The Septuagint — European History

Hosts

Woe

aka Eschatologuy

The story of how Hebrew was smuggled into the Western Church is long and complicated; it spans centuries and involves hundreds of men. In this episode, we have narrowed down the story to a handful of key figures who played pivotal roles. At many points in this timeline, Christian men could have stood up and defended the inspired Greek of the Septuagint, but essentially none did so. At any point in this timeline, Christian men could have stood up and repudiated the wicked use of the Hebrew, but only two did so — both former (converted) Jews. Satan does not have the limitation of a lifespan of but eighty or so years, and he does not sleep or grow tired; the story of Hebrew is the story of Satan’s long-term plan to undermine and collapse the Western Church, and, with her, Christendom.

In this second-half of the historical portion of the Septuagint series, we cover the history of the Western Church (from, roughly, Jerome to the Reformation) with regard to how Hebrew came to be used as the basis for the Old Testament. Notably, this history of the Septuagint is almost devoid of any actual use of the Septuagint by the men whose lives and actions make up the narrative, because we, like the Israelites of the Old Testament, left the Word of God sitting in a basement, abandoned and largely forgotten — and, worse, we accepted a corrupted counterfeit from rabbis and made it the basis of our translations. Mercifully and according to His promises, God preserved the Greek for us, and so we can undo the foolishness of centuries past — a topic we will take up in the last episode in this series.


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Show Notes

See Also

Further Reading

Parental Warnings

At the end of the episode, Luther is quoted and the quote includes the words “whore” and “slut”.

Transcript

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The Septuagint — Near Eastern History

Hosts

Woe

aka Eschatologuy

The Word of God has been preserved — miraculously — down through the ages, faithfully transmitted forward from past generations to us. This is according to God’s promises, and yet God nowhere (in the Old Testament) says which language He will use to accomplish this. Many have long claimed that God used Hebrew to do this, but the Hebrew language was never a true written language until the 20th century and, above and beyond this, the Hebrew language was dead for more than two thousand years. How, then, did God preserve His Word? He caused it to be translated into Greek — the Septuagint (LXX).

It was the Septuagint that was used by our forefathers in the faith, by the Apostles, and by Christ Himself. In this first of our four-part (really five-part) series on the Septuagint, we cover the history of the Hebrew language and the history of the LXX up until about AD 1000; we trace how the so-called “Masoretic Text” was infiltrated into the Church by those who deny Christ, curse His sheep, and serve another master, and how, tragically, Christians failed to prevent this and permitted the MT to supplant the LXX; and we begin to make our case for a return to the Word of God as He has preserved it and as the Church has always received it — in Greek, as the Septuagint.


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Show Notes

Further Reading

  • Letter of Aristeas [Wikipedia]
  • Although we do not (yet) have an English translation using the LXX that we unreservedly recommend, we recognize that some will want a version for the sake of comparison. This is one option: The Lexham English Septuagint
    • The Brenton edition can be found in several places online.

Parental Warnings

None.

Transcript

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The Magdeburg Confession

Hosts

Woe

aka Eschatologuy

There is no blanket Christian duty to submit to wrongful authority; in fact, under certain circumstances, the Christian may even have an affirmative duty to resist the tyrant — even the tyrant who may claim to be a Christian himself. The Magdeburg Confession serves as a foundational document (arguably second only to Scripture) on the Doctrine of the Lesser Magistrate and Christian resistance to tyranny. For the Christian, the question is twofold:

  1. When is it moral to resist the higher authority?
  2. When is it wise to resist the higher authority?

It is incumbent on Christian men to consider these matters, for we have duties to those above us and to those below us (if any) in the social and political hierarchy. The Magdeburgers had to work through these issues while watching an imperial army make ready a siege that would eventually last more than a year and claim thousands of lives (mostly on the imperial side); we would do well to think through these matters now, while we yet enjoy relative peace.


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Show Notes

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Further Reading

Parental Warnings

None.

Transcript

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Justice and Retribution

Hosts

Woe

aka Eschatologuy

Retribution is the debt that man owes to justice. Modern society would attempt to mislead you into thinking that rehabilitation or distribution or restoration or mercy are part of justice, but they are not. God is clear in His Word that justice is a matter of punishment of those who do wrong. The prince does not wield the sword in vain, and he will be judged by his faithful or for his faithless execution of his office.

In the coming years, and particularly in the coming year, there will be many who will attempt to conflate the mercy that God has shown us in the right-hand kingdom with the justice that He commands must be done in the left-hand kingdom. Clerics of all stripes will scream and cry that we must show ‘mercy’ and ‘forgiveness’ in the political realm instead of doing what is right and just — these men will be using their collars to spread lies, and God will judge them for their wickedness. Christian men must know how to rightly divide these matters and how to distinguish the voice of God from the lies of Satan — both our souls and our nation depend on this.


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Show Notes

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Further Reading

Parental Warnings

None.

Transcript

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Power and Authority

Hosts

Woe

aka Eschatologuy

When things are proceeding as they should, when matters are rightly organized, power and authority are virtually synonymous, and they are at least reposed within the same men. But things in this life do not always proceed as they should. A king may lack the power to exercise his authority or he may abuse his power by exceeding his authority, and the same sort of problems may occur in the Church — a teacher or a cleric who was once faithful may turn from the truth and begin to teach falsely.

Unlike the prince or the magistrate who does possess some authority by virtue of his office, the teacher or the cleric possesses no authority with regard to the things of God simply by virtue of his office; rather, within the Kingdom of the right hand of Christ, authority is a matter of truth — the man who repeats God’s truth after Him wields authority when he does so, but only insofar as he does so. The words of a faithful teacher must be heeded because they are the very words of God, but the words of a false teacher must be rejected and the teacher shunned if he does not repent. It is not the office that commands authority, but the Word of God.

