Many people have their favorite translation of the Bible. My first Bible was a Revised Standard Version. I was twelve. After I received Messiah as Lord I invested in a King James Version, followed by a New American Standard and a New International Version. My shelves have Greek texts and Hebrew along with the Septuagint or Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament. There are copies of the Living Bible, the Amplified Bible, The English Standard Version, and the Message. I recently added the Complete Jewish Bible.
As I have studied I have learned that most people are unaware that they probably own an antisemitic version of the Bible, at least an antisemitic New Testament. It is not your fault. It is a choice of those who did the translation work for you. It is also my observation that the more contemporary the translation the more effort there is to remove the Jewishness of the Scriptures. This is especially true in most of our New Testaments. Could it be that the translators decided to deceive you as they considered how to interpret the Greek and Hebrew?
I understand the ongoing discussion over which texts are the most reliable. Some hold to the majority text, which in simplest terms means that as you look at the plethora of copies and partial texts of Scripture, what is the most common or found in the the majority of the texts is likely true. The reason being, the copies with errors would not have been recopied. The King James follows these texts. Most others lean on the oldest documents to likely be the more accurate. Even if the count was found to be one thousand to one, the one older is considered to be the most accurate one. This is true for the New International and English Standard Versions. The New American Standard compromises and includes the Majority Text differences, usually in parenthesis, with a footnote explaining that the older text may not have this phrase. At least that way you know there are groups of scholars holding to the different readings. However, all the English Versions seem to make a conscious effort to make the New Testament less Jewish.
The most obvious is the simple choice to change the names in the New Testament to sound more western. For example: Mariam becomes Mary, Simeon becomes Simon, Yacob (there is no "J" sound in Greek or Hebrew) becomes James, and Yonas becomes John. Seems like a small thing but the translators are inconsistent. Bar-Jonah is kept rather than Bar-John and Abraham is still Abraham. Just some of the dominate New Testament characters names are Westernized. If you are familiar with the Old Testament genealogies there are lots of challenging names we choose to translate. Some cause our Western tongues to do gymnastics to try to pronounce. So why do they change Jewish names in the New? Could it be that the translators want to distance the "church" from its Hebrew roots? Are they convinced that the time following Messiah is so different than the time before that odd translations need to be invoked to protect the reader from the reality of a Jewish New Testament?
Names are only the beginning. The effort to remove the evidence that Hebrew was the spoken language of the Jews in Palestine at the time of Yeshua is astounding. Older translations translate the word Hebrew accurately in reference to the spoken language but others choose to hide the truth in their translations of the New Testament. Some translators simply choose to be unfaithful to the Greek text in favor of their theological bias.The New International takes the prize, (with the English Standard Version taking a close second), to remove the evidence that Jesus (Yeshua) and the Jewish people spoke Hebrew.
The Greek word Hebrais, and its various forms, appears in the New Testament Scriptures about a dozen times. The accurate translation is the word "Hebrew". However when the word refers to the Hebrew language the NIV has mistranslated the word as "Aramaic". At least until you come to Revelation 9:11 and 16:16. After the "church age" is over and God is dealing with the Jews again the word is accurately translated "Hebrew" rather than "Aramaic". In Philippians 3:5 they do translate Hebrais as Hebrew but here it refers to Paul's nationality, not the language. In every other instance they translate the Greek word for Hebrew as Aramaic.
For example, in Acts 21:40 and 22:2, Paul is giving his defense before the Jewish people in Jerusalem. Luke tells us as they heard Paul speak in the Hebrew language they quieted down to listen. However, the NIV translates the word for Hebrew as Aramaic. This note is their justification, "Most likely aramaic rather than Hebrew since Aramaic was the most commonly used language among Palestinian Jews at the time" (NIV Study Bible pg 1689, Zondervan Publishers 1985). By volitional choice they have mistranslated the word.
Just a few questions. 1) How do you know? 2) If it was the most common language why are there no Gospel accounts or epistles written in Aramaic? 3) In Acts 21:40 & 22:2, why would the people grow quiet if Paul was speaking their most common language? 4) In Luke 4, Yeshua, quotes Isaiah 49:8-9 and 61:1-2. What language did he speak? It was Hebrew and the people understood well enough to be offended. 5) Why is there no evidence of literature, plays, sonnets, or poetry in Aramaic when there are in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek? Not to mention the ongoing practice of Bar Mitzvah where the young men had to learn, read and memorize Hebrew passages and the that the portions read in the Synagogues on the Sabbath were in Hebrew. Lastly, Many scholars suggest that Hebrew was a dying language, hence the need for the Septuagint or Greek Old Testament. They say it was due to the Hebrew language being in such little use it was no longer understood by the populous of Palestine. No ancient language has ever resurrected itself once it falls into disuse, yet, the Hebrew language is alive and well, even today. However, tradition and theological bias are more valuable that historic evidence and logic.
No one would argue that Yeshua (Jesus) was Jewish or that His mother Mariam (Mary) was Jewish. Few would disagree that the New Testament writers like Jacob (James), Jonas (John), and Judas (Jude - yes we have mistranslated this too as we don't want to confuse the traitor with the NT writer) were Jewish and most likely spoke Hebrew. Yet, their names are disguised to deny their Jewish heritage. Mariam's (Mary's) Magnificat in Luke 1 sounds pretty Jewish. The Old Testament scriptures are quoted and upheld through out the New Testament. So why the deceit? Ahhh, we are Western and Americans on top of that. The world and the universe revolve around us. Our view of the "church", and therefore the New Testament, has little to do with Judaism. So we translate God's Word to fit our agendas. We have mistranslated rather than face the Hebraic reality of who we are supposed to be.
This post just grazes the surface of what has been done to give us an antisemitic New Testament. So give some thought to your Hebrew roots. We will talk more of this soon. Oh, by the way, the Greek New Testament never says Yeshua rose on the first day of the week. But we will save that for another post. How is that for a future post tease?
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