Acts 2:24 Redux

[Dan Gan]

Dear Paul,

Dan,

I am not hateful of anyone. Nor am I prideful of being a part of any nationalistic or linguistic group. If I were either, I wouldn't have married outside of my ethnic and linguistic group.

I am glad that you are not.

What I do strongly defend is the integrity of the teachings of an Asian Man in their original context, both culturally and linguistically. Because His teachings are the basis of my faith.

The teachings of this Asian Man have been hijacked, both culturally and linguistically for the last 2,000 years. He has been remade, and His words have been recast into a foreign tongue. And it is this very foreign tongue that is esteemed today as the basis of Christianity.

I am glad you believe in having the integrity of the teachings of the Messiah. But I don't understand why there is a need to classify or label the Messiah as an "Asian Man." Living in Singapore I can be considered as an Asian. Being an Asian is not the reason why I believe in the teachings of the Messiah. His teachings of love for one another is universal - acceptable to both East and West , North and South. I would still believe in the Messiah if He came as an African or a European. I hope you do too.

I also don't understand why you said "last 2000 years." The Messiah was born 2000 years ago. So it cannot be 2000 years. If you are referring to "Constantine the mass-murderer" then the actual number should be "last 1692 years" (i.e. 2005 - 313).

However, I understand the need to carefully understand the teachings of the Messiah if that is what you meant by "Asian Man", but I don't think that the teachings of the Messiah have been hijacked by the Christians in the West. The Apostles and early disciples were commanded to preach the Gospel to the whole world. The early Christians in the West lived under persecution for about 3 centuries until one day the Emperor discovered that this sect of hated people called Christians became so numerous in number in his empire that he decided to adopt this new religion as the official religion of his empire. Just because some politicians made use of Christianity for political worldly reasons will not make Christianity false.

The teachings of this Asian Man have been hijacked, both culturally and linguistically for the last 2,000 years. He has been remade, and His words have been recast into a foreign tongue. And it is this very foreign tongue that is esteemed today as the basis of Christianity.

Translation of the Message of the teachings of the Messiah into foreign tounges is required because not all people could understand Aramaic. No two languages are exactly alike.

If translations of the Bible into other languages are nothing but "junks" then these people believed in "junks" and died for their faith in vain. So it is not right to brand Christians who lived in foreign lands as "idiots" just because they used and believed in the teachings found in translations. In some countries today, Christians could be persecuted just for possessing a Bible in their own language. They must be "idiots" then for being willing to die for a faith in a translation. Not many people out there are as fortunate as you to know Aramaic. If their daily Bible reading are nothing but eating junk food then it is not fair that the teachings of the Messiah is available to a selected few like you who know the language.

If God is to judge us by how much Aramaic or Hebrew or Greek we know I think I have failed. Probably many people out there will fail too. I am glad that the central message of the Messiah is that there is only One God and Jesus is whom He sent, repentance for the forgiveness of sins, and the love for one another though this is harder than acquiring a foreign language. As far as I know these teachings could be found in all major translations.

A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. (John 13:34-35)

Meanwhile, His people have been marginalized and baked in ovens. And his cousins who speak His language have been marginalized in Councils in another empire other than their own.

I'm tired of this propoganda. I'm tired of being told that we are just another sect of Christianity, which we are not. We don't use that name. How would you like if I called you something that you don't use?

When the Western Church stops placing labels on me that I reject, as did those who came before me, then I will return the favor.

I'm not a "Nestorian" - I never met the man and neither did anyone in the 2,000 year history of our Persian Church. Is that hard to understand? Nestorius was a Greek - I'm not a Greek.

I'm not an "East-Syrian." Syria is not in Beth-Nahrin. I'm an Assyrian. Is that hard to understand?

I'm not a speaker of "Syriac." That's a Greek term. I'm a speaker of Aramaic. My ancestors, the Assyrians, spoke Aramaic. They made Aramaic the lingua-franca of its day. In other words, I tell you what I speak - not the other way around. I don't tell you what you speak, you tell me what you speak and I'll accept it. If you tell me your language is called "Aasdfkbhsdfjb" by you, then I will refer to your language as "Aasdfkbhsdfjb."

This happened in the past. It is not fair to generalize all Christians as idiots. It is not right to generalize all Christians as murderers just because of what some politicians who crept into the church as priests did. Being a disciple of the Messiah comes with a disclaimer - Matthew 7:21-23

To the Greeks "Aramaic" is "Syriac." Not much thing could be done except educating people to the truth about Syriac. Anyway, Aramaic has its own word for "Greek" and Greek has its own word for "Greek." Should the Greeks demand the same from the Arameans? I don't think so because no two languages are alike. Each language has its own word origin.

In other words, Dan (and I'm not talking to you directly), stop reshaping and remaking me into an image based on your specifications. That's what they did 2,000 years ago, and that's why your scriptural tradition is in the shape that it is in today - the laughing stock of all scriptural traditions.

Even though I have seen your points in this forum I still don't understand why you are against translations like LXX and GNT so much to the point of hating the term "Christian." Without the translation of the Message into other languages, the teachings of the Messiah would be confined to those people who speak the language only. In fact many Assyrians today even do not know their own mother tounge. How much more a South East Asian like me.

If the Message was not translated into other languages "2,000 years ago" then not many people would know the teachings of the Messiah. I am glad that the early disciples obeyed Matthew 28:19 "2,000 years ago." If not, today I could still be an idol worshipper.

Christians in the past were persecuted under successive Roman Caesars. Information in the past was not widely spread and available as freely as today. Their holy books were burned and they were killed for trying to protect these books. I am not surprised to see that after a few hundred years their children started to believe that these holy books that their fathers died trying to protect were the original. These are the only holy books that they know of. These are the books that taught them about God and the Messiah.

