Dear Friends:

Here is the experience of my younger son, Aaron, who first appeared on Zola Levitt Presents five years ago to share a disheartening experience he’d had as a student at Criswell College (the undergraduate school for many future Dallas Theological Seminary students). As you can see from the following update, things haven’t changed much.

A Textbook Case: The Blunders Continue

By Aaron Levitt

During my studies at Criswell, I unexpectedly discovered that the textbook I was required to read for my New Testament survey class contained some alarming fictional history of the early Church, the Jews of that time, and of Jesus Himself. These errors are, quite simply, fundamental contradictions to the New Testament. The book is A Survey of the New Testament, Third Edition, by Robert H. Gundry.

In the course of my many inquiries, I was told by more than one Criswell official that this book was (and may still be) the most widely used and required New Testament survey textbook in America! This surprised me a great deal more, in that many of the book’s statements (such as that the four thousand people Jesus fed were actually all Gentiles) were so obviously false, and so poorly researched that a first year Bible student could disprove them with ease. I asked my father, point by point, if the book’s many other strange claims were indeed as ridiculous as they appeared to be, and he, equally astonished, said that they were.

I then decided to ask to meet with Paul Wolfe, the head of New Testament Studies at Criswell and the man responsible for making this textbook required reading (despite my professor’s objections to using it, which he privately voiced to me). Dr. Wolfe agreed to a thirty-minute meeting with me. This turned into a three-hour argument, which was concluded only by the closing of the building late that night.

He angrily and loudly defended this book, as well as all the other textbooks that teach Replacement Theology (the teaching that the Church has replaced Israel as God’s Chosen People.). He said he personally held that view! He started out by stating flatly, about my claims of Replacement Theology in the book, “I don’t even want to deal with that,” arguing that, of all the possible things wrong with this book, Replacement Theology was the least important! Shocked, I told him that I presumed that Criswell’s position was dispensational. He asked if I meant the college or its founder. I said I meant the college, and he said, “No.”

The book itself makes countless statements to the effect that Jesus was only concerned with Gentiles, not Jews (suggesting He must have come to the wrong country). Funny, because Christ Himself said, “I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matthew 15:24), and further admonished His disciples to “Go not into the way of the Gentiles…. But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matthew 10:5-6).

And yet Gundry’s survey has both Jesus and His disciples venturing into “heavily Gentile territory” (pp.137-138, 186) time and time again, and ministering to huge crowds of only Gentiles. As a backdrop to this recurring motif, he almost always characterizes the Jews as being in unbelief, rejecting and hating Jesus, etc.

In fact, even though the very first churches (and Jesus’ disciples) were comprised of Jews, Gundry would have us believe the exact opposite: “‘And they glorified the God of Israel’ [Matthew 15:31] shows that the four thousand whom Jesus now feeds are Gentiles. Together then with the preceding Gentile woman [the woman at the well], and, earlier, the centurion and the Magi, they represent the great mass of Gentiles who are flocking into the church of Matthew’s time” (p.187).

One struggles to number the questions that naturally arise from such ridiculous statements. When the “God of Israel” is mentioned, that proves the surrounding audience consists of Gentiles? I think the entire excerpt itself speaks clearly to its own absurdity. It was certainly the most glaring and obvious error in Mr. Gundry’s textbook.

As I touched on earlier, his survey advocates Replacement Theology throughout, with flat declarations such as: “But Jesus had intimated that Israel was now rejected” (p. 117). Elsewhere, he writes, “Matthew writes his gospel for the church as the new chosen nation, which at least for the time being has replaced the old chosen nation of Israel” (p.161). This is in clear violation of Romans 11:1-2, “Has God cast down his chosen people? God forbid.” Gundry’s intent here is clear, and his statement is the exact definition of Replacement Theology.

