LOOKING AT HOW PAUL MISUSED THE JEWISH OLD TESTAMENT IN HIS WRITINGS

While these Jewish passages contained in the Hebrew Bible have strong relevance in their original context, they are often arbitrarily ascribed in the New Testament to people and happenings to which they have little or no connection.

The New Testament writers, including Paul, are guilty of the same mishandling and abuse of Jewish Scripture to create a new religion. Let me give you again the mechanics involved in textual manipulation whereby we end up with something different in meaning that the original author intended.

Answer for yourself: Are you aware that your Old Testament in the King James Bible is not a faithful reproduction of the Jewish Bible and the Jewish Old Testament in hundreds of "key" places that alters completely various "theologies" from concepts involving Messiah to atonement?

It is almost unbelievable, but I was floored when I detected that my KJV was consistently misquoting and mistranslating on purpose the Old Testament when compared with the Jewish Hebrew Scriptures. The Old Testament in the KJV is supposed to be a faithful translation of the Jewish Scriptures. It is not. That is why I recommend to everyone that they purchase a Tanakh; either the Jewish Publication Society's Tanakh or the Stone Edition Tanakh. If you are truly one a search for truth this is mandatory because we cannot trust the KJV Bible for a faithful reproduction, let alone all the spin-off Bibles which have been built off it.

Answer for yourself: How many Greek scriptures in the New Testament, written as if they were a quotation of the Jewish Scriptures, have you looked up in the Hebrew scriptures in a Jewish Bible (Tanakh) and compared for accuracy in translation?

Notice I did not ask you if you compared your New Testament quote with the Old Testament of the Christian Bible, because often both will agree due to the corruption of the Greek translation of the Jewish Scriptures in 200 B.C.E. What you will find if you look into this matter is that your Christian Old Testament in your Christian Bible is not faithfully translated from the Tanakh or the Jewish Bible. Biblical concepts concerning the Messiah and atonement no less have been completely altered almost beyond recognition and a "false religious belief system" substituted and created in their place by such manipulation. The quoting of these "fraudulent" passages from the LXX is just another form of deception used by Paul and other Gentile writers of the New Testament in order create a theology which is less than truthful.

Answer for yourself: How many Greek scriptures in the New Testament, written if they were a quotations of the Jewish Scriptures, have you looked up in the Jewish Bible to make certain they are not used out of context, let alone if the New Testament writer uses the quote from the Jewish Scriptures correctly by maintaining the original intention and meaning that God intended in the original meanings of the text?

Answer for yourself: Are you aware that many Hebrew words are, unfortunately, often changed in the Greek and subsequently in English translations of our Bibles?

Answer for yourself: What does that do to the truth intended to be conveyed by the original Hebrew passage?

Unless you have investigated this subject for yourself like me and others, then you will be amazed at what you discover for yourself when you endeavor to fulfill such a pursuit.

Sometime Paul’s quotes and thoughts, when compared with Moses and the Prophets, are so poorly translated as to be barely recognizable when compared with the originals. In this series of articles I will demonstrate for you beyond a doubt, that Paul’s quotes from the existing Jewish Scriptures as taken from the Hebrew Bible are not based on the traditionally accepted Hebrew Masoretic Text, and often, are changed or misquoted in the Greek translation from which Paul will take them.

Answer for yourself: If the Holy Spirit is behind the "inspiration" and "inerrancy" of the New Testament then does God not know that these writings are butchered when compared with what He told Moses and the Prophets?

I will also show you that Paul repeatedly quotes not from the Jewish Scriptures, but from the less reliable Septuagint (Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible). I am confident that you will come to see, as I an many others have when devoting our lives to the study of the Bible, that often Paul’s ideas, like much of his letters, are his own creations, similarly formulated to meet a particular unique need here and there. You will come to see that Paul's versions of Biblical quotations are usually remote from the original passages and meanings, thus giving them a different flavor and meaning which God never intended you have when God gave them to “holy men of old.” You will come to see that such purposeful misquotations and mistranslations are not done innocently, but rather are purposeful in removing one from the Jewish faith (and the non-Jews relationship to God within it). Paul's use of the altered and changed passages only goes to show you that evidently he is not "a Pharisee of Pharisees" or he would have known of these "fraudulent" passages and not used them or else Paul was more concerning in preaching "another Gospel" that was not faithful to the Jewish tradition and their texts and ironically says all other truths are in his mind "another gospel." Multitudes have been deceived by him.

Dear reader, these new and foreign religious ideas unfortunately became dogma within Gentile Christianity and did almost irreparable harm in divorcing the Gentile manifestation of faith in God from the manifestations of “the faith God intended we have.” The things I will show you in this series of articles is not comforting to know, however, only in understanding such materials can we “cast out the leaven of the Pharisees” regardless of who they are or their private agendas.

One last thing; you might wonder what the end-result should be of such a series of studies. It is our hope at Bet Emet ministries that when you complete these articles the reader will be able to understand that Christianity is best understood and practiced from a Jewish viewpoint which restores the Sabbaths, Seven Biblical Festivals, true Messianism, and the truth about God's atonement and not man's substitute. Such emphasis is almost totally lacking in the Christian church today. Also, a renewed emphasis in proper tithing and righteous giving hopefully will replace the current perversion of giving as seen in most churches and televisions today. Let us begin…shall we?