DISCLAIMER
Upon occasion, individual sacred name people who correspond with us are offered the opportunity to write an essay to be posted on the web site. The invitation is to support, explain, or defend any of their doctrinal issues or to rebuttal any of the points made on the Sacred Name Movement Errors Web Site.
Certainly we do not agree with the points made in these essays. But, we publish them here in an attempt to let our visitors see first hand the extent of the error into which sacred name converts have sunk.
We are often falsely accused of attempting to make the sacred name doctrine out to be a spiritual monster. This page lets sacred name teachers speak for themselves. It also lets our visitors judge for themselves whether the doctrine of the sacred name with all its tentacles is a monster.
EDITOR'S COMMENTS
Those who accept the doctrine of the sacred names are compelled, by the very nature of that doctrine, to reject the authority of the New Testament. It seems strange that anyone would claim to know the Savior and at the same time reject the only book that reveals him. Where is the doctrinal foundation for faith in his death, burial, and resurrection, if not the New Testament? Where else will one find a basis for teaching his second coming? Without the New Testament there is no Christology.
A few sacred name teachers reject the complete New Testament, some decry the writings of Paul and perhaps Luke, while others repudiate all except the gospels. Most just preach the theory that the New Testament is not Scripture, cannot be trusted as a basis for ones faith in Christ, and should not be looked to as authoritative in spiritual matters, but otherwise it is a fine book. [See "A letter to a friend."]
In correspondence with the Sacred Name Movement Errors web site Mr. Allen expressed his conviction that the New Testament cannot be regarded as Scripture. We invited him to write an essay in support of that position. His article precisely demonstrates why one who accepts the sacred name teaching is compelled to give up the New Testament.
My question to sacred name teachers is always the same: What is wrong with the New Testament? Their answer is always the same: It doesn't support the doctrine of the sacred names.
gm
JASON ALLEN'S STATEMENT OF PERMISSION
I give you this with permission to use it in it's unadulterated entirety with all rights reserved. 28 USC 1746(1); UCC 1-207 Without Prejudice.
WHY DOGMA, DOCTRINE AND FOUNDATIONAL BELIEFS/CONVICTIONS SHOULD NOT BE BASED WHOLLY ON THE "NEW" TESTAMENT.
BY JASON ALLEN
To start, I am not what the editor/author of this site would consider a “Sacred Namer”, per se. I do, however, know that the Creator’s name isn’t “God,” ”LORD,” or any other title mankind has given him. While that doesn’t mean I know exactly, 100% how Adam referred to Him or the exact pronunciation or enunciation of the name of the Creator, the fact is that it is not now nor ever was “LORD,” “God,” “LORD God,” etc. Also, the Messiah was a Hebrew man, living in a Hebrew culture, with a Hebrew name, period. Common sense would dictate that just because a translation (English) is based on Greek (copies of copies nonetheless), doesn’t mean that the originals were Greek, contrary to the flawed logic used on this site and by many others. Even if the originals were penned in Greek, [the only people who KNOW were those who viewed the documents being written firsthand, period, everything else is sheer speculation at this point], that does not make the Messiah’s name “JESUS.” It seems absurd to think the angel ‘Gabriel’ came down to Miriam (mistranslated as Mary, but a Hebrew woman with a Hebrew name) and told her to name her firstborn Hebrew man-child “JESUS,” which, can arguably be translated as ‘hail Zeus.’ Keep in mind that the original 1611 King James Version language (an early form of ‘English’) wrote the name of the Messiah as “Iesus.” The letter ‘J’ is only about 500 years old…see an encyclopedia.
