The concept of religion was invented and administered from the most ancient civilization established on earth. Today, a plethora of religious dogmas rules the minds and hearts of most every community throughout the world. While so many religions have emerged from nonsensical fascinations with natural or demonic phenomena, three that share claim to the same ‘father’ demand world-wide attention.
Islam evolved quickly from the aspirations of a neglected merchant-turned pirate into a violently suppressive cult with instructions to annihilate or otherwise subjugate particularly Jews and Christians. A few centuries prior to Islam, Christianity was taking shape primarily within the Roman Empire from which it was foisted upon what has become Europe. Some centuries before this, Judaism had been devised by the likes of Rabi Akiba and Maimonides utilizing Talmudic philosophy to obscure the instructions, requirements, commands and rules that make up the foundation shared by each of these religions.
Within each of these three is found a range of convictions that are not even reconcilable. Conflicting persuasions and interpretations have resulted in multiple branches of Judaism, Islam and especially Christianity. Manuscripts handed down or discovered in various states of preservation form fundamental concepts and supposedly reveal what the Almighty One desires as described therein. Anyone examining original documents as recorded by the prophets of old would certainly comprehend the clearly communicated message from God. Unfortunately, such primary sources are lost to antiquity.
Before any defining determinations may be made from any available Christian text, the acknowledgement must be made that copying over and over negatively affected the transmission. Then translating from Hebrew to Greek and then from Greek to Latin and then from Latin back into Greek and translating this Greek into English compounded with continued, multiple copying – often by fatigued or simply biased men, has produced a minefield of inaccuracies at best and a complete fairy tale at worst.
The compilation of collected writings that make up the Qur’an and associated works is utterly laughable and not worthy of publication by any rational person and so will not be addressed further. Judaism is so heavily influenced by Talmud, Mishnah and Kabbalah that little of Torah is evident in the religion. Christianity fails to recognize the obvious discrepancies that plague their New Testament. A literary labyrinth has been erected but made to appear as smooth pavement leading to salvation. Many Christians will protest that a single error may be found in their scriptures (that include the NT). Most will emphatically insist that, “God’s word is inerrant.” And certainly any message communicated by the Almighty is perfect. The record we have today simply is not a pure reflection of that message. Statements to the effect that knowledge and understanding of YHWH are obtained only by diligent and persistent examination of available resources include the following.
But from there you shall seek Yahweh your God, and you shall find him, when you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul. (Deuteronomy 4:29 WEB)
You shall seek me, and find me, when you shall search for me with all your heart. (Jeremiah 29:13 WEB)
I love those who love me. Those who seek me diligently will find me. (Proverbs 8:17 WEB)
Blessed are those who keep his statutes, who seek him with their whole heart. (Psalm 119:2 WEB) … With my whole heart, I have sought you. Don’t let me wander from your commandments. (Psalm 119:10 WEB)
Such intense scrutiny of information involved in so thorough a quest is necessary because of the efforts to conceal or otherwise convolute that pure message describing YHWH and the redemption and reconciliation He will accomplish. And although Christians certainly engaged in the deluding process to effectively seduce masses of devotees from their pagan religion to a Universal Church, the origin of corruption lies with the very recipients of God’s word, the chosen ones themselves. As Moshe declared, “Remember, you shall not forget that you provoked YHWH your God in the desert. From the day that you went out from the land of Egypt (Mitzrayim) until arriving at this place, you are rebelling against YHWH.” The prophets and historical writings testify of this continued condition.
From Jeremiah, “How long will you lie, you who plan to cause My name to be forgotten by My people just as their ancestors forgot My name for Baal?” And also, “… you twist the words of the living God, YHWH of hosts, our God.” (Jer 23 paraphrased).
From Amos against Judah, “because they have rejected the Torah of YHWH and have not guarded his rules, and their lies have led them astray, as with their ancestors.”
From Malachi, “From the days of your ancestors you have turned aside from my rules, and have not guarded them.”
From Zephaniah, “Her prophets are fickle, treacherous men; her priests profane what is set apart; they do violence to (butcher) the Torah.”
From Ezekiel, “Her priests have done violence to (butchered) My Torah and have profaned My set apart things. They have made no distinction between set-apart and common, neither have they taught the difference between the unclean and the clean, and they have disregarded My Sabbaths, so that I am profaned among them.”
