‘Baptism and the Order of Melchizedek’ is the latest book from respected Christian author and teacher, Roz Mitchell, (nee Bowyer) a former native of Ahoghill, who I have known for many years since she cut her journalistic teeth at the Ballymena Times.
I asked Roz how the new book came about: “My previous book ‘Code X – Lost in Translation’ which was first published in 2024 has been generating quite a lot of interest in North America and I was invited out to North Carolina for 3 weeks at the start of the summer to teach basic skills for understanding biblical Hebrew. I began to share with the churches some fascinating discoveries that have resulted from my own journey with Hebrew and how by immersing ourselves in the Hebrew text, we can discover some real gold that has been missed under the dust sheets of the Latin and English translations.”
I asked, are you saying that our English translations are wrong? “No, no, no – I am very grateful to the huge contribution made by bible scholars and translators over the years who have sacrificially dedicated their lives to find the truest way to translate the Hebrew and Aramaic texts, but it is virtually impossible to translate one Hebrew word into one English equivalent. Huge strides have been made in our understanding of Hebrew over the past 30 odd years. The Canadian linguist Dr Douglas Petrovitch has written a fascinating paper which demonstrates that Hebrew was one of the earliest, if not the earliest language and it was hieroglyphical in nature. The letters contained the actual meaning or DNA of the Hebrew word, the root letters were like building blocks. When you understand the purity and simplicity of this, learning to interpret biblical Hebrew becomes as accessible as playing a game of Pictionary! But you can also see how attempting to translate the Hebrew text into English is a herculean task as a picture paints a thousand words. To compound the problem, our use of specific words changes with every generation – words like ‘mouse’ and ‘web’ and ‘net’ carry very different meaning today than they did 30 years ago! We will always need to return to the Hebrew text!”
‘Baptism and the Order of Melchizedek’ is quite a long title, and it doesn’t particularly sound like a book for linguists? Roz laughed and retorted: “if you think that is long then you should have seen the original title ‘Yochan the Baptiser and the Order of Malki-Tsedeq’ – but I soon realised that this would make it virtually impossible for anyone to find it online! But yes, you are quite correct, this book is very different to my former books as it is aimed at inspiring the church in general, and indeed non-believers, by looking at some key themes such as what was God’s blueprint for Mankind, and His people? Is there an overarching Calling and Identity that was first revealed in the Hebrew Bible that we have overlooked when we concentrate our teaching on the New Testament and Psalms? Who was John the Baptiser? What was John’s baptism and why did Jesus need to be baptised? Did John fulfil his calling ‘to prepare the way of the Lord’? Key to all of this is our understanding of the Hebrew word ‘Tsedeq’ – which is generally translated as ‘righteous’, but when you break it down into the DNA of the Hebrew letters it means ‘to kneel in submission (the letter Tsadde), captivated by God, and to wait for a doorway of opportunity (the letter Dalet) to open which will reveal God’s glory, in His perfect timing (the letter Quph)’. There are 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet, and I have just introduced you to 3 of them; so it is something very achievable, and a fascinating way to study the Bible.”
How are sales of the new book going? “I have been blown away by the interest. My last two books were published using Amazon KDP so I knew that while it becomes available to order virtually instantaneously, it can take a couple of days for notification of orders to filter through. Someone contacted me out of the blue to ask if I realised that it had been the Amazon No.1 Best Seller by day five, which was one of those weird and wonderful things that you really do not expect to ever see happen! I took a screenshot of the page on Amazon, to preserve it for posterity, but the world of publishing is extremely competitive so I do not imagine that it would remain in that position indefinitely.”
What do you hope this book will achieve? “I believe people are hungry for Truth. We witnessed a real hunger in America. Generally speaking, most folk learn about the Bible either from a 30-minute sermon on Sunday morning, or by listening to podcasts. I used to struggle with the idea of reading a daily devotional because it felt second-hand and a little bit predictable, and it often focused on the New Testament. It grates somewhat when I hear folk speak of the Old Testament as ‘Law’ and then make a differentiation with the New Testament to say that it is about Grace. Grace preceded every covenant in the Old Testament, indeed the word ‘Torah’ is the Hebrew word for ‘teaching’ found throughout Proverbs to describe the essential teaching a mother gave a young child to ensure they didn’t harm themselves, or others by running out in front of a chariot or eating something unclean that would have made them ill. The Torah reveals God’s blueprint for His people to be a nation of kings and priests (Exodus 19:6), but it was not just for the Israelites – 1 Peter 2:9 states ‘You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood . ..’ and John describes those who have been washed of their sins as ‘made as kings and priests unto God’ in Revelation 1:6. This is the Order of Melchizedek, or Malki-Tesdeq as it says in the Hebrew text, messengers, or kings of Tsedeq (Rigteousness) – living out their calling as Servant Kings.”
‘Baptism and the Order of Melchizedek’ by Roz Mitchell is available to purchase here on Amazon.
