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The Testimony of Yeshua
G.A.B.R.I.E.L. (“NT”) INTRODUCTION
The Tanak “OT” Introduction is Here
Isaiah 8:20 To the Torah AND to the Testimony! If people don’t speak in agreement with these Words, it’s because it [the truth] hasn’t dawned on them [4]!
[4] Or, as the New Living Translation says: “People who contradict His Word are completely in the dark.”“Testament” isn’t a synonym for “covenant” and the “New Covenant” isn’t a book. Tertullian was the first to apply the name “New Testament” to the book that John named “The Testimony of Yeshua (Jesus)”—the title he used seven times in the Book of Revelation. Tertullian also began calling the Hebrew Scriptures (The Word of Elohim, or The Word of God’ “the Old Testament”. But this sinister name, by design, implies that the newer Texts are superior to the (Hebrew) Scriptures—obsolete—rather than the completion of the books. Yet the Messianic Texts are additionally Inspired Texts, they complement the Scriptures. Yeshua’s message was the aim and purpose of the Torah (Law). So I don’t use the term “New Testament” except to explain the bias of the phrase’s origin.
Romans 10:4 The Messiah is the end goal [1] of the Torah, a means of righteousness for everyone who believes in Him.—The Gabriel Bible
[1] The context here indicates “aim, purpose or goal”, whether translating from Aramaic, as Murdock did with “aim”, or the Greek, as linked.
Aside from the names The Testimony of Yeshua and The Word of Elohim, just mentioned, the late Ernest Martin did a wonderful job explaining the history of the Bible, and the most obvious changes made—the book order.
“The world has never had a complete Bible of the Old and New Testaments in the original manuscript order of the biblical books. This is a fact! It is almost unbelievable that such a non-manuscript arrangement of the books of the Bible could exist, but all modern translations of the Holy Scriptures do not follow the early manuscripts.” —Restoring the Original Bible, Ernest L. Martin, Ph. D.
“Our English Bibles follow the order as given in the Latin Vulgate. This order, therefore, depends on the arbitrary judgment of one man, Jerome (A.D. 382–429). All theories based on this order rest on human authority, and are thus without any true foundation.”—Companion Bible, Appendix 95, p.139
(I also recommend a source for what does not belong in the Bible.)
Tertullian’s new terminology was intended to create a deep chasm separating the “New Books” (documents & letters) from the Torah (Hebrew Scriptures). In essence the terms are anti-Semitic! I refer to the newer Messianic Texts as The Testimony of Yeshua because the envoy (apostle) John called it that six times! He used “the Testimony of Yeshua Messiah” twice to describe the collective words of Yeshua in Revelation 1, after that he simply called it the Testimony of Yeshua (four times) after he had established the term. He was the last surviving envoy, and evidence indicates that he finished “canonizing” “the Testimony of Yeshua”. (Overwhelming evidence for “Apostolic canonization” rather than Catholic can be read in Ernest Martin’s above mentioned book).
The Testimony of Yeshua was prophesied to be written even tho the Disciples themselves didn’t realize it until years after Yeshua had died:
Isaiah 8:13-20 Commander Yehovah is the One you must regard as 'special'. He is the One you should fear. He is the One you should dread. 14 He [Yeshua Jesus] will be a safe haven. But for both houses of Israel, He’ll be a Stone to trip over, and a Rock to stumble over. He’ll be a trap and a snare for the residents of Jerusalem. [1]. 15 A great many will stumble over Him, fall, be broken, be snared and captured.”
16 In a time of distress, bind up [2] the Testimony and put a seal on [3] the Torah among My disciples. 17 I’ll wait for Yehovah who has 'turned away' from the House of Jacob, and I’ll eagerly look for Him. 18 I and the children [disciples] who Yehovah has given Me are for signs and miracles in Israel from Commander Yehovah who lives on Mount Zion!”
19 When they tell you to consult with mediums who use ventriloquism and wizards who whisper and mutter, shouldn’t people consult their Elohim? Should they consult the dead regarding the living? 20 To the Torah AND to the Testimony! If people don’t speak in agreement with these Words, it’s because it [the truth] hasn’t dawned on them.
[1] This is how it reads in the oldest known Scriptures, the Aramaic Targums, “And if you won’t obey, His Word* will come among you for revenge, as a stumbling stone and as a rock of offense to both houses of the leaders of Israel, for destruction and as a snare, because they are fighting against the House of Judah who are living in Jerusalem.” [See 1 Peter 2:4-8] [2] See why the Testimony was written during a time of distress. [3] Literally, “Seal. This is like a seal of approval or a signature on a contract.” It’s a completed deal.
