Lost Saying of Yeshua Recovered

Shalom Chaverim,

I want to share some very exciting news with you.

At the start of this project, I shared with you a prophecy from the Book of Enoch, which says:

But when they write down truthfully all my words in their languages, and do not change or diminish ought from my words but write them all down truthfully –all that I first testified concerning them. Then, I know another mystery, that books will be given to the righteous and the wise to become a cause of joy and uprightness and much wisdom. And to them shall the books be given, and they shall believe in them and rejoice over them, and then shall all the righteous who have learnt therefore all the paths of uprightness be recompensed.’
(1Enoch 104:10-13)

And I said this project is the fulfillment of this prophecy. One goal of this project that I had not yet revealed, is not just the restoration of the books you already know, but also a restoration of the original Hebrew of the lost Gospel according to the Hebrews.

The ancient Jewish believers in Yeshua (the Nazarenes and Ebionites) used a (now) lost apocryphal gospel called The Gospel according to the Hebrews. This very important document has been lost, and now survives only in about fifty quotations found in other ancient documents (primarily in the so-called “Church Fathers”).

Hugh Schonfield wrote of this Gospel:

The Gospel according to the Hebrews is a literary outlaw with a price on its head; but in spite of the scholarly hue and cry it still evades capture. Neither monastic libraries nor Egyptian rubbish heaps have so far yielded up a single leaf of this important document….
For behind Hebrews lies the unknown potentialities of the Nazarene tradition, which may confirm or contradict some of the most cherished beliefs of Orthodox Christianity. It is useless for certain theologians to designate Hebrews as “secondary” on the evidence of the present fragmentary remains preserved in quotation. …
Judged by ancient testimony alone it is indisputable that Hebrews has the best right of any Gospel to be considered a genuine apostolic production;…
Here is obviously a most valuable witness, perhaps the most valuable witness to the truth about [Yeshua] whom even a jury composed entirely of orthodox Christians could not despise, and who ought to be brought into court. But the witness is missing, and all that we have is a few reported statements of his taken long ago…
(Hugh Schonfield; According to the Hebrews; 1937; pp. 13-18)

Over thirty years ago, when I began my work on the restoration of the ancient Sect of the Nazarenes, I collected the surviving quotations of this Gospel in the oldest available language. By this I mean Greek or Latin, depending on whether the so-called “Church Father” that quoted the book, wrote in Greek or Latin. But the oldest language for one of the quotations eluded me. I was simply stuck with the English translation of the quotation which had appeared in English lists of these quotations that had circulated for decades.

The quotation in question is found in the Theophania of Eusebius. Eusebius was a Fourth century Church Father who wrote in Greek. His book Theophania, though written in Greek, has survived in it’s entirety only in an ancient Syriac (a dialect of Aramaic) version, our oldest copy of which dates to the Fifth Century.

In the past, I had been unable to obtain this Syriac text so as to locate the quotation in Aramaic. For decades I have simply been stuck with the English reading “I choose for myself the most worthy: for the most worthy are those whom my Father in heaven has given me.” without recourse to look at the actual Aramaic of the phrase. All of that changed this week.

This week I located the Syriac Theophania of Eusebius and located the actual Aramaic:

דאגבא לי הנין שפירא שפירא הנון דיהב לי אבי דבשמא

This is, for all practical purposes, the restoration of a lost saying of Yeshua, because the English what has been passed around for decades, was such a poor rendering. The Aramaic is much better translated:

“I gather to myself they who are good. The good are they that my Father which is in heaven has given me.”

Eusebius uses this passage to interpret Matthew 10:34-36:

[34] Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.
[35] For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. (Micah 7:6)
[36] And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household.
(Matthew 10:34-36 KJV)

Eusebius introduces the passage saying:

“He (Messiah) himself taught the reason for the separations of souls that take place in houses (in Matthew 10:34-36 and Micah 7:6), as we have found somewhere in the Gospel that is spread abroad among the Jews in the Hebrew tongue, in which it is said…”

There is also a strong connection to the parables in Matthew 13 which involve gathering the “good”. For example the Parable of the wheat and tares (13:34-43) in which the “good” seed is gathered; the goodly pearls (13:45-46) and the phrase “gathered the good” in the parable of the dragnet (13:47-50).

We must raise at least $500 by the end of the day Monday or our account will plunge into the negative!

This work takes hours of my time. As many of you know, my wife is very ill, and I spend most of my time at home as her caretaker. I work at a desk less than six feet from her bed. So I am in a position to dedicate many hours to this important work that I have been directed to do.

But I also realize that it is not the activity of James Trimm alone who is responsible to do this work, it is all of us together who are charged with the responsibility of accomplishing this work. I very much look on the efforts of this restoration work as a cooperative one with each one of you. We are all joint heirs with Messiah and should always be about our Father’s business. I am honored to be able to be partnered with truth seekers as this restoration of Scripture moves forward in fulfillment of prophecy.

Donations can be sent by paypal to donations@wnae.org.

or click here

Donations can also be made out to “Nazarene Judaism” and sent to:

Nazarene Judaism
PO Box 471
Hurst, TX 76053