With a few relatively brief exceptions, the prevailing trend of adherence to Yah’s instructions has shown rebellion even to this day. Torah observance among Jews is constricted by Talmud which has its origin in Babylon where religion itself was conceived. Differences in Masoretic and DSS manuscripts demonstrate an effort to add to, subtract from or otherwise alter words, phrases and concepts conveyed in the scriptures. Over time, a minor addition/subtraction here or there apparently became twisting and butchering. Many people are prone to express aggravation with a Hollywood director who “butchers” a beautiful story when presenting it on the big screen with a personalized flair. Few bother to notice that the “Greatest Story Ever Told” has been tainted by many editors over many centuries. “You shall seek Me and find Me when you shall search for Me with all your heart.”
Adding insult to injury, Christians merged conflicting stories in their NT to put an end once and for all to any notion that YHWH actually meant what He said about all those instructions, requirements, rules and commands, all the while claiming to honor the Almighty whose very name they refuse to acknowledge. The amalgamation of virtually every pagan religion associated with sun and moon worship caste into a new Judeo-Christian mold produced the “Christ” story. Never mind that Yah agreed to raise up a prophet who would deliver the same message that Moshe’s audience refused to hear from YHWH Himself. That prophet did indeed promote adherence to Torah even stating unequivocally that nothing of Torah will be diminished by any means while heaven and earth remain. He also said that anyone who will not listen to Moshe will not listen to someone raised from the dead. He also said that he never knew those with no regard for Torah. He also said that he has come in the name of Yahowah and people do not receive him but they will receive another who comes in his own name. Christians of course erased the prophet’s Hebrew name (which incorporates Yah and salvation) and then wrote in a Greek substitute that was also erased and replaced around 1600 years later with “Jesus” which is fabricated and meaningless … as well as utterly powerless.
By far, the worst offense has been persuading masses to refrain from questioning him whose name means “to question” until the lie was repeated or disguised enough to become free from doubt regardless of inconsistencies. Most Christians praise the name of “Jesus” while blatantly ignoring most everything written of his teaching. Oblivious to the pagan relics that saturate their religion, they revere Sha’ul who apparently preferred the Greek Paulos, aka: Paul. Indeed, the one coming in his own name has stolen the show. The instructions, requirements, commands and rules that Yah delivered so that His chosen might learn how to conduct themselves as His set-apart people have been contorted into a reprehensible and impossibly arduous “law”.
Still, a few choose to question religion for what it is and discover a way of living consistent with the instructions that describe God’s standards. Few are chosen because few find the way. The first step in discovering the way to God is acknowledging that it has been cleverly concealed. “And what does Yah require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” Time is short. Get off your knees and start walking.
just 1author to consult regarding textual criticism: Bart Ehrman
Just 1pilgrimhere 
Your assertions about corrupted Scriptures is a common complaint that’s been made and answered many times. Typically, though, no examples are given. Perhaps you could give good evidences of the corruption of Scripture. (If you quote Ehrman, I do hope you’ll also consider the many responses made to him.)
Thank you, Mr. Wade for the honor of your visit to my blog. Rest assured that comments reflecting my disdain for religion are in no way intended to insult your intelligence or demean your character. Corresponding with you is my privilege and delight. I do hope to present a challenge worthy of your capacity. Should we engage in dialogue resembling a debate, I have no intention of proving myself right in an argument. My objective is simply to promote scrutiny that results in knowledge and understanding.
In as much as I do not hesitate to reference Ehrman, I also refer to Philip Comfort among others for textual criticism. From Comfort’s Text of the Earliest New Testament Greek Manuscripts: “This book provides transcriptions of sixty – nine of the earliest New Testament manuscripts . All of the manuscripts are dated from the early second century to the beginning of the fourth (A.D. 100 – 300). We chose A.D. 300 as our terminus da quem because New Testament manuscript production changed radically after the persecution under Diocletian (A.D. 303 – 305) and especially after Constantine declared Christianity to be a legal religion in the empire.” There is no avoiding the fact that autographs are lost to antiquity, variances among extant Greek manuscripts are alarmingly enormous and transmission errors include both negligent and deliberate amendments. I have not read counter-arguments to Ehrman, but I have listened to as many debates with him as I have found, only to be perplexingly disappointed with the Christian representation.
With regard to Hebrew, no other language is capable of so effectively communicating the fullness of God’s message. The earliest pictographic conveys entire statements within individual words which provides valuable insight. The timeless nature of Hebrew also distinguishes it as a remarkably prophetic language. Hebrew script evolution exhibits drastic modification that identifies at least one method of obscuring God’s words. The Babylonian influenced script that Modern Hebrew is based on facilitates confusion and potential manipulation as several symbols are easily mistaken for one another especially in time-worn manuscripts. Then the Masoretes introduced a system of pronunciation (niquwd) whereby they could determine the “actual” terms when other viable options rendered a different statement altogether. There have always been 5 distinct vowels among the Hebrew script, 3 of which comprise God’s name. After the Day of Yahowah (ee-ah-ow-ah), the unadulterated language of God will be restored to remove deceit and specifically so that the few remaining, the meek who shall inherit the land, may call upon Yahowah’s name and take refuge therein. (Zeph 3:8-13) Incidentally, both Christians and Jews refuse to acknowledge Yahowah by name.
