Anyone attempting to fathom the mysteries of a particular culture had best start with a clear grasp of the linguistics. Here is but a scratch of the surface - sent to me by a friend. Next time the Jehovah's Witnesses come to your door...hit 'em with this.
The Mystery Of The Bio-Genetic Coding Re-Genesis Of The Two Abrahamic Seed Strains.
The Right Vocalization Of The Hebrew Bible: In Hebrew, as in Arabic, there are no real vowels in the alphabet, and vocalization can only be indicated by vowel signs. With different vocalizations, words spelled in the same way can yield widely different meanings. One well-known example comes from the story of the "ravens"
that brought ". . . bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and fleshin the evening" to the prophet Elijah while he was hiding himself near the brook of Cherith (1kings 17:6). In vocalizing the original Hebrew of this story, the Masoretes rendered the word 'rbym as 'orbim, which produced the meaning "ravens". Had they rendered it as 'arbim, as some Biblical scholars have suggested, it would have meant 'Arabs', which makes better sense as far as the story goes.
When working with the scripture a person should derive their insights using a variety of devices, such as puns, anagrams, gematria (letter manipulations) and cross references to the same word in different contexts and other languages in order to
decode the biblical mysteries. Another example of the mishaps that can result in vowel vocalization, and therefore translation, is the word "Kabbalah". There are many alternative spellings of the word, the two most common being Kabbalah and Qabalah. Cabala,Qaballah, Qabala, Kaballah (and so on) are also seen. The reason for this is that some letters in the Aramaic and Hebrew alphabet have more than one corresponding representation in the English alphabet, thus rendering the same Hebrew letter as either K or Q (or sometimes even C).
Also the words:
Qumran, Umran, Amran, 'Imran.
The etymology of the names can also reveal the many teachings hidden in the stories of the scriptures. In Genesis 17:5, 'Abraham' ('brhm, parsed 'b rhm) is taken to mean 'father of multitude'. In Genesis, Sarai (sry), whose name means simply 'lady'.
In idiomatic Arabic 'lady' is the standard way to refer to a 'grandmother', or 'ancestress'. Thus, so to speak, Abram, personifying the 'ancestor', was married to Sarai, personifying the 'ancestress'.
It should be noted that in Genesis 17 when the name of Abram was changed into ''Abraham'' the change in name by adding h to the name ''The brith''.
The name change carries many keys to the mystery of Abraham. The mystery of adding the 'h' is the start of the bio-genetic coding re-genesis of ''two'' different strains in correspondences with the 12 matrix Archetypal forms controled
by
''The 12 matrixes of the Zodiac.''
Jacob name was also changed from Jacob to Israel, the name 'Is-ra-el' carries a spiritual precept concerning the true nature of the genatic coding program of the Abrahmic seed: Is - (The Female Earth Archetype ''Isis'')
Ra- (The Solar Archetypal Correspondences)
El - (The Infinite Spirit ''Elohims'')
The name Ismael Abraham from Hagar of Egyptian carries the genatic coding program of the Abrahmic seed:
Is - (The Female Earth Archetype ''Isis'')
Ma- (the Lunar Archetypal Correspondances)
El - (the Infinite Spirit ''Elohims'')
Another point of significance is that
the two
names
of
ISRAEL & ISMAEL
has
only one letter change
the
''RA'' & ''MA''
which embodies the change of:
Elements
of
FIRE & AIR
or
Sun & Moon
.