(Incidentally the above text is one of those places where a careful reading indicates that Yeshua {v.14} also goes by the name Yehovah {v.13}! It is also the only reference to “disciples” in the “Old Testament”.)
Revelation 12:17 The Dragon was furiously angry with the woman, and he went off to make war with the rest of her offspring [recent converts?], those who obey the Commandments of Yehovah [the so-called “OT”] AND have THE TESTIMONY OF YESHUA the so-called “NT”]. So few of these would be Jews!
Revelation 19:10 I fell at his feet to worship him. But he said, “Don’t do that! I’m a fellow servant, I’m your brother who also adheres to THE TESTIMONY OF YESHUA [His ‘written statements’]. Worship Yehovah, because THE TESTIMONY OF YESHUA is spirit inspired utterances [or ‘the spirit of prophecy’].
Revelation 6:9 When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the bodies of those who were slain because of the Word of Aloha [1] and for the Testimony of the Lamb [2] that they had.
[1] “The Word of Elohim in the (Hebrew) Scriptures—also identified with Yeshua in person, Revelation 19:13. [2] The “Testimony of the Lamb” or the “Testimony of Yeshua” is the so-called “New Testament.” (See the Introduction).
As soon as I read the online book Was the New Testament Really Written in Greek? I came to believe that the original “New Texts” were really written in what is called the Aramaic Peshitta and then later translated into Greek. But I could not find a modern English version of the Aramaic Peshitta online other than the very copyright restricted 1933 Lamsa (unless there is a really obscure one). So I immediately decided to update Murdock’s 1851 public domain translation. At first I simply wanted to word process out the obsolete English wording and phraseology. I was able to modernize the English of Murdock’s Version very quickly by word processing it in 2007. This was available online immediately. But then I decided to footnote every noteworthy difference between about twenty various Greek to English translations, particularly the Majority texts and the Aramaic, by comparing every word of the Murdock and then the Etheridge Aramaic translation, (and consulting the Younan Interlinear). I also used lexicons and Greek interlinears, so that I wouldn’t miss much. In this way I was able to consider the insights of literally scores of translators, and benefit from insights from two ancient contemporary languages, not just one or the other, like every other version. In 2011 I focused on making it an extremely easy version to understand, without any compromise in the message, more readable than even many loose paraphrases, as often as possible, tho technical nuances are often skewed in some versions for the sake of easy reading. My objective was to make the Gabriel the most technically accurate version possible. Doing all this took 5 years—over 5,000 hours. The updated ISBN 2011 edition was finished in November. This version will always be available online free, as noted below, as long as I’m alive and able.
When I first began studying the Aramaic to English translations and comparing them with Greek versions, I thought that there would be many startling differences compared to the Greek texts, and major new insights, and there are indeed some fascinating differences. But the most surprising thing I found was the number of nuances lost by English translators going from the Greek texts to the English translations! While my version of the Testimony of Yeshua is based on both Murdock’s and Etheridge’s Peshitta, I compared every verse with The Online Bible Greek Lexicon (and made 2,485 live links to The New Testament Greek Lexicon, because there are no comparably thoro Aramaic lexicons, just one word equivalents, and none yet without strict copyright restrictions so far as I knew. The online Greek lexicons are incredibly powerful tools. They use the universally accepted Strong’s numbers to locate definitions of “Biblical Greek” and Hebrew words, but they are far more “exhaustive” than the original 19th century Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance, (now online), that I used for decades. This accounts for most of the live links in the Gabriel Bible text. These key words make a trail that is very easy to follow, to see why the nuances differ so much when you follow along in another version. Using these Strong’s numbers is somewhat like coloring by the numbers—it really doesn’t take a linguist to paint a word picture.
After comparing three Aramaic translations and over 20 Greek translations side by side, one verse at a time, I can say with certainty that the objectivity of the translators has a greater influence on a translation than whether or not they are based on Aramaic or Greek texts! Still it’s nice to eliminate most of the bugs lost in the translation from Aramaic to Greek along with eliminating a few antinomian (anti Torah) tricks. But you’ll never know what you are missing until you study the differences, and this is the only place to see them, short of spending hundreds of hours on your own, so far as I know.
Is a Paraphrased Bible Less Reliable Than a Translation?
Let’s look at some general definitions of the differences.
