Ch-rch of G-d in Chr-st our L-rd
Chruch of God in Christ our Lord
Dan Baxley
Something look odd about the spelling in the title of this page? No, I'm not studdering, in fact, the words are still very pronouncable, even with the vowels missing, but why have I done this? Why would anyone replace vowels in the spelling of certain words with a dash ( - )? Believe it or not, there are some religious bodies printing publications and tracts doing just that. Why? What is the reasoning?
Some "super" religious groups believe certain words are of pagan origin and it is therefore a sin to use -- no, wait, that can't be right because they do use them. Let's see, the reasoning goes, by removing the vowels the "pagan" word is disabled -- that is, of course, accepting the "pagan origins" concept. For the sake of argument let's assume this teaching, or belief is accurate - certain words used in religion are of pagan origin, okay we accept that as fact, for now (there is no pure language on this Earth, but we will over look that for the moment). Okay, we won't entirely accept the pagan concept as it is too easy to prove all language is from pagan sources. So, it is more of a pick and choose, which word, or words are you going to censor and which do you give a pass?
I am not going to launch into a long and tiring search of words and letters in order to destroy this erroneous concept, as I don't believe it deserves that much time, but, with a little logic, common sense and a little bit of the Holy Spirit, I think we can sort this out and stop the guilt trip being laid on some with this spirit of error, and error couched in "self-righteousness".
First, if these words are truly pagan and evil, as they claim, and need to be dismantled by removing the vowels, you would then think they should not be used at all. If, however, on this basis you decide to do just that then you would have to stop using language in its entirety. Admittedly, virtually all letters of modern language is derived from "pagan" sources -- that would be pre-Christian don't you know -- like we of the Faith have a new language? Not yet but that day is coming but it is not here yet, we are still in this World. Words and letters and languagees of every sort has been used by every evil empire ever to have lived on the face of this Earth. Did the Creator God speak to the Babylonian king in Hebrew? Of course not, the king may not have understood him as the Babylonians were forcing their captive Jews to spaek in Babylonian and the principle figure in prophetic history did just that, Daniel the prophet. Language is a power unto itself, without it you cannot communicate. It is need to convey simple thought, to conduct trade and to control others, not to mention the serving of mammon -- you know, the money g-d, or should it be, money gd (m-n-y g-d, or the g-d of m-mm-n)? I really should not have to go any further with this but I know there are some tormented souls out there that ahve been sucked into this false thinking and it will influence their thinking in the future when they should be growing in the Messiah they are being stifled by this kind of nonsense.
Please, hang with me on this, I know some of you see the stupidity of this, but it is a serious matter to others and, as a serious bible student, you will come across this form of religious superiority more and more. It is one of the control mechanisms used by cult type leaders to keep the pressuyre on new babes in the Messiah, to stifle their growth. You don't need to be a scholar in languages to figure out that dropping the vowels from words does not make them clean nor does it remove any pagan stigma someone may have attached to them. It may actually be true that unholy people used unholy language and wht world over has accepted some, or all of these word inot their language -- so, where is the Holy Language? No it is not modern Hebrew and it can't be ancient Hebrew as no one speaks it and has only recently been able to desipher it. It does not take a great deal of research and the use of your spirit guided intellect to determine the truth in this matter.
Let us reason with an open mind to see the truth of this thing. First, a vowel is really not and never has been a part of the original word or words. Vowels are an invention of modern language, or the progression of languages, to aid in the pronunciation of words. Take the word "word" as an example -- by removing the vowel we have w-rd or wrd (if you are into morris code then please, use the dash). Hey, look, you can still pronounce the word and it still makes sense without the vowel. The original words, from before modern writing, in acneint time never had vowels or vowel points, that is a later developement -- we are talking ancient time, of times, when languages were scrambled at the Tower of Babble. A long time after that event, something called vowel "points" were used, small dots and markings around the letters to show or aid in pronunciation, but before that no vowel points, only the main letter characters.
