Freethought & Rationalism Archive

sotto voce · 10-07-2012, 09:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stephan huller

really? this is a serious debate? when god's finger inscribed the ten utterances with fire on the tablets, what language was God using? Polish?

The Israelites were not very good at Polish. So God wrote in what they knew.

Sheshbazzar · 10-07-2012, 11:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clivedurdle

It seems Hebrew only became a heavenly language much much later...

Quote:

Since Late Antiquity, once attributed to a Council of Jamnia, mainstream rabbinic Judaism rejected the Septuagint as valid Jewish scriptural texts. Several reasons have been given for this. First, some mistranslations were claimed. Second, the Hebrew source texts used for the Septuagint differed from the Masoretic tradition of Hebrew texts, which was chosen as canonical by the Jewish rabbis.[23] Third, the rabbis wanted to distinguish their tradition from the newly emerging tradition of Christianity.[24][17] Finally, the rabbis claimed for the Hebrew language a divine authority, in contrast to Aramaic or Greek - even though these languages were the lingua franca of Jews during this period (and Aramaic would eventually be given the same holy language status as Hebrew).[25]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Septuagint

(And btw the true answer is Welsh!)

Conversely.

Quote:

"...I have also taken a great deal of pains to obtain the learning of the Greeks, and understand the elements of the Greek language, although I have so long accustomed myself to speak our own tongue, that I cannot pronounce Greek with sufficient exactness; for our nation does not encourage those that learn the languages of many nations,"
Josephus in his Antiquities of the Jews, 20:11:2.

The much earlier First and Second Maccabees also witness to a segment of Jewish society holding a strong aversion to the inroads of Hellenisim, and to the religious syncretisim and consquent undermining of Hebrew culture brought on by usage of Greek, with many verses stressing the employment of the native Hebrew language of their fathers.
2 Maccabees 7:7-8 is an interesting example;

Quote:

7. After the first brother had died in this way, they brought forward the second for their sport. They tore off the skin of his head with the hair, and asked him, "Will you eat rather than have your body punished limb by limb?"
8. 'He replied in the language of his fathers, and said to them, "No." Therefore he in turn underwent tortures as the first brother had done.'

One word in Hebrew, לא serving both as the reply and as an open affront to the Greek speaking persecutors.

In verses 20-23

Quote:

The mother was especially admirable and worthy of honorable memory. Though she saw her seven sons perish within a single day, she bore it with good courage because of her hope in the Lord. She encouraged each of them in the language of their fathers.....

Quote:

24. Antiochus felt that he was being treated with contempt, and he was suspicious of her reproachful tone.

In other words Antiochus could tell she was speaking contemptuously, but could not understand her words, being that they were spoken in Hebrew, the language of their fathers. ie 'Abraham, Issac, and Jacob' and of The Holy Scriptures; ha'Torah, Neveim, and Ketuvim.

andrewcriddle · 10-08-2012, 12:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DCHindley

This kind of ascent must have been practiced even in the 3rd century BCE as Enoch has a vision of the divine palace, where the floors were tessellated with stones polished so fine that one might think it is water and fear for his life. Gershom Scholem notes rabbinical discussions about the danger of misinterpreting these stones as water, in Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (or via: amazon.co.uk). (This one is only US $12). Unfortunately for Stephan, this tradition, which may be of Israelite or Iturean origin, is related in Aramaic in the DSS fragments of the Book of Watchers.

DCH

Although the idea of the dangerous illusion of water in hekhalot mysticism may ultimately derive from Enoch chapter 14 it is not found explicitly until much later.

Andrew Criddle

stephan huller · 10-08-2012, 12:25 PM

But there are a number of indirect ways that one can assume that God spoke Hebrew - at least according to the believers in this stuff. The numerology in the Pentateuch can only work if the universe is structured around a 'Hebrew blueprint.' Not a convincing argument for us, but it's 'them' that matters.

stephan huller · 10-08-2012, 12:28 PM

A better argument - in Acts 26 Paul tells the court that when God spoke to him it was not in Greek but in Hebrew: "I heard a voice speaking to me in the Hebrew language." πάντων τε καταπεσόντων ἡμῶν εἰς τὴν γῆν ἤκουσα φωνὴν λέγουσαν πρός με τῇ Ἑβραΐδι διαλέκτῳ, Σαοὺλ Σαούλ, τί με διώκεις; σκληρόν σοι πρὸς κέντρα λακτίζειν. (Acts 26:14)

stephan huller · 10-08-2012, 12:36 PM

The understanding that Hebrew was the language of God seems to be also known to Gregory Nyssa. The argument he develops in Against Eunomius Book Two sounds reminiscent of things said by Celsus in the second century:

Quote:

And the futility of such assertions may be seen also by this. For as the natures of the elements, which are the work of the Creator, appear alike to all, and there is no difference to human sense in men's experience of fire, or air, or water, but the nature of each is one and unchanging, working in the same way, and suffering no modification from the differences of those who partake of it, so also the imposition of names, if applied to things by God, would have been the same for all. But, in point of fact, while the nature of things as constituted by God remains the same, the names which denote them are divided by so many differences of language, that it were no easy task even to calculate their number.

