THE BIBLE
HOW GREECE FAILED GOD
Get this clear. The modern phenomena of believers walking to church with a bible and studying it at home is an Evangelical and Protestant freedom and idea, the Orthodox Church never had it, or tried to achieve it. They opposed it. They never even put together a proper bible until 300 years after the Reformation, and even then it was not properly accurate.
Racism
Do you really think it is a coincidence that Rome translated their bibles primarily from Latin manuscripts, and the Greeks primarily used the LXX Greek to translate the old testament? That on its own makes them fake bibles. They are racist fake bibles.
The Jews became very racist, and taught a Calvinistic type heresy that the Jews were "chosen for salvation" as if God was not saving millions of Gentiles in the Old Covenant. In fact God chose Israel as a witness of salvation, and they were often reluctant even to do that, as the story of Jonah shows. The story of the saving of the entire Nineveh is the biggest revival story in human history! Yet Jonah would not go to the city even under orders from God, so little regard for the souls in Nineveh he had! Even after he was swallowed by the great fish and spat out he despised the Ninevites and apparently he walked into the city, gave a short prophecy of their overthrow if they did not repent. Then he walked out. When they repented Jonah went further. He was thunderstruck and did not like that he had been used by God to help bring about a revival, and sat and sulked under a plant. God then killed the plant that shaded Jonah, and Jonah was more sorry for the plant than he was about the fate of the people in the city, or as God with subtilty points out in the Book of Jonah, even the animals! So we see the Jews were chosen as a witness to the nations! God even used unsaved Nebuchadnezzar to send a letter of Evangelism to honour the God of Daniel. He even used the hard heart of Pharaoh to display his power with the 10 Plagues of Egypt, thus few seem to recall many Gentiles left with Moses to go through the Red Sea, not just the people of Israel. This kind of self sanctified racism plagued the Jews throughout their history. If you read the Jewish Talmud for instance it said in their law if you tie up a Gentile and he dies of thirst you never killed him, because he was "just a Goy". Some say this is why the Pharisees plotted to kill Jesus via betrayal to the Romans, as it was not lawful for them to kill anyone on the sabbath (the sabbath began on Friday and ended Saturday morning). Thus racist self exaltation and pride was behind the fall of the Jews. They thought as they had the Old Testament scriptures written in their language they were somehow a superior form of human life to "the Goyim". Tragic logic. The fact is they were chosen to witness to the Gentiles not chosen for salvation.
Alas alas the same racism happened to the Greeks and this is way too easy to prove! The fact that racism entered into the hearts of the Greeks, in the same proud and exalted way as it entered into the hearts of the Jews, can be shown in the following list of facts:
1) REJECTING HEBREW In choosing their manuscripts to translate the bible from, the Greeks made the totally absurd and racist decision to translate the Old Testament from the Septuagint Greek! And they trashed the Hebrew as their source of translation! Only written a few hundred years before the incarnation of Jesus. This means in every Greek bible the old testament is a translation of a translation (do not forget ancient Greek must be translated somewhat into modern Greek as it is not identical.
2) CORRUPTING THE CANON The decision to choose the Septuagint (version of the 70) instead of the original Hebrew Text used in the Authorized Bible (or King James bible) led to the inclusion of clearly apocryphal works like Bel and the Dragon. This book was never included by the Jews in the canon of scripture, and the text is absurd. This is what racism does. It led the Greeks astray.
3) ETHNOPHYLETISM: Even to this day racism is rampant in Greek Orthodoxy. As one essay about Ethnophyletism states, quote: "Today’s Gospel speaks about a very interesting topic that affects us, especially us as Greeks, because we are part of a culture that’s very, very proud. We are very proud of our history, we are very proud of our accomplishments as a people, we are very proud of our church, we are very proud of our local church here." Yes...... pride is the problem.
a quote from Orthodox Christianity.net:
quote: "Ever since Ecumenical Patriarch Anthimus VI convened a major Synod in Constantinople in 1872, phyletism refers to a theory and practice of Church administration. According to this Synod, the heresy of ethno-phyletism holds that the Church should organize/divide itself on the basis of ethnicity and race, not geography or established traditions/canons.
In the first half of the 20th century, most of the ancient Patriarchates argued that the original Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia employed the most obvious and extreme version of ethno-phyletism. Since that time, others say it is phyletistic to claim that every nation should have its own independent Church, since this too subjects the boundaries of ecclesiastical administration to the vagaries of ethnicity and political boundaries." unquote.
4) THE NEW TESTAMENT WAS WRITTEN IN GREEK - leading to the same proud fall as the Hebrews.
