It's Supernatural

Sid:  My guest is red hot for the Messiah. His name is Bill Morford, and he has spent twenty years on this project of translation of a new Bible, it’s both the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament.  He’s used as his basis an approved copy of the Hebrew Scriptures that any Jew in the world would say that this is our Bible.  And the best trans-Greek rendition of the New Testament, and he’s brought out the meanings of idioms.  If you didn’t know the Jewish idioms when Jesus says “pluck out your eye”, you might think that you have to really pluck your eye out if you didn’t know that idiom.  What does that idiom mean Bill?

Bill:  If your eye is evil it means you’re stingy, if your eye is good it means that you’re generous; so what He’s saying is that if you’re stingy get rid of your stinginess, get a generous spirit.

Sid:  And what about when He says cut off your right hand, what does that mean?

Bill:  The same thing that if your hand offends you, which could indicate any number of improper actions; cut it off means stop doing it, it doesn’t mean cut off your hand, it means stop doing that; your right hand is a statement of power.

Sid:  Now Bill you went back to the Hebrew names not in a lot of areas, but like for Jesus you said Yeshua, for Mary you used her Hebrew name Miriam, for law you said Torah, for James you went to his Hebrew name Jacob, for trumpet you say shofar.  Only a few of these adjustments, but what difference does it make whether the Bible says Jesus or Yeshua?

Bill:  Well Yeshua is very significant because that’s the name that was given to Miriam by the angel Gabriel. And Yeshua is a Hebrew word that means to deliver, it’s a verb it means to deliver or to save, but deliverance is the first.  And He came to set us free to deliver us from religious spirits as well as any demonic oppression.

Sid:  Where did we get Jesus from?

Bill:  Because when you write it in Greek, Greek has no “sh” sound. So it couldn’t be Yeshu, it comes out Yaysu, and when that was translated into Latin, the same letters the Latin equivalent of the Greek, are used for His name.  And when that was translated into English, in the Middle Ages, what they did was they used the German “j” for “i” because in German the “j” is equivalent of the Hebrew yod. And the Saxon’s had come in and taken over England and brought a German influence into the English language.  So it was actually pronounced Yaysu in English originally, but in a few hundred years that had changed dramatically and it had our modern J sound.  So that’s how the “j” came in.

Sid:  How did we get James from Jacob?  They are not the same they are two different people?  And we have Jacob in the Jewish Scriptures and the Hebrew Scriptures so why should we have Jacob in the New Testament?

Bill:  That’s because the group that was hired to translate the King James Version wanted to bless their benefactor and it’s named after King James.

Sid:  And so they changed his name to James.  I wonder how many Christians know that.

Bill:  Yeah, not very many.

Sid:  Okay, but I don’t get those two so maybe I’ll try for a third. What about how did we get Mary instead of Miriam?  I mean why don’t we change Miriam to the sister of Moses in the Hebrew Scriptures?

Bill:  Maria is the Latin instead of Mary.

Sid:   Why do we want a Latin name, why should we have her name?

Bill:  Because the first English translations were made from the Latin Vulgate text and there are a number of Latin words that didn’t get translated. That’s the “mansion” in John 15, it’s the tabernacle, it’s the tabernacle of David, the Word in the Hebrew is not tabernacle it’s Sukkoth and that’s from Amos, Amos nine where the Booth of David is resurrected and restored and it’s speaking of the Kingly line.

Sid:  And we always thought it was the place where David worshipped. So what you’re saying about all this teaching about David’s Tabernacle, where did it come from, why did they mistranslate the Latin?

Bill:  Because they didn’t.  They didn’t translate the Latin word tabernaculum. Latin did not have a word for booth and it’s word for tent was tabernaculum. So that was used for the tabernacle in the wilderness, which is the Hebrew word “mishcahn” and we don’t have an English word for “mishcahn” so tabernacle is entirely appropriate to use there, but a tent, we haven’t a word for, we should use tent.  Booth we have a word for it is Sukkoth we need to have booth of David to put that in perspective, so we know that we are talking about the Messianic Reign.  And in Acts 15 it says to go on talking about world evangelism.  And that’s what it’s for the Messianic Reign is going to take the word of God throughout the earth absolutely.

Sid:  Okay, I’m having difficulty understanding what you’ve said already as to why they did that so let’s try another one.  How did they get a trumpet? I know what a trumpet is, you know, but it’s not a shofar, why did they switch shofar to trumpet. It definitely wasn’t a trumpet with the three keys, you know.

Bill:  You’re right.  Well the Latin used the word for trumpet instead of the word for shofar, it doesn’t have shofar in either Greek or Latin. So when the first English translations were made the people were the people were ignorant of the shofar and they just translated it trumpets. The Feast of Trumpets there is no trumpet blown, of course you know that.

Sid:  I’ve never seen a trumpet in the synagogue. I mean these may sound like little things to people, but I’m interested in truth. In fact I have to ask you this question, you took twenty years on this project, the One New Man Bible, and were you after trying to reinforce your beliefs when you did these translations?

Bill:  No I didn’t. I just wanted to find truth, that’s all I was looking for. I was, of course wanted to grow in the Lord, I did not try to impose my ideas, in fact as I dug in it changed my theology not that I changed the theology in the Bible.

Sid:  Now the books in the Hebrew Scriptures are not in the same order as say the Bibles used in Christianity. Who’s right, who’s wrong?

Bill: Well I really love the Jewish book order. It is so much easier to follow, to understand.

Sid:  Now, wait a second, the last book in the Jewish Scriptures is Chronicles. How does that fit with the first book of the New Testament?

Bill:  Oh, it’s beautiful.  See Chronicles was the last book written in the Hebrew Scriptures.

Sid:  You know I think that it’s important to know what was the last book in the Hebrew Scriptures; opposed to Malachi it was Chronicles.

Bill:  Right.

Sid:  I think that’s a very important thing, but if you go from Chronicles to Matthew how does that work out?  Does it work out better than Malachi to Matthew?

Bill:  It is, it’s a beautiful flow, in fact that book order flows beautifully from Genesis all the way through, not just Chronicles but on through Revelation.  It really is an easy book to read cover to cover.  And do it time after time after time, every time you do it, every time you read it you gain new things.  You see things you’ve never seen before, and it’s awesome in the way you can just feel the flow going from Chronicles into Matthew.

Sid:  And speaking about the flow another thing I found interesting, you’ve made note of what are the Torah readings and the readings from the prophets that are read in every synagogue from the time of Jesus. They were read when Jesus would go into the synagogue that’s what He would read for that particular day it was His readings and that’s still being read today in synagogues throughout the world.  Do you find this fascinating to know what Jesus read on the particular day from the Torah, and it’s being read today in synagogues all over the world?

Bill:  That’s it and it’s really wonderful, my wife and I read that at home.

Sid:  Whoops were out of time.