Introduction
I first wrote this book as a “teaser” introduction to the Nazarene Israel study. Some Christians wanted something short, to see if they wanted to commit to reading the Nazarene Israel study (so I wrote this as a “hook”).
Although a short book like this cannot possibly cover all of the same materials, if you read it, you should see that replacement-theology Catholicism and Sunday Christianity are not the faith that the Brit Chadasha (Renewed Covenant / New Testament) commands.
Maybe you are reading this introduction to know if you should read this book. This book is not for you if you believe that Yeshua (Jesus) did away with the Torah (Law of Moses) and the Prophets. It is also not for you if you believe that Yeshua died to replace the Jews with Christians, or that the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel cannot be lost among the Christians.
Who, then, is this book for? It is for you if you love the Jews and the land of Israel, even though you might not be Jewish.
It is also for you if you want to learn why the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel are hidden among the Christians (and all nations), and why the (Christian) Great Commission of Matthew 28 was not designed simply to multiply Christians (or Messianics) in the nations, but rather to find the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel, and bring them back to the land of Israel as a unified body through a multi-step process lasting many generations.
If you want to understand the basics of the prophecies governing these things, this book is for you (and if you want all the details, see Nazarene Israel).
Sometimes readers ask what English version I use. I got started using the New King James Version, and since all the major English versions have issues, I simply correct the names to the Hebrew forms, and correct any known errors. This generally works because most of the points I am trying to make are intuitive rather than technical or grammatical.
Wherever there is any sort of technical or grammatical question I try to put the source language texts alongside the English, so you can verify everything for yourself. (Please verify everything for yourself.)
When I quote Hebrew, it is from the Hebrew Masoretic Text (MT). When I quote Aramaic, it is from the Western Peshitta in Hebrew block letter font.
For reasons we explain elsewhere, we believe in a Semitic (Hebrew or Aramaic) inspiration for the Brit Chadasha. Some ask why I reference Greek texts when I believe in a Semitic inspiration. Simply, all extant Hebrew and Aramaic texts have issues which show them not to be the originals—and since the Greek texts appear to be older, they are typically more valuable for textual analysis.
One goal is to keep this simple enough for any fisherman or any carpenter to understand. My method is simply to show what Scripture says, and then give just enough commentary to show how the passages relate to each other.
I try to show definitions of key words, and place the results in their greater overall Scriptural context. Then I try to show what the original Jewish authors were trying to say, that has been “lost in the translation” to gentile Christian audiences who do not understand a Jewish or Hebraic context.
If you have suggestions for making this study better, please email us, at [email protected]
May Yahweh lead us all into His perfect truth, that we might please Him by obeying it. Amein.
Norman Willis
In the Dispersion
5786 (2026)
What Was the Original Faith?
Executive Summary:
Replacement Theology is the idea that Messiah Yeshua (Jesus Christ) came to do away with the Law of Moses and the Jewish people, and to replace them with the Christian Church. While this idea is extremely popular with Christians, we will see that it is contrary to the Biblical and historical record.
Continuation Theology is the idea that the Mashiach Yeshua (Jesus Christ) taught His disciples to continue to keep the Torah (Law of Moses), and to continue to believe the prophecies over the nation of Israel. We will see evidence that this is consistent with the Biblical and historical record.
In our full-length study Nazarene Israel, we show that Sunday Christianity was a related-but-different faith that outgrew the Nazarene Israelite faith, and would persecute it according to prophecy—and that is where we stand today.
At the end of this short book, we will see evidence that the purpose of Mashiach Yeshua’s ministry was to bring back the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel.
Did Catholic Christians Replace the Nazarenes?
The Catholic Church Father Epiphanius of Salamis lived from 310 to 403 CE. In his book Panarion (Against Heresies), he condemned a group he called the Nazarenes who existed in his day. He said that they were not “true” Christians, because they practiced continuation theology.
That is, they continued to practice “Jewish” rites such as circumcision, the Sabbath, and reading the Law of Moses (even though these were all things that Mashiach Yeshua Himself had done).
The Nazarenes do not differ in any essential thing from them (i.e., Orthodox Jews), since they practice the customs and doctrines prescribed by Jewish Law; except that they believe in Christ. They believe in the resurrection of the dead, and that the universe was created by God. They preach that God is One, and that Jesus Christ is His Son. They are very learned in the Hebrew language. They read the Law (of Moses)…. Therefore they differ…from the true Christians because they fulfill until now [such] Jewish rites as the circumcision, Sabbath and others.
