Once there was a man named Abram. His name was changed to Abraham. He came from Ur, a major Sumerian city-state in ancient Mesopotamia. He had a son named Isaac. Isaac had two sons; Esau and Jacob. Esau being first born was supposed to receive the inheritance but, he was a wild man and got in with the wrong women; Canaanite women. Esau sold his birthright to Jacob for a bowl of pottage and Jacob with the help of his mother Rebecca received the blessing of his father Isaac. Jacob’s name was changed to Israel. Jacob/Israel became the patriarch of the Children of Israel. Esau became patriarch of the Edomites.

Israel was a man. As the patriarch Israel had 12 sons through two sisters Leah and Rachel and their handmaids Zilhah and Bilhah: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Dan, Asher, Gad, Issachar, Naphtali, Zebulon, Joseph and Benjamin. These twelve sons were the patriarchs of the twelve tribes of Israel. These were the Israelites; the Children of Israel were the sons of Jacob/Israel that wound up in Egypt with all their descendants for 430 years. These children of Israel were led out of Egypt by Moses. At Sinai they received the Law and were given the chance to become a Holy Nation among the nations of all mankind. When the Children of Israel went up into the land of Canaan they were told to slaughter the Canaanites and take their land. Ever disobedient the Israelites did not kill all the Canaanites but fell in with them in their wicked ways; the Israelites inter-married with them and whored after their gods.

Yet, the Israelites established themselves in the land of Canaan under King Solomon which had overseen the building of the first Temple. All the 12 tribes of Israel were united under Solomon. Yet, Solomon got into magic and women and fell out of God’s favour. He died and his son took the throne.

Then there was a revolution. 10 of the tribes formed their own Kingdom of Israel. Subsequently, Judah and Benjamin formed their own Kingdom of Judah. Immediately the Kingdom of Israel became wicked and descended into Golden Calf worship, paganism, Baal worship, child sacrifice and more. The Kingdom of Israel were captured by Assyria 750BC; carried out of the land of Canaan never to return; dumped in the Medes what is today northwest Iraq.

The Kingdom of Judah maintained the Law and sacrificial atonement practices given to Moses, worshipping in the Temple built by Solomon at Jerusalem during the time the Kingdom of Israel descended into idolatry. Yet, about 140 years after the destruction of the Kingdom of Israel the Kingdom of Judah finally succumbed to idolatry; paganism, child sacrifice and more. The Kingdom of Judah were captured out of their land and taken to Babylon.

From the time of Moses, the Israelite people having been 430 years in Egypt had a peculiar language evolved from what Abraham had spoken of Ur. Today, this language is known as ‘Paleo Hebrew’. The Kingdom of Israel took that language with them when they were captured to Assyria and from there it morphed into other languages.

“The properties of the Hebrew tongue agree a thousand times more with the English than with the Latin” William Tyndale Preface to The Obedience of a Christian Man (1528)

The Kingdom of Judah took ‘Paleo Hebrew’ to Babylon but began to use the Aramaic language during their 70 year captivity. [Aramaic is a Northwest Semitic language that originated in the ancient region of Syria and has been continuously spoken and written for over 3,000 years. It served as the primary lingua franca of the Neo-Assyrian, Neo-Babylonian, and Achaemenid Persian Empires and remains a liturgical language in Judaism, Christianity, and Mandaeism.]

The Kingdom of Judah were not in captivity in Babylon because they were good but because they had gone bad. During their time of captivity a ‘Tradition of the Elders’ began. This was a verbal tradition of Rabbis and Priests discussing and determining what ways in which The Law could be interpreted. Eventually these discussions would become known as the Babylonian Talmud.

When 50,000 odd Israelites returned to rebuild the Temple, which had been destroyed during the wars that resulted in their captivity to Babylon they brought three developments with them; Aramaic language, the ‘Tradition of the Elders’, and they had become known as ‘Jews’. ‘Jew’ was an epithet given to them by the Babylonians owing to their being the people from the land of Judea/the Kingdom of Judah.

The biblical census in Ezra 2:64 states that 42,360 Jews returned to Judah, a figure that rises to 49,697 when including 7,337 servants and handmaids, as well as 200 singers.  Ai Brave

This was about 530BC. About 325BC Alexander the Great conquered the region. Greek became the lingua franca of the broader region as a result. The ‘Paleo-Hebrew’ of the Kingdom of Israel under Solomon was effectively all but lost save where it became oral knowledge only as Aramaic and Greek had taken over.

