Against the Judaizers

The Original Language of the Scriptures Is Greek

Adam and Eve were the first Christians. Adam first, when he heard the protoevangelium and believed, and Eve second, when Adam explained to her what God had promised, and she, too, believed. The first Christians were neither Jewish, formerly Jewish, nor descended from Abraham or Jacob (Israel). There has never been such a thing as a ‘Jewish Christian’, for these — Judaism and Christianity — are opposed religions; the one claims that Jesus Christ is the only-begotten Son of the Father, very God of very God, and the promised Savior of the world; the other rejects Christ and teaches that He is boiling in feces for eternity as punishment for misleading ‘Israel’. Between these two religions, there exists no commonality, no common ground, and neither brotherhood nor amity — only enmity eternal.

The foregoing is the necessary background and context for the balance of this article — and particularly so for the third argument. There exists no such thing as ‘the Hebrew Scriptures’ — the original language of Scripture is Greek, of which many translations exist. I will advance four arguments in support of this: First, Hebrew was never a written language until relatively recently (after the LXX, at any rate), and so could not, in fact, be used to produce scripture^[1]; second, Scripture exists first and foremost in the mind of God, and it is His approval alone that makes scripturae into Scriptures; third, the supposed ‘Hebrew Scriptures’ were maintained and, in fact, written by faithless, blasphemous Jews who denied Christ and therefore must not be trusted by Christians; and, fourth, the Church used the LXX for centuries and held it to be Scripture, and the weight of universal and long-held tradition should neither be discounted nor ignored.

It will come as a surprise to some, but Hebrew was never historically a written language. There are certain necessary minimums that a system must fulfill to attain the level of “written language” — neither Hebrew nor the hobo code^[2] reaches this level. Ancient Hebrew has no vowels when written. In fact, it was the Masoretes who developed the system of vowel pointing, which never became widespread until Hebrew was revived in the 1800s (after dying out completely). Written Hebrew still does not have vowels, but merely ‘vowel markers’ — scribbles attached to actual letters. As an illustration of the problem this presents, let us say I gave you two slips of paper — one with “N” on it and the other with “NN” on it — and then told you to figure out which words are meant (you may add any number of vowels). Is the first one in, an, on, or some other word? Is the second neon, inane, nana, Anna, onion, anion, or some other word? The percentage of the average word that is comprised of vowels varies from one language to the next (approximately forty percent for English, thirty-eight percent for German, forty-five percent for French, and forty to fifty percent for Hebrew). Is a system that fails to account for essentially half of a language truly a written form of that language? The answer must be no.

The writing system used to represent (some of) Ancient Hebrew was less a written language and more a system of notes to stand alongside and aid the oral transmission of God’s Word. The priests in Ancient Israel were not an optional part of the system — they were necessary for the transmission of God’s Word in Hebrew —, but there have been no priests save the one true High Priest since the Temple veil was rent in two when Christ died. Without the priestly system, there can be no trustworthy transmission of the Word orally. Thankfully, God planned for this and caused His Word to be recorded in Greek nearly three centuries before the birth of Christ. The Scriptures (i.e., the written Word of God) were never Hebrew, but always Greek. The written Hebrew contains the Word of God, after a fashion, but the written Greek is the Word of God. Christians should never settle for an unreliable summary when the full text is available (and in an actual language).

Some may object that the Hebrew texts are older and we should defer to the older texts. This, however, is not true. The Greek texts (i.e., the Septuagint) are, in fact, older. The LXX dates to the third century BC; the MT dates to the tenth century AD. More in this vein, infra. More saliently, the Scriptures exist first and foremost in the mind of God. This is a vitally important point.

The Scriptures, as written, are the work of men who were inspired by God. Such inspiration rises to the level whereat the Scriptures can truly be called the Word of God. The Hebrew, as faithfully orally transmitted, was the Word of God; the Greek, as faithfully transmitted, is the Word of God; both were/are (respectively) faithful manifestations of the Word as it originally and truly exists in the mind of God. Any faithful translation of the Greek is the Word of God, and this would include a translation into Hebrew. God caused the translation into Greek because He knew that the Jews would not remain faithful and in order to facilitate additional, future translations^[3]. The Greek is the Word of God. The Greek has been faithfully transmitted — the Hebrew has not.

