I thought that it would be profitable to share the origins of the word "Christ" with everyone.

To begin, we need to understand that definitions and translations change over time as languages evolve. Today, the Greek word "Khristos" or "Christos" does indeed mean "anointed one". This corresponds to what the word "Christ" means. But the word "Christ" did not come from the Greek "Khristos". It actually came from the Greek word "krissos". Allow me to explain...

NOTE: In the interests of clarity I'm just going to use transliteration. I'm sure you are aware that the Greek alphabet, like the Hebrew Alef-Bet) uses different characters than English letters.

Most of the manuscripts of the B'rit Chadashah (New Testament) were written in Greek. At least those that are available today were. There are only a small handful of manuscripts that date back to the first century, so there is no real way of knowing what the original manuscripts were written in. All we have are copies.

During the formation of the Roman Church, those manuscripts were translated into Latin and became part of the Latin Vulgate. Later, as people became obsessed with the authority of Scripture and verifying that we had "pure" documents, the idea to find the Greek language portions came into play. Now, you would think that the Roman Church, being so much closer in time than we are would have had the original documents. But they didn't. In fact, all they had were copies of copies of copies. The techniques used by the Jews to preserve the Torah were not being used to preserve the B'rit Chadashah (I wonder if this was because the letters that became the B'rit Chadashah were not considered to be Scripture until the Roman Church declared them to be).

In an effort to keep conformity in the church, the Roman Church engaged in a bit of deception. They had the Latin Vulgate translated back into Greek. Today this is known as the Textus Receptus or, among Bible scholars, the TR. The majority of today's Bible translations (at least the "New Testament" portion), especially those in English, is from the TR. The KJV, NKJV, NIT, NLT, ASV, etc, etc are all based off the TR.

In short, most Bible translations are:

English from Greek (TR)
Greek (TR) from Latin Vulgate
Latin Vulgate from Greek (copy of copy of copy)

So most translations are actually third order translations (not counting the copies of the manuscripts as it is unknown how many there are between the copies and the originals). And this leads us into the origin of "Christ".

Today, the word "Christ" comes from the Greek (TR) "Khristos" and, today, means pretty much what Moshiach (Messiah) means. But in Latin the word was "Christos" and meant (or at least does today) "anointed one". But the earliest Greek manuscripts (NOT the TR) actually show the word as "krissos".

"Krissos" does not mean Moshiach, Messiah, anointed, or any of those things. "Krissos" means "drugged and whitewashed."

To be honest, I'm not sure where the "drugged" part comes in when relating to the Christian church. If anyone does have any insight I would be delighted to hear it. Please share!

Whitewash is a lime based paint. Lime is very caustic and can damage property and burn skin. When something (we'll use a fence as an example) is new, whitewashing is relatively easy and free from any problems. The fence is already clean as it is new. But when the time comes to whitewash the fences the next year, things are a little different. For one, the fence is very rarely, if ever, cleaned before whitewashing. Why bother? After all, the whitewash will cover the dirt. Sure, the dirt is still there, but no one can see it because of the whitewash.

Over time, of course, the whitewash would fade away and the dirt would be exposed. So the next year you whitewash the fence all over again. But as the year progresses, the whitewash wears off and, now, exposes TWO years of dirt. So you do it again. And now THREE years of dirt. And so on, and so forth.

Whitewashing does not clean the fence. It merely hides the dirt. Considering how I lived when I was a Christian, and how I see most Christians living today, I'd say that I (and they) was not cleansed but merely whitewashed.

Some of you may wonder how I know this. The answer is simple: I attended seminary. At one time I had access to digital copies of some of the earliest known manuscripts. Those pastors, preachers, and ministers who are seminary trained know this information. There are a few, like myself, who become disillusioned, try to seek answers within the church, and eventual leave seminary. I do not know where they go or what they do. I only know that God brought me to Beit Or. I pray that He has brought others to a similar place.