This is Charlene Lamy Edge, author of a memoir about my seventeen years in The Way: Undertow: My Escape from the Fundamentalism and Cult Control of The Way International. The last part of my book reveals goings-on in the Way’s research department at its Ohio headquarters where I worked from 1984-1986 on what was called Aramaic projects. Rev. Juedes refers to my book in this video.
I was involved in Aramaic work at The Way beginning in 1972 when Wierwille assigned me to help the woman he hired to teach Aramaic at Way summer school and to collect Aramaic manuscripts on microfilm. That buying spree was what George Lamsa encouraged Wierwille to do. But Lamsa did not stick around. Wierwille made plans to eventually publish an "Aramaic" concordance, a N.T. interlinear, and a Lexicon.
By 1984, I was on the biblical research team at HQ to help finish what was eventually called The Concordance to the P e s h I t t a Version of the Aramaic New Testament. I still have my copy. We had to add the word “Aramaic” to the title because V. P. Wierwille incorrectly and chronically used “Aramaic” to refer to that N. T. version, which, as Juedes says, is from the 5th century. However, it was not in Aramaic, it was in a language called Syriac. But VPW would not be corrected, as I write about in my book. His knowledge of Aramaic and Syriac texts was insufficient to speak knowledgeably about them.
The “Aramaic” New Testament that Juedes refers to is an interlinear using the same Syriac text the concordance is tied to, but with the English translation included, and the KJV in a third column. This set of interlinear volumes was published by other Way researchers after I resigned from the research department and left The Way. Just for the record, the final translation that Juedes says appeases Way leaders was not done while I was there.
In my view, Juedes makes many good points in this video. But what is missing is insider info, including this: biblical texts were only considered tools by VPW and his trained loyal researchers to determine "the accuracy" of The Word. Greek, Syriac, Hebrew, even Coptic were said to be “compared” to determine “accurate readings.” Although, for the most part we depended on the Greek N.T. for readings. We did NOT say accurate “interpretations,” because Wierwille taught that The Word (the Bible) was of no private interpretation. He got that idea from II Peter 1:21. The problem with using that verse is MAJOR. It does not specify what “Scripture” refers to. It’s vague. It doesn’t list the specific books. Not only that, the author of II Peter is up for debate. To go down that rabbit hole of authorship, refer to any reputable scholar doing historical criticism on the N.T. For starters, I recommend Dr. Bart Ehrman’s work, starting with Misquoting Jesus. https://www.amazon.com/Bart-D-Ehrman/e/B001I9RR7G?ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1&qid=1560098706&sr=8-1
Anyway, to get the accurate reading, we were to use Wierwille’s keys to research to “let the Bible interpret itself.” What a fallacy that was! Books do not interpret themselves. People interpret books.
In the end, what was taught as accurate would be determined from VPW’s supposedly great “scope of The Word” which he said he gained from “working” the whole Word [Bible] for years and years and/or from God’s direct revelation. From my experience in research, I came away with realizing that the catch phrase, The Word, referred to whatever VPW decided. After he died, the tangled web of figuring out what he would have wanted and how to rationalize his mistakes and deliberate twisting of Scripture fell to Walt*r Cu*mins, the man in charge of research who I worked for while on the research team in The Way. I go into this in my book, which is available from all major booksellers.
from Charlene: "taught as accurate would be determined from VPW’s supposedly great “scope of The Word” which he said he gained from “working” the whole Word [Bible] for years and years and/or from God’s direct revelation. From my experience in research, I came away with realizing that the catch phrase, The Word, referred to whatever VPW decided. After he died, the tangled web of figuring out what he would have wanted and how to rationalize his mistakes and deliberate twisting of Scripture fell to Walt*r Cu*mins, the man in charge of research"
"The Word" was always code for whatever VPW taught, not The Bible itself. It got more complex when he contradicted himself, though not everyone thought about things carefully enough to realize that he often did. People on research teams like Charlene's ran into a crisis when they were faced with the contradiction between actual research and what VP taught. "Research" in TWI mainly meant whatever VP said, right or wrong. This is a characteristic of cultic structure in a group. One of the authors on my web site www.abouttheway.org was essentially "deprogrammed" by TWI leaders when he ventured to write a study guide of PFAL- even though it didn't depart from VP. Allegiance to VP, TWI and its leaders is what it is, and always was, about, though new followers didn't notice that until too late.
Koine Greek was the dialect that it was specifically called. Of course, to say that any text written to people that were in a Greek culture and city would NOT be written in the most understood language for them which in the first century was called Koine Greek. This would be Dumdi Dum Dum. Perhaps I am starting and learning my own language now. Either that or my own dialect of the English language. However, perhaps I made a mistake and misspelled it. Perhaps it is Dumdee Dumdum.
Should be said: "Private interpretation," biblically, didn't even mean what VPW said it meant. It has nothing to do with the meaning of scripture.
II Peter 2: 20, 21
20 Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.
21 For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
vpw said that the phrase "private interpretation" would most literally be "one's own (private) letting-loose", and at length talked about how hunting parties let loose the hounds upon a hunt.
The following verse shows that the point was where the "prophecy of the scripture" came from - not man's will, but God's volition. THEREFORE, don't take your personal interpretation and just impose it on something from God as you would something written by some poet.
Of course, this means that when vpw was rambling away with his analogy, he was engaging in exactly what II Peter 2:20 said NOT to do!
For those of us who have looked at his track record, it's not a shock to find another verse that said the opposite of what vpw said, especially what he said ABOUT that very verse.