And if any one cites the confusion of tongues that took place at the building of the tower, as contradicting what I have said, not even there is God spoken of as creating men's languages, but as confounding the existing one Genesis 11:7, that all might not hear all. For when all lived together and were not as yet divided by various differences of race, the aggregate of men dwelt together with one language among them; but when by the Divine will it was decreed that all the earth should be replenished by mankind, then, their community of tongue being broken up, men were dispersed in various directions and adopted this and that form of speech and language, possessing a certain bond of union in similarity of tongue, not indeed disagreeing from others in their knowledge of things, but differing in the character of their names. For a stone or a stick does not seem one thing to one man and another to another, but the different peoples call them by different names. So that our position remains unshaken, that human language is the invention of the human mind or understanding. For from the beginning, as long as all men had the same language, we see from Holy Scripture that men received no teaching of God's words, nor, when men were separated into various differences of language, did a Divine enactment prescribe how each man should talk. But God, willing that men should speak different languages, gave human nature full liberty to formulate arbitrary sounds, so as to render their meaning more intelligible. Accordingly, Moses, who lived many generations after the building of the tower, uses one of the subsequent languages in his historical narrative of the creation, and attributes certain words to God, relating these things in his own tongue in which he had been brought up, and with which he was familiar, not changing the names for God by foreign peculiarities and turns of speech, in order by the strangeness and novelty of the expressions to prove them the words of God Himself.
But some who have carefully studied the Scriptures tell us that the Hebrew tongue is not even ancient like the others, but that along with other miracles this miracle was wrought in behalf of the Israelites, that after the Exodus from Egypt, the language was hastily improvised for the use of the nation. And there is a passage in the Prophet which confirms this. For he says, when he came out of the land of Egypt he heard a strange language. If, then, Moses was a Hebrew, and the language of the Hebrews was subsequent to the others, Moses, I say, who was born some thousands of years after the Creation of the world, and who relates the words of God in his own language— does he not clearly teach us that he does not attribute to God such a language of human fashion, but that he speaks as he does because it was impossible otherwise than in human language to express his meaning, though the words he uses have some Divine and profound significance?

For to suppose that God used the Hebrew tongue, when there was no one to hear and understand such a language, methinks no reasonable being will consent.

DCHindley · 10-08-2012, 12:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by andrewcriddle

Although the idea of the dangerous illusion of water in hekhalot mysticism may ultimately derive from Enoch chapter 14 it is not found explicitly until much later.

Andrew Criddle

Very true. It seems that these oral traditions were written down somewhere between 400 & 600 CE, but as the editor of the OTP translation notes, the traditions were already in decline when put to parchment.

There are different POVs on how far back ascents of this kind were practiced. It bears resemblance to ascents made by 2nd century Gnostics and the world of angels described in Hekalot/Merkabah books is reflected in pagan magical texts from the same era.

Stephan has not commented so I can't determine whether he thinks Jewish mysticism goes back to the turn of the common era and beyond. It appears to me that the idea of ascents goes back to the Iturean peoples that were partly populated by remnants of the Israelites.

DCH

Sheshbazzar · 10-08-2012, 01:04 PM

The underlying concept would be, that if the words of Scripture, the word of יהוה "The word of Yahweh" ה דבר־יהוה was perfect and true, it must have been at its most perfect and true when delivered verbatim, and from His own lips.
By the account of The Torah יהוה chose to speak to the world in Hebrew.
And to have His Holy words -preserved- in Hebrew letters and words, in Hebrew texts as a witness to all generations of man.

No 'translation' can convey all of the subtle word plays, nor contain, nor convey the range of meaning inherent in the original Hebrew idioms employed.

No 'translation' that men can make can ever compare to the ancient Hebrew text. That is why that text is still with us, and the one that sets the standard from which all other are derived.

And in the end ALL men out of ALL nations will, according to Scripture, end up singing that same Hebrew psalm of praise with one voice, and with one accord, in one language, in perfect harmony; הללו יה׃

As it is written in the volume of The Book;

Quote:

הללו את־יהוה כל־גוים שבחוהו כל־האמים׃

Believe it or not, That is what the Bible states will happen. Men will either learn and do so.
Or -will not survive- to do so.

.

stephan huller · 10-08-2012, 01:05 PM

Quote:

Stephan has not commented so I can't determine whether he thinks Jewish mysticism goes back to the turn of the common era and beyond.

Back to the turn of the common era and beyond. Jacob is said only to have seen the angels going up and down on the ladder but I think the implications are pretty strong that he actually went up himself. 2 Corinthians 13, the Ascension of Isaiah etc, Celsus's statements preserved in Against Celsus Book Five all point the existence of this idea in the second century at least.

Thread Tools	Search this Thread
Show Printable Version	Search this Thread: Advanced Search

10-08-2012, 12:25 PM	#44
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	But there are a number of indirect ways that one can assume that God spoke Hebrew - at least according to the believers in this stuff. The numerology in the Pentateuch can only work if the universe is structured around a 'Hebrew blueprint.' Not a convincing argument for us, but it's 'them' that matters.

10-08-2012, 12:28 PM	#45
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	A better argument - in Acts 26 Paul tells the court that when God spoke to him it was not in Greek but in Hebrew: "I heard a voice speaking to me in the Hebrew language." πάντων τε καταπεσόντων ἡμῶν εἰς τὴν γῆν ἤκουσα φωνὴν λέγουσαν πρός με τῇ Ἑβραΐδι διαλέκτῳ, Σαοὺλ Σαούλ, τί με διώκεις; σκληρόν σοι πρὸς κέντρα λακτίζειν. (Acts 26:14)

Freethought & Rationalism Archive

The archives are read only.