The ‘Hebrew Roots’ Movement – Part 7

We are looking into the Hebrew Roots Movement (HRM), also known as Hebraic Roots and Jewish Roots. You can read the introduction to this series here.

Adherents of HRM believe that Christianity left its Hebrew Roots hundreds of years ago and that what they are doing is bringing Christianity back to its “roots.”

Some of their beliefs include:

• Restoring Christianity to its Hebrew (Jewish) roots
• Requiring the use of the name Yaweh rather than God or Lord and Yeshua rather than Jesus
• Belief that Jesus (Yeshua) is God (Yaweh) (there seems to be some disagreement by different HRM groups about whether Jesus is God in the Flesh or if God elevated the human ‘man’ Jesus to a position of deity .. we’ll look into that as our investigation continues)
• Helping believers express their faith in Yeshua as Messiah by returning to and keeping the Torah of Yeshua
• People are not saved by works, but the precepts of the Torah are eternally binding
• Viewing the Torah as the primary document for living the life God intends for followers of Jesus (Yeshua)
• Every believer should walk a Torah-observant life
• Believers must ‘endure to the end’ in their observance of the Torah
• The original Hebrew versions of Gospel writings are superior to Greek texts, which many in the HRM believe were corrupted. (Hebrew Roots has its own Bibles – Qodesh Cepher, Sacred Name New Testament, Sacred Name Bible, Holy Name Bible)
• The Epistles of the Apostle Paul are often ignored and sometimes rejected
• Pagan traditions adopted by Christians are not to be followed
• Hebrew terminology is used in meetings along with Jewish symbols and ‘Messianic’ music and dancing (known as Davidic Dancing)
• Believers should keep the seventh-day Sabbath and annual Passover
• Believers should keep the annual Feast Days (e.g. Feast of Weeks, Feast of Trumpets, Day of Atonement, Feast of Tabernacles)
• Removed from Protestant Christianity because of core belief differences
• Removed from Messianic Judaism because of core belief differences
• Removed from Rabbinic Judaism because of core belief differences
• Gentiles keep the Law through the One Law theory and Two House theology

What we are doing in this series is giving HRM and its critics the opportunity to be heard. In the last part of our series , we heard from HRM teachers about their belief that the original Hebrew versions of Gospel writings are superior to Greek texts. We also heard from them about how some HRM leaders and followers ignore and sometimes reject the Epistles of the Apostle Paul.

We will now hear from some critics of HRM.

[*We do not necessarily endorse the critics listed below or their ministries or websites. Our purpose is to share some of the oppositional viewpoints to beliefs in the Hebrew Roots Movement. I will share my observations in the second section of this series.]

Hebrew or Greek?

Furthermore, even if some parts of the New Testament were written in Hebrew (such as the gospel of Matthew), as some suggest, isn’t it amazing that God did not preserve those manuscripts — instead He chose to preserve His New Testament Scriptures in the GREEK LANGUAGE, with the Greek forms of His name and titles!

Not one book of the New Testament has been preserved in Hebrew — only in Greek. This is prima facie evidence that one language is not necessarily any “holier” than another, and that it is NOT wrong to use the forms of God’s name as they would translate from the Hebrew or Greek.

Those who insist on using only the Hebrew names of God are straining at a gnat, and swallowing a camel! Nowhere does the Bible tell us that it is wrong to use the names of God in Aramaic, Greek, or any other language of the earth.

Since Almighty God has preserved the New Testament Scriptures in the Greek language, and many if not all of them were originally written in Greek, it is obvious that God Himself INSPIRED the usage of Greek to write and to maintain and preserve HIS HOLY WORD! Therefore, it is self-evident that the Greek forms of God’s names and titles are perfectly all right for us to use, and translations of those forms and names into other languages, including English. NTGreek.org

In the realm of scholarly invention, there exists a minority report that the New Testament documents were written first in Hebrew then later translated into Greek. You might ask why this is an important question to ask at the outset. It is quite important due to certain accusations that “unstable people” twist in order to discredit the New Testament documents and certain theological ideologies surrounding key Christian doctrines concerning Christ and God. Their intent is to parade their own agenda in attempting to reinterpret the New Testament in light of Hebrew idioms and syntax, rather than the Greek language. This holds huge complications for the Greek language because, simply stated, Greek is not Hebrew, and Greeks did not think like Hebrews. Within this debate, then, the very character of God is placed on the line. Not only this, but the wisdom of God is called into question. God used Greek to transmit the message of the Gospel, and those who oppose this are calling into question the wisdom and providence of God as to the use of His means for the end of the salvation of souls.

The arguments surrounding this theological reformulation raise questions as to whether the Apostles really thought Jesus was God, or that the Trinity is an Old Testament reality as well as a New Testament one. If the New Testament Scriptures were written in Hebrew, and then at a later time scribes copied the New Testament into Greek, then, according to these people, words and phrases used in Greek do not match the Hebrew ideas and were “glossed” in order to make sense. A gloss is an addition, correction, or replacement made by a scribe when translating or copying the New Testament documents. This would allow for a reinterpretation of the text, and the inerrant and infallible nature of the text would be called into serious question. For instance, they say that no Jew would understand God as coming in the flesh because the idea of the “Trinity” is not a Jewish concept at all, and the Old Testament Jew would never have thought of God in this manner. So New Testament scribes reinterpreted the New Testament documents in a manner that is really not true to the Biblical data. This leaves room for doubt as to whether the Messiah would really be God. It leaves doubt as to whether the Trinity is really a Jewish idea or a “gloss.” These are serious implications indeed.