The Hebrew language is known for the use of vowel points but in the original writings, before the vowel points, the Hebrew writings were a string of letters, without spacing, and it was left up to the reader to make the proper division while reading. This could also be an observation that would prove that the people of "ancient" times were not mental midgets in the chain of evolution. As man's mind began to degenerate (this is tongue in cheek) he needed a system by which to help his failing intelligence properly divide the words and vowels to help verbalize what he was reading. Someone once said that the mother of all invention is "laziness", and the invention of vowel points is a case in point - or points.
Eventually these vowel points were incorporated into the individual word becoming part of the word but remember the original word and its original lettering never contained these vowel points. You can see where I'm going with this, I hope -- by removing the vowel points or the vowel letters you actually make the word or words more perfect, returning them to their original form. If you really believe the word GOD, for example, is a pagan word and that by dropping the vowel you have somehow disconnected that term from the pagan source, you are highly mistaken -- you have in fact made it more perfectly connected to the pagan origin, actually restoring the word or words. The original term, in English lettering, would be "GD", or "GT" as found among the German peoples of Europe through whom some claim the English term "god" originates. Can you pronounce these terms without the vowels? Of course you can and in your mind you already have. Yes, everyone that reads words without the vowels still translates the sound of that word in their own minds. This is a good example of no matter how hard you try to be pure you fail and this should demonstrate the real need for our Savior, why He had to come, to save us. And this should also be a demonstration of our own evil hearts and the tremendous love our Heavenly Father has for us. Try as hard as you might you will always fail in the arena of righteousness, especially in words -- saying the very thing that is trying to be avoided -- the proverbial, "shooting yourself in the foot".
I personally use terms common to the language of the day, words the common man can understand and relate too. I do not try to cloud the thinking with roadblocks that appear when trying to read an article with vowels missing. I would have to ask those that do fiddle with this type of language manipulation how they say, that is voice, these terms with the mouth, you know -- when reading aloud? There is a day coming when a "pure language" will be given to the people of the Living God but that day is not now. Vowels are only aides in pronouncing words and the modern viewer has become so used to seeing the vowels placed within the words that the original words appear strange without them. Who in school has not learned modern day vowels a, e, i, o, u? Try removing the vowels from any word, even names and you will see that it is possible to say the words or names without losing the meaning. Take the word "vowel" and remove the vowels -- vwl - how would you pronounce it? Certainly words and misplaced vowels have been used to deceive, or cover a true name with an inferior one, and we see this primarily in the name of our Savior YaHshua. But that is not the agruement the leaders of these groups use when removing vowels from tiles such as "GOD" for "G-D" and continue to use the, in their eyes, foul word.
You do not need to fear the word or the terms they say refer to other gods. Look at the name of the God of Israel, YHWH - can you pronounce it? Certainly it looks strange and you could place vowels within its body of letters but first try to pronounce this name that David called on and sang praises to. Here is how it appears with the vowels in place, YaHWeH. Please understand this point -- the vowels do not belong to the purity of a word and its meaning. Vowels are only aides in pronunciation. The pure form of any word is without the vowels, not with them. If anything, placing or misplacing vowels pollute the original word or term not the other way around. Take the Messiah's birth name, YaHshua, some have it YeHshua and you can see the difference is minor and when you can get into the study of languages and find out that the "e" vowel from the ancient Greeks, and before, is called the "long e" -- a long "e" has an "a" sound. Those that insist on the pronunciation using the "e" vowel in short form are in error but it is not a big doctrine breaking error, it is just a lot more correct to use the "a" vowel as they should both sound the same. For the sake of argument, again, let's remove the vowels from the Messiah's name -- YHsha. While it appears strange it is now pronounceable in its pure form, pure in the sense of the language of the day. (For anyone questioning the "e" used in this fashion by ancient writers -- that is -- not like in "yes" but like in "hey" -- see the long "e". My source for the ancients: The Bible in the British Museum, by T. C. Mitchell, Document 55, page 96)
Here is another little exercise that will illustrate a point overlooked by some. The name "Jesus" changes when understood that the letter "J" did not come into use until recent history (as a consonant around the 16th centruy) and the letter "J' originated from the Greek letter "I" (not a vowel in this case but used as a consonant) we then come up with "Iesus" not Jesus as more correct than the modern rendition -- removing the vowels we then have "Iss". Be careful now or you may see something before you even say it. This name does not stay the same it changes and is pronounced "Isis". Unlike the names of the God of the Bible, unlike the birth-name of our Savior the modern name "Jesus" (Iesus, pronounced Ie-Zeus, in Europe) is not repeatable to its original form -- oh wait, perhaps its orginal form is Isis? Now that is scary. Can you understand that, do you see it? It is not pronounceable in its original form -- it is like a code name. Unlike the birth name of our Savior, YaHshua, the name Jesus reverts back to a name that is connected to the number 6 (it just so happens the Eyptian goddess Isis' number is 666). In the European pronunciation, like the Spanish pronunciation, Jesus is Pronounced Hey-Zeus, a Greek deity called "The Zeus" -- removal of the vowels from the "English" form brings us to the term "Iss" pronounced Isis. But wait, there is more.
