Saturday, March 29, 2014

Micah 5:1,2,3 ... messianism or warning to worshippers of a false god?

Micah 5:1,2 (Jewish enumeration)
ואתה בית לחם אפרתה צעיר להיות באלפי יהודה ממך לי יצא להיות מושל בישראל ומוצאתיו מקדם מימי עולם ב לכן יתנם עד עת יולדה ילדה ויתר אחיו ישובון על בני ישראל

Phrase literal translation:

ואתה
and you
בית לחם
BeT L'χeM
אפרתה צעיר
Efratah minor
להיות באלפי יהודה
to-be in thousands of Judah
ממך
from/than you
לי יצא
my exiting /going forth
להיות מושל בישראל
to-be governor in Israel
ומוצאתיו
and his exiting / exile / expedition 
מקדם
from old/early/enlightened-ones
מימי עולם
of/from days eternal/infinite/
 


  1. and you BeT L'χeM, Efratah minor, to-be among thousands of Judah, from you I who will exit, to be governor in Israel. and his ancient exit from days eternal.

  2. and you BeT L'χeM, Efratah minor, to-be among thousands of Judah, from you I who will exit, to-be governor in Israel. and his early exit since days eternal.

  3. and you House of god Lakhamu of Efratah minor, to-be among thousands of Judah, from you I who will exit, to be governor in Israel. and his ancient exile from days eternal.

  4. and you House of minor god Lakhamu of Efratah to-be among thousands of Judah, (rather) than you (it is) I who will go to-be governor in Israel. and his exile early from days eternal.

  5. and you House of minor god Lakhamu of Efratah to-be among thousands of Judah, (rather) than you (it is) I who will go to-be governor in Israel. and his exile from enlightened-ones of days of eternity.



My take:
The speaker is using comparative sarcasm here, playing on the word [יצא] - While you go forth to be exiled, I go-forth to govern. You deceptive puny little god of Efratah.

Whereas you House of minor god Lakhamu of Efratah to-be among thousands in Judah from you. My expedition to-be governor in Israel. While his expedition to-be exiled earlier-on from days of eternity.


The verse that follows goes on:
לכן יתנם עד עת יולדה ילדה ויתר אחיו ישובון על בני ישראל

Thus I shall put-them-aside until when an expectant mother gives birth and the rest of his brothers return to the children of Israel.

Alternatively:
Thus I shall put-them-aside until the era of pangs of birth and the rest of his brothers return to the children of Israel.


Is this actually the Bible predicting the exiling/rejection of the mythical false god Jesus? And those who converted to worshipping this false god will return to the children of Israel, at the era of the pangs of rebirth of nation of Israel.



Still, if you do not agree with the Lakhamu god theory, your best bet is either #1 or #2.

This is a very unusual construct:
ממך לי יצא
  • from you, I who exit
  • rather than you, I who exit


If you choose to twist the grammar to make it a prophecy of Jesus, than you would also be able to prove that Dostoyevsky's Brothers Karamazov prophesied about Barack Obama and GW Bush.


Isaiah 9:6,7 messianism or rhetoric pep talk?

Isaiah 9:6,7
כי ילד ילד לנו בן נתן לנו ותהי המשרה על שכמו ויקרא שמו פלא יועץ אל גבור אביעד שר שלום


Christian Bible translators had decided to interpret the preposition [אל] (el =toward) as the short form of addressing G'd.

The following is the phrase literal translation
....

כי ילד
that a child
ילד לנו
shall be born to us
בן נתן לנו
a son given to us
ותהי המשרה
the government would be
על שכמו
upon his shoulder
ויקרא שמו
his name would be called
פלא יועץ
wonder(ful) who be in counsel
אל
to
גבור
a hero/warrior of
אבי עד
eternal father
שר שלום 
authority/prince of peace
 
Let me reproduce my interpretation and translation which I had posted elsewhere.

I compare this to Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech. This passage has to be read together with the surrounding text, not just picked out awkwardly by itself.

Let's say a politician or orator gives the following speech in an extremely poor black neighbourhood in the 1980s ...


I have a vision.
Despite all the adversity we face.
Despite all the poverty.
Despite the low rates of high school graduation.
A son will be born.
He will have an education.
He will excel in school.
He will be an engineer, a doctor, a scientist.
He will be the President.
He will be a hero blessed by G'd

Which is simply a rhetoric about a singular envisioned child as the example of any other child having a good education and becoming a respected member of society and even becoming the President.

I'm afraid that one day, in a thousand years', someone would pick up MLK's speech and turn it into a prophetic declaration about a pair of black and white kids who grew up together being the prophesied saviours of the world.