[Epiphanius, “Against Heresies,” Panarion 29, 7, pp. 41, 402]
Other Catholic scholars such as the late Catholic Professor Marcel Simon admitted that the fourth century Nazarenes that Epiphanius condemned were the “very direct descendants” of the Nazarenes in the first century, and yet Professor Simon also condemned the Nazarenes as “heretics” for practicing the very same doctrines that their Nazarene forerunners had practiced in the first century.
They [Nazarenes] are characterized essentially by their tenacious attachment to Jewish observances. If they became heretics in the eyes of the (Catholic) Mother Church, it is simply because they remained fixed on outmoded positions. They well represent, (even) though Epiphanius is energetically refusing to admit it, the very direct descendants of that primitive community, of which our author (Epiphanius) knows that it was designated by the Jews, by the same name, of ‘Nazarenes’.”
[First Century expert Marcel Simon, Judeo-christianisme, pp 47-48.]
In other words, Professor Simon admits that the fourth century Nazarenes were the direct spiritual descendants of the first century Nazarenes (James, John, Peter, et al); yet still he called them “heretics” because they practiced the original faith that was delivered once for all the saints, just as Jude 3 commands.
Yehudah (Jude) 3
3 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.
Jude writes to us to tell us to contend earnestly for the faith that was delivered once for all the set-apart ones (saints). So, is it heretical to do that, as the fourth century Nazarenes did? Or is it rather heretical to replace the faith that was delivered once for all the saints with another form of worship, as the Catholic Church (and Christianity) has done?
To put it another way, are we heretics if we obey the Mashiach’s doctrine, and the Scriptures? Are we not rather heretics if we teach against what the Mashiach and Scripture says?
What Would Yeshua Do? (Teach the Torah)
If the Nazarenes were the direct spiritual descendants of the Jewish apostles, then why wouldn’t they keep “such Jewish rites as the Sabbath, circumcision, and others”? In His very first sermon, Mashiach Yeshua told us not to think that He had come to do away with the Torah (Law of Moses), or the Prophets.
Mattityahu (Matthew) 5:17-20
17 “Think not that I came to destroy the Torah and the Prophets. I did not come to destroy, but [only] to fulfill.
18 “For truly I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, nothing at all shall pass from the Torah, till all is fulfilled.
19 “Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called least in the Kingdom of Heaven. But whoever does and teaches them, this one shall be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven.
20 “For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.
The idea of keeping the Torah can seem strange to the Gentile Christian mind, because replacement theology teaches us that the Law has been replaced by love-without-rules. However, if we take Yeshua at His face value, then we need to wrestle with the fact that He clearly tells us that there are severe penalties for relaxing even the least of the commandments.
(In another place we will show that this is because the Torah is effectively a plan for re-establishing the conditions of Eden here on this earth, by establishing the nation that practices it as the leading nation on earth.)
Regarding verse 20, Yeshua tells us that we need to obey the Torat Moshe better than the Pharisees (Orthodox Jews), or we will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. This is because the Pharisees (Orthodox) do not practice the Torat Moshe. Rather, they practice the teachings of their sages in what later became the Talmud—and they call it Torah.
Yeshua says that we need to keep the Torat Moshe better than them, or we will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. (This is because as we will show in other places, the Talmud will indeed produce a kingdom—just not the kingdom of heaven.)
Replacement Theology is Lawlessness
The shift from replacement theology to continuation theology is a sea-change of understanding. However, in reality it is a simple shift. We simply have to realize that Yeshua said not to think He had come to do away with the Torah.
Further, if we think about it, when we realize that Yeshua was a faithful Son, He would not have taught people to disobey His Father’s Torah. Rather, He would have taught them to obey His Father, who had said to be careful not to add or subtract anything from His words in the Torah.
Devarim (Deuteronomy) 12:32
32 “Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it; you shall not add to it nor take away from it.”
Still, many Christians do think that the Torah was done away with, and they often quote from the writings of Shaliach Shaul (the Apostle Paul) to “prove” that the Torah was replaced with lawless love. However, let us consider Shaliach Kepha’s (the Apostle Peter’s) warning not to misunderstand what Shaul is saying as justifying lawlessness.
Kepha Bet (2 Peter) 3:15-17 (NKJV)
15 And think of the long-suffering of our Master as Salvation [literally: Yeshua], as also our beloved brother Shaul wrote to you, according to the wisdom given to him;
16 As also in all his epistles, speaking in them concerning these things, in which some things are hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable twist, to their destruction, as also the rest of the Scriptures.
17 Then beloved, you being forewarned, watch; lest being led by the error of lawlessness you should fall from your own steadfastness.
