blue lunar night wrote:
I'm not making any allegations about your spirit family. I'm sure they're lovely.
From the sound of it, your YHWH and my YHWH are two totally different entities.
But from the look of it, my YHWH is the one which has taken center stage in the JuChrIslamic faiths, and consequently in the historical narrative.
Thanks
Interesting,
Nexus member lyserge pointed out a theory once that I now subscribe to. A theory that the popular "mainstream" version of religion..(example: the blue eyed republican jesus) is the result of a paticular force that is the embodiment of pure chaos and whos purpose is to perpetuate chaos and universal discord in the world and is supposedly connected to the Greek God Eris. I would also attribute it to the entity known as Samael, (or lit. poison God.)
IMO...I have encountered what is in my mind parasitic alien entities who are desperately trying to overthrow the forces of natural law and disrupt the balance of creation if you will. sort of like the classic satan of the bible who it says god loved so much that he reavealed all the secrets of creation to him. After that he(the satan) became incredibly arrogant and prideful then deciding to overthrow his master.....sort of dark jedi style.
Anyway I thought I would throw that out there.
Peace and thanks.
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Spock's Brain wrote:
Are you saying that passages and or meanings of manuscripts from Bible books such as Genesis are known to exist which are not considered/omitted in "mainstream" textual research? If this is true could you please provide a reference, as I would like to read up on it.
Hey Spock's Brain, sorry if I came off kind of sharp at you as well, I was having an off day..
So, allow me to try and explain in a logical fashion what I mean when I say the English translation is innacurate. There are several arguments to support this idea.
Consider first of all the people who wrote the Torah...the ancient Hebrews.
The Hebrew people were a tribal society in ancient times and like any tribal society they were masters of the art of story telling. IMO if a person really wants to understand the Torah then it is very helpful to understand the minds of the ancient hebrew people form a historical perspective. I consider ancient Hebrew to a bio-agricultural language based on farming metaphors where as greek is an abstract language based on abstract ideas. For example if you ask 100 modern people what heaven is you will probably get many different responses, if you ask an ancient Hebrew what heaven is you will get a more concrete answer....Heaven is Shamyim in hebrew it means sky-water or water of the sky. So although metaphorically descriptive the phrase sky-water is more concrete than the word heaven IMO.
In Judiasm there is the written law(torah) and the oral law. The oral law is transmitted from father to son or from Rabbi(teacher) to student. This is where the the commentaries on the bible such as the midrash and the talmud.
The Torah is considered to have different levels of meaning...a plain meaning and an esoteric meaning that must be searched out. The plain meaning is considered the garmet or outer shell of the Torah and it coneals the inner most secrets....
it is said that when one truly loves the torah then they can seek out her mysteries and gaze upon her nakedness,
So considering that the tribal language of the ancient Hebrews is largely based upon agricultural and biological metaphors..... for example in hebrew they don't have a word that exactly translates into "angry" .......
the ancient hebrew way to say someone is angry would be to say "your nostrils are flared" A biological metaphor. This is already a pretty large conceptual difference from what our greek way of thinking is accustomed to.
Also if you take a look at Judiasm there is the written teaching(torah) and the Oral tradition/teaching which was passed from rabbi(teacher) to student and from Father to son etc. The oral tradition is where they get books like the midrash and the Talmud, it's the oral tradition written down so to speak....
So as with most theology there is always that factor that is debatable. What is debatable in this case is whether or not the esoteric science of Kabbalah was included in the oral tradition since before the time the bible was written or is Kabbalah a relatively modern phenomena that emerged in the early middle ages of spain?
I for one am inclined to believe that the bible was specifically written according to the guidlines of "Kabbalistic science" but that is really my opinion and nothing more. I would urge anyone to explore this avenue of esoteric knowledge and make up their own minds whether or not Kabbalah is relevant to the Torah.
here are some other ancient hebrew definitions of common bible words.
(this is off a biblical hebrew website, however I find it to be entirely accurate, your welcome and encouraged to cross reference this.)
Faith =Emanuh:
The Hebrew root aman means firm, something that is supported or secure. This word is used in Isaiah 22:23 for a nail that is fastened to a "secure" place. Derived from this root is the word emun meaning a craftsman. A craftsman is one who is firm and secure in his talent. Also derived from aman is the word emunah meaning firmness, something or someone that is firm in their actions.
Eternity= Olam
In the ancient Hebrew mind the past is in front of you while the future is behind you, the opposite way we think of the past and future. The Hebrew word olam means in the far distance. When looking off in the far distance it is difficult to make out any details and what is beyond that horizon cannot be seen. This concept is the olam. The word olam is also used for time for the distant past or the distant future as a time that is difficult to know or perceive. This word is frequently translated as eternity or forever but in the English language it is misunderstood to mean a continual span of time that never ends. In the Hebrew mind it is simply what is at or beyond the horizon, a very distant time. A common phrase in the Hebrew is "l'olam va'ed" and is usually translated as "forever and ever" but in the Hebrew it means "to the distant horizon and again"
Firmament
The word raqiya is the noun form of the verb raqa and is literally a "hammered out sheet".
Glory:
The original concrete meaning of kavod is battle armaments. This meaning of "armament" fits with the literal meaning of the root of kavod which is "heavy" as armaments are the heavy weapons and defenses of battle.
_Hope this was food for thought, I apologize there is no real mainstream sources I can offer you other than rabbinical interpretation such as the Zohar and The Bahir. I personally think you would find the Zohar and it's rather expansive commentary on the book of Genesis to be fascinating....
-Take care
E
And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not percieve the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, "brother let me remove the speck from your eye", when you yourself do not see the plank that is in your own eye?-Yeshua ben Yoseph