I don't know why you think I'm upset, or I'm here to make friends. I'm not upset, and I'm not here to make friends. I have plenty of friends. I'm not a priest, preacher, counselor, therapist, role model or even a terribly nice person.

I'm not doing this so that I can paint a facade and run for a popularity contest. I'm not anyone's spokesperson. I don't care to be the poster-child of the Aramaic Primacy movement.

I'm here to fulfill a promise I made to my God. In the process, I'm here to debate with anyone who wishes to debate against my perspective. Dave is one of those people who's willing, if not able, to debate the other side of the issue. He will stand or fall based on the strength of his argument, or his ability to present it.

I am glad that you have plenty of friends. There is no harm in making a few more extra friends. To me it is better to destroy our enemies by making them our friends. That is just my opinion based on my understanding of "Love your enemies" teaching. Others could understand the meaning differently.

The way to really earn my anger, which has only happened rarely and which Dave hasn't done, is to somehow implicate me or my history into the above two travesties.

I have nothing to do with Nestorius. Not the LXX, not the GNT. I have nothing to do with Ephesus or Nicaea. I have nothing to do with Constantine the mass-murderer. Nothing to do with the Crusades, with the Spanish Inquisition or with the Pilgrims. Nothing to do with the Reformation or Auschwitz. I have nothing to do with the slave ships which brought bar-Khela's ancestors here and stuffed the GNT down their throat. I have nothing to do with Western Christianity, good or bad.

My history is different than this.

I think Dave and many Western Christians out there who read LXX, GNT, etc have nothing to do with Crusades, Spanish Inquisition, Auschwitz either (unless Dave publicly said otherwise that I am not aware of).

I don't think the people who brought the Africans to America stuffed the GNT down the slave throats. That is too much of an exaggeration. The English speaking people were having hard time reading Greek. How much more the slaves!

Every one has his or her own history to tell.

My history is different than this too.

In my perspective, there has been no greater damage done to the teachings of my Lord than the following, in order of importance:

(1) The remaking of His message into a foreign language
(2) The making of a Religion named after Him into a state-sponsored faith

....

I don't understand why you are so upset with the "remaking of His message into a foreign language." Is the message of the Messiah confined to one language only? If it is then why take the trouble to create an English interlinear of the Peshitta? Isn't it better to teach the language instead? Isn't it your intention to make the Peshitta accessible to the laymen out there so that they could understand the Message more?

As far as I know the messages of worshipping One God, do not steal, do not lie, loving one another as disciples, etc are very clear in every languages. Of course the translations could not be better than the original and should be the source of references should there be any doctrinal disputes.

When the Bible is translated into another language, the recepients might interpret the meaning of the same text differently. This should be understood as we normally will interpret what we see around us in different ways according to the level of knowledge or experience or cultural background that we have acquired in life.

For an example, look at Jing's post in another thread

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Yes, YESU has been so hanized that some may think the surname of YESU is YE and His Father YEHEHUA (for Jehovah or Yahweh) has the same surname YE. LOL.

To understand the joke above you need to understand the 3 words naming system in Chinese. The first word is the surname. If God is to find fault with us for making mistakes like this that is due to our level of knowledge and cultural background then I don't know how many could be saved.


Regarding state-sponsored faith, not much thing the early Christians could do about it. They have been persecuted for centuries. If the state decided to adopt Christianity as the official religion, of course they would rejoice in it. No one would like to live under persecution and discrimination. Wolves in sheep's clothing will always be among us until the Messiah comes to separate us.

So, don't call me a Christian. First of all, it's a Greek term that I don't accept. Second of all, it was used by Greek believers in Antioch. I'm not from Antioch.

In Mesopotamia, we called ourselves Meshikhaye after Meshikha. "Christian" denotes a history that I'm not a part of. Neither is Andrew. Have you noticed that Jews who believe their Meshikha do not call themselves "Christians", either?

You respect their wishes. right?

Respect mine.

I don't understand why you are ashamed of being called a "Christian." In the Peshitta there are many Greek terms adopted by Aramaic speakers too. I am not from Antioch too but I am glad that the disciples went to share their faith to the Greeks there. The Greeks there could have argued that the terms and teachings taught by the early disciples were not Greek as a basis for their rejection of the teachings of the Messiah. I am glad that they did not.

Some of them, however, men from Cyprus and Cyrene, went to Antioch and began to speak to Greeks also, telling them the good news about the Lord Jesus. The Lord's hand was with them, and a great number of people believed and turned to the Lord. (Acts 11:20-21)

If you are referring to Andrew Gabriel Roth and "Messianic Jews" then I have heard about it. But I am more interested with the standards set by the writings of the Apostles here.


If the author of Acts of the Apostles had no problem with the Greek word "Christian / Kristyane" in Acts 11: 26 as the perfect Greek translation of Aramaic "Meshikhaye" then why should we be ashamed of being called "Christians"? When we called ourselves "Christians" we are associating / identifying ourselves with the early disciples of the Messiah in the book of Acts not the Nazis of Auschwitz nor the American slave traders.

I Peter 4: 14 explains the origin of the word Kristyane / Christians in the book of Acts. Many of the disciples in Antioch were Greeks. When they believed in the Gospel that was brought to them they need to understand what "Meshikhaye" means in their own language. This fact in the Bible is contrary to what was given by some commentators regarding the meaning of "Christians" i.e. it was a derogatory term given by pagans to the disciples.
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I know that you are not the spokeperson for the COE like what you have explained earlier. But visiting some COE web sites I found that they have no problems with being called Christians, or using the words Christianity, Jesus Christ, etc to desribe their faith in English.

Peace.