Do we have any reason to say the New Testament documents were written in Hebrew? A simple answer to this statement is “no.” All of the current archeological evidence, MSS (manuscript) data, and social background of the New Testament era prove otherwise. As a matter of fact, prior to the New Testament era of Christ and the Apostles, there was already a massive undertaking to Hellenize the Jewish culture due to Roman influence. This would already have existed at the time of Christ and the Apostles; a time that Paul calls, “fullness of the time” (Galatians 4:4). This “fullness” demonstrates historically that God’s plan to bring forth the Christ (a Greek term meaning the “anointed” of God) was positioned in the midst of a Hellenized Jewish Palestinian setting which sat within the boundaries of a Roman culture which was predominately Greek speaking. Dr. C. Matthew McMahon

While all the extant manuscripts of the First Gospel are in Greek, some suggest that Matthew wrote his Gospel in Aramaic, similar to Hebrew. Five individuals stated, in effect, that Matthew wrote in Aramaic and that translations followed in Greek: Papias (A.D. 80-155), Irenaeus (A.D. 130-202), Origen (A.D. 185-254), Eusebius (fourth century A.D.), and Jerome (sixth century A.D.). However, they may have been referring to a writing by Matthew other than his Gospel account. Papias, for example, said Matthew compiled the sayings (logia) of Jesus. Those “sayings” might have been a second, shorter account of the Lord’s words, written in Aramaic and sent to a group of Jews for whom it would have been most meaningful. That writing was later lost, for no such version exists today. The First Gospel, however, was probably penned by Matthew in Greek and has survived until today. Matthew’s logia did not survive, but his Gospel did. This was because the latter, part of the biblical canon and thus God’s Word, was inspired and preserved by the Spirit of God. The Bible Knowledge Commentary, Walvoord, J. F.

I disagree that the New Testament was first written in Hebrew and then later translated into Greek. Instead, I think it was written in Greek by people who thought ‘Jewishly.’ More importantly, the authors of the New Testament thought multi-lingually. People who speak a variety of languages also manage to think in a variety of languages. When they do speak, however, they regularly import into that language something that comes from another. It is never a question of ‘if,’ but only of, ‘how much.’ Dr. Eli Lizorkin-Eyzenberg

They teach that the understanding of the New Testament can only come from a Hebrew perspective and that the teachings of the Apostle Paul are not understood clearly or taught correctly by Christian pastors today. Many affirm the existence of an original Hebrew-language New Testament and, in some cases, denigrate the existing New Testament text written in Greek. This becomes a subtle attack on the reliability of the text of our Bible. If the Greek text is unreliable and has been corrupted, as is charged by some, the Church no longer has a standard of truth. GotQuestions

Paul’s Writings?

Some HRM churches teach that there are problems with the letters of Paul. Some HRM teachers believe the problem is with the way Christians misinterpret Paul’s writings. Others believe the problem is with Paul himself.

There is an almost total ignoring by the Hebrew Roots Movement teachers of two-thirds of the New Testament, namely the Epistles of Paul (as well as the other Epistles). There is some tipping of the hat to selective pieces of Romans that in their view speak of Abraham and also of being grafted into Judaism, or Jewish Roots. It is clear that being grafted into Israel has to do with Abrahamic and Messianic blessings—not cloning or trying to act like Jews. These spiritual privileges are real spiritual and eternal blessings. They do not mean dressing up and pretending to be of some other nationality or religion.

Ignoring the Epistles is one way to avoid a deluge of material about New Testament church life, church structure, church officers, church practices, and beliefs. It’s no wonder that those in Hebrew Roots have a truncated and skewed message. I say this with sadness. The Berean Call

The theory that the apostle Paul was a false prophet and not a true follower of Christ is usually put forth by those of the Hebrew roots movement persuasion, among others. They believe Christians should submit to the Old Testament Law, but Paul clearly disagrees with them, proclaiming that Christians are no longer under the Mosaic Law (Romans 10:4; Galatians 3:23-25; Ephesians 2:15), but the Law of Christ (Galatians 6:2), which is to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind…and to love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:37-39). Rather than submitting to God’s Word, the Hebrew roots movement simply dismisses Paul altogether and claims that Paul was a false apostle and that his writings should not be in the Bible.

But Paul’s apostolic authority has been well documented in Scripture, beginning with his dramatic Damascus Road experience which changed him from a Christ-hating persecutor of Christians to the foremost spokesman for the faith. His astonishing change of heart is one of the clearest indications of his anointing by the Lord Jesus Himself. Was the Apostle Paul actually a false prophet?

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eBook

You can download a free eBook of Chapters One – Five of this study here. Please share with family and friends as God leads.

Next Time

In the next part of our special series, The ‘Hebrew Roots’ Movement, we’ll look at the HRM belief that believers should keep the seventh-day Sabbath.

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