In the next example, Gundry conspicuously leaves out Israel: “The parable shows that neither the Hellenistic world in general, nor the Roman government in particular, has anything to fear from Christianity” (p.240), implying that the Jews, alone, do. The book is full of many such references to Jesus’ messages being in perfect harmony with “high Hellenistic ideas,” and he also states that, because Christ’s kingdom is heavenly, it is no threat to Roman institutions.

Very strange.

What is the purpose of such observations? It’s almost as if Christ is a nice, quiet little addition to our world-centered lives, and not a total transformation of them. Christianity’s supposed harmony with the pagan world is also amazing in light of Daniel 2, which prophesies that Christ will return and, like a great stone, crush and destroy the Roman Empire after the Antichrist has revived it (Daniel 2: 40-45). And, of course, as He did with all the other nations which have attacked Israel, God caused the Roman Empire to completely fall.

Gundry’s textbook is even in favor of the “Palestinians!” Hints of validation for Arabs who claim sole ownership of modern Israel are sprinkled throughout the text. One such example states that certain Israeli figs are “eaten by Palestinians even in modern times” (p.147). Nowhere in his textbook is there a hint that God miraculously re-gathered and restored the nation of Israel to their land in 1948, or even an indication that any Jews live there today! Only “Palestinians” do.

The other day, I was at a Christian bookstore with Todd Baker, a staff theologian with Zola Levitt Ministries (who provided me with the Scripture references for this article). While we were there, he noticed that the store stocked the fourth edition of A Survey of the New Testament, copyright 2003.

I looked through the book, and found a single but very notable change from the third edition. As noted above, the former version reads: “‘And they glorified the God of Israel’ shows that the four thousand whom Jesus now feeds are Gentiles. Together then with the preceding Gentile woman and, earlier, the centurion and the Magi, they represent the great mass of Gentiles who are flocking into the church of Matthew’s time” (p.187). The fourth edition’s version of the same statement reads: “Jesus goes back to the Sea of Galilee, but apparently to the predominantly Gentile east side, so that the four thousand whom Jesus now feeds seem to be Gentiles. If so, with the preceding….”

He twists to somehow lead Jesus to the Gentiles, while continuing to write flocks and masses of them into the early Christian church. These two points are obviously very important to him, and yet he is quite vague as to their certainty, writing that the place to which Jesus went was “apparently” a Gentile region (but not explaining what he means by this) and that they “seem to be” Gentiles (we must again take his word for it), and, “If so, they represent the great mass of Gentiles…”

As doubtful and unwilling to show proof as he is, he still needs to promote this idea. I crosschecked many other corresponding places in the fourth edition with the pages I had researched and documented in the third, and the example above was the only change I found. Every other wrong doctrine, historical revision, and anti-Semitic statement that I found in the third edition was present, word for word, in the fourth, except the passage above, which had been totally rewritten.

It is unusual to publish an entirely new edition of a book without even making minor word changes to extremely controversial passages. It seems to me that it was specifically the book’s wrong doctrines that Gundry wanted to keep, since he reprinted them verbatim in this totally new version. (The third edition was published in 1994. In nine years, this book’s author did not want to change one word of his many crazy doctrinal statements, other than the one cited above.)

Your letters to the seminaries which use and require this harmful book are, without a doubt, the reason for the above single, but dramatic, change in this textbook’s latest version. That error, among the countless others I had found, was arguably the single greatest fallacy in the book, and the one most highlighted by Zola Levitt Ministries.

Wrong doctrine was, and still is, being taught to the future pastors of our nation, and so it is vital that it be protested until it is either removed or corrected. As I mentioned earlier, Gundry’s textbook in particular is, for some reason, very popular and prevalent among even conservative seminaries, and, as my father and I personally experienced through our communications with Criswell, the book seems in need of a supernatural shoehorn to remove it! It simply must be ousted from all of the seminaries, as it is thoroughly misguiding to students who do not know any better.

As I painfully learned, trusting the judgment of our New Testament departmental heads is not enough; we must examine the textbooks for ourselves and see if they contradict Scripture. If they do, there is no place for them among Bible-believing people, and they need to be replaced with Biblically accurate books.

