Taking Responsibility
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Knowledge of the Biblical Languages
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  There are, perhaps, two main dangers facing followers of the Messianic
  faith today. The first is the temptation to throw out all things
  "Christian" as utterly corrupt and tarnished; the second is the
  temptation to embrace all things "Jewish" as enlightened and pure.

  But there is a third danger of which we need to be aware---the
  possibility and, indeed, the likelihood of an unconscious embracing of
  dubious values and attitudes which we have inherited from our
  Christian (or, for that matter, Jewish) background.

  The inherited Christian attitude which concerns us here is the one
  concerning the biblical languages, the one which tells us that
  ordinary folk like us have no business learning anything of the
  original languages of the Bible, because this should be and must be
  left to the "experts", the priests, ministers, and gatekeepers of the
  truth who tell us what the Bible says, because it is too dangerous to
  let the common folk acquire any of this knowledge for themselves,
  /even if their intellectual abilities would allow such a thing/.

  Note that you will surely never find this printed in the creedal
  statements of any church. That is not the point. The unspoken value
  and attitude is nevertheless present.

  The statement by Pratico and Van Pelt is quoted above to demonstrate
  this attitude within the wider Christian culture. There is nothing
  "wrong" in what they say, yet it does betray the kind of attitude I
  have just described, the attitude whereby the special elect are, by
  and large, the only ones expected to have any type of systematic
  knowledge of the biblical languages. Furthermore, and most
  importantly, we have /internalised/ these values, so that we
  /ourselves/ do not believe we can or should know anything of the
  languages of the Bible, and tellingly, /we have no desire/ to acquire
  this knowledge.

  But as Messianics, we know better than most that we cannot and should
  not rely on any elite to tell us what Scripture says, because this is
  the same as telling us /what to believe/. As Messianics, we know that
  key portions of Scripture have been systematically misinterpreted and
  /mistranslated/. Even the original text of Scripture has not been
  entirely immune from deliberate corruption by Church scribes who did
  not want the Scripture to say what it says.

  In the face of this, it is obvious that we cannot blindly rely on
  "experts" to tell us what Scripture says, as if our translations are
  error free and entirely reliable. The idea that only an elite has
  access to the Bible in its original languages is one that comes
  directly from the Catholic Church, which has always jealously guarded
  its authority and power over the ignorant.

  We must therefore take some responsibility for our own knowledge of
  what Scripture says, to the extent we are able. Very few of us are
  incapable of learning anything about the biblical languages, and many
  of us have the ability to acquire a considerable level of expertise.
  It is absolutely not the case that one needs to have some "special"
  ability or gift with languages: that is just a lie we tell ourselves
  because of our having been conditioned into internalising these
  harmful cultural values that result in our continued ignorance over
  time and over generations.

  Be warned: the high priesthood will tell you, sooner or later, that,
  "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing." You need to know that that
  is a simple lie. A little knowledge certainly /can/ be a dangerous
  thing when used /foolishly/. If you know the limits of your knowledge,
  lean on the Spirit, and wisely avoid dogmatism and closing one's mind
  on points about which you are not sure, then all will be well. The
  rest falls under the banner of minor mistakes, which we all make and
  which are part of life for all of us who do not wish to remain
  ignorant.