This is a necessary wisdom call that Christian men must make; we must assess whether a teacher or a cleric is holding true to the Word of God. Similarly, we must assess whether a prince or a magistrate has exceeded his authority and become a tyrant. With regard to the kingdom of the left hand of Christ, we may bear with error or even some level of wickedness, but no such thing may be tolerated with regard to the right-hand kingdom, for false teaching is an affront to God and must never be permitted to continue.


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Show Notes

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Further Reading

Parental Warnings

None.

Transcript

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Making Peace

Hosts

Woe

aka Eschatologuy

“For unto us a Child is born and unto us a Son is given; dominion shall rest upon His shoulders, and His name shall be called Angel of Great Counsel, for I will bring peace upon the rulers and well-being to Him. Great is His dominion — and there is no end to His peace — upon the Throne of David and over His Kingdom, to establish it and uphold it with justice and righteousness, from now unto eternity. The zeal of the Lord of Hosts will accomplish this.”

The Lord is a God of peace, and those who follow Him are to be peacemakers, but to be a peacemaker does not mean to be a doormat or to refuse to utilize violence when and where morally warranted. In this life, peace will always be imperfect, for we live in a fallen world wherein suffering is both inevitable and inescapable, but the eschatological peace found in Scripture, in God’s promises is an absolute peace. As Christians, we have the perfect peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, upon which we can rely — whatever may come in this life.

Peace applies to all of the estates and spheres of life, but it does not apply univocally or identically. The peace that is appropriate to the home and that which contributes to that peace is not the same as the peace that applies to politics, and the latter may be sacrificed more readily in pursuit of higher goals. These are matters of wisdom, and the Christian must know how to comport himself in the home, in society, in the State, and in the Church — peace applies to them all, but not equally and not identically.

Where there are higher duties (e.g., in the State, in the Church), then a false peace may be sacrificed in pursuit of those higher duties. In the State, security trumps peace; in the Church, Martin Luther may have put it best: “Peace, if possible; truth, at all costs.”


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Show Notes

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Further Reading

Parental Warnings

None.

Transcript

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The State of the Churches

Hosts

Woe

aka Eschatologuy

Knowledge is not what saves us, but faith cannot be devoid of content, for one must have faith in something. Part of being a Christian is, unsurprisingly, knowing the content of the Christian faith. Or, perhaps, this would be surprising to many, given the state of knowledge and belief among those claiming to be Christian — even among the best (in terms of knowledge and right belief) of those claiming to be Christian.

In today’s episode, we return to the state of the churches. This time, we examine the general state of knowledge and belief among Christians. Do Christians even know the basics of the faith? For most, the answer is very clearly: No.

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Parental Warnings

None.

Transcript

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Liturgical Life

Hosts

Woe

aka Eschatologuy

Unlike the Old Testament Israelites, New Testament Christians are not required to observe any particular set of feasts, festivals, or commemorations — Scripture does not lay out a Church Year that we are required to follow. However, the Christian standard is not ‘What is required?’, but rather: ‘What is profitable?’ When we ask, instead of what we must do, what we should do for the sake of unity, instruction, and order, we arrive at a far different answer from that of most modern Christians, who have jettisoned from their faith much of the historic practices of the Church.

Whereas we affirm that neither we nor you, as Christians, are required to observe the feasts, festivals, and commemorations of the Church and her historic calendar, we also resolutely contend that these observances are good for the body of Christ. It is in the cyclical and seasonal observances that we live out of lives as Christians and recognize our brothers-in-Christ, who are living out similar lives. There is a difference between the minimum of the faith and the fullness of the faith — we want you to have the latter.

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Show Notes

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Parental Warnings

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Transcript

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The Church

Hosts

Woe

aka Eschatologuy

What do we mean by “Church” or “church”? When we use this term (or these terms, when writing permits distinguishing them with the capital letter), we really mean a handful of distinct things — it is important to keep these clear. In today’s episode, we go over the Church (universal), the church (institutional), and the church (local, congregational). For the Christian, there is great comfort in recognizing the reality of the Church, even when the churches may be in disarray.

“In short, according to Lutheran teaching, it is faith in the Gospel which in every case establishes membership in the Christian Church. To him who believes the Gospel, membership in the Christian Church may not be denied; of him who rejects the Gospel, membership in the Christian Church may not be asserted. Excommunication pronounced against true believers does not deprive them of membership in the Church.”
Francis Pieper, Christian Dogmatics

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Further Reading

Parental Warnings

None.

Transcript

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The Reformation, Its Causes, and Its Consequences

Hosts

Woe

aka Eschatologuy

The Reformation was not the beginning of the problems in the Western Church, nor in the Church more generally. Over the centuries before the beginning of the Reformation, generally accepted as 31 October 1517, the Church faced a number of heresies, divisions, and other problems. Yet God has always seen her through these tumultuous waters.

Today, we find ourselves yet again in need of reformation, for the existing church bodies are corrupt — virtually all from the top down. This does not mean that there are no faithful churches, that there are no faithful congregations, but we do, indeed, find ourselves virtually bereft of faithful, ‘official’ leadership.

To address these challenges and to restore Christendom, we will have to work together. Not as Lutherans or Reformed or Baptists or Romans or whatever other tradition or denomination we may call our own, but as Christians. This is not a call to abandon our distinctives or our doctrinal convictions; rather, it is a call to work together across these lines in the kingdom of the left hand of Christ.

God willing, our grandchildren will see a Christendom we have known only in history books.

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Parental Warnings

None.

Transcript

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