For many salvation seekers of Christian persuasion, the question posed in this caption may seem unimportant since almost all of them will readily give “yes” as answer to the first part and “no” to the second. A more critical answer to this very important question, however, is found in the Preface to the Elohim Edition of my book—Beware of This False Doctrine of Reciting the Sinners’ Prayer for Salvation—released this December, 2013, to book readers world wide by its publishers—Strategic Book Publishing and Rights Agency (SBPRA), a giant publishing house in the USA.
In three installments, starting with this one, I would like to share the full content of this preface with my readers, salvation seekers, and all lovers of truth. I hope they will all be richly blessed by it.
Preface to this Elohim Edition of Beware of This False Doctrine: Of Reciting the Sinners’ Prayer for Salvation
“In the beginning Elohim created the heavens and the earth.” How does this sentence sound to you, dear reader? It may sound strange to you, and that might be due to the word Elohim, which is unpopular to many people. And yet, Elohim is the first known appellation of the Creator-Judge who made and judges the universe, as was revealed by Him in the Hebrew language in which He chose to make Himself known to mankind, through the righteous men He inspired to write the Holy Scriptures many millennia ago!
For readers who are familiar with the King James Version (KJV) of The Bible, they are able to trace and relate the opening sentence in the above paragraph to Genesis 1:1. There, in the KJV, and indeed all English versions of Genesis, the word Elohim has been deleted and replaced with God!
The Holy Scriptures, originally written in Hebrew, if ever they were meant to be translated at all, would, however, have had Genesis 1:1 translated more appropriately thus: “In the beginning Elohim created the heavens and the earth”.
The question to ask is: Why is Elohim, which is revealed to mankind by the Creator-Judge as being His primary description of Himself, lost completely in all the English versions of the Holy Scriptures?
Did all those who translated the Hebrew text of the Holy Scriptures into English, deliberately, plan and scheme to mislead readers of their versions into believing and accepting that the word God, given by them in their translations of Elohim, is an alias to the first known appellation of the Creator-Judge of the Universe, and that this is acceptable even to Him as well? Is God a nickname coined by man for Elohim; and is it one that He is pleased with?
Supposing that is the case, did these translators intend to make their readers come to believe that both appellations—Elohim and God—belong to one same being, and will produce the same results when either is uttered, and so may be used interchangeably?
But then, let me ask: If the two appellations do indeed mean the same and if their values are also the same, why then was there the need for translators to bring about the second at all? Think about this.
Well, it can not be that whatever errors that are detected in the many translations or versions (or are they rather perversions?) of the English Bible were or are a deliberate ploy by translators to confuse salvation seekers or to even deny them the very salvation they seek in and by the word God, which they have given to the Creator-Judge, in the stead of Elohim which He has purposely, and for good reason, given to Himself.
For, all translators come out to me as people who love their Creator and are desirous of serving Him in truth and in the best ways they can. Also, they seem to love their fellow men enough to never want to wish or do them any evil, and so, I believe, would not deliberately mislead salvation seekers by their work.
All this notwithstanding, it must be known that no one who has good intentions in trying to please the Most High One, or in seeking to do good service to mankind, will ever be left to himself without the arch enemy of the Almighty—Satan—trying to impede, frustrate, and even pollute his mind in his efforts, as in such work as translation of the Holy Scriptures.
The original writers of the Hebrew version of the Holy Scriptures were inspired by the Most High One, and were under His direct supervision, as they wrote these scriptures on scrolls of parchment long ago (Second Timothy 3:16 and Second Peter 1:21). These writers could, therefore, never have made even the minutest of errors in their writings in this language since one could say they wrote with the finger of the Most High One.
This perfection, which was characteristic of their work, could not be said to be the same even for the dedicated faithful of the scriptures who, in later years copied by hand these original Hebraic scriptures onto new and fresh parchments from the aged ones.
Of course, such copyists would do their best in this effort and even plead the leading of the Holy Spirit of the Most High One, and so could come up with excellent replicas of the original that would, nonetheless, never be as perfect as the originals.
Obviously, these reproduced copies of the scriptures could never have the same level of purity and perfection as those written by the people who were inspired and closely supervised by the Most High One to write the original scriptures in Hebrew; more so if these copyists worked from manuscripts on faded and, thus, difficult-to-decipher parchments.
Obviously, for those who, centuries later, decided by themselves, and without the express mandate of the Most High One, to translate the Hebrew version of the Holy Scriptures into other languages, insulation from error while they worked could not be guaranteed.
Though they might have sought and determined to do an excellent job, in so far as they did not have the command and mandate of the Most High One to translate His Word into other languages of the world, they were left highly susceptible to error in their work.
The arch enemy of the Most High One is able to infiltrate the minds of any people who may be zealous to His cause and could ultimately render their work fraught with errors, inaccuracies, untruths, and outright pollutions.
Sadly, many translators are very often ignorant of such devices and trickery of Satan, while trying to execute their self-appointed tasks without Elohim’s mandate.
The English and other versions of The Bible must therefore be read with lots of careful and deep thoughtful consideration, and not be taken as “Thus sayeth the Most High One” in every word, verse, and chapter, of any of its books from Genesis to Revelation.
It would be very dangerous for any salvation seekers to read any translated versions of the Hebrew Holy Scriptures, without the mind and thought that there may be human faults within these versions.
Readers must look out for any errors, inaccuracies in expression of thought, untruths, and outright pollutions, which, although translators never deliberately intended to mislead readers of their versions of the Holy Scriptures into, have, nonetheless, been found to occur in their work.
In our search for truth from the Holy Scriptures we must understand that names and titles of people are unique words that give identity to these people. Names and titles are the embodiment of those who bear them—the whole identity and persona of a person are revealed in his or her name and title.
Names are essentially sounds meant to be responded to by those who bear them when pronounced by other people. And so, names of people must always be properly uttered to bring into manifestation the desired attention and effect.
So then, would the word God have the same effect as Elohim when uttered? I doubt this can ever be so. Of course, in sound, the word God is very much the same as the name god used in reference to idols made by humans for use as mediums of worship. Clearly, when the words God and god are written, they show a difference, but not when pronounced.
And so, because the name of a person is essentially a sound, meant to be responded to when properly pronounced, one can imagine the resulting confusion anytime and wherever either God or god is uttered to the hearing of the two beings that man has named as such.
Another question to ask is: Do the appellations, God and god, put the two beings, called as such by mankind, in the same class? Is the Creator-Judge in the same class as idols with the only difference between them being that the Creator-Judge is the superior one because He is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent? How could one ever think in such a manner at all? (—the part two of this preface is soon to be published).
Author Email: chrisbapuohyele@yahoo.com
Website: http://sbpra.com/ChrisBapuohyele
