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THE BIBLE IS NOT A JEWISH BOOK
Bertrand L. Comparet
Even those who should know better,
that we Christians owe a debt to the Jews, for we got our Bible and our religion
from them, commonly make the statement. While many people have been deceived
into believing this, it is completely false. Part of the mistake comes from the
complete confusion in the minds of nearly all people as to just what they mean
by Jew. Are they referring to people of a certain race, or referring to a people
of a certain religion, for the two are not the same. There are in Africa today,
some pure blooded Negroes who are Jews by religion and there are in China today,
some pure blooded Mongolians who are Jews by religion. Likewise, there are some
people today who are racially of the stock we know as Jews, but who have been
converted to other religions.
First let's consider the claim we got
our Bible and our religion from the Jews, as meaning Jews by religion. It
is certain we didn't get the New Testament from them, for it condemns the Jewish
religion throughout all the New Testament. But did we get the Old Testament from
them? No, for several reasons. In the first place, no Jew by religion existed
before the return from the Babylonian captivity, shortly after 536 B.C. Their
great historian Josephus writes, "So the Jews prepared the work. Jew is the
name they are called by from the day that they came up from Babylon." The
only books of the Old Testament that were written after the return from Babylon
are, Kings, Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah (all of them historical, rather than
doctrinal) Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi. In none of these do the Jews receive
anything but rebuke for their wickedness, for their apostasy from the religion
of the Old Testament. The late Rabbi Stephen F. Wise, formerly the Chief Rabbi
of the United States said, "The return from Babylon and the introduction of
the Babylonian Talmud mark the end of Hebrewism and the beginning of
Judaism."
The learned Rabbi was correct in
distinguishing the true religion of the Old Testament as Hebrewism, for it was
the religion of the real Hebrews, who were not Jews at all. Judaism, the
religion of the Jews, is as the learned Rabbi says, based upon the Babylonian
Talmud, which contains the supposed oral law. It was never reduced to writing as
part of the Bible. This oral law gradually gained greater force among the Jews
than the written law in the Bible, with which it often conflicted. In Yahshua's
day, the Babylonian Talmud was known as the Tradition of the Elders. This is why
Yahshua told the Jews:
"Well hath Esaias prophesied of
you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honoreth Me with their lips, but
their heart is far from Me. Howbeit, in vain do they worship Me, teaching for
doctrines the Commandments of men. For laying aside the commandments of Yahweh
that ye may keep your own tradition, * * making the word of God of none effect
through your tradition which ye have delivered." Mark 7:6-13.
"Ye do err, not knowing the
scriptures, nor the power of Yahweh."
Matthew 22:29
"Woe unto you, Scribes and
Pharisees, Hypocrites! For ye pay tithes of mint, anise and cumin and have
omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy and faith."
Matthew 23:23
This was the religion of the Jews. As
the learned Rabbi Stephen F. Wise said, Judaism, as distinguished from
Hebrewism, the real religion of the Old Testament. Certainly Christianity took
nothing from any Jewish religion for we have never taken any part of
Christianity from the Talmud. Naturally, the Jews didn't give us the New
Testament either, for it completely repudiates and condemns the Jewish religion
of the Talmud.
Can it be said we got our Bible or our
religion of Christianity from men of the Jewish race? No, it
cannot. I haven't the time in the remainder of this lesson to give the Bible
evidence in detail. I will have to reserve that for a later lesson. It can be
clearly proven, both out of the historical books of the Bible and out of the
only thorough history of the times written by one living when the facts were
still well known. Josephus' "Antiquities of the Jews", tells that the
Jews were a people distinct and separate from Yahweh's people Israel, although
living among them. The Jews were the Canaanite people who lived in Palestine,
before Israel entered the Promised Land and who were not driven out. These
Canaanite people, and the mixed offspring from intermarriage with the
Israelites, were allowed to remain in the land while paying heavy tribute taxes.
The prophets, who wrote the books of the Old Testament, were all of pure
Israelite stock, from one or another of the 12 tribes of Israel. Moses,
Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Habakkuk, Haggai and Zechariah were of the tribe of Levi.
Joshua and Samuel were of the tribe of Ephraim. Isaiah, Daniel and Zephaniah
were of the house of David, Jonah was of the tribe of Zebulun. Hosea was of the
tribe of Issachar.
When the Assyrians conquered and
deported the people of the ten northern tribes, the Bible records that the
Assyrians brought other people in from the Assyrian empire and settled them in
Samaria, in place of the Israelites they had deported. Samaria is only the
southern half of the territory occupied by these ten northern tribes. The
northern half was Galilee and this was left vacant. When the kingdom of Judah
was later deported to Babylon, for their seventy years captivity, their land was
left with very little population. While they were gone, the Edomites who were
descendants of Esau, mixed with Canaanite people, were forced out of their own
land by pressure of invading Arab tribes, and moved westward into the vacant
lands of Judah, occupying
That the apostles and the majority of
Christian converts came from the Benjaminites should not surprise us. When the
kingdom was split in two upon the death of Solomon, Yahweh said he would leave
Benjamin with Judah so that the house of David should have a light before them.
In the New Testament all of the apostles were of the tribe of Benjamin
except Judas Escariot, the only Jew among them. Judas came from the village of
Kerioth in southern Judea. Iscariot is a corruption of Ish Kerioth, man of
Kerioth. Paul tells us that he (Paul) was of the tribe of Benjamin and all the
other apostles except Judas Escariot were from Galilee where the tribe of
Benjamin settled after the return from Babylon.
Yahshua confirms this. In Matthew
15:24 He said, "I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house
of Israel". In John chapter 10 Yahshua tells the Jews, "I
am the good shepherd and know My sheep and am known of Mine. But ye believe not
because ye are not of My sheep, as I said unto you. My sheep hear My voice and I
know them and they follow Me." From the Savior's own lips we have the
proof that the Jews are not of the tribes of Israel. Note carefully that He does
not say that their unbelief keeps them from being of His sheep. He says the
exact opposite that the reason why they do not believe is that they are not of
His sheep, the house of Israel. Christianity and Judaism are completely and irreconcilably inconsistent. Whichever one is right, the other must be wrong for they mutually repudiate each other. A great part of Yahshua's reported words are his denunciation of the Jews for their religion, which He tells them is not that of the Old Testament. In John 5:46 Yahshua told them, "Had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed Me: for he wrote of Me." In Luke 16:31 Yahshua said, "If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead." He was right, He did rise from the dead, but to this day they are not persuaded. It is therefore clear, we did not get either our Bible or our Christian religion, either in whole or in part from those who were Jews, either by religion or by race. We owe them no debt, for they gave us nothing. |