The Empire of Alexander the Great took the Greek language across the world, as is described in their Empire, the 4 headed Leopard in Daniel 7 (it split into 4 after his death). The leopard reflects the speed and strategic brilliance of their war tactics, and in the He Goat (Alexander) smashing the ram (Darius) in Daniel 8 in the battle of Gaugamela 331 BC *.
1) The Battle of the Granicus River
2) Siege of Halicarnassus
3) Siege of Tyre
4) Battle of Issus
5) Siege of Gaza
6) Battle of Gagamela
7) Battle of the Persian Gate
8) Siege of the Sogdian Rock
I thought for a long time the battle of Isus was the battle described in Daniel 8, as I am not an expert on history, and I saw this battle in a TV Series called "The Great Commanders"**, but in fact Darius escaped and brought a bigger army than he used at Isus, and the Gaugamela victory was totally stunning by Alexander the Great as somehow he managed not to be outflanked and won against impossible odds. His first battle in Persia was at Granicus.
After this followed The Siege of Tyre*** and then "The Battle of The Persian Gate" when Alexander was ambushed by Ariobarzanes, satrap of Persis, who defeated Alexander in the first ambush attack, but after retreating from the Mountain pass Alexander feigned that he was making the same mistake of falling into ambush, and attacked Ariobarzanes army from the rear conquering them.****
The actual conquering of the Media Persian Empire was only completed when Darius was slain by one of his own commanders, Bessus, as Alexander pursued them into the Eastern part of the kingdom, and it was only conquered after Bessus himself was also betrayed and tortured slain by Alexander.***** (see the video links at bottom of this page)
Alexander was a true genius of warfare tactics, as ironically the defeat of the Greeks at the hands of the Romans in the battle of Cynoscephalae****** proved after his death "and behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly; " Daniel 7:7, when without the genius of Alexander the Great the Roman Empire took over the Greek Empire.
In all of this God was preparing to ditch the Jews, infected with Babylon culture, and to turn to the Gentiles to use as witnesses as well as the scattered Tribes of Israel and the Jews (Judah) and Benjamin. The PRIDE of the new testament being written in their language destroyed the Greeks just as it had the Hebrews before them. They became racist and to this day prefer to keep their own traditions not the word of God "And he said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition." Mark 7:9, EVEN when those traditions contradict the new testament.
These victories of the Greeks (or Romans) in battle pale into insignificance when compared to King David, Jonathan, Gideon and even Samson. Why "even" Samson? Well he was far from the most spiritual of old testament saints. This should have humbled the Greeks, because their true mission from God (though almost all of present day Greece deny this) was, after the covenant was sealed by the blood of Jesus and his resurrection, now to follow the Peace and Love commandments of the "new and better promises, founded on better promises" but they instead chose to follow the example of the warlike murderer Constantine, and departed altogether from the Faith of Peace and Love, and the quote "Gospel of Peace". Galatians Chapter 4 is in fact one of the biggest pacifist scriptures in the Bible, showing true believers are now Pilgrims on a path toward New Jerusalem above, not defending the physical borders of Jerusalem etc. Greece instead plummeted into "the scarlet and purple" heresy with the Whore of Rome, melding their priestcraft (scarlet) and governmental power (purple) into what would later become the bloodbath of the 2nd Babylonian Captivity.
allow me here a slight divarication.
THE NEW TESTAMENT WAS INDEED WRITTEN IN GREEK
I wish to show a few scriptures about the fact that the new testament was indeed written in Greek, not Hebrew or Aramaic, as this is often denied, especially in the new Judaizing cults we have today.
1) "And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon." Revelation 9:11. This is an affirmation scripture was written first in Hebrew, then in Greek in the New testament.
note: a small amount of the old testament was written in Aramaic, and the Gospel of Matthew and Hebrews were NOT written in Hebrew or Aramaic, BOTH were written in Greek. Changing the theology about the Greek word "porneia" in the Matthean Clause of Matthew 5:32 and Matthew 19:9 would be catastrophic, and falsely empower the new Judaizing heresy that is a resurgence of the same heresy as is refuted in the Epistle of Galatians.
2) "And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is, being interpreted, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Mark 15:34. If the new testament was written in Hebrew or Aramaic (which ever you say it is) it would not say "which is being interpreted" as that would be a foolish contradiction, like saying "And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is, being interpreted, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?"
3) "But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." Matthew 4:4. There are no Early Hebrew or Aramaic new testaments, and the somewhat later copies we have are very corrupt when compared to the KJV Version or even the Patriarchal Text that misses out much of Textus Receptus quotes. That would break the promise of God to preserve his word "word for word" found in the old testament prophecy quoted by Jesus (Deuteronomy 8:3).
