Twisted Things

by Harvey Block
(2022/09/18 rev 2023/09/07)

I have been thinking about Paul's words in Acts 20 in recent weeks. The events in this chapter are the last events of Paul's traveling ministry. He is on his way to Jerusalem. He is hoping to get to Jerusalem in time for the feast of Pentecost. The ship is at port in Miletus and he has called for the elders of Ephesus to come to him there. He is wanting to encourage them because he knows this is the last time he will see them face to face. It is in Jerusalem that Paul is arrested and taken in chains to prison in Rome. He is troubled and his words are very sobering:

25 “And indeed, now I know that you all, among whom I have gone preaching the kingdom of God, will see my face no more. 26 Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all men. 27 For I have not shunned to declare to you the whole counsel of God. 28 Therefore take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood. 29 For I know this, that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. 30 Also from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves. 31 Therefore watch, and remember that for three years I did not cease to warn everyone night and day with tears.
(Acts 20:25-31 NKJV)

Note especially these words:

29 For I know this, that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. 30 Also from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves.
(Acts 20:29-30 NKJV)

"Speaking perverse things" sounds disgusting, right? But a note in the New King James Version, for 'perverse' has 'misleading.' 'Perverse' is a strongly negative word, even immoral, but 'misleading' is more subtle, not so obvious.

This word is number 1294 in Strong's dictionary. His definition gives, "to distort, (figuratively) misinterpret or (morally) corrupt."

The "Theological Dictionary of the New Testament" (TDNT, a ten volume set) has a sixteen page entry for this word, its root and variant forms.

The Greek word is διεστραμμενα (diestrammena) from the verb διεστρεφω (diestrepho.) That word is from the root στρεφω with prefix δια. δια (dia) means 'through.' (Diameter is the 'through measure' of a circle.) And στρεφω (strepho) means 'to twist', 'to turn', 'bend' or 'steer.'

The earliest uses of the root word στρεφω carry the idea 'to twist,' extended as, 'to turn, bend or steer.' This root later, or with other prefixes, shifted to mean 'to turn toward' or 'to return' in a good sense. But the form, here used by Paul, with the 'dia' prefix is always negative and means 'to twist,' 'to dislocate,' 'to confuse.'

It is my understanding that the best meaning for its use here by Paul is 'twist' and 'misinterpret.' And with the more precise nuance for the grammatical form used here, it is 'passive' or 'middle' (not 'active.') This means that these men speaking may not be actively twisting or misinterpreting the words of scripture, but only 'passively' repeating what they learned in seminary or their denomination's systematic theology. Much of what is taught today was twisted a long time ago, by those who "rose up" after Paul's departure.

So, the primary root meaning carried from the root to the form used here by Paul is 'to twist' in a negative sense, 'to mislead.'

Now the idea of "twisting" has a very interesting history and huge, yet hidden, ramifications.

Things that are slightly twisted to make them look true, but are just slightly off, so they miss the point. After many of these small twists, the whole picture is completely destroyed, but every detail looks very close to correct.

A Hidden Twisted Hebrew Letter

So far, we have been looking at Greek words. Now, we have some very interesting information about the Hebrew language. According to Jeff Benner, a scholar of ancient Hebrew, originally the Hebrew alphabet had twenty-three letters, while today it has only twenty-two.

Hebrew writing today looks nothing like the writing of ancient Hebrew. After King Solomon's reign, the kingdom of Israel was divided. The northern ten tribes kept the name Israel until they were dispersed and displaced by the Assyrians. The southern kingdom became known by the name of the leading tribe, Judah. Years later it was taken captive to Babylon. The language of Babylon was Chaldean (also called Aramaic.) Judah was carried away to Babylon for seventy years, and then a small remnant returned to their land and rebuilt the temple in Jerusalem. But while they were in Babylon, they all learned the language of Babylon, and the writing of Aramaic. When the remnant returned, they brought Aramaic as their common language. Hebrew and Aramaic are quite similar, but the writing looks very different. So, today's Hebrew is actually written using Aramaic letters. It is generally accepted that even though the two alphabets look very different, they correspond to the same twenty-two letters. Perhaps that is why this original Hebrew letter 'ghah' became extinct because the Aramaic in Babylon only had a twenty-two letter alphabet.

The original alphabet was pictographic. The letters were little pictures of real things, like an ox head, a house, a door, a hand, an eye, and so forth. This extra letter, Benner calls 'ghah', was a twisted cord or rope. Evidence indicates that it had a sound like our 'g' (or perhaps 'ng' as in 'ring.')