But do you KNOW who ‘canonized’ the New Testament books? How do we KNOW they are authentic? Were some forged? There were some writings of antiquity that were claimed as forgeries or of completely unknown origin but were later admitted to the canon. How do we KNOW that whomever ‘canonized’ them did not have their own political or religious agenda? Were there other faiths or ‘Christianities’ of the time that believed slightly differently than does our current ‘modern’ version of ‘orthodoxy’ (Trinity, notion of Pre-Trib Rapture, Sunday worship, modern liturgical practices and hierarchy, etc…) ranging from devout Catholics to fundamental Baptists to Church of God etc…? Some of these faiths were completely baseless and nothing more than a few peoples’ ability to deceive others, while other 1st century ‘Christianities’ were even more historically and Scripturally sound than today’s ‘churches.’ Have you, the reader, honestly done an in-depth study, or even a casual one, looking at all sides, to see where our different versions of the “Bible” come from? Do you simply base your decision on which Bible to use flippantly by how `easy to read’ it is, rather then educate yourself as to WHERE it came from, WHY you should trust it’s accuracy, and then, if needed, try to read at a higher level? Just because “church” leaders since about the 3rd or 4th Century (stemming mostly from the Roman Catholic Church, Nicene creed/council; Council of Trent; Constantine; etc…) have promoted the “New Testament” as incontrovertible, infallible ‘fact’ or Scripture, does that mean it is? WHY? Did those that lived around the times the New Testament manuscripts were written, regardless of their convictions, view these writings as ‘inspired’ or did they even go so far as to consider these writings to be infallible Scripture, on the same level as the Books of Moses (Genesis-Deuteronomy a/k/a Torah) and the “Old” Testament (a/k/a the TaNaKh)? Or did they just think they were simply letters, good for edification but not overriding the existing Scriptures?
The “New Testament,” depending on the version of the “Bible” used, is based upon copies that were, for the most part, written/copied in the Greek various times over. Some versions use the Alexandrian (or Minority) texts, which are older texts, that were fairly recently found. These are questionable at best and trash at worst. There is the Textus Receptus that the KJV and few others use as their basis for the “New Testament.” The “New Testament Textus Receptus is basically a collation document of approximately 5,400+ Greek documents (Papyrus, Unicles, Cursives, Manuscripts, Fragments, etc…). None of these documents agree in whole, so, where there was a majority of agreement or grammatical/textual indications and considerations showed otherwise, the Textus Receptus was reputedly created to reflect this agreement of the majority. As an actual manuscript, the Textus Receptus does not exist as a relic, but as a relatively contemporary creation based on what some thought the original would look like given all the disagreements there are in the “New Testament” manuscripts. These disagreements, some minor grammatical errors while others are of quite significant theological importance, vary depending on the scholarship but are agreeably, by all sides, in the range of 200,000 to 300,000 variances (more than the number of words in the “New Testament”). Note that just because a majority of anything agrees upon anything does not make them right, accurate, or correct. Nor are the minority texts (e.g. Alexandrian, Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, etc…) correct just because of their antiquity. These minority texts seem to have survived due to lack of use. Most likely because those that had them available knew they were flawed/slanted in favor of the authors/promoters, mostly early Gnostic “Christians” (Origin and Clement). One of the Alexandrian texts was found being used as kindling, kind of odd for something that, if it were accurate, should have been revered, even by the ignorant. Even those who call themselves atheists aren’t often seen going around burning ‘bibles.’ Motivation in all its forms needs to be examined especially when dealing with man-made religiosity.
In Acts of the Apostles, Chapter 17, we can clearly see, even from the pages of the “New Testament” that any dogma, doctrine or spiritual beliefs/convictions of those that were actually around the time of the Messiah were based upon what Acts 17:2 calls “Scripture.” If Shaul (“Paul”, another Hebrew man with a Hebrew name) reasoned with them (Jews) in the Synagogues on the Sabbath from “Scripture,” what Scripture was he reasoning from? His doctrine was, out of necessity in dealing with the audience at hand, solely based upon the Scriptures available to him, a Jewish Pharisee. These Scriptures are the “Old Testament” writings or as it was known then and now as the Torah(Gen-Deut.), the Prophets(Jer., Isa., etc…) and the other Writings(Psalm-Prov.). Acts 17 goes on to say that the Bereans were more noble than the Thessalonians in that they searched “Scripture” daily to see if what Shaul (Paul) said was true. Again the Scripture they were searching was the Torah (Gen.-Deut.) and the TaNaK. Not the copies of writings canonized in the “New Testament” 300-500A.D. If ‘Paul’ was able to argue his dogma/doctrine from those Scripture, then any argument or any reasoning or any doctrine we make had better fall in line with those Scriptures also. Modern ‘Christianity’ (Judeo-Christian) is loosely based on the guidelines of the God of the Hebrew culture, referred to in the Hebrew tongue as Yahuweh Elohim (TruthRadio.com). History shows that the culture/people the Creator of the universe seems to have chosen to share His ‘rules’ for a healthy, happy life was through the Hebrews, not the Greeks. More specifically the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob or those grafted in, who would be the ones to preserve the Scriptures he gave inspired. An example of this preservation is the Masoretic Text/
