Rico Cortes

[sheep wrecked]

I was looking at a video of Rico's titled "Messiah Priest of War - Part 2" [Jesus is a war priest? ]. He made a statement that in Isaiah 61:1 of the Qumran Isaiah scroll [Dead Sea Scrolls] that was scribed by the essenes, that they had changed "YHWH" to Melchezidek. I found that to be an interesting implication considering that it was news to me, so I dug around and this is what I found:

http://www.ao.net/~fmoeller/qa-tran.htm

Quote: The Essenes in Qumran who copied this scroll approximately 100 BCE are not to be considered the protectors of an accurate text identical with the Tanach which would have been revered by the Rabbis. They were actually far from the main stream and it is clear that the Q text of Isaiah is a "dialect" of Hebrew. It is not a translation, but is characterized by modifications in spelling and personal pronouns to match the then current Aramaic dialect that the Essenes would have spoken. It was much like changing "ye," "thee" and "thou" to "you" and "thine" to "yours" would be to us. Thus the preservation of an identical letter for letter received text was not at all a part of their motivation in their use of the scriptures. The Qumran texts that I have translated (1QaIsa) and (1QpHab) are dialects of Hebrew and not the Hebrew of the Tanach. Preservation of the original Hebrew letter for letter text was the role played by the Rabbis of the "main stream" in Jerusalem and Babylon (Sura, Nahardea and Pumbidita) and they had a special class, an office called Scribes, who carefully copied manuscripts then kept the new and destroyed the old. The Essenes were not and did not claim to be copyists of the same genre.

With this fact in mind, (that the Qumran scribes used their own discretion to alter the text to fit their own dialect), then the correspondence between the text of the Great Isaiah Scroll and the Masoretic text of Isaiah is all the more remarkable.

Here is the actual translation of Isaiah 61:1 as taken from the essene qumran scroll:

Quote:(Chapter 61:1) The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because YHWH has anointed me to preach good tidings to the weak; {& he has sent me&} to bind up the brokenhearted, to call to the captives
27. liberty, and to the imprisoned the opening of prison. (2.) To announce the favorable year of YHWH, and the day of vengeance for our God; to comfort all who mourn; (3.) To appoint
28. to the mourners in Zion, to give to them beauty instead of dust, the oil of joy instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of the spirit of heaviness; and they shall call
29. to them oaks of righteousness, the planting of YHWH, for glory. (4.). And they shall build the ancient ruins, the desolations of the beginning shall they raise, and they shall renew

http://www.ao.net/~fmoeller/qa-tran.htm

oops - wonder where Rico got his information from? Did he make it up? What Hebrew Roots "scholar" passed along this piece of junk? What troubles me the most about "teachers" like Rico is that they fill people's heads with doubt about the Word of God and promote themselves as superior in languages and prey upon the uniformed who pay homage and adulation to their "teachers". To my knowledge, Rico has zero training in Hebrew, but scarfed up what he could from others who don't know Hebrew either.

In this same video, Rico also had the great idea of assimilating the essenes and the sadducees as one group. They were completely different Jewish sects from one another

The lack of scholarship in the Hebrew Roots movement is atrocious