James Trimm

If anyone chooses to read my PDF they will find that I was like a loot of you, I left a group because the leader exercised un-biblical leadership and claimed to be my "covering" (In Hebrew "covering and "atonement" are the same work KIPPUR) and the day after I left I was disfellowshipped publicly for the "crime" of "seeking his own way apart from the congregation"... in short I left a "cult" and was "marked for avoidance" for having done so. I left that group around 1988 and I did not found the reorganization of "Nazarene Judaism" until 1996 so the claim that I split from one group o create another is false. Is Nazarene Judaism a cult? Well I could count on one hand the number of people who we have disfellowshipped since 1996 (nearly fifteen years). Our statement of faith is intentionally broad and short. We believe in unity on the essentials and against division over non-essentials.

"Hopefully adults know that a lot of what they read on the web is just not right, and just not true. But kids don't know that, they read it and think that it says it, it must be true. … There is no editor on the internet so people can put stuff out there that is just absolutely drop dead wrong." - Dr. Phil McGraw (Wed. 12-16-09) "It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat." - Theodore Roosevelt quotes (American 26th US President (1901-09), 1858-1919)

Actually I have never claimed to have a Ph.D., my Degree is an S.T.D. from a non-accredited Seminary. But hey these are just silly facts I wouldn't want anyone to get confused with... TWI believed the garbage on those web sites as well... but after they filed a real lawsuit with real discovery and depositions and prepared for a real trial where the facts matter, they were quite ready to settle rather than go to court. You can put almost anything on the internet, true or false, there is no great internet editor out there... "Hopefully adults know that a lot of what they read on the web is just not right, and just not true. But kids don't know that, they read it and think that it says it, it must be true. … There is no editor on the internet so people can put stuff out there that is just absolutely drop dead wrong." - Dr. Phil McGraw (Wed. 12-16-09) "It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat." - Theodore Roosevelt quotes (American 26th US President (1901-09), 1858-1919) My response to some of the other Slander that has been posted about me on the internet: http://www.lulu.com/items/volume_68/8857000/8857710/1/print/sl2.pdf My response to accusations of plagiarism and copyright infringement: http://www.lulu.com/items/volume_68/8850000/8850159/1/print/jstrimm3.pdf

I make no claims to being a prophet.

How can you say, "We are wise, and the Torah of YHWH is with us"? Look, the false pen of the scribe certainly works falsehood. The wise men are ashamed, they are dismayed and taken. Behold they have rejected the Word of YHWH; So what wisdom do they have? (Jer. 8:8-9) In other words, those who accept the Word of YHWH (that is the Messiah, see Jn. 1:1-3, 14) are a better source for Torah wisdom, than those who reject the Word of YHWH (Messiah).

My Messiah is Yeshua and if you advocate rejecting the incarnate truth, then that tells us enough about your credibility.

I was not quoting myself as a source... if you would actually read the directives the moderator recently gave us we were asked to post links rather than cut and paste. So rather than paste what I have written in the past on Lashon Hara I have posted this link to it: http://nazarenespace.ning.com/profiles/blogs/lashon-hara Which is mostly a collection of quotations from Scripture, with some commentary that is pretty literally drawn from it. And then I posted this link: http://nazarenespace.ning.com/profiles/blogs/lashon-hara-by-mikahael-ben Which I did not write. I find it odd that you say I am not Torah Observant but claim that Chabad is. Chabad rejects the Messiah. The Torah specifically forbids us from rejecting Messiah (Deut. 18:18-19). Moreover the Messiah is the Torah incarnate, so in rejecting Messiah one is rejecting the incarnate Torah. Why would you regard Messiah rejecting Rabbinic Jews as a better authority than Messiah accepting Nazarene Jews?

In another thread you comment that you do not see in my words "how to live and love"... I responded "Torah" Here is what the Torah says about how to love one another: You shall not go up and down as a talebearer among your people; neither shall you stand idly by the blood of your neighbor: I am YHWH. You shall not hate your brother in your heart. You shall in no way rebuke your neighbor, nor bring sin upon him, You shall not avenge nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am YHWH. (Lev. 19:16-18) One of the ways we love our neighbour is by not being a "talebearer" that we "in no way rebuke [our] brother". Is that the kind of love I have found Doctrinal sub-forum? Or have I been the target of talebearing and rebuke?

