Ganzo, explain this one.....

[Tikker]

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[Ganzo]

The Genesis story is a poetry and speaking in a much deeper language than plain text.

For example make man in our image and likeness does not mean that G"d is a human. When you father a child you hope that he will be in your image and likeness in a sense that he takes on what you give him and not only come to your level of achievement but hopefully exceeds it. When this child is born however it is a bundle of crying, eating, pooping mess and is nothing in your image and likeness - however it does not mean that this child will not grow up and can grow to be greater than you, or he can die growing up or turn into a shithead, you get my point. Same is with G"d and us, that is why Jews call G"d "Father" and all say that we are his children. The goal of Creation was not to make an anthill to observe and poke at but to grow a family of equals - we are just not there yet. That is why you can see in stories G"d's involvement in the beginning that can only be viewed as a parent to a young child, where he is there every second: talking, explaining, teaching, saving and spanking. Later on and even now you see a more of a hands off approach with an older child, and we are now becoming rebellious children, trying to break rules, claiming entire existence of G"d as questionable - just like most teenagers do with parents. But this stage will pass too and once we get to the next one the real conversation will start and our understanding will be on a higher level. That is what we refer to as Messianic age, when we say that each person can bring on a Messiah with his own behavior by focusing on accumulation of understanding and completion of good deeds, but what it truly means is that each person has the capacity to reach that level of higher being and become a Messiah. It is very close in a notion to a Buddhism and transcendence, but what I'm discussing is Kabbalah and Chasidus and is usually discussed after years of study in order to learn to see the meaning and not simple words, yet the original words are as important and cannot be simply dismissed as a fairy tale.

Anyway To get back to original question he is not addressing a specific audience his words are the instrument of creation. It is a very complex Kabalistic explanation though, not sure if you want it.

[Tikker]

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[Ganzo]

That too

[Narrock]

Sorry for saying you suck at Jewishishness. lol. That's one heck of an explanation, and I've often pondered the same question Tikker asked. I always wondered who else was there.

[Tikker]

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[Ganzo]

When the G"d says "Let there be light" who is he saying it to? Is there an electrician out there in space that flips the switch? - No it is a process of creation described in a way that a person who does not study the deeper meaning can comprehend. Most of the Torah is built that way: a simple way to bring a message across and a deeper meaning behind it.

If you think this is a tough question, there are much better ones in there. For example Golden Calf story has this passage

Exodus 32:7 - Then the LORD said to Moses, “Go down, because your people, whom you brought up out of Egypt, have become corrupt.

Why is G"d says "your people, whom you brought up out of Egypt" weren't they G"d's people whom G"d brought out of Egypt?

It's got a very interesting explanation, Mindia see if you can crack this one

[Narrock]

I'll do it for homework lol

[Ganzo]

ps, not long after that part, when they're building the tower of babel, god comes across like quit the dick, and seems offended that they all speak one language, and can cooperate


so him and his gang of badass angels come and scatter mankind to the 4 corners of the earth, and make them all speak different languages


seems pretty contrary

This is a great story about humanity. The short of it is that people were trying to build themselves up too fast and lost their humanity in the process, so they were given something to slow them down. Chasiduss describes this in a parable that people were building a tower and the tower was so tall that it would take a week to climb up to the top with a new brick and so if someone would trip and fall, others would cry for the lost brick and not for the lost life. So the G"d took away the ability to communicate and gave them a chance to build communities and families instead and learn to love eachother

[Tikker]

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[Ganzo]

hrm, ok

so you're saying that the lego bible is quite possibly incomplete in the message it portrays?



and by lego bible, i mean anything translated from the original

Pretty much. Hebrew is very tough to translate, especially translating Bible which is written in poetic form. It would be like translating Shakespeare - bound to miss most of the details and play of words. Then add the complexity of prepositions being prefixes instead of stand alone words and vowel being omitted in the written form and you get something that is a nightmare to translate for anyone but a bilingual rabbinical scholar.