“Now granted, there is a certain amount of interpretation that comes into play when we translate. We have to move these words from a language and people that is both foreign and ancient to us in the modern-day. However, translation aims to do as little adding and subtracting from that meaning as possible.”
“A paraphrase author, by contrast, is intentionally adding and subtracting words to restate the idea in their own words. They are reshaping the words to explain the concept from their understanding of the text. When we begin paraphrasing, we’ve moved beyond translating and into interpreting.”
So there you have it!
Revelation 22:18 I testify to everyone who hears the words of prophecy in this book: if anyone ADDS [WORDS] to them, Yehovah will ADD to them the catastrophes [plagues] that are described in this book. 19 If anyone REMOVES WORDS from the book containing this prophecy, Yehovah will TAKE AWAY THEIR DESTINY from the Tree of Life and from the 'cherished' city described in this book.
But wait a minute. If you look at all of the English Bible translations since the first one, what you actually see is that they are all actually revisions—each attempting to be better (or more saleable) that its predecessor! Take for example the KJV. It was largely a revision of the Tyndale Bible. (And Tyndale later revised the Tyndale Bible.) He was burned at the stake by the church for his efforts, but that is another story. But the KJV is primarily a revision of te Tyndale. And the KJV as we have it today is far different than the original 1611 version. Note that it is not called the King James Translation! And this has been the case for over four centuries. The NLT is said to be the only original translation, and maybe it is. But it, like almost all of the modern Wescott & Hort translations use what I consider the most unreliable Greek manuscripts available. And as I argue here, they should be using the Aramaic anyway.
My contention is that every Bible version should note every instance where they add clarifying words in italics and footnote anything out of the ordinary, whether or not they call it a translation, paraphrase or version. It’s called transparency. Anyone who knowingly passes off their own ideas as coming from Yehovah is inviting an eternal penalty. I likely missed some italics since few of the many Bibles I used for comparison used them, but I revise my work in real time!
Whenever there are significant differences in the meaning of a verse, there is reason for investigation. Starting here and here is a way I decide on many questionable verses. But my favorite resolution is locating detailed online information I can link to and pass along.
I would add that plagiarism is a sin anywhere, but especially in the Biblical realm. It’s stealing, and I do hear and see it among teachers. The definition includes public domain works, and I would think copyleft, like mine, and thieves end up in the same pit as Bible forgers!
It’s fun to google novel sounding phrases and strings of seemingly unique search phrases and see where they most certainly originated.
One interesting difference I noticed really quickly was that the Aramaic doesn’t use anything like the pagan Hades, god of the underworld, pitchfork and all for “hell”. It never made sense to me that the apostles (envoys) would have even referenced such a horrific Greek mythology, much less adopted it. The Aramaic, just like the Hebrew uses sheol for the grave! The Hebrew/Aramaic sheol is nothing like the christopagan Hades! (This Disclaimer applies to all outside links.)
The words that I consider to be more significant all have live lexicon links, or numbered footnotes [1], or topical links, or link to the Gabriel Bible Glossary. I’ll admit that James Murdock and John Wesley Etheridge would scarcely recognize this as having descended from their work. But even if you believe that the Messianic Texts were originally written in Greek, you should have no problems with the Gabriel, because even relatively minor differences are footnoted. You have the benefit of both languages in one volume. This is the only version of the Testimony of Yeshua utilizing both Aramaic and Greek, when the footnotes are factored in. Often a word will have several meanings, but will have one meaning common to both languages. That would be the meaning of choice.
The footnotes in most Protestant and Catholic Bibles reflect easily verified historical and archaeological points and popular theology that is readily accepted (sold) and cross references. The footnotes in the Gabriel reflect more controversial points of doctrine that I believe are usually overlooked. For brevity no disclaimers are made and few contrary views are noted.
There was a controversy among the Jews as to what to do when they found a copy of the Testimony of Yeshua. They were concerned because the Tetragrammaton—YHVH (Yehovah), in Paleo Hebrew form, was inserted into all of the original copies of the Testimony of Yeshua in the Aramaic, Greek and even Latin copies. Some of the Jews wanted to burn them intact, while others insisted on removing each instance of YHVH prior to burning the Testimony. That the Name Yehovah was present in the original copies of the “Testimony of Yeshua” (the so-called “New Testament”) is even apparent from the debates in the Jewish Babylonian Talmud where the texts of the Minim (in this case meaning Nazarenes, Judeo-Christians or Ebionites) are condemned.