HOW TO CHOOSE THE RIGHT CANON OF SCRIPTURE:
"King James Bible
For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it." Hebrews 4:2
Basically you have 3 choices, The Orthodox Canon, the Roman Catholic Canon, or the Protestant / Evangelical canon. So how does one choose? The big lie of Orthodoxy and Catholicism is they are both supposed to be the original church, (but both offer a different canon) and you must inherit the canon, not discern it. As they both butchered the Evangelicals they say their early canon is not an option because they erased from middle history their existence. (the Catholics to this day refuse to release their records of the Holy Inquisition). Even if you argue the true Faith was all but eliminated out of that historical period (ironically largely by the RC and Orthodox believers persecuting them), the Gates of Hell did not prevail against the church, as the Evangelicals are still here today, almost identical to the bibles early description of them.
For me one easy deciding factor is the ridiculous story of Bel and the Dragon, in both the RC and Orthodox Canon, a book never accepted by the Jews as scripture in all their history of prophets of God. As this is clearly not scripture that leaves the Evangelical canon. This is just one way to make a choice between the three.
HOW TO CHOOSE THE RIGHT CANON:
You basically have 3 choices.
The definition of Ethnophyletism is
HOW DOES IT FEEL? To suddenly wake up to the fact YOU are not the original church? YOU are those who MURDERED and PERSECUTED the original church? And the new testament model of the church fits absolutely PERFECTLY the Evangelical born again Christian house group movement!
The Canon
One of the most pathetic so called proofs that Orthodoxy is the original church, is to say "What about the canon of scripture? Your new testament is the same as ours!" This is cherry picking at its finest! As it is in fact a proof Evangelicals and Protestants do prayer and research before they accept anything, as the old testament book list (or canon) is very different!
The Greeks have allowed modern day Pharisees to take over the Faith in their land. This has brought about glaring triple failures on their part.
1) They did not defend the Greek Text of the new testament.
You want proof? Read the proof in their own words.......
"The translation of the New Testament included in the EOB is based on the official Greek text published by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople in 1904 (Patriarchal Text or PT). During the Turkish occupation of the Greek lands, various editions of the NT had been published with significant variants. In 1902, in order to ensure ecclesiastical harmony, the Ecumenical Patriarchate appointed a committee whose task was to publish a common and official text."
in other words the Greeks had for centuries been so hypnotized by the man made traditions of the clones of the Pharisees in their land, they had neglected to fulfill their obvious obligation to keep an accurate new testament, and unlike the Protestants it has only been until comparatively recently they decided to try and do it. The end result, called "The Eastern Orthodox Bible" is very inaccurate, as I will later prove.
2) They did not defend marriage for life.
It would be almost laughable, if it it was not so tragic, that one of the major differences the Greek (Eastern) Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholics, is that the Roman Catholics preach that Christian marriage is for life and that the word "porneia" in Matthew 5:32 and Matthew 19:9 therefore should be rendered "forication" (thus denying that post marital adultery is grounds for divorce and remarriage (this being except for the Catholic hypocrisy over the annulment of marriages - to keep their numbers up).
Whereas the Orthodox church openly admit to allowing divorce and remarriage.
3) They have departed from the new testament church model, named after them.
Several new testament books, like Thessalonians, are named after cities in Greece, and many of the saints are Greeks, but instead the Greek nation has allowed Pharisees to present a warped clone of the old testament priest system.
.
1) They deny the bible is the final authority on salvation and the formatiion of doctrine - adding traditions as verified by their false bishops - adding traditions that are clearly contrary to God's word, as so called verified by councils of their bishops (who dress like Pharisees). Therefore oral tradition, and the teachings of their Pharisee Bishops in councils, goes against the clear written word of the bible. This means that their traditions are, ironically, a Trojan Horse that they are using to destroy the souls of the Greek people! This is often described as Two Pillars of Authority, the bible and tradition (as ratified by bishops that are little more than Pharisees).
comment: This is very similar to how Judaism was formed. In the "gainsaying of Korah" was a demonstration that the 70 elders proudly thought they could estamblish Gods Law just as Moses had. Later after Jesus died the Pharisees sat down and wrote the Talmud, effectively forming an entirely new religion where they do not even claim to keep the old law of Moses. In a similar way the false bishops of Orthodoxy, have sat down and (like the Pharisees before them) rewritten the faith by picking and chosing which false traditions to add onto the Faith.
note: "For laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men, as the washing of pots and cups: and many other such like things ye do. And he said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition." Mark 7:9
2) They heretically translate the Old Testament from the Septuagint Greek version of it. This is a gross scholastic blunder. It means (at best) their Old Testament is a "translation of a translation" and thus it is prone to more errors.
3) Add to the canon of scripture apocryphal Old Testament Books. These books have been proven historically inaccurate, friviolus (e.g. Bell and the Dragon) and supportive of heresies such as Purgatory, and are no more scripture than the New Testament Apocrypha rejected by Orthodoxy themselves. Their Bible adds 3 more apocryphal books than the Roman Catholic Bible does and has 49 OT Books. Ironically these added books are not seen as scripture by the Jews themselves!