Ummm... the topic of the thread is Hebrew and Aramaic New Testament Origins, not "how to live and love" although I can discuss that topic in another thread. Typically my answer would be one word "Torah" but that is my doctrine. And although a moderator moved this discussion to "doctrinal" it is intended as an academic rather than doctrinal discussion.

If anyone wants a good understanding of Lashon HaRa you can look at the following: http://nazarenespace.ning.com/profiles/blogs/lashon-hara http://nazarenespace.ning.com/profiles/blogs/lashon-hara-by-mikahael-ben No I did not come here to "recruit" I came here originally because I was being sued by the Way International. After the suit ended I began discussing other topics, one of which was doctrinal so it was moved to the doctrine section. It is logical to conclude that anyone that has a doctrine and posts in favor of it is by definition "recruiting"... why am I different? Should not doctrine be debated on its own merits rather than falling into the logic error of attacking the one presenting an argument rather than responding to the argument? Besides I have already responded to every one of these false accusations in my two PDF files, that should be sufficient to say that has been covered now lets talk about doctrine. Everything that can be said on the subject of attacking James Trimm has already been said and already been responded to, so there is nothing more to say on that topic.

No, although I had stated many of those facts before, that was a newly composed post which i typed one letter at a time. I might have restated facts because they are still true.

Unfortunately the Hebrew/Aramaic origins crowd has become slit into two groups: Pedangta Primacy Theory and Critical Text Theory. Pedangta Primacy is to Aramaic origins what the Majority Text and Textus Receptus supporters are to Greek Origins Textual Criticism. They insist that the Pedangta is the original inspired original Aramaic NT. (In both cases this points to the Byzantine type text, for the Majority Text, the Textus Receptus and the Pedangta are all Byzantine type texts. Critical Text Theory (this is my party) maintain that we must apply objective rules of textual criticism to a wide variety of Hebrew and Aramaic texts (and even take into account the textual history of Greek and Latin versions as they express underlying Hebrew and/or Aramaic) in order to arrive at the best possible most original Hebrew/Aramaic text. This is comparable to the Critical text position in textual criticism in Greek origin textual criticism. One major difference, however is that the Greek Critical text theory tends to support the Greek Alexandrian type text, while the Aramaic Critical theory points to the Western type text as oldest (The Old Syriac for example is a "Westernt" type text (as laid out in my book The Hebrew and Aramaic Origin of the New Testament at http://www.lulu.com/nazarene ) (in fact the "Western" type used to be called the "Syro Latin" text type because of the affinity between the Old Syriac, the Old Latin and the Greek Western text. Unfortunately many of those who subscribe to the Pedangta Primacy theory take things personally and make personal rather than academic arguments.

Thanks for the clarification.

There are some fundamental problems with your argument. To begin with we could say almost the same thing about the Book of Esther. The oldest Hebrew copy of Esther dates only to the Middle Ages (9th century C.E.) and by far the oldest copies are Greek LXX copies from the 4th century CE. Also prior to the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls (in which no copies of Esther were found) this was true of the entire "Old Testament". But everyone agrees on a Hebrew origin for Esther and the rest of the "Old Testament". Interestingly there are 1,500 years between the events of Ester and the oldest Hebrew copy... same as Matthew. A similar situation occurs with the Apocryphal book of Tobit. Before the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered the oldest Hebrew copy of Tobit was published in the 1500's by a guy named Munster who claimed to have obtained it from among the Jews. Soms scholars actually argued that Tobit had been originally written in Greek and that Munster's Hebrew was just a late Hebrew translation from a Greek or Latin source... and then Hebrew Tobit turned up in the Dead Sea Scrolls, settling the issue. Funny thing is that this same Munster is the one that published the Munster editions of Hebrew Matthew and Hebrew Hebrews which he claimed to have obtained from the Jews in the 1500's. Now there are over 5,000 Greek mss. but few of them are ancient (BTW there are over 10,000 Latin mss. but that does not mean the NT was written in Latin) Of the Ancient Greek mss there are a handful (less than 10) of fairly complete Greek codecies which date back to the 4th to 6th century and there are a comparable number of ancient Aramaic mss. from about this same time periods. Now there are about 100 Greek Papri fragments which date from the second century to the 7th century. Several of these predate the 4th century. Now lets discuss these Papri fragments for a moment... these are all (or almost all) found in Egypt, where hot dry conditions contributed to their preservation. Egypt was the center of Hellenism in this part of the world. The Egyptian Christians used Greek texts, just as the Egyptian Jews used the Greek LXX "Old Testament". So the mss. that we find there are Greek. In fact even mss. of books of the Old Testament that we KNOW were written in Hebrew are found in the Papyri fragments only in Greek and never in Hebrew.