The existing Aramaic and the Old Syriac manuscripts use the word “Aloha” (equivalent to the Hebrew Elohim), as transliterated in the 1849 Etheridge version for “God”. “Sacred name” Bibles, aware of the word Aloha, generally substitute Elohim, pronounced very much like Aloha, where the existing Aramaic now has Aloha. Yet Aloha isn’t a name. It’s the generic word for God/gods. That shouldn’t have bothered the Jews who wanted sole rights to possession, and suppression, of His actual name.
In the (Hebrew) Scriptures, Yehovah appears about 6,519 times while Elohim appears about 2,346 times, about 3 times to 1. I feel certain that the New Texts—the Testimony of Yeshua would have shared about the same ratio. But when the early Christians replaced His actual name with the generic terms: Aloha in the Aramaic, and Theos in the Greek, the distinction was lost. We can only guess which places may have been Aloha and which places actually inserted the ancient Paleo form of Yehovah into the text, as was originally done. Jewish first century believers would never have stood for this, but “gentile” Christians did anything possible to distance themselves from the enemies of the Roman State, the Jews, and their “Old Testament” Yehovah. So in the Gabriel I do my best, judging from the context to use either Yehovah or Aloha where it seems best. Generally, where Aloha is found, the actual name Yehovah makes far more sense.
Have you ever read the copyright statement in your Bible? Some of them bind the Inspired Texts with heavier chains than others, but always to make a few shekels. Here is what one Aramaic “New Testament” copyright has to say:
“All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.”
This is a serious situation. Imagine what the ultimate penalty might be for putting a lock on Father’s truths! While the following Bible reference might not be an exact fit—perhaps it is!
Revelation 22:19 If anyone removes words from the book containing this prophecy [4b], Yehovah will TAKE AWAY their destiny from the Tree of Life and from the 'cherished' city described in this book.
[4a,b] The fact that this warning was made indicates that people could and would alter parts of the Bible. Fortunately it’s possible to backtrack and spot the alterations.In verse 10 there is another caution:
Revelation 22:10 Then he told me, “Don’t seal the words of this book of prophecy, because the time is near.
By contrast the prophecy of Daniel was sealed because when it was given it wasn’t the end time:
Daniel 12:4 But Daniel, keep this message a secret, and put a seal on the book until the time of the end. Many will travel around quickly, and knowledge will greatly increase [Hebrew shoot!]”
If the penalty for “sealing” the “little book” of Revelation is this serious, then imagine how serious it is to partially seal the entire Testimony of Yeshua (everything His envoys recorded), particularly near the end time, with any restrictions forbidding the free spreading of the Good News!
Matthew 10:8...You’ve received freely, so give freely.
There Are no Restraints on This Testimony of Yeshua
This is my best shot.
I know that believing in what is called “Peshitta primacy” makes me an “extremist” and “unorthodox”, but every chapter in Mysteries of the Everlasting Kingdom would be classified as such by “orthodox” Christianity. Especially since the Peshitta is in primary agreement with the Majority or Received texts (about 5,000 of them), such as used in the KJV and the Tyndale versions, unlike the 3 or so Greek texts like the Vaticanus, pulled from a trash heap in the Vatican where it belonged) that is used in the vast majority of modern versions—updated KJV revisions being the primary exceptions.
In 2007 I only intended to update the existing Aramaic translations of the Testimony of Yeshua (as someone else did in 2008, and several others since), and use the World English Bible for all of my books quoting from the (Hebrew) Scriptures. I had been substituting the WEB’s use of the name “Yahweh” with Yehovah in brackets [ ], but this alone accounts for over 6,000 changes to the text of the WEB. The WEB website requests that if any changes are made to their public domain text, that it not be called the WEB, so I have never called my renderings WEB. The prototype Gabriel Bible’s (Hebrew) Scriptures—The Word of Elohim, (also abbreviated GB) is also complete and online as of 2023. Some of the more unique or controversial wordings are already being linked to a lexicon or other commentary, just as was done with the Gabriel Bible’s Testimony of Yeshua. While I like the WEB version, it still has a considerable KJV flavoring that could never be considered contemporary English. So even words like “shall” that hasn’t been used since General MacArthur said, “I shall return”, has been changed to “will” several thousand times, and literally thousands of other rewordings that don’t affect the meaning.
Most people don’t know that the KJV Bibles being printed today have been updated several times. The 1611 version had no letter “j” anywhere in the book—no Jesus, no Jehovah. In 1901 it was revised again and renamed the “American Standard Bible”. Updates of the American Standard include the copyrighted RSV, the NKJV, the NASB and the public domain WEB.
