, knowingly perverted and distorted the passage in Isaiah on purpose to self-justify himself to his Gentile readers. Paul feeds his ministry off the anti-Semitism already prevalent among his non-Jewish audiences. This passage, among others, have been read through the millennia and have contributed to the slaughter of millions of Jews by those who think they are doing God's pleasure. So sad that we never compared the verse in the first place. In so doing, Paul teaches something that is not true and it ends up ultimately in the New Testament and most, when they read it, believe it to be God's viewpoint on the matter. Such a tragedy is not confined to this one passage, because Paul does this on several occasions as I will continue to show you if you have the courage to keep reading.
Answer for yourself: Still think the New Testament is "God breathed", infallible, and inerrant? Think again! It is time for serious study if you ever hope to come to the truth about this document.
Shalom.