I have not responded to many questions because the most efficient way to do so would have been to cut and paste. There are few doctrinal issues I have not already covered in my books and articles. however I have been asked not to cut and paste and more, so that leaves me having to spend hours recomposing what I have already composed. I have no need to put myself on trial here. I just spent nearly a year in discovery and depositions preparing for trial by TWI and in the end they chose to settle rather than go to trial. I have no intention of now being the subject of a witch trial by ex-TWIers. Our beliefs must be big enough to include all of the facts, open enough to be tested, and flexible enough to change. If anyone wants to discuss doctrine then you can email me at cleartruth@yahoo.com If you want to engage in Lashon HaRa and Slander attacking me rather than my doctrinal arguments, then enjoy yourselves. Lashon HaRa is the sin of using words as a weapon to harm someone. It is amazing how many people who would never think of picking up a baseball bat and attacking someone with it, will take up words (true or false) and use them as a weapon to attack a person. This is as wrong as picking up a baseball bat and using it as a weapon. And the man who says that he is only repeating what he read or heard, is like a man who uses a baseball bat to attack someone and then insists that he is not responsible because he did not manufacture the bat! My response to the slander about me is here: http://www.lulu.com/items/volume_68/8857000/8857710/1/print/sl2.pdf And my response to the false claims of Copyright Infringement and Plagiarism of the HRV are: http://www.lulu.com/items/volume_68/8850000/8850159/1/print/jstrimm3.pdf

Well now that the suit is over I thought I would post some of my own thoughts on VPW. It appears to me from VPW’s conglomerate theology that he must have early on studied with the following three groups: 1. Millerites (Probably Jehovah’s Witnesses, since most other Millerites stress a 7th Day Sabbath which VPW never seems to have embraced. And VERY few who accept a 7th Day Sabbath ever decide that was wrong and then embrace Sunday Keeping afterward, if VPW had made such a move, one would expect him to have made a point of pushing Sunday and teaching against the 7th Day Sabbath as an “error”, but if he ever did this at all, it was not a major focus). From Millerites he picked up teachings like: Rejecting Deity of Messiah; Soul Sleep (non-immortality of the soul- rejection of literal Hell). Also the idea that the “gallows” on which Yeshua was impaled was a “stake” only and was not T-shaped is shared by the Jehovah’s Witnesses. 2. Dispensationalists- Probably Plymouth Brethren – with a strong lean toward Bullinger ultra-Dispensationalim. 3. Pentecostals – From which he derived Holy Spirit Baptism, speaking in Tongues, casting out demons etc. (concepts and practiced repudiated by the above two groups. It is also here that the “Abundant Living” concept came. Finally he seems to have been impressed by George Lamsa’s claims about an Aramaic NT Origin. Add one original idea, that the term Holy Spirit can refer to either The Holy Spirit or very distinctly to our own holy spirit within us. Throw it all in a blender and you get VPW theology. I suspect that VPW spend many years early on in his own search for truth, latching onto the above ideas as bits of truth that he believed he was discerning in his own voyage through various teachings. I personally think that he was wrong about most of the above teachings. However I think that his interest in Lamsa was a case of serendipity. What I mean is that Lamsa’s scholarship was a shipwreck, but he carried forward a tradition which he (Lamsa) had received from his Assyrian upbringing that the NT was originally written in Aramaic and that the Pedangta was related to that original Aramaic (Lamsa strongly believed the Pedangta WAS that original). VPW was no major scholar but he influenced people that were and some of those people were able to peruse the idea of the Aramaic origin of the NT with serious scholarship. That scholarship was a brief flash in the pan just before and just after his death. I believe hey were on the right track in regards to NT origins… they were able to bring the earlier “liberal school” research of serious scholars like C.C. Torrey, Charles Fox Burney, Matthew Black and others into a context that actually accepted the inspiration of the New Testament. I had little knowledge of the Way efforts until the 1990’s by which time, I had independently gone through the same process (re-evaluating Lamsa’s tradition and Torrey, Burney and Black’s liberal Scholarship in a new context, one that recognized the inspiration of the NT). I also did this between 1984 and the early 1990’s.