A burning issue is the idea of paraphrasing. In essence all translating is paraphrasing—taking a foreign word or phrase and replacing it with what is, hopefully, the equivalent words or thoughts in another language. “In the past, paraphrasing and translation were considered to be unconnected language processing tasks.” The major obvious difference is the flavor! Using obsolete words to flavor a translation adds credibility in the minds of many; but is that logical? Another flavor is using foreign sentence structuring—the sequence of the words. Unusual word order, foreign to your language doesn’t necessarily add anything that the Bible was intended to reveal either. The Bible was written in the language of their day. So far as I know there isn’t a bit of theological jargon in the Bible, so there really isn’t any in the GB. Yet when paraphrasing becomes liberal rather than literal it becomes a sin! The best translation would answer the question, “What would Yeshua (Jesus) do”. A version can be very accurate without being word for word “literal”. Word for word is actually a poor method of translating if the objective is more than simply to convey isolated facts. Thought for thought is more precise!
The biggest problem with the vast majority of Greek translations is their simple synonym approach. Quite often there isn’t an English word that exactly equates with a Greek word so the translators opt for the closest word available rather than use as many words as necessary to convey the thought. That is why so many of the links in the Gabriel are multiple words linking to a single word from a Greek lexicon. But with just one click you can see the full implication of the Greek word, and more often than not the many nuances to consider.
On the other hand, Strong’s Concordance lists 5,264 Greek words used in the Testimony, but the compendious Oxford English Dictionary lists about 500,000 words, with an additional 500,000 technical and scientific terms remaining uncatalogued, so when translating from Greek to English there are about 100 times more words. English synonyms and nuances abound! Those Greek words have to cover a lot of ground. So for example in Luke 13:6 you have a man supposedly growing a fig tree in his vinevard. Trees don’t grow in vineyards, they grow in orchards. So English should use a precise word. Orchard does appear in the Hebrew Scriptures once in Song of Songs 4:13, but that word also has to cover: park, preserve, enclosed garden and forest, so English is far more versatile and precise, tho that precision is still largely untapped in Bible translations! Traditional wording is far more likely to be reused in each succeeding version, when other synonyms would work better. Prefixes and suffixes clarify simpler vocabularies by creating compound words, but the root words seem to win out in translations. I would suspect that the word count in the Gabriel Bible sets a record.
The Murdock and Etheridge versions are arguably among the most difficult English versions of the last couple centuries to understand. Any significant words that have been added, strictly as suggestions for clarity, are placed in italics like this, be they mine or Murdock’s or Etheridge’s, as was done in the KJV, strictly as suggestions for clarity. (Murdock indicated clarifying words in parenthesis, and Etheridge indicated them in brackets.) Italicised words are used to help thoughts flow in English, but they aren’t actually present in the Aramaic and should be viewed as such. Simple connecting words aren’t usually marked in translations that mark clarifying words because there are so many. A unique feature of the Gabriel Bible is that in situations where the most literal wording would be rather confusing or vague in English, are desnigated by wording within straight quotation marks 'like this', indicating that a word or phrase has been interpreted from existing Aramaic words. Sarcasm is occasionally noted with “quotation marks”.
Some of the best terminology from the 1849 Etheridge version (Aramaic), in addition to the Murdock, is preserved in the Gabriel. The better elements of the Tyndale and the Weymouth (Greek) versions are salvaged as well, tho virtually every verse in the Gabriel is unique. (In fact, if you enter a random verse from the Gabriel “surrounded by quotation marks”, in all but the simplest of verses, you end up back on my site!) Of course the Greek renderings must not conflict with the Aramaic. Most of the Weymouth was freshly translated from the Greek in the nineteenth century. He was insightful and ahead of his time and didn’t add any ecclesiastical vocabulary (tho he did accept the deletions of Wescott & Hort). The Weymouth isn’t a stealth revision of the Tyndale in disguise, as every other Greek version that I’m aware of appears to be. The Weymouth is essentially THE only second opinion Greek version to have ever hit the mainstream, altho some passages are virtually unrecognizable because the paraphrasing is sometimes so loose, as in Hebrews 5:7. Another example is that the word “Christian” shows up often, while in the original texts, “Christian” was only used by the enemies of the believers. Some of it is really interpretation rather than translation, yet the interpretation is usually accurate and unbiased. Where Weymouth differs from the others, I have explored all the more carefully. The uniqueness of the Weymouth is easily demonstrated by comparing many versions side-by-side here. He picked up many nuances that the others simply overlooked. Unfortunately, there is a fair amount of dramatization—little embellished comments that simply aren’t in the Greek. Still, there are very many plain renderings that are simply ignored in every other version that I have seen.