We Jews are oppressed.
We constantly lose our battles.
It seems we are not fit to have our own govt.
But people now in darkness see a light at the end of the tunnel.
That a child would be born.
A son given to us
He will have the respect and honour.
Heck, he would even be the gov'nor
And rub shoulders with a warrior of the Eternal Father.
And would be admired to bring peace.


The biblical orator of this passage believed that Jewish children would one day be heroes again, exemplified by a singular case - as in MLK's speech.

It is said that Hebrew does not have subjunctive mood. I dispute that. We should revisit that. I believe the conversive vav should actually be called a subjunctive vav, the writers of the Bible had used for setting the subjunctive mood.

http://ancienthebrewgrammar.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/recvavcons.pdf

Sunday, March 23, 2014

Psalm 8 mistranslation

Disclaimer: if you are a ufonut, please don't press on the stale issue of elohim being plural.

There is a mysterious preference of translation of a certain portion of Psalm 8.
In Hebrew:
מה אנוש כי תזכרנו ובן אדם כי תפקדנו
ותחסרהו מעט מאלֹהים וכבוד והדר תעטרהו

Let me transliterate the literal translation:

מה אנוש who/what is humankind
כי תזכרנו that You think about us
ובן אדם and son of adam/man
כי תפקדנו that You empower us
ותחסרהו מעט You lessen him a little
מאלֹהים than/from G'd
וכבוד והדר and glory and honour
תעטרהו you adorn him

Let me give you the direct translation uncontaminated by doctrinal bias:
Who is humankind that we are in your mind and the son of adam/man that you empower us?
You have him a little lesser than G'd and adorned him with glory and honour.

That is the way the American Standard Version translated it.

But many bibles translate that certain portion with
That you have him a little lesser than angels.

where they translate
מאלֹהים
as angels, rather than from G'd.

Let me tell you two reasons why the American Standard Version is the correct one.
  1. Let's presume
    מאלֹהים
    should be translated as angels.Then the passage should be
    you have him as little angels.
    Without the preposition than/from.

  2. All other places in the Bible, מאלֹהים is translated as
    from G'd.
Compare with Hosea 2
והיה ביום ההוא נאם יי And is on that day declares Hashem
תקראי אישי ולא תקראי לי עוד בעלי shall you call me my-husband-peer and no longer call me my-husband-master


Exegesis:
  1. The Hebrew word translated as sacrifice in the Bible is קורבן (QURVaN), from the root word קרב, which means be-near/in-proximity. קורב (QURVaN) is the pual conjugation of the word, which is passive - to be brought close/near. And then in Hebrew, we would turn a verb into participle/noun, by suffixes. In this case, we suffix the word with a feminine plural 3rd person - thus  קורבן (QURVaN).[1]
  2. Any occurrence of the word  קורבן (QURVaN) found in the Bible mistranslated as sacrifice, should be replaced with the meaning of Evolution towards being like G'd, that such so-called "sacrifice" are meant to illustrate our gradual evolution towards being nearly like G'd, that we would have the authority to either recklessly torture, punish or forgive the animals beneath us.
  3. Do you think G'd really needs us to burn up those animals for Him. For the two previous temples destroyed one after another, because we had failed to understand the actual implication of  קורבן (QURVaN), which is to remind us to continuously take steps in our billion years journey to become nearly like G'd. So that one day, in 10 billion years' time, humankind would evolve to become a matching eternal collective spouse of G'd.  קורבן (QURVaN) being a collective 3rd person Feminine.
  4. In the new temple of Ezekiel which we are to build, we would have the  קורבן (QURVaN) of a red heifer. We all know there is no such thing in nature as a red heifer. But we will be able to use bio-genetic engineering to produce one. We will have a red heifer for  קורבן (QURVaN).[2]
    Numbers 19:2 did not command us to sacrifice a red heifer.
  5. When the new temple of Ezekiel is built, we would present ourselves as yet having taken another step towards our Evolutionary journey towards being nearly like G'd. We would have successfully genetically engineered a red heifer. We will present this red heifer, take a sample of her blood, and prove that her DNA is genuinely artificial. We will also demonstrate our being more godlike by forgiving the heifer by setting her free. That would demonstrate that we have taken yet another step to fulfill Psalm 8.
  6. People believe that  קורבן (QURVaN) necessitates the killing of humans and animals to appease our G'd, as a substitute for our punishment have a completely screwed-up relationship with G'd.


[1]Please don't use Google translate to look up this word, because modern colloquial Hebrew has totally screwed up the meaning and sacredness of this word. Another example how Jews allowed Hebrew to be screwed up by acquiescing to Christian mistranslation and misconception of biblical words.
[2]Christian sources tell us that the red heifer is actually a common brown cow. That's pure BS, pun intended. Red heifers do not exist in nature, currently. It can only be produced through biogenetic engineering.