Friday, October 06, 2006

education_standards.pdf (application/pdf Object)

Toward an online collaborative interlinear project


education_standards.pdf (application/pdf Object)


I am thinking about launching a collaborative online interlinear project. I am looking into Web-based software that will facillitate the production of a "peoples'" interlinear. There will be two levels: a core of scholarly or near-scholarly members and a secure interface for their work, and a public interface for the Web community at large to contribute toward an English gloss for each Hebrew word. Each interface will have two modes: 1) Lexical mode and 2) Frequency mode.
In the lexical mode each word to interlinearize with an English gloss has a pull-down menu of all the lexical possibilities for translation based on a wide selection of lexicons.
Secondly, the frequency mode will produce a list of words that have been chosen to gloss the Hebrew word based on frequency. The second mode will be the mode visible to the general Web community. Each time someone enters a word as a possible gloss, the word will be assigned numeric weight based on a number of factors. The users will need to be a member of the subscribers group to post a possible gloss. The scholars ultimately decide in close cases of what the final gloss will be; however, the choices in most cases will be based on voting weight.
The details are still roughly meandering within my skull. Should anyone else out there ever read these posts, feel free to contact me with suggestions. Web designers' opinions about how to proceed would be useful, although we have Web savvy members on board, who are always ready to listen and work with others.
All time spent on this project will be without enumeration. A good place to start any project is philosophically, hence the reference above to the PDF produced by the American Bible Society, in their attempt to produce some early guidelines for the production of Bible study materials, which is what an interlinear gloss should be considered to be.

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

El is Elohim - A New Translation and Interpretation of Psalm

El is Elohim - A New Translation and Interpretation of Psalm 82


The online article, “Monotheism, Polytheism, Monolatry, or Henotheism? Toward an Honest (and Orthodox) Assessment of Divine Plurality in the Hebrew Bible”, Michael S. Heiser, PhD, Academic Editor, Logos Bible Software, , is an excellent example of scholarship enhanced by The Libronix Digital Library System (Logos). The author, Dr. Heiser, is critical of the modernist view that there was an evolution of Hebrew religion, “from polytheism to henotheistic monolatry to monotheism.”
The evidence pro the evolutionists?
1. “Multiple names of God…point to polytheism….”

2. “The nature of Israelite religion…understood on the basis of source-critical assumptions….”

3. “The Hebrew Bible affirms the existence of other gods.”

Evidence contra? The rest of the article answers the seldom asked questions, especially a “better solution” that goes beyond both text-criticism and conservative evangelical interpretations.
For Dr. Heiser, the critical position utilizes “circular reasoning,” while the evangelical position that other gods are merely other “idols,”being material and always “no gods,” (Epistle of Jeremiah 6, 23, Polyglot) is “equally flawed.”
The critical stand displays its good side in what follows. In agreement with them, he states:
It is not difficult to demonstrate that the Hebrew Bible assumes and affirms the existence of other gods.

The textbook passage is Psalm 82.

In addition to several other biblical texts, as well as extra-biblical sources, Dr. Heiser’s thesis is:
It is more coherent to abandon the evolutionary paradigm and ask how it was that (1) late biblical authors had no qualms about an assembly of gods under Yahweh; and (2) Second Temple Jews, willing to suffer death rather than worship other gods, failed to react to divine council texts in the Hebrew Bible as a threat to monotheism.

Psalm 82 and its meaning continues to be a subject of debate, as well as the subject of a few Web sites. Dr. Magee presents a translation of Psa_82:1:
God (Elohim) stands in the assembly of El. He judges in the midst of the gods (Elohim).

The significance for him is that “It meant Yehouah [Yahweh] usurping El.” The biblical “primary history” for him is the disguised “post-exillic” replacement of all Canaanite Baals and Baalettes – El, Ashtereth, and even Baal-Yahweh – with a new Yahweh modeled after the Persian deity Ahura Mazda, only the written conquest of Canaan is projected back in time in the Hebrew scriptures to the “pre-exillic.” Looking at the text something else may be in view here: both that Yahweh is gaining prominence, and also that the old and ancient El is being eliminated by his sons, especially by one in particular.
The elohim stand in the council of El, inwardly the elohim judge him. (CliOT)

Here we are actually seeing the transformation of the council of El, the elohim, or sons of El (God), into Elohim, God, the so-called “plural of majesty,” but in fact the plurality of the Canaanite pantheon absorbed into the new diety Elohim. El already is “the old” God (“too long” El has reigned and allows evil to grow), and the Canaanite evidence also suggests a usurpation of El by one of his sons, often Baal, but here it is the new Hebrew deity of Yahweh-Elohim. In Canaanite literature, the rivalry between Baal and El is described. I am asserting that a similar evolution from the ancient father to the new LORD (Yahweh and Baal being equal in my view). See here for an interesting discussion from the Journal of Biblical Literature.
Following is a unique translation of Psalm 82:
Ps 82:1 Psalm of Asaph. The elohim stand in the council of El, inwardly the elohim judge him.