Reading the Bible should be so overwhelming that it is literally “to die for”! Being willing to both live and die for your convictions requires emotional maturity. Do you feel multiple passions while reading Father’s very words? If you are tripping over awkward phraseology you lose much of the emotional impact that should be inseparable from the facts.
Bible reading shouldn’t be like reading something from a stodgy academic linguistic puzzle, fitting together individual words retrieved from a cave from a nearly dead language. The Bible is “full of life and active” (Hebrews 4:12). It is for all time, inspired and sent to you from heaven by our very living Father! I see no reason to sprinkle the text with unnecessary Hebrew or Aramaic words, except as references. What’s the motive?
Understanding the Bible doesn’t require understanding foreign language word structures, so long as the translation is HONEST! It is only by checking the more critical words in a lexicon that you can determine the honesty. Using a lexicon can be better than learning Aramaic or Hebrew or Greek as your second language. How many times do we use words in our own language correctly, knowing all of the possible nuances of our less often used words? Even using proper English requires knowing your way around a dictionary.
There is an interesting website devoted to translation theory. While their perspective assumes the need for “church hierarchy” and Greek originality (supremacy), it is still interesting, at least for me, to consider the goals of the mainstream translators. The most literal translations are termed “formal equivalence”. Those appearing as loose paraphrases are termed “dynamic equivalence translations”, regardless of their accuracy. Note these comments from the site:
“Translations can be located on a spectrum that would have at one extreme, rigid adherence to the form of the original language (formal equivalence)...
At the other extreme:
“There are problems, however, with dynamic equivalence translations. Since the translator is “freer” from the grammatical forms of the original language he is more likely to exceed the bounds of an accurate translation, in an effort to speak naturally in the native language. That is, the dynamic equivalence translations are capable of being more natural and more precise than are formal equivalence translations, but they are also more capable of being precisely wrong.”
Another commentator who prefers the term “Functional” over “Dynamic” says:
“the main flaw that people generally have with Functional [Dynamic] translation is that it looks suspiciously like paraphrase rather than translation. This isn’t a methodological criticism. As a method, Functional translation says, languages are different, but that they all have the potential for conveying the same meanings. What these meanings look like, whether they are at a word level, phrase level, clause level, or paragraph level depends on the grammar of the target language, not on the source language. And what people often don’t realize about this is that by no means are formal [literal] properties excluded from the application of functional methodology. That’s because as long as meaning isn’t violated and the language of the target translation is still natural, formal properties are allowed to be maintained.”
The Gabriel Bible strives for “Dynamic” accuracy and ease of reading, but don’t think that the simplicity of the text diminishes the accuracy. Almost anything can be explained, given enough simple terms. Yet anywhere that a technical understanding is beneficial, I didn’t hesitate to jump into the technical mode, accompanied by a live lexicon link.
Some modern translations stress that they are not revisions, that they were not influenced by previous translations and revisions. It is quite true that all the older versions are strikingly similar. Conversely, the newer versions strive for uniqueness; very few verses being worded exactly the same as any other modern versions (like the Gabriel Bible). The primary reason for this is copyright law. Were all of the older translators just too lazy to change things, or were they reluctant to make changes to wording that had held up to scrutiny for generations? I’m convinced that they had no interest in change just for the sake of change! But some newer versions prefer to ignore the input of generations of interpreters. My take on the old adage: “Those who don't know history are...doomed”. I prefer to benefit from everything from the oldest Bibles—the Aramaic Targums to the newest fresh online translations, lexicons and commentaries, every question targetable with precision via the internet. The Gabriel Bible is entirely based on the findings of hundreds of other truth seekers—expressed in English. I saw no need to spend years attempting to get up to speed on the original languages myself, when so many hundreds of people have already done that, over hundreds of years.
While Matthew and Hebrews could have originally been written in Hebrew(without any physical evidence), no use of the late medieval texts such as the Shem Tov Matthew, the DuTillet Matthew and the Munster Matthew were used in the Gabriel. These were all filled with anti Messiah rhetoric and used to teach that the Messiah isn’t One with Yehova, tho the Shem Tov could have been descended from original Hebrew copies, rather than being like the late Greek to Hebrew translations.