And another classic moment: Q. [Colombo] I notice also looking at this transcript that unlike any other transcript I've ever seen, it doesn't say when you took any of the courses; is that correct? A. [Trimm] I can't testify as to what you've seen.

This reminds me of a humorous moment from my deposition. The subject of Watchman Fellowship had come up. (I wrote some articles for Watchman Fellowship back in 1993 and one of their researchers had written me a letter we were discussing. Q. What's Watchman Fellowship? A. I'm sure The Way International is very familiar with Watchman Fellowship. Q. Just tell me what it is please. A. They're an anti-cult watch group. Q. What does that mean? A. That means that they actively seek to alert the mainline Christian community about groups that they consider para Christian cults, ranging from the Mormons to the Jehovah's Witnesses to The Way International.

BTW The Q-tip thread I referred to was here:

If anyone follows me I hope it is only as I follow Messiah. I only wish people to follow Torah and Messiah. The few who have accused me of being a "Cult leader" are rarely people who were ever associated with Nazarene Judaism. We just practice a form of Judaism that recognizes Yeshua as the Jewish Messiah of Judaism.

In fact not only did we not admit to "plagiarizing" anything, I have a document "signed by each party" which the Court refers to as "a stipulation and agreement by the parties as to the facts recited in the document". This document states "Defendant's deny that they violated the Plaintiff's copyrights, nevertheless, the Parties have agreed to resolve this matter in accordance with a Settlement Agreement..."

Just to clear up some minor points, at no point did anyone from the way come to my home in Hurst Texas. We did have two court ordered Settlement meetings several months ago. One was at an Law Office in Fort Worth that was working with their Ohio attorney. The other was held at the Judge's court Jury room in Fort Worth. In another thread someone mentioned a female they called Frau Q-Tip or something... as having flown to DFW for these meetings. Actually the TWI attorney flew in with a male rep from TWI. Also the Ohio attorney flew in and spent many hours (basically all day) deposing me on another occasion. Also, obviously we did not agree to "admit" that we had "plagiarized" anything. Anyway, just to set the story straight.

Back in July of 1994 I faxed some of my research on Aramaic New Testament Origins and some of my early translation work to The Way International Research Team. A few days later I got this letter in the mail telling me that the Research Team had been disbanded: I sent it to the "Research Team" because they were listed as the authors of the Pedangta Concordance. Since that time I have also gotten a couple of GMIR articles on Aramaic NT origins, one by Karen Masterson and the other by Daniel McConaughy Ph.D. back in 1984/85. My question (because I was not there): What was the nature and function of the Research Team? Where Masterson and McConaughy members of this team? Were there people working on the Aramaic research that were not on this team? I would love some insight into the Aramaic origins research and work that were taking place back then. Why was the team disbanded? Why was the Aramaic research ended? Who were the Research Team members? I am really curious about this element in TWI history.

First off I did not threaten anyone. I simply stated my disapointment that libel was being posted, and when a poster said that they were only reposting what they read elsewhere, I pointed out that that is still libel. As for "lazy"... are you kidding me? Do you have any idea how many hours a week I work? I have written over 20 books, am currently working on three books, I also have a weekly radio show, weekly Sabbath teachings both of which must be prepared for each week. I have also written several free lessons for the free Davar Bible School Bible Correspondence course and currently teach a Tanak Survey 1A class. And on top of that I have written over 400 teaching blogs in the last two years (http://www.nazarenespace.com). On top of all of that I care for my disabled wife, and play Mr. Mom to five children, one of whom is legally blind. When I cut and paste, I am cutting and pasting from my own books, blogs etc. I really can't deal with being called "lazy".

There is no difference legally between libel/slander and repeating lible/slander you have read/heard somewhere else.