Ps 82:2 "Too long you defend the iniquitous and favor the wicked, you increase their property."

Ps 82:3 "Defend the poor and the orphan that is humble, and to the destitute grant justice!"

Ps 82:4 "Deliver the poor and the needy from the hand of the wicked. Grant rescue!"

Ps 82:5 "You know not, and you understand not. In darkness you go, and falling are all the foundations of the land."

Ps 82:6 I, myself say, “you are the elohim, and the sons of the Highest God are you.”

Ps 82:7 “Surely as Adam, you die, and like the shining ones, you fall.”

Ps 82:8 “Arise, Elohim! Judge the land that you are allotted from among the nations!” (CliOT)

The elohim accuse El (in their hearts) of ruling too long, and allowing evil to multiply. El has become ineffectual and corrupt in his old age, in fact, senile. The consequences have reached the point where the very stability of the earth is at risk. Then someone, “I, myself,” possibly an allusion to Yah, declares El (God) to be the elohim (sons of God)! Hence, as a group “the sons of the Highest God are [the whole of] you,” i.e., are a unity of plurality, to replace El, not a plurality of majesty. Thus, Psa_82:6, may also be translated: “I, myself say, ‘you are the elohim and the elohim are you,’” meaning there is an equating of the two.
As for El, he dies like a mortal human, and falls from heaven, in the same way as the Seraphim (the highest of the sons of God), who revolted, fell in the past. Now free of the old El, Elohim (the new and improved unified plurality) fulfills his assignment to judge all nations, presumedly justly and fairly, now that the functions of the various gods of the nations (to judge and guide them) are absorbed into the Godhead.
Thus, a revised version of The Shema (שְׁמַע): “Hear, O Israel, Yahweh: your elohim are (now) one Elohim!’”

Although Dr. Heiser would think my translation and interpretation insane, I make it none the less, because I am new at this. Yahweh declares that for the Hebrews, the whole of their former pagan gods are now subsumed under one God, Elohim, specifically Yahweh-Elohim. Hebrew grammar likewise follows the concept of plurality that is now unity, by giving Elohim singular grammatical status. The question that arises becomes: can this degree of monotheistic syncretism be possible before the establishment of the temple state in Jerusalem at the behest of the Persians? Are the writings, or at least the oral traditions themselves, actual “pre-exillic” material? The author of this Web site says yes.

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Some thoughts on the Hebrew corpus

Some thoughts on the Hebrew corpus

Serving the Word: Is Biblical Hebrew a Language? — blog post.

One of the questions of concern to me is just how reliable are our conjectures about the Hebrew language, its syntax and word meanings, when the text corpus is so small? Future linguists would be handicapped in reconstructing the range of 21st century English from the Penguin Pocket Dictionary, as the author rhetorically implies.
This dearth of materials is the main impetus to scholars turning to cognate languages such as Ugaritic, Moabite, and to some extent Arabic. Studying these languages has clarified many textual problems already.
However, not many of the extinct cognate languages would have been decyphered had not various "Rosetta Stone"-like discoveries been unearthed. In the case of ancient Egyptian, the texts would be today meaningless without the fortuitous discovery of ancient interlinears. If a minimally represented language is difficult or impossible to read without these rare interlinears then, logically, to extrapolate to a wider lexicon from a small corpus must be accepted only after much evidence presents itself.
I'm thinking of the Logos 3.0a Lexham Hebrew-English Interlinear (the latest beta and RC revision). In Gen_1:1, they add the notation that b · r šyt is in the "state construct form." Many translations, like the NAB, agree, and they translate:
In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, (NAB)
In the beginning of God’s preparing the heavens and the earth— (YLT)

In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, (NRSV)