It should be noted that the two names, Israel & Ismael are poles in the mystery of the bio-genetic coding of the re-genesis of the two strains of one seed in correspondence with the same 12 matrix Archetypal forms which fall under
the control of the 12 matrixes of the Zodiac. Each of the 12 matrixes is also interrelated with the original three archetypes of Earth or Nature as well as the
Eight Primordial Universal Archetypes
According to Cornine Heline's 'New Age Bible Interpretation, New Testament, Volume V. The twelve tribes of Israel in correlation with the Zodiac:
Aries: Tribe of Dan
Taurus: Tribe of Benjamin
Gemini: Tribe of Manasseh
Cancer: Tribe of Ephraim
Leo: Tribe of Judah
Virgo: Tribe of Reuben
Libra: Tribe of NaphtaliScorpio: Tribe of Asher
Sagittarius: Tribe of Gad
Capricorn: Tribe of Zebulun
Aquarius: Tribe of Issachar
Pisces: Tribe of Simeon
Welcome to THE BALISONG JOURNAL An online journal of Southeast Asian Martial Arts, Culture and Spirituality from Guro Jeff Davidson and Detroit Kali-Silat. We will focus on Filipino Kali, Batangas Knife, and Silat Melayu (especially Silat Kuntau Tekpi) - along with Yoruba (West African) fighting and healing arts- and other interesting diversions along the way.
8 comments:
Interesting views!
I do a lot of work in the Hebrew text, and as something of maybe a balance to these views, I offer the following considerations to kick around:
1) The Masoretic text wasn't started until the 6th century and wasn't completed until the 10th century. Prior to that, the Hebrew Scriptures had no diacritical marks, meaning that the correct pronounciation relied on oral tradition. Even the most recent dating of the Pentateuch (with which I disagree) puts it at 400 BC, which would mean at least 1000 years of oral tradition on which word was "correct." This doesn't prove or disprove anything, but just to point out that the issue is more complicated than just whatever vowels one might insert into the written word.
2) It is likely that some Hebrew words are borrowed from Coptic, but this article may be trying to prove too much, that "Is" is Isis, "Ra" is the Egyptian Sun god, and "El" is the Hebrew God. The word actually comes from indigenous Hebrew terms, Yisra (to contend with) and El (God). It is debated whether or not the name intends to communicate that "God prevails" or that Israel is the people that struggle with God. Given the history in the Penteteuch, it could easily mean either or both.
With Ishmael, we have the root Shama, which means "to hear/obey", then El. Once again, this could mean "God hears" or "the one who hears God." Once again, the story of Ishmael could bear out either or both meanings.
It seems a little arbitrary to say these words represent Egyptian spirituality - there just isn't any evidence for it, but it is interesting to think about.
Also, Sarai means "princess," from the root "sar" meaning chieftain, leader, or warden. While this is not the exact opposite of "ancestress," it is something of a stretch to get that meaning, but it is possible.
And, yeah, JW's at your door do suck.
Thank you for the comments Phil. Indeed I wouldn’t expect you to go on the basis of that one article. However, there are some very convincing works dealing with the theory that the current Judeo-Christian tradition is a “memory” if you will of the ancient Egyptian mystery religion. For example Moses and Monotheism by Freud; and Gods of Our Fathers : The Memory of Egypt in Judaism and Christianity by Richard A. Gabriel. Also, a lot of what we thought we knew about Judeo-Christian history changed when the Dead Sea Scrolls we re-discovered.
For “C.R.” who emailed me - the most reliable english rendering of the Bible is The Living Torah by Aryeh Kaplan.
Jeff,
I'll have to look up those works. I love studying the interrelationships between ancient near-eastern religions. There are several shared concepts and symbols (for various reasons).
I definitely think ancient Hebrew religion borrows some terms and concepts from Egypt, which is no real surprise considering that Moses was raised and educated as an Egyptian, and the Hebrews spent so long as residents of Egypt. For instance, the idea of an ark to carry your god's presence around (i.e. the Ark of the Covenant) is part of both Egyptian and Canaanite religious practice.
It's just, when it comes to scholarship, especially potentially controversial scholarship, I think it pays to have a healthy skepticism. I find that the study of ancient history/religion/philosophy - anything we don't have direct access to - it's usually not a matter of deciding which theories are completely and demonstrably right or wrong, but rather which are the more probable. There's sort of a trend in "recent" scholarship to find a tenuous thread, write a book about it, and since it's new and controversial, gain a lot of air time. Well, sometimes those theories are helpful, sometimes those theories have some truth at base but carry it too far, and sometimes those theories are just people being controversial for its own sake.