In verse 16, Kepha tells us that there was a group of believers in his day who were “untaught and unstable,” who twisted Shaul’s writings to their own destruction. Could these “untaught and unstable” people be untaught and unstable in the Torah? And could they be the forerunners of the replacement theology Catholics and Christians, who use Shaul’s words to explain away Yeshua’s words, and the Torah?
If so, it would mean that there were effectively two kinds of believers in the first century: those who obeyed the Torah (i.e., continuation theology), and those who explained it away (i.e., replacement theology).
In verse 17 Kepha warns us not to be led astray by the “error of lawlessness” (i.e., replacement theology), as most Catholic and Christian churches teach. The King James Version (KJV) renders this as the “error of the wicked.”
Kepha Bet (2 Peter) 3:17 (KJV)
17 Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own stedfastness.
However, when we look up this word wicked in Strong’s Greek Concordance, we find it is Strong’s Greek NT 113, athesmos, which has to do with enacting something contrary to the Law.
NT:113 athesmos (ath’-es-mos); from NT:1 (as a negative particle) and a derivative of NT:5087 (in the sense of enacting); lawless, i.e. (by implication) criminal:
What Kepha warns us against, then, is the error of athesmos, or enacting something contrary to the Law of Moses (such as replacement theology Christianity).
If we look up this same word NT113 athesmos in Thayer’s Greek Lexicon, it tells us that it refers to someone who breaks through the restraint of the Law to gratify his lusts.
Thayer Definition: 1) one who breaks through the restraint of law and gratifies his lusts.
It is not possible to answer every objection by everyone who wants to break through the restraint of the Law and gratify his lusts in a short work such as this one, but if you want more details, please see the Nazarene Israel study.
However, in the meantime, what this passage shows us is that even in Kepha’s day there was a false faith which twisted Shaul’s words, and used them to disregard the Law of Moses. But isn’t that what the replacement theology Christians do?
Continuous Catholic Replacement Theology
We have already seen how the Catholics Epiphanius and Marcel Simon condemned the Nazarenes for practicing the faith once delivered to the saints. However, they are by no means isolated examples of Catholic replacement theology, but represent of the spirit of the Catholic Church in general.
For example, Archbishop James Cardinal Gibbons admits that “the Scriptures enforce the religious observance of Saturday,” but then boasts that the Church sanctifies Sunday anyway.
‘But you may read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and you will not find a single line authorizing the sanctification of Sunday. The Scriptures enforce the religious observance of Saturday, a day which we [i.e., the Catholic Church] never sanctify.”
[Archbishop James Cardinal Gibbons, The Faith of our Fathers, 88th ed., pp. 89, 1978 CE.]
Likewise, Reverend Stephen Keenan admits that Scripture does not grant the Catholic Church the power to substitute Sunday worship for the Saturday Sabbath, but then boasts that she did so anyway, based on her own authority.
“Question: Have you any other way of proving that the Church has power to institute festivals of precept?
“Answer: Had she not such power, she could not have done that in which all modern religionists agree with her—she could not have substituted the observance of Sunday, the first day of the week, for the observance of Saturday, the seventh day, a change for which there is no Scriptural authority.”
[Reverend Stephen Keenan, A Doctrinal Catechism, 3rd ed., p. 174.]
The Church as Both Foe and Transitional Vehicle
Catholic and Christian replacement theology is disturbing because the Prophet Daniel warns us about a Little Horn (i.e., a small power) who would attempt to change the appointed times of worship and the Law of Moses. This is what the Catholic Church did (and still does).
Daniel 7:25
25 He shall speak pompous words against the Most High,
Shall persecute the saints of the Most High,
And shall intend to change [the worship] times and [the] Law.
And the saints shall be given into his hand
For a time and times and half a time.
Further, Daniel tells us that the saints (i.e., the Nazarenes) were to be given into the Little Horn’s hand for a time, times, and half a time. We do not have time for the full proof here, but as we show in the Nazarene Israel study, the reason Yahweh allowed the Catholics to suppress the Torah-obedient Nazarenes is that replacement theology spreads much faster than continuation theology.
The promise of eternal life without rules spreads much faster. Thus, lawless Christianity would serve a dual role both as the foe and substitute for the truth.
As we will see in the closing chapter of this book, the purpose of a variation in the faith in Yeshua spreading much faster would be to bring back the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel. (For more details, see the Nazarene Israel study, which you can read online for free, or which you can purchase at our cost on Amazon.com.)
In the next chapter we will talk about the importance of keeping the commanded times of worship.
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