Benner explains that there are a number of words in Hebrew that each have two very different unrelated meanings. Many words in Hebrew have multiple related meanings. Benner's lexicon does an amazing job at showing how the words get their meaning from their root letters, even when the relation is not obvious. But with these certain words that have two very unrelated meanings, there is something else going on. He shows a list of a dozen words as examples, and they each have the letter 'ayin.' The Hebrew word 'ayin' means 'eye' and was a picture of an eye. Interestingly, this letter ayin is today considered to be a silent letter.

He explains that the evidence shows that this letter he calls 'ghah', has been replaced by the letter 'ayin.' So, in these words with two meanings, they each contain the letter 'ayin.' He shows evidence that each of these words was originally two different words, one spelled with an 'ayin' and the other originally spelled with a 'ghah' in place of the 'ayin.'.

Benner also gives evidence from the translation of the Hebrew scriptures into Greek, called the Septuagint. In the Septuagint, Hebrew names are transliterated into Greek, which means they are spelled with letter for letter equivalents as close as possible. So, there are names in Hebrew which today are spelled with an ayin, but they are transliterated into Greek with a 'gamma' ('g' in English.) Normally, today, ayin is considered a silent letter, but in the case of some names like 'Gomorrah' (as in 'Sodom and Gomorrah') in Hebrew is spelled starting with an 'ayin.'

He gives three names as examples; 'Gomorrah,' 'Gaza' and 'Pogor'.

For the contrast, he shows other Hebrew names that also have an ayin but are transliterated with no corresponding letter, indicating that Greek did not have a letter for that sound.

So we have this missing letter that was 'twisted.' Benner shows a chart of a dozen words with a column spelled with the 'ayin,' and another column spelled with a 'ghah.' The meanings are in these two columns. In the left column all the words are good things, but in the right column are words like; wicked, goat, answer, darkness, blind, city, bad, break, storm, dark, crafty and rain. Most of these words are negative.

So now if we assume that Benner has uncovered something true, we can see some interesting things.

Now remember the two noteworthy trees in the garden of Eden, the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The word 'evil' in our modern Hebrew is 'resh ayin' which is a 'head' and an 'eye.' In his "Ancient Hebrew Lexicon," Benner has entries for this word spelled both ways 'resh ayin' and 'resh ghah.' And the definition he has for the 'resh ghah' entry, is 'evil.'

The tree of the knowledge of good ('tov') and evil ('rong' [resh ghah] -> 'wrong'.)

Jeff Benner has shown through his books how in the ancient Hebrew, the letters were all pictures of real things, twenty-three little pictures, and that the pictures are tied to the meaning of the words spelled with these picture-letters. It is quite amazing to see how it all works and makes sense.

So, this significant tree, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, Satan, the serpent, wanted Eve to turn (twist) her head away from the Tree of Life, and see (eye) the other tree. He wanted to twist her thinking (head) to doubt God's word.

There are many ways the pictures tell us interesting things about this story, but let's skip to the last verse in Genesis 2:

"And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed." (Genesis 2:25 NKJV)

This was their wonderful condition before the fall. But we have an odd word in the very next verse, Genesis 3, verse 1:

"Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made." (Genesis 3:1a)

The word 'cunning' in 3:1 is spelled with the same letters as 'naked' in Genesis 2:25. And here again it is the ayin in 'naked' and originally, according to Benner, a ghah in 'cunning.' Benner also has the meaning of this latter word (ghah resh) as 'crafty.' The serpent was more crafty than any other beast. He got her to eat of that tree, and then he hid a lot of evidence by making this twisted letter actually vanish from the Hebrew language.

Satan has been twisting many little things ever since. Well, they may look like "little things" indeed, but they are actually huge changes.

Hidden Leaven

Jesus told His disciples this parable:

Another parable He spoke to them: “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till it was all leavened.”
(Matthew 13:33 NKJV)

Same in Luke's account:

And again He said, “To what shall I liken the kingdom of God? It is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till it was all leavened.”
(Luke 13:20-21)

There are two popular views on the meaning of this parable. One says that this is a positive picture of the kingdom of heaven, and simply means that the Kingdom will spread through the whole world. The other view argues that leaven is always negative, and here it is a corruption that comes in and spreads through the whole kingdom.

In the Old Testament, leaven is not permitted at times for certain feasts and some offerings, yet it was a common food, and even required for a few offerings.

But, in the New Testament leaven is always spoken of in a negative way, unless this parable could be an exception.

Now if we look through the many details of what Jesus said in this parable and in other things He said, we may find a better understanding.