While, contrary to the “Sacred Namers” this site so vehemently and somewhat violently condemns, it seems to me there are truths to be gleaned from the “New Testament” as long as they are looked upon through the lens of the culture at the time, using the TaNaK (esp. the Torah) and knowing there are many errors in the Greek texts and the English translations. To show that the New Testament has basic ‘errors’/mistranslations (though the real question is were these errors intentional or unintentional) and for those that think the Messiah’s actual name was “JESUS” and not Yahushua /Yeshua/Yashua (most variations are just Yahushua contracted, better written as Yah’shua, et al) or some derivation thereof, look at Hebrews 4:8 and Acts 7:45. Get a Strong’s concordance and compare these verses with any of the other times the name “JESUS” is translated in the “New Testament.” It is the same word Iousus (Ιησους) in the Greek, Strong’s #2424. Check it out. There is no “J” sound in Hebrew (or Greek). Now Acts 7:45. Both of these verses are referring to Joshua (Yahushua, another Hebrew man with a Hebrew name) the ‘assistant’ or contemporary of Moses (Moeshe, another mistranslation.) In these verses ‘Joshua’ is completely mistranslated as “Jesus” in KJV but is correctly transliterated as Joshua in the NASB. Both are based of the same word, Strong’s G2424 Ιησους Ie¯sous ee-ay-sooce’ Of Hebrew origin [H3091]; Jesus (that is, Jehoshua), the name of our Lord and two (three) other Israelites: - Jesus.
All agree that these two verses (Acts 7:45 and Hebrews 4:8) are referring to Moeshe’s (Moses) assistant/apprentice transliterated as “Joshua” in the English. In Numbers 13:16 ‘Joshua’ gets his name (which is Yahushua in the Hebrew) from Moeshe who changes his name from Oshea to Yahushua. If the Messiah’s name and ‘Joshua’s’ name are the same in the Greek, and transliterated from the same word and in Hebrew it seems as though they had the same name, thus, establishing just two of many errors with the English translations of Greek manuscripts. When modern ‘Bible’ publishers discovered this error, why didn’t they correct it ‘New Testament’ wide? Why not restore the Jewish Messiah’s name as it was given and as was indicated even in the Greek? The Septuagint originally contained the name of Yahuweh as hwhy, where we now have ‘LORD.’ Here is another example of agenda trampling truth.
It would reason that basing any religious doctrine; dogma or conviction on any manuscripts/doctrines that have even the slightest error or that are even arguably error ridden could be an eternally grave mistake. We should all seriously consider this fact.
Then there is Torah, more specifically the Masoretic Text. This manuscript, more specifically the Ben Asher codex, of Torah has quite amazing characteristics and properties, including equidistant letter sequencing. (see "Equidistant Letter Sequences in the Book of Genesis", Statistical Science, August 1994, p.306. This is a secular, mathematical academia publication with absolutely no religious affiliation or ‘ax to grind’, if you will). This website Genesis Letter sequencing provides some information but I recommend researching the actual source for oneself. While I do not agree with the conclusions of the author of the link, it provides some good info.
So, on one hand we have Greek manuscripts, copies of copies, and a Hebrew manuscript, of greater antiquity than the oldest Greek. The Hebrew Torah has anomalies a computer could not have done and still made the text understandable.
Why, when presented with information of this gravity, would someone base any doctrine, dogma or conviction on a text or translation that has, at best, many unintentional errors or, at worst, has been a tool used by “orthodox Christian’s” of the 3rd and 4th Centuries till now to their own ends? Wisdom would look at all information available and fit beliefs to the facts, not manipulate or disregard facts to fit beliefs, as is commonly done. Bottom line is basing doctrine or beliefs on a book, manuscript or treatise based on what any and all will have to agree is flawed at best and downright deceptive at worst is just plain foolish.
In Peace and Truth with All Rights Reserved, including ownership and any/all applicable copyrights/trademarks. Gary Mink’s posting this essay on www.sacrednamemovement.com, unadulterated, in its entirety, does not grant ownership of essay, nor release any interest in essay. This topic requires much more than the 2,000 word limit, contact me to critique or for additional information on this topic or others. I would like to thank Gary for posting this though I begged for more words!
Jason Allen
(661) 472-1742
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.