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penworks
This is Charlene Lamy Edge, author of a memoir about my seventeen years in The Way: Undertow: My Escape from the Fundamentalism and Cult Control of The Way International. The last part of my book reveals goings-on in the Way’s research department at its Ohio headquarters where I worked from 1984-1986 on what was called Aramaic projects. Rev. Juedes refers to my book in this video.
I was involved in Aramaic work at The Way beginning in 1972 when Wierwille assigned me to help the woman he hired to teach Aramaic at Way summer school and to collect Aramaic manuscripts on microfilm. That buying spree was what George Lamsa encouraged Wierwille to do. But Lamsa did not stick around. Wierwille made plans to eventually publish an "Aramaic" concordance, a N.T. interlinear, and a Lexicon.
By 1984, I was on the biblical research team at HQ to help finish what was eventually called The Concordance to the P e s h I t t a Version of the Aramaic New Testament. I still have my copy. We had to add the word “Aramaic” to the title because V. P. Wierwille incorrectly and chronically used “Aramaic” to refer to that N. T. version, which, as Juedes says, is from the 5th century. However, it was not in Aramaic, it was in a language called Syriac. But VPW would not be corrected, as I write about in my book. His knowledge of Aramaic and Syriac texts was insufficient to speak knowledgeably about them.
The “Aramaic” New Testament that Juedes refers to is an interlinear using the same Syriac text the concordance is tied to, but with the English translation included, and the KJV in a third column. This set of interlinear volumes was published by other Way researchers after I resigned from the research department and left The Way. Just for the record, the final translation that Juedes says appeases Way leaders was not done while I was there.
In my view, Juedes makes many good points in this video. But what is missing is insider info, including this: biblical texts were only considered tools by VPW and his trained loyal researchers to determine "the accuracy" of The Word. Greek, Syriac, Hebrew, even Coptic were said to be “compared” to determine “accurate readings.” Although, for the most part we depended on the Greek N.T. for readings. We did NOT say accurate “interpretations,” because Wierwille taught that The Word (the Bible) was of no private interpretation. He got that idea from II Peter 1:21. The problem with using that verse is MAJOR. It does not specify what “Scripture” refers to. It’s vague. It doesn’t list the specific books. Not only that, the author of II Peter is up for debate. To go down that rabbit hole of authorship, refer to any reputable scholar doing historical criticism on the N.T. For starters, I recommend Dr. Bart Ehrman’s work, starting with Misquoting Jesus. https://www.amazon.com/Bart-D-Ehrman/e/B001I9RR7G?ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1&qid=1560098706&sr=8-1
Anyway, to get the accurate reading, we were to use Wierwille’s keys to research to “let the Bible interpret itself.” What a fallacy that was! Books do not interpret themselves. People interpret books.
In the end, what was taught as accurate would be determined from VPW’s supposedly great “scope of The Word” which he said he gained from “working” the whole Word [Bible] for years and years and/or from God’s direct revelation. From my experience in research, I came away with realizing that the catch phrase, The Word, referred to whatever VPW decided. After he died, the tangled web of figuring out what he would have wanted and how to rationalize his mistakes and deliberate twisting of Scripture fell to Walt*r Cu*mins, the man in charge of research who I worked for while on the research team in The Way. I go into this in my book, which is available from all major booksellers.
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johnj
from Charlene: "taught as accurate would be determined from VPW’s supposedly great “scope of The Word” which he said he gained from “working” the whole Word [Bible] for years and years and/or from God’s direct revelation. From my experience in research, I came away with realizing that the catch phrase, The Word, referred to whatever VPW decided. After he died, the tangled web of figuring out what he would have wanted and how to rationalize his mistakes and deliberate twisting of Scripture fell to Walt*r Cu*mins, the man in charge of research"
"The Word" was always code for whatever VPW taught, not The Bible itself. It got more complex when he contradicted himself, though not everyone thought about things carefully enough to realize that he often did. People on research teams like Charlene's ran into a crisis when they were faced with the contradiction between actual research and what VP taught. "Research" in TWI mainly meant whatever VP said, right or wrong. This is a characteristic of cultic structure in a group. One of the authors on my web site www.abouttheway.org was essentially "deprogrammed" by TWI leaders when he ventured to write a study guide of PFAL- even though it didn't depart from VP. Allegiance to VP, TWI and its leaders is what it is, and always was, about, though new followers didn't notice that until too late.
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Raf
Should be said: "Private interpretation," biblically, didn't even mean what VPW said it meant. It has nothing to do with the meaning of scripture.
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Mark Sanguinetti
Koine Greek was the dialect that it was specifically called. Of course, to say that any text written to people that were in a Greek culture and city would NOT be written in the most understood language for them which in the first century was called Koine Greek. This would be Dumdi Dum Dum. Perhaps I am starting and learning my own language now. Either that or my own dialect of the English language. However, perhaps I made a mistake and misspelled it. Perhaps it is Dumdee Dumdum.
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WordWolf
II Peter 2: 20, 21
20 Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.
21 For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
vpw said that the phrase "private interpretation" would most literally be "one's own (private) letting-loose", and at length talked about how hunting parties let loose the hounds upon a hunt.
The following verse shows that the point was where the "prophecy of the scripture" came from - not man's will, but God's volition. THEREFORE, don't take your personal interpretation and just impose it on something from God as you would something written by some poet.
Of course, this means that when vpw was rambling away with his analogy, he was engaging in exactly what II Peter 2:20 said NOT to do!
For those of us who have looked at his track record, it's not a shock to find another verse that said the opposite of what vpw said, especially what he said ABOUT that very verse.
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