I know I'm repeating myself but this need to be repeated -- Isis is an Egyptian goddess and her symbol is the snake and guess what her number is? If you guessed 666 you guessed right. Now don't get all excited or mad or both. I am not entirely convinced that 666 is the mark of the Beast there is some very good research suggesting that the real number is 616. I must admit I have not looked into this matter in depth but I have been aware of the alternate number 616 for years, it just never interested me enough to do a study on it. Maybe you have something concerning this number -- send me an email. (Check out Bullinger's book on numbers. His work also puts some light on the pagan origins of the term "Christ" and its association with a similar variation on the numbers 6-6-6 -- )
Once more, for good measure, nearly every word having to do with the scriptures is pronounceable with the vowels removed. This is especially true of names, except when it comes to the name "JESUS". By removing the vowels this bogus name is not repeatable, at least not as it is pronounced in todays modern languages, no it becomes something else. Perhaps, by removing the vowels the true pronunciation is revealed? This should not seem so strange, Satan has had over two thousand years to bring off this lie.
One more observation of interest is that when you restore the letter "J" in the name Jesus with the proper Greek letter "I" and do a spell check using your word processor, it will ask if you mean ISIS -- interesting, no? Even the spell checker knows the truth.
Back to the vowel dropping
The Apostle Paul once lectured on the fact that he had rather make one sound that could be understood than to make a thousand that could not. Following this example we should be able to see that it is not the words that are evil but it is how they are used, and in the end it is the "spirit" of the words and their intent not the letters. The language we have today is called the "common language", or the common tongue. The term "common" used to be referred to as the "vulgar" language. You see the common man of low birth spoke a language or dialect of the day that was considered "vulgar" to the ear of the few educated men of the middle centuries, so, the "vulgar" language became the "common" language. Now, guess what brought the "common" language, that vulgar tongue of the common working class man into popular use? If you said the Bible you would be right. Thanks to William Tyndale who gave his life for you and me, for the "vulgar people" to be able to read the words of the Bible in His or her own "vulgar tongue" they, those intellectually superior types, murdered him for having done this - putting the Bible into the "common" or "vuglar" language of the lowly average man and woman. The religious authorities of his day had him strangled and then burned at the stake.
Certainly there were other great men of history such as Martin Luther, but it is an historical record that the King James Version Bible in the language of the common folk is founded upon the writings and translations Tyndale produced, along with the Bishops Bible, we get the KJV. Eighty percent of the New Testament King James Version Bible is from William Tyndale. The King of England commissioned over fifty scholars (some say 70) to come up with a new translation, a translation he would put his gorvernmental seal of approval on, and the collection of scholars had a ready made tranlstion at hand from which to begin. It is a tribute to William Tyndale that they could not improve upon some eighty percent of what William Tyndale had already produced by himself. Certainly King James and the scholars appointed to the task were willing to take full credit but it was William Tyndale and his genius that really got things going and he paid the ultimate price and many others followed him to grave having read his work and by the word written in the "vulgar" language of the day gave their lives, literally, to the King of Heaven and Earth. HalleluYH
email: servant@Yahshuaservant.com
click this link for more on this: JESUS is NOT His NAME