In this article on the prince of Greece we’re investigating how he has affected our interpretation of scripture. It’s interesting that despite most of the New Testament manuscripts we have today being written in Greek or Aramaic, Papias, John’s disciple stated that
“Matthew wrote his Gospel in the Hebrew language and several did their best to translate it.”
(Ecclesiastical History 3:39 – Eusebius)
In fact there has recently been discovered over 14 ancient Hebrew manuscripts of Matthew. This helps show that the New Testament authors, being Jews, were steeped in their Hebraic mindset and lifestyle. So whilst we have most of their writings in Greek or Aramaic they were using Hebrew (biblical) phrases and concepts when they wrote the New Testament. It is very important to keep this in mind.
In Acts 17:10-15 we read of the Jews in Berea, who upon hearing the message of Messiah from Paul and Silas searched the scriptures daily to see if these things were true. We often hear teaching commending them for this action (as it brought them to faith in Messiah) and we are told to emulate them i.e. when someone brings a teaching we should verify it against scripture before accepting it which is great advice. However the only scriptures a Berean Jew could refer to for testing teaching were the Tanakh (Old Testament), which begs the question, do we check our theology against the Tanakh?
Paul states in 2 Tim 3:14-17 that all scripture (again referring to the Tanakh) is inspired by God, is able to make us wise unto salvation and is profitable for doctrine. Paul is showing that the Tanakh was his reference point for truth.
So Paul and the Bereans give us two witnesses to the biblical principles that (i) scripture interprets scripture and (ii) when studying the New Testament we have to check its writings and our interpretations of them against the Tanakh.
Romans 15:4 says:
For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.
Again, “things written before” refers to the Tanakh.
In fact, the Tanakh is woven throughout the New Testament. Of the New Testament’s 7,967 verses there are 2,606 Tanakh references, an astonishing 33% strike rate! When was the last time you heard or read a message that was 33% Tanakh references? We need to seriously reorient our theology.
Given this wealth of connection between the Testaments, the way we study the New Testament is somewhat curious. The usual route e.g. if someone is teaching on the word “Word” (logos) in the New Testament, is to look up a Greek dictionary to find the definition of the Greek word “logos.” Here again is the influence of the prince of Greece, redirecting our understanding of the New Testament by sending us after “Greek” definitions rather than looking for the already established biblical meaning in the Tanakh.
Given the New Testament is rooted in the Tanakh, why don’t we just look up the Hebrew word for “Word” in the Tanakh and start there? That way we could let Scripture interpret itself with the Tanakh providing us the biblical definitions of what the New Testament is saying.
This is key given many important New Testament terms just appear in the text without any attempt to introduce, explain or define them e.g. Word, Light, Way, Life, Truth, Repentance, Salvation, Assembly… These are fundamental building blocks of our faith yet we take their meanings from “Greek” dictionaries with practically no reference back to their Hebraic (biblical) meaning in the Tanakh. The New Testament writers didn’t bother to define these terms because they were already well known and understood by their readers who were learned in the Torah and familiar with referencing back to the Tanakh (in true Berean style).
But how can we know which Hebrew words the writers were intending when all we can see is the Greek or the Aramaic? The good news is that there are mechanisms to translate New Testament Greek directly back into the Old Testament Hebrew. Firstly any Tanakh quotes reference back directly (there’s 1/3 of the New Testament covered off) and we also have the Hebrew gospels of Matthew. Then, possibly the biggest mistake the prince of Greece made during his reign in the centuries immediately before Messiah’s arrival was to have the Tanakh translated into Greek – the Septuagint LXX.
The Septuagint LXX is a translation of the Tanakh and some related texts into Koine Greek and is sometimes called the Greek Old Testament. This translation is quoted a number of times in the New Testament, particularly in Paul’s letters. The title (literally “The Translation of the Seventy”) and its Roman numeral acronym LXX refer to the legendary seventy Jewish scholars who translated the Five Books of Moses as early as the 3rd century BCE.
So if we take a Greek word from our New Testament and find occurrences of that word in the Septuagint LXX, we can match those Septuagint verses to the same verses in the Tanakh. This will show which Hebrew word(s) is being translated into that Greek word. From here we can use the Tanakh’s teaching on this Hebrew word along with our Hebrew dictionaries to find out what the definition of the word is. Having Paul quote the Septuagint gives us added confidence of this mapping system back into the Hebrew.