The apparent corruption of scripture is presented as support for my main premise that God’s teaching, requirements, rules and commands have been discarded and displaced by religious doctrines that God has never described at any time by any means. Your call for evidence is easily answered. I will attach a pdf to this blog for your review. Brevity will be impractical as a lie told in few words may require many to refute. Please be aware that although I will include examples of corrupted Greek texts, I do not regard NT content as scripture. Outside of Revelation, inspiration is not even remotely insinuated internally. And of course, Paul who defies God’s message was demonstrably a false prophet.
I have to wonder why your request for evidence both suggests that there is none and trivializes the travesty. The failure to preserve God’s word for posterity is not my assertion. Yahowah, himself has repeatedly addressed this inevitability with warnings and consequences. I included a sample of statements to that effect. Arguing against scripture’s corruption is with God, not man and certainly not me. (Jer 8:8) With all due respect, I regard your response as nothing short of a straw man considering my accusations leveled against Christianity which are not addressed.
https://1pilgrimhere.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/evidences1.pdf.
Given that you aren’t interested in debate, I hardly know how to respond since I disagree with your position. I’ll just make two points and leave a couple of links for you (or other readers) to follow, if you’d like.
First, that there are many variants isn’t evidence of an untrustworthy text, given that the vast majority of them are inconsequential (spellings and such). Like you, I have to quote others more knowledgeable than myself about such things, which is why I will add a couple of links at the bottom.
Second, whether Hebrew is the best language to communicate the fullness of God’s message is surely a debatable point. I don’t know that one can say one language is better than another. The characteristics of Hebrew and Greek enable them to do different things. Hebrew is better at the narrative, whereas Greek is better with ideas and doctrine. I have never studied Hebrew, so I have to take my understanding of the character of Hebrew from others who have and from my own reading of the Old Testament. It is a good language for history. Greek, which I have studied, is good for precise terminology and thought. There is nothing like Romans, for example, in the Old Testament.
Third, a few other details. Christians do call God by name, whether God, Yahweh, or Jehovah. Your claim that Paul is demonstrably a false prophet is quite surprising. I’d be delighted to see your reasoning behind that claim. And, yes, inspiration is more than remotely claimed in the NT. It is claimed explicitly in 2 Timothy 3:16, and Peter elevates Paul’s writings to the level of Scripture (the Old Testament) in 2 Peter 3:15,16.
Conservative scholars have been answering the charge of a corrupt text for a long time. Bart Ehrman is the prominent spokesman today for an untrustworthy text. He has been responded to a number of times.You can find such responses easily on the Web. An early response to Ehrman by Dan Wallace, who has debated Ehrman several times, is ‘The Gospel According to Bart. It can be found here: https://bible.org/article/gospel-according-bart. Wallace’s book, Revisiting the Corruption of the New Testament: Manuscript, Patristic, and Apocryphal Evidence, was published in 2011 and is available on Amazon.com.
Just one more link regarding a response to Ehrman, this one an excerpt from the book The Heresy of Orthodoxy, by Köstenberger and Kruger. The article is titled, “Tampering with the Text: Was the New Testament Text Changed Along the Way?” (part 1). It begins here: http://www.crosswalk.com/11635313/
I will read the article you linked as soon as I am able.
Actually, I am happy to debate with you sir. What I failed to communicate is that my approach to debate is not to prove that, “you’re wrong and I’m right”. Rather, as there is virtually no hope in persuading you with evidence that Christianity is a fallacy, I only hope that you will examine closely the questions, statements and evidence presented so that perhaps you may come to know and understand God’s message as opposed to simply believing Paul’s religion. The central deception is ancient but cleverly introduced to gentiles by the likes of Paul and Marcion before being further modified over many centuries by others such as Luther. The resultant Christian rendition declares that Yahowah’s teaching, requirements, rules and commands are collectively a “curse” and “taskmaster” that are not capable of restoring life. But rather, salvation comes from simply believing that God himself was born from a virgin and died on a cross and then after reviving the dead body, assaulted a Roman Pharisee from Tarsus in the wilderness with blindness, thereafter revealing a strange new religion (only it wasn’t strange and new to the Greco-Roman pagans) unheard of and antithetical to anything and everything God has ever communicated to his chosen people including “NT” disciples. Either Paul is right and God reneged on his promises, or Yahowah meant what he said and will accomplish exactly what he promised and warned.
