Shalom everyone,
Around Britain, there are recreations of villages from different time-periods in ancient British history. There is one famous one called Butser Farm, which began life as an Iron Age farm, recreating life from about 2,500 years ago. The aim of these recreations is to reconstruct what is known of life during a particular period, so that by living that history, one can stumble across things that were previously unknown, simply by living it. People recreate every-day life, from methods of farming, food, building and clothing, to what breeds of animals they kept.
At Butser farm, the most hilarious thing they found out, was something about Iron Age houses, which were basically roundhouses made of straw, mud, logs and sticks. In excavated Iron Age houses, they found strange markings at the entrance to all the houses. The speculation was that these were ritual markings of some kind, perhaps to the god of domestic places.
Then at Butser, they found out what these markings were – they were made by chickens scratching in the mud! Chickens seemed to like gathering at the entrance and scratching the dust there!
I myself am deliberately trying to recreate the theology of Yeshua, and to live the teachings of Yeshua, so that I can experience how the life of an early Follower who lived his teachings might have lived, what unexpected ethical problems they would have come upon, how might they have handled matters that Yeshua did not speak about, and so on. What I am doing is a kind of experiment in living history of sorts. One thing I have realised, is how Yeshua’s teachings could easily have been changed, how his words could have been amended, even in his lifetime.
Now, most of you know I have a very distinctive style of teaching, and I cleave to certain values and emphases in my work and ministry. I have no problem at all when people quote me, or use my words – you are all free to do so. If you have ever played the game of ‘Telephone’ (US) or ‘Chinese Whispers’ (UK), you will know how things get changed very easily. My own words do get back to me sometimes, and people are claiming things about what I myself have supposedly said that I have never said!! I even experienced an occasion where someone online, being unaware that it was me that they were speaking to, explaining my own words back to me, and telling me that I was wrong in how I was interpreting my own words, and that they alone were correct in their interpretation of my words! I didn’t bother to tell them it was me who said the words they were quoting, I was so flabbergasted!
If anyone needs to add their own opinions or thoughts to what I say, I truly have no problem with that at all. The problems start arising when people transmit their own personal opinions and beliefs as if they were my opinions. I very much want people to have confidence in their own opinions.
Now, I hasten to add that I am obviously nothing near the stature of Yeshua, I am most definitely a disciple of Yeshua; he is my human teacher, and I have a greater Teacher too, YHVH. I have been teaching the Way to others since the late 1990s, but even in that time, my personal words have been changed. If the words of someone as lowly as me can be changed, just think how the words of someone far greater can be changed. People even misremember and misquote the sayings of Winston Churchill, and claim certain witticisms for him that he never said! And he lived in an age of the recorded and printed word!
So I can now easily see how Yeshua’s own words could be misremembered, in a society where most ordinary people did not write things down, and where most spoken words were reported by word of mouth only. Simple human nature tempts people to change what they have heard or learnt, to fit with their own opinions. Their own personal beliefs have become more important than the teachings of the person they are supposed to be following – so you can understand Yeshua’s very real frustration when he said, “Why do you call me ’Master’, and yet do nothing that I say?”
If words can be changed when transmitted between people of the same culture, just think what changes could take place when words were transmitted from one culture to another – from a Jewish culture, to a formerly pagan Gentile one – a culture which did not understand the reasoning behind what they were transmitting to one another (especially in communities overseen by someone who wasn’t even interested in Yeshua’s words – Paul).
Someone not familiar with Jewish culture could easily fill in or change something they did not understand, just by guessing what something could mean; someone could even change someone’s words just to agree with their own beliefs (I’m sure that happened in early Paullist Christian communities).
This, I believe, is how the gospels got formed, and how the mistakes in them got made. There are mistakes even in the Gospel of Matthew, which is supposed to be the most Jewish gospel, but it is obvious in a few places that the person who wrote Matthew could not speak or understand Aramaic.
My point in writing this, is to show how Yeshua’s words can be changed even just a few years after his death, and how they can radically change when transmitted from a Jewish to a Gentile culture – how new beliefs can easily creep in which Yeshua himself did not espouse. Ultimately, we cannot ever know with 100% accuracy what Yeshua genuinely said, but through Form Criticism, we can make a pretty good guess as to what the authentic words of Yeshua might have been – and, be able to tell the difference between the things the historical Jewish Yeshua might have said, and the things which have been added by word of mouth by others.
Blessings in YHVH’s Holy Name
Your brother and servant
Shmuliq