Studying the New Testament by mapping the meanings of the words back into the Hebrew gets us back into Hebraic thought and the ways of YHVH. Whilst many concepts are clearly defined in the Tanakh they are unfortunately mostly ignored by Western Christianity .
Eccl 1:10
Is there anything of which it may be said, “See, this is new”? It has already been in ancient times before us.
Let’s see what the prince of Greece has done with the word “Word.” For the pagan Greeks of Yeshua’s day, “logos” (the word) was a pagan god, the god of gods. It was the supreme knowledge also known as gnosis (Gnosticism anyone?). It was all about right thought, right mind, right purpose and right creed. In other words the logos was right belief (a thing, not a person or action). Knowledge was salvation: saying the right things (sinner’s prayer ring any bells?) and believing the right things (apostle’s creed/right theology).
And so the subtle shift occurred from the “instructions (Word) of God becoming flesh” (to show us the way to live), to the “divine knowledge of the god of gods” – apples in the garden of Eden anyone?
Gen 3:5
“For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
Salvation became an intellectual pursuit, with structured creeds as its evidence. Faith moved from simple trust in God and walking in His ways to the acceptance of a series of propositions (sounding Greek yet?) And belief in God came to mean assent to certain propositions about God. We’ve been moved from God’s instructions in His Tanakh concerning how to love Him and our neighbour to a theological creedal system. And lo many denominations were born…
The “words of God” have become abstract undefined concepts that are obtained by saying the right things or believing the right things without the necessity of doing the right things.
It’s time to throw off the prince of Greece, repent from our Greek mindset, adopt a Hebrew mindset and get up close and personal with the God of the Tanakh. This will truly change how we walk out our faith. Going back to a Hebrew understanding of the New Testament replaces abstract theory-ology (theology) with practical courses of action. It connects and reintegrates the New Testament into the Tanakh and into the ways of God not into our thoughts of God.
To start opening up the New Testament, I highly recommend the book:
The Tanakh – The Dictionary of the New Testament by Bradford Scott.
It is available from the following link:
http://www.wildbranch.org/marketplace/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=2
Don’t let the prince of Greece continue to rob you of God’s truth and blessings that come from walking in His ways. Take back God’s ways of thinking, living and meeting with Him. Take back the Hebraic view of the scriptures and learn how to walk more closely with the God of Israel, the God of the bible. Throw off the lies of the prince of Greece.
Jer 16:19-21
O YHVH, my strength and my fortress, my refuge in the day of affliction, the Gentiles shall come to You from the ends of the earth and say, “Surely our fathers have inherited lies, worthlessness and unprofitable things.” Will a man make gods for himself, which are not gods? “Therefore behold, I will this once cause them to know, I will cause them to know My hand and My might; and they shall know that My name is YHVH.”
Steps to Throwing off the prince of Greece and his lies:
1. Get back into flow – in John 3:8 Yeshua says
“The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
See our series “Restoring the Priesthood through the Tabernacle of Meeting”.
2. Leave your pagan religious fables, gods and practices and get back to biblical practices and feasts.
See our series “Paganism” and “Toward Reformation”.
3. Call on the name of YHVH.
See article “Part 6: The Altar of Incense” in the series “Restoring the Priesthood through the Tabernacle of Meeting”.
4. Start reading the Torah and observing the Sabbath (Acts 15:21).
5. Don’t let “leaders” rule over you in the assembly.
See article “Part 9: The Priesthood of All Believers” in the series “Restoring the Priesthood through the Tabernacle of Meeting”.
6. Stop eating pig! and any other unclean things.
7. Stop using the word “church” it’s an unscriptural pagan Greek construct. Use “gathering” or “assembly” and you’ll be getting back to the scriptures.
8. Map words back to the Hebrew in the Tanakh to define your terms, after all, the bible is a Hebrew book.
9. Use scripture to interpret scripture, steer well clear of man’s ideas.
10. Search out teachers who regularly teach from the Tanakh (the New Testament standard is that around 33% of any teaching should be Tanakh quotes or references). And don’t go to the rabbis for advice or practice as they have corrupted the scriptures at least as much as Constantine did.
Mat 23:15
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel land and sea to win one proselyte, and when he is won, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves. Woe to you, blind guides…
11. When studying the New Testament, check its writings and your interpretations of them against the Tanakh. They cannot contradict the Tanakh (the Bereans taught us this), if they do, your interpretation is wrong, scripture cannot contradict itself.
Shalom and God Bless.