Many variants may well be a trivial matter. Excessive (300,000+) variants that include blatant additions and distortions demand attention at the very least. Chalking it all up to insignificant spelling mistakes here and there is intellectually negligent. “Searching with your whole heart” requires considerable effort. Regardless, corruption of God’s message is not my argument. Yahowah has made that case many times to successive generations of his people. If conservative scholars have been refuting God in this matter for a long time, I would avoid them at all cost. They ought to be answering God rather than Bart Ehrman. I do not espouse the conclusions of Ehrman nor practically any scholar, theologian or pundit. I examine research and compare an author’s remarks to God’s declarations for consistency. If there is a divergence, I choose Yah. I verify material that I cite or otherwise provide as evidence using several resources within the Logos Original Languages library. Some points made by the author I generally cite for translation (who prefers some anonymity as an expose of Islam has resulted in threats to his life) do not coincide with my own convictions.
I will read the articles you’ve linked but will not divert my argument from ‘Christianity is a fallacy’ to ‘Bart is a fringe agnostic extremist’. His persuasions are inconsequential to me outside of his commonly accepted research and factual analysis of documents. Any intelligent person can distinguish fact from opinion. “Those who argue that they (variants) don’t matter either are trying to provide comfort to those who might be disturbed by learning the historical facts, or are fooling themselves.” is Bart’s opinion. “Jesus taught his followers to keep the law as God had commanded in order to enter the kingdom. Paul taught that keeping the law had nothing to do with entering the kingdom.” is his verifiably accurate analysis.
Within Christianity, the Sacred Name and Hebrew Roots movements among some others adamantly profess God’s name as Yahweh or Yahuwah. A few song writers have interjected Yahweh, and scant Christians may mention something about Yahweh or Jehovah at times. Nevertheless, all popular bibles decisively omit God’s name around 7000 times, the Catholic authority forbids the articulation of God’s name in their liturgy, your own inclusion of “God” as (one of God’s names?)a name rather than a title and “Jehovah” which incorporates a sound and letter (J) absent from any vernacular until the late 16th/early 17th century supports my statement. Also, “Yahweh” appears as nothing more than scattered outliers in Christian terminology. Therefore, statistically speaking, Christians do not acknowledge God by his name. “The Lord” (haBaal) unreservedly dominates Christians’ reference to Yahowah.
Above and beyond all marvels of anatomy, geology and cosmology, Yahowah proves himself by one simple device – describing future events as though retelling the past (Is 46:10). Referring to this device, Yah warned about false prophets who speak presumptuously (Dt 18:22). Paul declared only a single prophecy for his audience to anticipate. Christians refer to that as the rapture or second coming but fail to notice the time frame indicated. As you have pointed out that Greek is good for precise terminology and thought, let’s examine what Paul clearly predicted in 1Thes 4:17. Having studied Greek, you must be aware that “I” and “we” are amended to verbs and are not necessary as independent terms. Paul chose here to include hemeis (G2249 plural of G1473) which is only used for emphasis in describing who would be violently snatched up into the clouds. The terms immediately following, zao and perileipomai, are also present tense which further indicates inclusion of Paul himself in his prophesy. Hemeis is not necessary and if absent might validate the Christian interpretation. As scribed, Paul inserted a time frame for the event to occur in his lifetime … which it did not. He spoke presumptuously. You may argue that Paul actually meant some future generation, but as you know, Greek is a precise language.
The writing styles of 1 and 2 Peter are drastically different, prompting suspicion among scholars that one may be forged. Given that Simon Peter (Shim’own Kephas) wrote the 2nd letter, an examination of the Greek text reveals rivalry rather than praise for Paul. The pdf attached to this blog meticulously exposes the Christian lie that “Peter affirmed Paul”. Your reference to internal evidence of NT inspiration addresses only Paul’s works. One need only read God’s words and compare with Paul’s to determine they are not of the same mind. Among NT works not attributed to Paul wherein material consistent with God’s message may be gleaned, no inspiration is claimed or implied other than Revelation.
Asserting NT inspiration and that the English Bibles published today accurately convey God’s message in the NT assumes that those powerful politicians who battled fiercely over their preferences for canon were righteous. Historical records of their interaction indicate otherwise. Constantine’s own commemorative arch displays not a single Christian emblem but does depict 2 or 3 pagan gods. And how is it that Christians don’t bother to ask “why” NT manuscript production was “changed radically … especially after Constantine” as attested by Comfort?
Click to access peter-paul-rivalry1.pdf
Additional dialogue with Mr. Wade may be found in https://1pilgrimhere.wordpress.com/to-there/ under his blog post, “Enough Already”.