What follows are the primary categories of changes that were incorporated in order to update James Murdock’s Peshitta Translation into the Testimony of Yeshua. Murdock deliberately used obsolete English because he thought that the King James style of wording somehow made the wording more pious. Back then virtually every English reader was reading the KJV anyway, so Murdock didn’t bring on change faster than he supposed it could be received. Today, obsolete English makes Yeshua’s Good News seem far less relevant to this end time generation—the very generation that needs the Good News the most! Modernization of words or expressions should have no bearing on the meaning. Many of the more important doctrinal points found in the Gabriel are linked to the Mysteries of the Everlasting Kingdom. Conservative consideration was used in replacing the obsolete and obscure English.
Below are most of the obscure or corrupted words that have been updated with far more correct English words:
The most important and obvious word replacements are the following five, (but it helps to read thru the glossary):
“Aloha” replaces “God”. It is the generic Aramaic word for “God”, and is used when His personal name isn’t being referenced.
Assembly replaces “church”. Tyndale was murdered by the “church”, partly because “church” was not in his translation except to reference a pagan temple!
“Evangel” is the original English form of the Greek word “euaggelizo”. It is usually translated as “gospel”. Euaggelizo is a generic Greek term with various Good News applications in the Testimony. “Good News” in caps is used in the Gabriel Bible to denote Yeshua’s Good News rather than other types of good news that are also “euaggelizo”.
“Yeshua” replaces “Jesus”. His friends, family and disciples never knew anyone with a “J” in their name! (Nor was there a letter “J” in the original 1611 KJV!)
Master replaces “Lord” (kurios) when referring to Yeshua. Today’s English only uses “Lord” in a few things, like warlords, landlords & British lords.
Yehovah replaces “LORD” in every place where the Tetragrammaton was likely inserted, in Paleo Hebrew form, into the oldest Aramaic, Greek and even Latin texts. This is explained here. “Yehovah” generally distinguishes “Lord” (the Father) from “Lord” (Yeshua), tho They actually share that name as well.
Hyperlinked words or phrases leads to a source that explains the choice of wording.
A “biblehub.com” link is to a Strong’s numbered word in a lexicon.
The rest of the word upgrades are alphabetical:
There are quite a few more obsolete word forms, but most are unique or nearly so. So I stopped listing them. The above were found early on.
Words ending with “eth” such as “cometh” and “est” such as “doest” have simply been changed (as into “come” and “do”) without being listed due to the sheer number of them.
Redundant Aramaic idioms like “answered and said” is simply “said”; “replied and said” is simply “replied”, etc. This redundancy never has worked in English.
Murdock’s use of Latinized names of people and places remain almost entirely intact so that these names remain recognizable. Almost no one would recognize the Aramaic names.
Obsolete word forms such as for example “hewed” are now “hewn”.
Some words are simply spelled differently now but pronounced the same. Then there are the “ough” words like “through”, “though” and “although”. I side with “thru”, “tho” and “altho” as a reminder that our English is in much need of phonetic reform. Interestingly, “straitened” was retained with the gh not present. So I’m a bit ahead of our time with some words, and have adopted some true English grammar as far as quotation marks go.
One rule I followed is that every sentence must make sense and not contradict any other Text. Occasional verses are translated several ways when various versions are compared. Often the older literal versions, while striving for accuracy make no sense! The context is the best reference in these instances. I look at these until a light bulb comes on.
I’m much in favor of yet another reformation. Martin Luther posted his 95 theses against salable indulgences in 1517—almost half of a millennium ago—and he just scratched the surface of what needed to be reformed. But it isn’t easy to limit reformation to one realm. I passively want to encourage the elimination of apostrophes in all the “not” words. Apostrophes aren’t supposed to be permanent. They’re an evolutionary measure to indicate that too many letters are typically used and that a contraction is being created. They gradually disappear anyway. Logic would dictate that we should have bonafide words with these meanings without the crutches. I’ve eliminated perhaps thousands of “not” apostrophes from my writings. These few words account for the vast majority of the apostrophes in our language. My spell checker even rejects words with apostrophes, but doesn’t reject words such as “doesn’t”. I actually cringe every time I see these “useless evolutionary appendages”. However, now that e-Sword has discovered the Testimony of Yeshua, “corrected” all of my “errors” and made it downloadable, I have stopped waging war on apostrophes, because so many people are seeing their version. I’ve gone traditional and reverted in all of my online writings (since so many verses are quoted. However, my doctrinal stances will never be influenced by popular demand.
The Roman Numerals were changed to Arabic numerals as I progressed thru the books. Also Murdock’s strange numbering of verses: 01, 02, 03 is now 1,2,3.