Traditional views can be wrong and should be discarded if they are, but they are traditional for a reason. It's good to look at all the data and argumentation and weigh it on its own merits, which I think you do.
One last thing about the Dead Sea Scrolls, I'd be interested to look at references you have on that, as well.
Interestingly, the Dead Sea Scrolls confirm quite a bit of many traditionally held views. The Dead Sea material contains fragments of virtually every book in the Hebrew Bible, including a complete version of Isaiah.
What's interesting, considering the point you made about the Masoretic text, is that the Dead Sea material does differ in places from Masoretic text! Not huge differences that change overall meanings, but several differences nonetheless. What's even MORE interesting is that the Dead Sea texts line up almost exactly with the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible)! The Septuagint was written between 300-200 B.C., so it's not surprising they had access to older texts than the Massoretic. Also the Septuagint was written in Alexandria, Egypt.
Hmmmm....
Well Phil, I think that the Dead Sea Scrolls give us a much different picture of Yeshu ha-Notzri than most people have accepted. What do you think?
Hmmm. You may have to give me a hand on this one. As far as I know (and this is not a vast distance), the Dead Sea Scrolls do not talk about Jesus. They do talk often about a "Teacher of Righteousness" as well as a coming Messiah, but (once again, as far as I know) these are prophetic, not descriptive of someone they were currently aware of. Please correct me if I'm wrong. It's not like I've read all the Dead Sea scrolls.
Although the tail end of the Essenes were alive during Jesus' time, it seems less likely to me that they would have had any contact.
There are some contrary arguments, though. There are seven statements in the scrolls that seem to match up with statements in the New Testament, which has led to debates over who was quoting whom, or if the similarities are coincidental.
The Dead Sea scrolls do give us some insight into an alternate stream of Judaism, but to my knowledge, there isn't anything about Jesus in their writings unless you believe the prophecies in their writings are about Jesus, and I have to say there are some striking and very un-Jewish similarities (i.e. they write the Meshach will be crucified, which would be horrendous to Judaism - crucifixion is the sign of God's curse in the Torah). Is that what you meant - the prophecies?
Or am I way off base here? Might you be referring to other writings like the "Gnostic" Gospels?
Phil, the thing is that I think you're way off base equating Yeshu ha-Notzri with the "Teacher of Righteousness."
Consider:
a. The Teacher of Righteousness was a priest, a son of Levi; Jesus was not a priest, but "son of David".
b. The Teacher of Righteousness was described as "Messiah of Aaron and Israel".; Jesus was called only "the Messiah".
c. The Teacher of Righteousness probably lived generally in Judaea.; Jesus was a Galilean and his preaching took place principally on the shores of the Lake of Tiberius.
d) The Teacher of Righteousness was a learned master, venerated to the point his followers would not pronounce his name; Jesus was a familiar teacher, whom his disciples and multitudes approached with complete freedom, whose name was neither secret nor mysterious.
e) The Teacher of Righteousness was an author; Jesus wrote nothing, but only spoke his sermons.
f) The most serious difference is they were separated by a century. The Teacher of Righteousness died in 65-63 B.C. under the Jewish Priest-King Aristobulus II; Jesus died 30 A.D. under the Roman procurator Pontius Pilate.
More later...I gotta' get back to work on my next thrilling post
Hi Jeff,
I wasn't clear at all. I don't equate the Teacher of Righteousness with Jesus; I was asking if that was what YOU meant. And I guess you didn't. ;-)
All I meant to say was, to my knowledge, the Dead Sea Scrolls don't talk about Jesus, unless one believes that one of the figures mentioned is prophetically talking about him, which I don't, personally.
But you had said that the Dead Sea Scrolls had given a different picture of Jesus' life, and I just wondered what in the Dead Sea Scrolls you might have been referring to.
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