Notice in this parable that Jesus said the leaven was "hid" in the meal. Who hid it there? A woman. Who is the woman? Jesus was not a woman. God is not a woman. And His apostles were not women. There are however two very notable women (figuratively) mentioned in the New Testament, especially the book of Revelation, and are also in the Old Testament as examples. In Revelation we see the Bride (or wife) of the Lamb, and also the Harlot, Mystery Babylon the Great. Mystery means hidden, so my bet says it is this hidden harlot who 'hides' the leaven in the meal, and that refers to impure twisted teachings.

If we look at all the other things Jesus says about leaven, they fit completely with this view.

5 Now when His disciples had come to the other side, they had forgotten to take bread. 6 Then Jesus said to them, “Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.”
7 And they reasoned among themselves, saying, “It is because we have taken no bread.”
8 But Jesus, being aware of it, said to them, “O you of little faith, why do you reason among yourselves because you have brought no bread? 9 Do you not yet understand, or remember the five loaves of the five thousand and how many baskets you took up? 10 Nor the seven loaves of the four thousand and how many large baskets you took up? 11 How is it you do not understand that I did not speak to you concerning bread? —but to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” 12 Then they understood that He did not tell them to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees.
(Matthew 16:5-12)

So, notice what He says:

"How is it you do not understand that I did not speak to you concerning bread? —but to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees."

He wonders how they could misunderstand Him. When He talks about leaven, they finally "understood that He did not tell them to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees."

So leaven is the teaching of the religious leaders. Beware of that!

In Mark, the same conversation is recorded:

13 And He left them, and getting into the boat again, departed to the other side. 14 Now the disciples had forgotten to take bread, and they did not have more than one loaf with them in the boat. 15 Then He charged them, saying, “Take heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.”
(Mark 8:13-15)

Their confusion and Jesus' explanation is again told:

16 And they reasoned among themselves, saying, “It is because we have no bread.”

and likewise, after reminding them of the feeding of the five thousand and the four thousand:

21 So He said to them, “How is it you do not understand?”

We should understand that this problem is a high priority for Jesus:

In the meantime, when an innumerable multitude of people had gathered together, so that they trampled one another, He began to say to His disciples first of all, “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.”
(Luke 12:1 NKJV)

Note that Luke records; 'first of all "Beware of the leaven ..."' This is important!

Paul speaks of the same problem

A little leaven leavens the whole lump.
(Galatians 5:9)

and he says the same to the Corinthians, and adds what must be done about it!

6 Your glorying is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?
7 Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us.
8 Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
(1 Corinthians 5:6-8)

We need to search out and remove all the old leaven! That is what this article is for, to identify the twisted teachings of the religious leaders that came in after Paul's departure (refer back to the beginning of this article.)

Examples of Twisted Things

So far, I have worked to show that there are indeed twisted teachings mixed in with the Christian message which we have received. "The whole lump has been leavened." Now let us search every corner and purge out all the leaven that we may again become a new lump.

The rest of this document is a list of things that I have accumulated that I see as twisted teachings. You may know of others. There are more that I have become aware of over the years; some I have forgotten, some that would require more research before I could add them to the list, and I believe many more that I have not yet discovered. There may be some items in this list that you do not consider as wrong teachings; that is okay. My prayer is that you will be prompted to ponder these things seriously, and beware of all the many teachings out there, and realize that that is a problem that was of great concern for our Lord and His disciples. And it should be highly important for each of us who wants to understand and return to "the faith once delivered to the saints" that Jude talks about. See Jude verse 3 where he says:

Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.

Most of the list is in no particular order, although the first item I have presented first because John the Baptizer, Jesus and his apostles, including Paul, all preached the "kingdom of God," but today when you hear the "Gospel" you are not likely to even hear the word "kingdom" at all.

Many of the items in this list could be elaborated each into a full chapter.

The "kingdom of heaven" becomes understood as "the kingdom in heaven" which then is understood as just "heaven."

But "kingdom of heaven" in Greek grammar is 'genitive' which means heaven is the source of the kingdom ('generated' in heaven), not a destination. And that fits with why Jesus taught us to pray, "thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven."

"Believe into Jesus" (Gk. εις 'eis') is twisted to "believe in Jesus" which now means "believe the doctrines about Jesus." Believing into Jesus requires action, a moving from the outside to become a functioning part in His one body.

"Will never die" is twisted to mean "you will go to heaven when you die."

Consider Jesus words to Martha in John 11:25-26 after Lazarus had died:

25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes into Me, though he may die, he shall live.
26 And whoever lives and believes into Me shall never die. Do you believe this?”