Some simpler synonyms read much better now, without notation. Frequently more than one English word is necessary to replace an Aramaic word, as is true with translations of any language.
Awkward negatives, such as “resist not evil” became “don’t resist evil”. Any contraction is also my doing. Contractions sometimes necessitate other slight rewording.
Extra words that wouldn’t be found in contemporary sentence structures are omitted, such as: “Enter you in by” is now “Enter in by”. And “seeking for you” is now simply “seeking you”. Also hundreds of sentences beginning with “and” and “for” is odd for English. “And” and “for” used to be used to separate sentences before some grammar reformer invented periods! Most of these can simply vanish; others should be replaced with “So” and “Then” and “But” etc.
Obsolete word sequences (and poor synonyms), such as “answered some of the scribes” became “some of the Torah teachers answered”. It makes no sense to me for a translation to look like a translation by retaining foreign sentence structures. So, for example, as a general rule in what I had considered naming The New Murdock Version, the subject precedes the predicate. Here is another example of Victorian English being “translated” into contemporary English:
“Against the Jews I have committed no offense, as thou also well knowest.”
Virtually all of the awkward wording has been removed. There is no reason for the Bible to be written in English unlike that of your daily newspaper, except for things like weights & measures etc, where we have no exact equivalents.
Sectarian vocabulary has been eliminated as well. Special jargon isn’t authentic. Translations actually shouldn’t have words for trinity, (totally bogus) or ordained (that replaces 15 other specific words in the Greek alone) or sermons, that were copied from pagan Greek sophists, etc. The words used only in churches have better synonyms.
There are about 2,500 live Greek links in the online version. There is an Aramaic concordance put out by the Way International with similarities to the Strong’s, but its copyright forbids any printed usage without written permission, and if they are at all selective about who uses it—well I’m as “unorthodox” as they come! It appears to be pretty objective despite some of the doctrinal positions of their recent past. Yet the online version (presumably the same as the printed version) only uses one word English synonyms that are woefully inadequate for such a nuanced language.
Despite being limited with regard to Aramaic reference works, I’m finding that there are hundreds of interesting things hiding in the Greek that can be rendered more accurately. Passages about the Torah even have a direct effect on your eternal “reward”.
Two very interesting differences that I found while comparing every Greek verse to the Aramaic are found in 2 Thessalonians 1:7-8. The Aramaic is in agreement with 1 Corinthians 15:1-2, about the dead being raised, while the Greek translations only promise “rest”, “relief” or “repose” at this most critical time. Yet up to hundreds or even thousands of years in the grave should be enough rest! Then there is a unique (so far as I know) disagreement among translators as to where to put the “burning fire”—some put it in verse 7, others in verse 8. This may stem from an even more important difference—WHO IS IN THE FIRE! The 16 Greek versions I looked at all had Yeshua and the “angels” in the fire, while all the Aramaic versions I checked had the wicked in the fire, as so many prophecies explain, such as Malachi 4:1-3. I think I can guess who is responsible for having Yeshua in the fire, while the dead in Messiah keep on sleeping!
Aside from modernizing many old English words with modern synonyms found in the Murdock and Etheridge, the following differences were made:
Missing capitalizations at the beginning of sentences are changed.
Hyphenated words that don’t require hyphens, as well as merged words no longer separated, such as “for ever” became “forever”.
Many more quotation marks were added—at least in places that were previously indicated by a colon. For instance Murdock only used quotation marks four times in Matthew, but it is with them in contemporary English. Punctuation has changed considerably since 1851, even since 1995!
Pronouns for Yeshua and the Father are being capitalized, as a convenience.
Hundreds of colons were changed to commas or periods.
My footnotes are in numbered brackets, like this: [1].
Murdock’s or Etheridge’s edited footnotes are in lettered brackets, like this [A].
The Mysteries of the Everlasting Kingdom series of books is being retrofitted with verses from the Gabriel.
Why would a house painter [now ‘retired’ after painting 50 years] with no “orthodox credentials” create a new version of the [the entire Bible]? The idea came as a surprise to me too. Yet I have had a life long desire to understand many of the mysteries of the Bible. But even as a teenager I was coming up with too many “strange ideas” in my Strong’s Concordance to suit the few people I spoke to. My reception hasn’t improved much since then. I don’t suppose that quoting my Gabriel Bible in my series of online books: Mysteries of the Everlasting Kingdom will gain me many friends, but popularity is overrated.
Paul Younan’s Targums and his unfinished Peshitta Interlinear is a favorite link.
