Rites of Passage
Wednesday, November 09, 2005
BaRosh Yitbarà Elohim
Now, so as not to frighten any of my fundy friends reading this, and to clarify, it's not changing the words per se, ('cause remember, it wasn't written in King James' English or even Greek, it was ancient HEBREW), but rather changing where the syllables/letters are broken up.
This particular combination of hebrew letters is usually read as "Bereshyt barà Elohim et haShamayim ve'et ha'aretz", and translated as "In the beginning, G-d created the heavens and the earth."
This researcher is suggesting an alternate combination resulting in: "BaRosh Yitbarà Elohim"... (see how similar they are, yet different?)
Roughly translated, these letters could mean "In the head (or mind) God (will) create himself" or, in an equally Yoda-like translation, "God Himself (the infinite imagination, the unnamable) creates (or created, since it was past tense)". Now the problem with rough translations is that they're usually transliterations. And this (literally) is not how we tend to use our languages: we have all these wonderful, quirky, idiomatic expressions that have to be worked around to be understood by anyone unfamiliar with the original/common use of the language from which you are translating.
But I was excited by the prospects presented here. Now understand that I've spent some of my recent days looking at way too many documentaries on the Babble--uh, I mean Bible Code, and the use of mathematics to analyze the hebrew used in the Torah to reveal/resolve/predict EVERYTHING. My little dinosaur brain may simply be on overload or so wide open you can drive a truck through it.
Anyway, upon first reading about this "new translation of the bible," I had an immediate brain flash (or brain fart, depending upon your own assessment) of the extraordinary possibility that this "In the Head God creates Himself" translation could mean that "in the minds of human beings the concept and construct of God and EVERYTHING is created", (lending some support to Voltaire's idea that "if God did not exist, it would be necessary to create him")
And then I calmed down...
...and started thinking--if you take "Head" to mean 'top of' or 'start' or even 'beginning', and "Himself" to mean "everything you see below/above/beyond" or 'the heavens and the earth', and 'Elohim' to mean 'God', just as we almost always do (rather than GODS, which the 'im' ending of the word reveals--but we'd rather shoot ourselves in the foot than acknowledge a concept that scary and sacriligious!); and if I further wanted to explain or translate this opening passage to JimmyJoe or Shanika in lauguage they could actually understand, I might just end up saying: "In the *beginning*, *God* created *the heavens and the earth*..."
Religion
spirituality ¶ 11/09/2005 05:07:00 AM 0 comments
a recent reordering of the hebrew letters that make up the first words of the Torah leads one Italian bibilical scholar to redefine the title or description of what we now refer to as "the Bible".
Now, so as not to frighten any of my fundy friends reading this, and to clarify, it's not changing the words per se, ('cause remember, it wasn't written in King James' English or even Greek, it was ancient HEBREW), but rather changing where the syllables/letters are broken up.
This particular combination of hebrew letters is usually read as "Bereshyt barà Elohim et haShamayim ve'et ha'aretz", and translated as "In the beginning, G-d created the heavens and the earth."
This researcher is suggesting an alternate combination resulting in: "BaRosh Yitbarà Elohim"... (see how similar they are, yet different?)
Roughly translated, these letters could mean "In the head (or mind) God (will) create himself" or, in an equally Yoda-like translation, "God Himself (the infinite imagination, the unnamable) creates (or created, since it was past tense)". Now the problem with rough translations is that they're usually transliterations. And this (literally) is not how we tend to use our languages: we have all these wonderful, quirky, idiomatic expressions that have to be worked around to be understood by anyone unfamiliar with the original/common use of the language from which you are translating.
But I was excited by the prospects presented here. Now understand that I've spent some of my recent days looking at way too many documentaries on the Babble--uh, I mean Bible Code, and the use of mathematics to analyze the hebrew used in the Torah to reveal/resolve/predict EVERYTHING. My little dinosaur brain may simply be on overload or so wide open you can drive a truck through it.
Anyway, upon first reading about this "new translation of the bible," I had an immediate brain flash (or brain fart, depending upon your own assessment) of the extraordinary possibility that this "In the Head God creates Himself" translation could mean that "in the minds of human beings the concept and construct of God and EVERYTHING is created", (lending some support to Voltaire's idea that "if God did not exist, it would be necessary to create him")
And then I calmed down...
...and started thinking--if you take "Head" to mean 'top of' or 'start' or even 'beginning', and "Himself" to mean "everything you see below/above/beyond" or 'the heavens and the earth', and 'Elohim' to mean 'God', just as we almost always do (rather than GODS, which the 'im' ending of the word reveals--but we'd rather shoot ourselves in the foot than acknowledge a concept that scary and sacriligious!); and if I further wanted to explain or translate this opening passage to JimmyJoe or Shanika in lauguage they could actually understand, I might just end up saying: "In the *beginning*, *God* created *the heavens and the earth*..."
Religion
spirituality ¶ 11/09/2005 05:07:00 AM 0 comments