Thanks to all those who helped win this victory. It is a duty we all share as believers in Christ, to correct error and outright lies with God’s truth. We have corrected one major lie in one major textbook, in addition to having the book removed completely from some schools. If we can correct one lie, we can correct others.

We must continue to do our Christian duty by writing our seminaries when we find in them anti-Semitism, Replacement Theology, Biblical and historical inaccuracy, and other seeds of wrong doctrine, which corrupt our Bible schools from within.


Why should we spend so much time on bad textbooks and mediocre Christian colleges? We feel that this kind of teaching begins to permeate the Church as graduates go out with wrong-headed ideas, and finally it affects the entire Christian community.

For example, this has been a year of world criticism of Israel (as is to be expected from prophecy: “You shall be hated of all nations” (Matthew 24:9). When I go out speaking, it is typically to Biblical churches well in the know about the Chosen People and the Promised Land, and they are not ordinarily moved by such biases.

But this winter in Florida, we found speaking engagements very difficult to schedule, even in churches where we had appeared multiple times before! I can only conclude that some congregations have finally been moved by the media and its anti-Israel slant. Of course, some may have heard enough about Israel (they think) and so moved on to other speakers; that is to be expected. But 30 years of experience visiting pulpits convinces me that something else is going on.

If we start with a bad seminary and poor textbooks, then we graduate ignorant pastors who do not have the knowledge to withstand the unbeliever’s view of things, and they eventually end up ignoring, or even condemning, Israel and the Chosen People. This must be first among the sins of the day in the mind of the Lord, who will put the question of Matthew 25:40 to Tribulation Believers: “Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto Me.”

And we of the Church Age should be able to give a much better accounting of ourselves than those under the pressure of the Tribulation Period. If we continue the backsliding of Moody, Dallas, and Talbot seminaries, along with all of these smaller colleges, eventually American Christianity will be an even more watered-down version of the original, and be of very little effect as the Antichrist and his system come on.

And the situation of fewer and fewer informed churches compels us to reach further out from our ministry base, and that, of course, goes to our request for a pilot — I want to say thanks to all the pilots who phoned us in response to our “Fly Me” request last month. We now need the use of a two-engine airplane, and I know that’s a lot to ask. But if anyone near Dallas can let us use one, we would be most grateful. This important ministry tool will allow us to tell our message far and wide in all 48 contiguous states, and perhaps even in Alaska. Please call Mark at 214-696-8844, and help us to be the best possible stewards with this ministry.

We will have our upcoming Kibbutz tour June 6–16 to help you give a better accounting of yourself with the Lord and His Chosen People. It’s our lower-priced alternative for teachers and pupils — as well as our usual pilgrims who might be interested in a less expensive tour. It will cover the same sites in Israel as our spring and fall Deluxe Tour, with the added plus of an exciting archaeological dig.

For more information or the confirmation of tour dates, check with Tony at (214) 696-9760 during business hours. You can also call 1-800-WONDERS (1-800-966-3377) anytime for a brochure about any of our tours.

Spring and summer giving to our ministry often drops, so please remember that now that we have gone on PAX with our great leap of faith, we’re continuing to request that all of our supporters please ask the Lord what He would have you give to help our ministry. We need no more than that. (And don’t forget to tell your friends to watch our shows — for our complete airing schedule, check online at www.levitt.com.)

Finally, in a time when many seminaries, colleges, and even churches are aligning against the Chosen People and, in effect, against our Lord, I hope you will continue to remember to pray for the peace of Jerusalem.

Your Messenger,

Zola

P.S. Our struggle to stay on PAX continues! As you may have noticed, we have placed special TV spots on that network to encourage our new viewers to join you in support of this fruitful expansion. Please prayerfully sustain our efforts to broadcast quality teaching as the end “draweth nigh.”

Zola Levitt Ministries is ECFA approved and has Charity Navigator’s top rating of 4 stars.

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