For example the very first word in the Bibile has 6 different ways that it could be read: first there are no articles in Hebrew such as a, an, the so "In the beginning" becomes "In beginning". Then prepositions are added as prefix so it looks like "Inbegining", then all of the vowels are omitted so it looks like "nbgnng" in the actual original text. In Hebrew "In the beginning" is "Bereishith" with "Be" meaning "In" but "Ba" meaning "At" and "Reishith" meaning "start" or "rise" so with that you already got ether "In the Beginning" or "At the Rise". It can also be read to represent "Bora Shesh" "Created Six", "Borey Shesh" "Creator of Six", "Ba Rosh Shey" "At the Head of Host", and "Be Rosh Shey" "In the Head(meaning "first of") Host". - And this is just the first word of the first book of the Bible, so you can see the complexity since the rest is like that as well. This is why we have countless books of commentary of each word and people spend their lives doing nothing but studying for 16 hours a day and still we find new things in there to this day.

Personally, I don't think there is a way to read and attempt to understand the Bible without first learning Hebrew and reading it in the original with a help of a teacher.

[Tikker]

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[Ganzo]

Of course I believe in the Divine Word and that it is perfect. But you are assuming that these complications are related to an error and we believe that these complications are there by design. They are there to facilitate learning and problem solving and inquisitive approach to research. For example, from the start of Judaism it is required that all opinions are supported by quotes from sources and not citing sources or plagiarism is actually a sin. Basically everything you learn about in college about how to properly do research papers and debates comes from people studying the Bible.

As far as translation goes, we do not believe that the Bible can be studied in a translated form. According to the Bible, Hebrew was the original language spoken from Adam and survived through the Tower of Babel falling. The name of the language comes from Eber the man who was honest and compassionate and allowed to keep the original language. Because of this it was the language that the Bible was given in and so it should be studied in its original form. Any errors in translation come from men, not from G"d.

Another misconception that people have from Christianity, is the believe that the books of the Bible were the only thing given at the Sinai. The original text clearly says that it was more than that. In Hebrew we call the five books of Moses "Torah" which translates as "Teaching", however when the Gifting(the proper translation of the event at Sinai, not Receiving as it appears everywhere in English) of the Torah(not 10 Commandments) occurs the actual words of G"d are "Here are the Torahs(plural not singular)" meaning that not only the written parchment with the five books of Moses were given but also what we call the "Oral Torah" which was written down at the later time in the six books of Mishnah (following the destruction of the second Temple and the dispersion of Jews from Israel) to prevent the loss of this information. These books of Mishnah contain all of the details that are referred to in the Written Torah but are not described in detail, like when it says to observe Sabbath, but not how to observe it and many other details that clarify missing or confusing portion of the Written Torah. Later Mishnah was expanded into 63 books of Talmud, and countless volumes of Chassidus discourses, and then for the real brave students there is a book from ARI(Rabbi Yitzchak Luria) "Zohar" which translates as the "Shining" and it is what is now known as Kabbalah (Receiving) which is a commentary of the Torah but from a much deeper spiritual perspective. This book also has countless volumes of commentary and explanation, and is not supposed to be attempted for reading by anyone under 33 years of age(based on old tradition that by that age person would already be done with all of the religious education, have family and be able to comprehend it). Anything in Kabbalah attempted without a teacher is an excercise in frustration as most of it will make no sence without knowing the context.

So to your question, yes I belive that the actual text of the Torah is holly but that does not make it plain text - it is a complext foundation for a much larger study.

[Narrock]

Makes me kinda wanna study Hebrew. I wish I had the time.

[brinstar]

http://en.wikipedia.org/

[Tikker]

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[Ganzo]

Genesis 1:26
Then God said, 'Let us make humans in [b]our[/b] image—in our likeness. And let them rule over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the livestock, and all the creatures that creep along the ground.'



who's God talking to at this point?
other gods? angels?

It doesn't have anything like that in Hebrew it's not easy to really translate it the way it is written but it is all singular in Hebrew not plural if that helps

[Menelvir]

'[...] our image [...]'

Is an example of the original royal plural.

Keep it simple, especially in translation =)

[Ganzo]

'[...] our image [...]'

Is an example of the original royal plural.

Keep it simple, especially in translation =)

I believe you are correct and that is something that was added to represent royalty in translation. The other issue people always bring up is that the name of G"d used there is Eloihim which can also be used to represent plural for Angels, however, it is also a name of G"d which means in English "Lord of Host" meaning King of Angels. Since Hebrew does not have upper and lower case to distinguish between names and non names, the only way to distinguish is in the context, so unless someone wants to argue that it was angels who made human, the context of the passage refers to the creation of a human by G"d.