As already stated, supra, the Hebrew was committed to writing using a newly devised system centuries after Christ’s earthly ministry, death, resurrection, and ascension, but even more relevant is who did this committing to writing. The Masoretes were a sect of Jewish scholars. This is, of course, noteworthy, because it means they all rejected Christ; not one man among the Masoretes had the Holy Spirit. Every Masorete was a wicked, blasphemous, apostate Jew; no Christian should trust anything from the hands of such men — least of all what they assert is a ‘faithful’ transmission of God’s Word. This is all the more true as it can be shown definitively that the Masoretes ‘edited’ Scripture, generally to remove prophecies clearly fulfilled by Christ. Is the MT still largely true to God’s Word? Yes; it seems God limited the wickedness of these particular Jews, but only a fool would use such a manifestly modified (read: corrupted) text when a superior and faithful one is not only readily available, but is also the version used for centuries by the Church and quoted by Christ and the Apostles. Demons quote Scripture, but only a fool would trust the word of a demon instead of referring directly to the Word of God on the matter. God has given His stamp of approval to the LXX — not to the MT.

And we should not lightly esteem tradition. Our forefathers in the faith were not fools — they were good Christian men who built faithful Christian nations and maintained faithful Christian societies, and they did this using the LXX as their foundation. It was only when scholars in their arrogance, naiveté, and foolishness wished to flaunt their supposed learnedness with regard to the Hebrew ‘language’ that the MT entered use in the schools, monasteries, and churches^[4]; worse, these men even went so far as to consult with rabbis. Why would any Christian man ever consult with the Christ-killers about matters of the faith? No Jew has the Holy Spirit, and Scripture is a closed book^[5] to those without faith in Christ. What fellowship has light — the Christian, the Church — with darkness — the Jew, the synagogue?

We should follow our Christian forefathers in using the Greek as the exclusive foundation for our translations. Not only is the Greek a gift from God to the world — particularly to the White European world^[6] — but it is also demonstrably faithful, contrary to the Hebrew, which is demonstrably unfaithful, even if not entirely faithless. God wrought a miracle with the seventy-two translators who produced the LXX; our forefathers recognized this and the Church long celebrated it. We would not even treat a secular author so poorly as to consider authoritative supposed manuscripts of his work presented by his adversaries. Why do we do so with God and Scripture?

Martin Luther died at the age of sixty-two, leaving much work undone. This is not to minimize and certainly not to denigrate his work — for few men have ever risen to that level; rather, it is to recognize that the Reformation, while begun and zealously pursued by Luther, the great Teacher of the Church, was not finished by him or even by his contemporaries — there remains work to be done. Over a course of centuries, Jews crept into the Church and corrupted all they touched, and credulous or naive or wicked men all too often facilitated this corruption. It falls to us to remove every last vestige of the pernicious influence of the blasphemous, wicked, Christ-killing Jews. Let us begin by restoring the actual Word of God — the Greek and that which has been translated from it — and erasing the counterfeits of the Jews along with their progeny.

πᾶσα γραφὴ θεόπνευστος καὶ ὠφέλιμος πρὸς διδασκαλίαν, πρὸς ἐλεγμόν, πρὸς ἐπανόρθωσιν, πρὸς παιδείαν τὴν ἐν δικαιοσύνῃ, ἵνα ἄρτιος ᾖ ὁ τοῦ θεοῦ ἄνθρωπος, πρὸς πᾶν ἔργον ἀγαθὸν ἐξηρτισμένος.
— Πρὸς Τιμόθεον βʹ 3:16

Denn alle Schrift, von Gott eingegeben, ist nütze zur Lehre, zur Strafe, zur Besserung, zur Züchtigung in der Gerechtigkeit, daß ein Mensch Gottes sei vollkommen, zu allem guten Werk geschickt.
— 2 Timotheusbrief 3:16

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
— 2 Timothy 3:16 (ESV)