DO JEWS BELIEVE IN THE “OLD TESTAMENT?” ― NO WAY!

Hugh Fogelman

 

 

Rabbis, Sages, and learned Jews refer to the Jewish Bible as the “Hebrew Bible,”―the Tanakh―not the "Old Testament." 

 

The words Old Testament imply “Superceded Covenant” as “New Testament” implies a covenant that replaced a previous one. Paul claimed the “old covenant” with God is no more, “In that he [G-d] saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away.” (Hebrews 8:13)  Paul, WHO NEVER MET JESUS, was misquoting the prophet Jeremiah: "Behold, the days come, said the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers." (Jeremiah 31:31)  Again Christianity used only one sentence of the original Hebrew verse. It made no difference that the prophet was meaning something completely different. 

 

Christians believe that anytime a prophet uses the word will, implying the future, it automatically means Jesus. Christians do not use logic, such as why didn't Paul mention the following verses in Jeremiah: "This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, I will put My laws into their inward parts and write it in their hearts and I will be their God and they shall be My people. And they shall not have to teach anyone about God because they shall all know Me and I will forgive their iniquities, I will remember their sin no more" (Jeremiah 31:32-34).

 

Why did Paul make it a secret of what exactly the new covenant was going to be?  Very simple, it would have made his message meaningless. There was not going to be a new covenant.  Jeremiah clearly says that it will be a renewal of the old covenant. Where does it say God told Jeremiah that the Torah was "waxed old and ready to vanish away"?  These are only Paul's thoughts and words.  A close examination of these verses show that the new covenant is none other than a renewal of the old covenant of law with one innovation, that the law is now to become an internal part of Israel's consciousness rather than something imposed externally.

 

Notice that God told Jeremiah that once remission is done, there will be no more sin offering. Paul couldn't tell the Hebrews that all they had to do was to follow the Law and repent. Why? Because that would not have been the "new religion." Why didn't Paul quote the previous verse when Jeremiah said: "But every one shall die for his own iniquity" (Jeremiah 31:29)? Why? Because Jesus would not have had to die. And that was the whole concept of Paul's new religion called Christianity.

 

The “Old Testament” is a Christian book based on a Greek translation of the Hebrew. Even though the Greeks translated most of the Hebrew text correctly, there are just too many instances where the Greeks couldn’t find the exact word in Greek to make their translation trustworthy.  The World Book Encyclopedia says the Septuagint is the oldest Greek Bible written in 250 BCE.   Septuagint comes from a Latin word meaning 70. Webster's Dictionary says the Hebrew Bible, was translated into Greek in 70 or 72 days by 72 Palestinian Jews for Ptolemy II, King of Egypt several centuries BCE. This in not correct.   Only the Torah” (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) portion of the Hebrew Bible was translated by the Hebrew Sages. The rest of the Hebrew Bible, the “Writings” (Nevi'im) and the “Prophets”(Kethuvim) were translated by the pagan Greeks.

 

The Christian NIV Study Bible says that Jeremiah's Verse 31 is actually quoted incorrectly. The NIV states that this verse contains the only Old Testament use of the phrase "new covenant," which has come down to us, via another Latin translation as "new testament," the name that would later be applied to the distinctively Christian part of the biblical canon. Again, there was no new covenant―just a renewal of the previous covenant―no New Testament, therefore, no Old Testament. This is just another Christian misinterpretation.

 

When the Early Church translated the New Testament from the Greek interpretation, anything that could be construed to have two meanings, no matter how far-fetched, was interpreted to apply to Jesus by simply altering a word here and there.  By comparing the Hebrew Bible to the Christian Bible, you can see the word-play. When Christianity became the religion of the Roman world, Latin-speaking clergymen soon put the Greek Bible into their own language, and in 405 CE, a famous early church father named Jerome revised the Latin translation and called the new Bible, the "Vulgate." This early Roman-Catholic version was translated into an English version called the "Douay" in 1582.  Martin Luther brought out his version of the Bible in 1534. There are now nearly 250 complete translations of the Bible and 1,130 Christian translations of parts of it. BUT, THERE IS ONLY ONE ORIGINAL BIBLE, The Hebrew Bible, and it has not been replaced.

 

As the world learned from Hitler, if you tell lies over and over again, soon those lies are accepted as truths.

 

Just look at any modern dictionary. There are so many new words, new meanings, and new concepts – many using bad English or cuss words – that have been accepted today ONLY because it had been used by many. The useage does not take into account whether the word is proper or not, or if it is bad English, going against what had been taught in schools for so many years. If you use bad English long enough, it becomes accepted. By having Jews and Noahides accept the term “Old Testament” and smile or wink at those who say it – they were condoning the lie that Paul started.

 

Read any newspaper ads or listen to any TV advertising. Do any of these ads claim their OLD product is better than the NEW improved product? Of course not! The advertisers know that the “new” ALWAYS replaced the “old”.

 

The Hebrew Bible should never be referred to as the "Old Testament (OT)." That term is derogatory. OT should be read as: "Only Testament," or “Original Text”, because there is only one authentic "testament" from G-d, and that is the text known as the Torah – the SOURCE. The entire theme in the New Testament is to make the “old” scriptures, the Jewish Bible obsolete by claiming that God replaced His old covenant with a New one, the Christian one!

 

Hebrew is referred to as Leshon HaKodesh, meaning THE HOLY TONGUE, implying it was the language that God chose to compose the Torah.

 

Jews know that when Churches use the words “Old Testament,” it really is a put-down of Judaism and a subtle form of Anti-Semitism.

 

 


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