"Church" is twisted into a building made by men rather than the temple God makes with living stones (people) built together.

In many newer versions of the Bible "man" is twisted into "self" in 3 or 4 places, in Ephesians 4 and Colossians 3.

The Greek word 'anthropos' occurs over 555 times in the New Testament. According to Young's Analytical Concordance it is translated 'man' (or 'men' if plural) 551 times in the King James Version. Then in 1903 the Weymouth translation rendered this word as 'self' in four places. Following his lead, many more versions came out in the 1900s including the NIV, NASB and ESV. The four places are two in Ephesians and two in Colossians. These two letters written by Paul are closer in content to each other than any other two books in the Bible.

In Ephesians 2 Paul explains that "Jesus created on the cross One New Man from the two, making peace." In the context we can see that "the two" refer to the Jews and the (other) nations. Then in both Ephesians 4 and Colossians 3, he says "put off the old man and put on the new man." These are the 4 places where the word man was changed to "self." This completely obliterates the connection to where he explains what the One New Man is.

The unfortunate passing of the New Testament Greek writings through Latin on its way to English, causing αιων (aion) to become either world or eternal (or forever) because Latin did not have a word for "age" thus the resulting "eternal punishment" is a very big twist from "age-lasting punishment."

In Matthew's genealogy of Jesus in Hebrew (and Aramaic) has a word that was incorrectly translated into the Greek versions. The result is that modern scholarship has the genealogy through Mary, and the genealogy through Joseph swapped between Matthew and Luke. Very elaborate and nonsensical explanations have been expounded to try to make sense of the problematic text we have in our Greek New Testament manuscripts.

The 'thousand years' in Revelation 20:1-7 is taught by the amillennial view to be an arbitrarily long time. And the name 'amillennial' means "no thousand years."

The "rapture" being the next event is NOT what the Bible says. It says "And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air." (1 Thessalonians 4:16b-17a)

"Three days and three nights" becomes a Hebrew "idiom" that means a tiny bit more than one full day - from Friday just before sunset through early Sunday morning.

And yet "the acceptable year of the Lord" becomes three and a half years of Jesus' public ministry.

Peter says "remember this one thing, that a day is as a thousand years and a thousand years is as one day" (2 Peter 3:8), but today you are ridiculed if you use this as a formula for the fact that right now 2022 we are right at the end of the six days and ready for the "Day of the Lord" spoken of in many places in both the Old and New testaments - "the thousand years reign of the saints with Christ." (Rev 20:1-7)

Satan twists God's words; "has God said?" - "You will not surely die!"

God said, "For in the day that you eat of it you shall die." But Satan says, "you will not die."

Then when Jesus said "And whoever lives and believes into Me shall never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:26) But some pastors today say "everyone will die." Even though Paul elaborates on Jesus' words, "Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed" (1 Corinthians 15:51)

Preachers tell us that death means separation from God, but the Bible says, "If I ascend into heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there." (Psalm 139:8.) And Paul says "For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:38-39)

Preachers say, because of your sins, if you don't accept Jesus as your savior you will suffer eternal punishment. But the Bible says "the wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23) and there is a resurrection of the righteous and the unrighteous both. And Jesus died for the sins of the whole world. He also said on the cross "It is finished" (John 19:30) which in Greek is τετελεσται (tetelestai) which means "it has been completed." This word has also been found on many sales receipts of those days where it means "paid in full."

The word 'martyr' is a Greek word, and it means witness. A person who sees something and testifies in court is a witness, a 'martyr.' But today everyone thinks that a 'martyr' is someone who has been killed for their faith. The first use of this Greek word in the New Testament is Matthew 18:16b, "that ‘by the mouth of two or three witnesses (martyrs) every word may be established.’" Dead people don't speak. People are not 'martyrs' because they are killed, no, rather many people have been killed because they were witnesses.

This is from Nehemia Gordon in "The Hebrew Yeshua vs. the Greek Jesus" and "Hebrew Gospel Pearls"

In Matthew 23:1-3 (English from Greek) Then Jesus spoke to the multitudes and to His disciples, saying: “The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. Therefore whatever they tell you to observe, that observe and do, but do not do according to their works; for they say, and do not do.

Greek has - "whatever they tell you" - (plural) refers to "the scribes and Pharisees."
Hebrew has - "whatever he tells you" - (singular) refers to "Moses."

Matthew was originally written in Hebrew according to Josephus, Papias, Irenaeus and others, some of which were recorded in the history by Eusebius.

And there are many more!