Around 250BC, Israelites practising their Kingdom of Judah faith (Judahism/Judaism) living in Alexandria were asked by King Ptolomy to translate their ‘Paleo-Hebrew’ scriptures into Greek. 70 Israelites from the various tribes completed this request and produced The Septuagint LXX. From the turn of the century the Septuagint LXX became the scriptures of the Second Temple, in Judea, in Jerusalem and throughout the wider region in synagogues wherever the practice of Judaism existed. The Septuagint LXX are the Old Testament scriptures used and referenced by Jesus Christ and His Apostles, which wrote their New Testament scriptures in Greek.

The Septuagint LXX was continued to be used by the burgeoning early Christian Apostolic Church and by the Christ-denying Pharisees until 105AD. After that the Pharisees rejected the Septuagint and began to work on their own corrupted, Christ-denying Old Testament scriptures that would eventually become known as the ‘Masoretic’ text.

“The word Masoretic derives from the Hebrew term masorah (מָסוֹרָה), which literally means “tradition” or “to transmit.” Ai Brave

Early versions of this text would be used for the Old Testament portion of Jerome’s Latin Vulgate Bible.

“The Latin Vulgate is a late-4th-century Latin translation of the Bible, primarily the work of Saint Jerome, who was commissioned by Pope Damasus I in 382 AD to revise the existing Vetus Latina Gospels. This translation became the official Latin Bible of the Roman Catholic Church, affirmed at the Council of Trent (1545–1563), and served as the standard text for over a millennium until the promulgation of the Nova Vulgata in 1979.”

Interestingly, from about the time of Jerome’s work the Christian world went into The Dark Ages.

“The Dark Ages typically refer to the Early Middle Ages in European history, a period that lasted from the late 5th century to the 10th century (approximately 476 to 1000 AD).” Ai Brave

Sadly, a certain ‘Hebrew idolatry’ that would poison the scriptures with this corrupt mess created by Jerome (Hebrew ‘Masoretic’ Old Testament with Greek New Testament), continues to this very day.

As Christians we are constantly assailed that we are borrowing somebody else’ Messiah as if to suggest that this Messiah were not our Messiah. We are often told that there are ancient Hebrew, ‘original’ Hebrew Scriptures. Yet, there aren’t any ‘original’ Hebrew Scriptures; those scriptures have been lost, or perhaps destroyed. If you want ancient ‘original’ scriptures, and ones that actually matter having been translated by actual Israelites 250 years before Christ, you need to read The Septuagint LXX. The Brenton Edition is a good edition. The Septuagint were the scriptures to which Christ and His Apostles referred and they were in use easily for 500 years before Jerome produced his Latin Vulgate Bible.

It was the Christ-denying Pharisees clinging tenaciously to their Old Covenant religion of atonement through rituals under their command which, 100 years after the death of Christ rejected the Septuagint to begin writing their own scriptures to suit their own agenda – of course! Folks, these early versions of what would become known as ‘Masoretic’ scriptures were doctored to change timelines and scrub passages so the fulfilment thereof by Christ could be denied. Yet these are the scriptures people refer to as ‘original’ Hebrew Scriptures. The true original ‘Paleo-Hebrew’ scriptures used by actual Israelites 250 years before Christ were lost. Hmmm. Or perhaps they were destroyed?

Folks, here we are 1700 years later with all kinds of religious garbage based on corrupt Hebrew scriptures proclaimed as ‘original’ in tow. Yet, Paul tells the story so simply; an Israelite from the tribe of Benjamin which, became what would later be termed a ‘Christian’. He progresses from the Old Covenant of ‘Judaism’ to the New Covenant of ‘Christianity’ the Israelites would take around the world.

So, if you are a Christian stop listening to this idea that you are borrowing somebody else’s Messiah, that some people today are still ‘chosen’ and preferred above you or somehow to be revered. Those are all fancy stories from frauds and charlatans. You need more than stories. You need the salvation of Christ which, He has never denied but for the priesthood in the way. Part of that salvation is knowing and understanding what has really happened so you can go forward to that salvation in the life to come clearly seeing through all the deceptions, lies and false teachings on the way.