By Pastor Don Elmore
The Bible has a lot of mistranslations that cause a lot of confusion. The Hebrew and Greek translations have a significantly fewer mistranslations that the English translations. But even with the mistranslations, their remains MANY unasked questions; I will just ask three.
QUESTION 1
The mainstream world believes that all the world can be divided into two main peoples: Jews and Gentiles or Greeks (all non-Jews). But this is a major error. In the King James Bible, for example, which is one of the oldest English translations, the word "Jew"/"Jews" does not appear in the Bible until 2 Kings 16:6. This talks about the battle between Syria and Israel against Judah. In the first part of verse six it says: "At that time Rezin king of Syria recovered Elath to Syria and drave the JEWS from Elath:..." Who do the Jews refer to? The king of Syria, Rezin, who was fighting alongside the House of Israel drove out the kingdom of Judah from the town of Elath?
In the Old Testament scriptures: The word "Jew"/"Jews" is found in only 7 Old Testament books; all after 2 Kings 16:6. This means that everyone before 2 Kings 16:6--Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Aaron, David, Caleb, Joshua, Solomon, Saul, Rehoboam, etc. were not called Jew or Jews in the Bible.
Three Old Testament books contain the word "Jew":
- Ezra -- 8 times
- Jeremiah -- 1 time
- Zechariah -- 1 times
Six Old Testament books contain the word "Jews":
- 2 Kings -- 2 times
- Ezra -- 8 times
- Nehemiah -- 10 times
- Esther -- 43 times
- Jeremiah -- 9 times
- Daniel -- 2 times
In most, in not all, of these references, Jew or Jews is wrongly applied to the Southern kingdom of Judah; but NEVER to the Northern kingdom of Israel. This is the kingdom that the prophet Hosea says would be "scattered", would "not God's people" and "would no longer have God's mercy"--they would be divorced; cut of from the covenant and would be without God in the world. But he also says that they would not be forgotten by our GOD, but would once again the people of God.
QUESTION 2:
My question: If all the peoples of the earth can be divided into only two categorys: Jew of Gentile--what about the "10 tribes of Israel"? Are they Jews or Gentiles?
The book of Esther ends with the salvation of the Jews by a mighty victory where the Jews snatched victory out of the hands of a certain defeat. In Esther 9:27 it reads: "The Jews ordained, and took upon them, and upon their seed, and upon all that joined themselves unto them, so as it should not fail, that they would keep these two days according to their appointed time every year." These two days are called "Purim."
Today, the Jews keep this special day in a most ungodly manner. They love it. They drink alcohol and read this story in Esther until they are so drunk that they are confused as to who to cheer and who to hiss! What animal hisses?
My Question: If the Jews are part of the covenant seed and we are too, then why is that I never see any white people keep Purim, only Jews?
QUESTION 3:
Jacob/Israel, on his death bed (Genesis 48), made his blessing with Joseph's two sons; the birthright blessing to Ephraim and the special blessing to Manasseh. He gave the birthright to Joseph's younger son and the special blessing to the older which Joseph argued with his blind father:
"And Joseph said unto his father, Not so, my father: for this is the firstborn; put thy right hand upon his head. And his father refused, and said, I know it, my son, I know it: he [Manasseh] also shall become a people, and he also shall be great: but truly his younger brother [Ephraim] shall be greater than he, and his seed shall become a multitude of nations."
My Question: Who were the multitude of nations that the seed of Ephraim was to become and who was the great nation that the seed of Manasseh was to become? The mainstream churches totally ignore this question--for it has great importance in understanding to whom the gospel message was sent.