Joshua Christ Ministry · Our Witness
What we read, and what we refuse
“Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God” (1 John 4:1). This page is here so you can test us.
The Foundation
Ephesians 2:20
We are built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Yeshua the Messiah Himself being the chief cornerstone.
These teachings set out His words and the Apostles' doctrine. We offer them as a Berean house: receive the word with readiness, and search the Scriptures daily whether these things are so (Acts 17:11).
The Scriptures We Read
Luke 24:44
The Torah (the Law of God), the Prophets and the Writings are read through the witnesses of the Second Temple days: the Septuagint (LXX), the Greek Scriptures Yeshua and the Apostles quoted, together with the Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the proto-Masoretic Hebrew.
Yeshua and His disciples heard and read the Hebrew scrolls in the synagogues of Galilee and Judea (Luke 4:16–21), and the Apostles carried the Greek Scriptures to the nations. Both stood side by side in the first century.
The New Testament is read in its original Apostolic Greek. Its words were written in Greek, yet they carry the Hebrew speech of Yeshua and the figures of the Prophets; we read the Greek with that Hebrew ear, and where the Apostles cite the Scriptures we set the Greek, the Scrolls and the proto-Masoretic Hebrew together.
The proto-Masoretic Hebrew is the consonantal text read in the late Second Temple period, without vowel signs. The modern Masoretic Text is a later standard, fixed by the Masoretes of Tiberias between about the 7th and 10th centuries AD, who added vowel points, accents and margin notes; its oldest complete copies (the Aleppo and Leningrad codices) come from around AD 930–1008. The Scrolls of Qumran show that the Septuagint was translated from Hebrew scrolls of the same age, and in places such as Deuteronomy 32:8 and Psalm 145 (LXX 144) they agree with the Greek against the later printed Hebrew.
Where the witnesses differ, we set them side by side and say which reading the Apostles followed — a difference between witnesses, not a charge of corruption.
The Setting We Keep
Galatians 4:4
Words and customs are explained from the days of the Second Temple: the Scriptures themselves, the Scrolls of Qumran, Philo, Josephus and the earliest Apostolic writings.
What We Refuse
Colossians 2:8
We do not define the words of Scripture by the traditions of men written after the fall of the Temple — the Mishnah, the Talmud and later rabbinic works — nor by the Greek revisions of Aquila, Theodotion and Symmachus.
We refuse philosophy and vain deceit after the rudiments of the world. And we do not make the Greek a new rudiment: every witness is weighed, and Christ is the body (Colossians 2:17).
How to Walk With Us
John 1:39
Three complete teachings are open to every reader. Those who turn aside into the Study Sanctuary walk the rest stage by stage, from the sincere milk to solid food. Fellowship is a personal invitation, received in prayer by the elders.
To write to us, use the pastoral inquiry — every word is read.