4) Incredibly the Orthodox has its own kind of Apocrypha however. The Shepherd of Hermas for instance is seen as a book of spiritual interest and edification, even though it is not seen as inspired, which is how the Evangelicals and Protestant might describe the books of the Old Testament Apocrypha that Orthodoxy accepts into its canon, because they made the novices error of translating from the unispired Septuagint (that contains such Apocryphal works) meaning their old testament is only a "copy of a copy" not taken directly from the Hebrew source.
Quote"
As late as the fourth century Authanasius still counted Esther as Deuterocanonical and Baruch as protocanonical.
Indeed, the Jews themselves didn't decide on Esther until after Jesus was long dead and raised.
IInfallible tradition - At some point in history the Jews threw Bel and the Dragon out of their bible????
QUOTE:
You believe Bel and the Dragon and Tobit, I dont. The Jews dont, and they never have. So in effect you say God inspired the Book of Daniel and the Jews rejected it. If so I would expect Jesus to mention it. He never once challenged their canon
REPLY
their canon was not set at the time of Christ. And several books from the Deuterocanon are quoted as Scripture in the Jewish Talmud, proving that numerous, influential Jewish Rabbis considered them Scripture into the third and fourth centuries AD.
QUOTE
The Talmud. ha ha. I was talking about the godly OT Jews, not unrighteous ones influenced by the captivity in Babylon. Seems clear the Talmud has it, its more a condemnation than a plus. The fact is your argument is a total and complete Oxymoron. The Talmud was written about 200 AD. The ONLY EVER righteous Jews in biblical terms on mass where before the cross.
QUOTE
you adopted the LXX canon, we never. So whose canon is right? You are boasting you got the NT canon right. We agree, but have the guts to disagree on the old. So in the end there are two different canons to choose from. You went with Bel and the Dragon, and Tobit with his eyes full of sparrow poo going blind. What type of dragon do you say it was? You say we are blind. We say you are. Somewhere the facts have to be looked at. So on Bel and the Dragon are you saying the Jews Gods own people never accepted at any time Bel and the Dragon? Ok. So tell us when they threw it out
Romans 11:6
It is well known that Evangelical Christians and Protestant (meaning For a Testimony) believe in salvation by Grace through Faith alone, and Roman Catholics and Orthodox do not. The Catholics and Orthodox miss out part of Romans 11:6, but if some church inserted the missing words "But if it be of works, then is it no more grace: otherwise work is no more work." they must have logically been Evangelical type believers "forging" this into scripture, people whom the Orthodox church deny existed at that time, and deny they and the Catholics were therefore persecuting and executing. Same with pacifist verses like Luke 9:52-53, and Matthew 5:44. Of course I believe the Catholics and Orthodox heretics rather omitted the words taken from Romans 11:6 as it refuted their religion.
ILLITERACY
One of the main tools of the Orthodox religion, and of Roman Catholicism, has been illiteracy. Keeping the general public illiterate, or alternatively refusing to translate the bible into their native tongue and giving them bibles. has kept the general public from asking them questions. Now at last Evangelical Christians are able to be used on a far bigger scale to cause those trapped in Orthodoxy to examine their credulous beliefs, based on a religion invented by people who are nothing more or less than a new form of Pharisees.
LINKS
* The Battle of Gaugamela: https://youtu.be/iTAuU3DPtzQ "ULITMATE BATTLES - ALEXANDER THE GREAT - Discovery History Military War
** The Battle of Issus: https://youtu.be/ds_g_QiFsBE "The Great Commanders - The Battle of Isus"
*** The Siege of Tyre: https://youtu.be/-WkWy47ighY
**** The Battle of Persian Gate: https://youtu.be/QS-4TsurrFY "Alexander the Great: Battle of the Persian Gate 330 BC"
***** The final Conquering of the Media Persian Empire, by conquering the Eastern Part, by the torture and crucifixion of Bessus, also known as Artaxerxes V (died summer 329 BC), who had himself killed Darius, and Bessus later was treacherously handed over to Alexander. -
https://youtu.be/jrmgas_MDzc "Alexander the Great: Battle of the Hydaspes 326 BC" (first part of documentary only)
****** The Battle of Cynoscephalae: https://youtu.be/1xOepuz2hBo "Decisive Battles - Cynoscephalae (Rome vs Macedon)"
LINK TO THEIR NEW TESTAMENT
http://www.worldhistory.biz/download567/The_Orthodox_Study_Bible_-_St.pdf
http://www.pc-freak.net/holy_bible_in_different_languages/Eastern_Greek_Orthodox_Bible_New_Testament_English_translation.pdf