In the beginning, when God created the universe, (GNB)
The NET Bible states in their "tn" footnote to this verse:
The translation assumes that the form translated "beginning" is in the absolute state rather than the construct ("in the beginning of," or "when God created"). In other words, the clause in Gen_1:1 is a main clause, Gen_1:2 has three clauses that are descriptive and supply background information, and Gen_1:3 begins the narrative sequence proper. The referent of the word "beginning" has to be defined from the context since there is no beginning or ending with God.
Whether construct or absolute, whether you plead that all the other occurrences are construct, or whether you argue Gen_1:1 is a special case, only additional evidence engendered by new research employing new ideas may settle the question. I recently saw a graphic of an interlinear from "Towards a General Model for Interlinear Text," Cathy Bow, Baden Hughes and Steven Bird University of Melbourne" where b · r šyt is glossed as "head," and the Hebrew word for "create" is glossed "cut."
Such interesting tidbits make me think that perhaps the mythological battle between chaos and order, as reflected in Canaanite and earlier myths, was lost or censored. Imagine that the "mythological" background "before" the beginning might have been left off, censoring a reference to some goddess like Tiamat being slain. Thus, experimentally, Gen_1:1 might be interlineared:
from-her-head severs elohim — the-heavens and — the-earth
— (CLIOT)

Another related idea it seems is "scripture must be interpreted by scripture." Just as the language is open to alternate interpretation because of the small corpus, the theology may have to be re-interpreted in the light of the small body of representative literature from those days, embodied in only one main source (the Bible) among others for Hebrew origins, and by recognizing that much of the background to what survived in the texts is not now known, or perhaps is permanently lost.

Monday, September 25, 2006

Links between the Bible and ANE cultures.


Links between the Bible and ANE cultures.

My Methodologies,
Pre-suppositions and Biases. Walter Reinhold Warttig Mattfeld y de la Torre,
M.A. Ed.

The article makes some powerful points. The chain of his logic leads to his conclusion that "the Hebrews have apparently transformed the Mesopotamian myths in Genesis," but the solution to the problem of why the Biblical scribes needed to produce the literature of the Bible, needs rethinking.
The author himself argues, "I now know there was No Garden or Eden, No Adam, No Eve, No Serpent, No Fall from Grace, No Noah, No Flood, No Ten Commandments written by God, NO Christ being resurrected, these are just reworked Sumerian and Mesopotamian myths for the most part." However, to explain why the religion developed in reaction to other ANE cultures by using a mythological Abraham turning from his national gods to worship Yahweh, only to be kicked out of Ur, etc., is an acceptance of mythology as historical. The author words his thoughts in a way that allows the reader to understand we are dealing with events that are in the realm of myth, but are possessed of some historical fact, but I cannot accept the point taken to the point where the stories reflect a core memory of an historical event.
That Sumerian mythological influence does not need to be explained by any particular access to the "archives" of Babylon to reflect their relationship. Especially when these ideas were "part of the furniture" as the author earlier claims.
Being Catholic by upbringing, I am familiar with the Deutero-canonical book of Judith:
Judith 5:5-9

"Then Achior, the leader of all the Ammonites, said to him, "Let my lord now hear a word from the mouth of your servant, and I will tell you the truth about this people that dwells in the nearby mountain district. No falsehood shall come from your servant's mouth. This people is descended from the Chaldeans.At one time they lived in Mesopotamia, because they would not follow the the gods of their fathers who were in Chaldea. For they had left
the ways of their ancestors, and they worshipped the God of Heaven, the God they had come to know; hence they drove them out from the presence of their gods; and they fled to Mesopotamia, and lived there a long time. Then their God commanded them to leave the place were they were living and go to the land of Canaan. There they settled, and prospered..."
This "tale" is most probably based on what was already written in the Bible. Notice though the code-word: "the God of Heaven," most likely a reference to Ahura Mazda. So, the interpretation as I see it is in agreement with the author of this site:
AskWhy!
on Essenes and the Qabalah - Christianity Revealed


It is absurd to imagine that the Persians planted these ideas only in Yehud. They were planted widely, explaining why Jews mysteriously appeared all over the parts of the east controlled by the Persians, even though they were supposed to have come from originally from a tiny underpopulated region of limestone hills in Palestine. The Persians implanted Juddin in Egypt, Anatolia, Mesopotamia and the north of the Iranian plateau, as well as in the Levant. There was no diaspora but rather a spiritual convergence to the temple state deliberately set up by the Persian kings as the focus of the religion of the Juddin. After the fall of Persia, all the Juddin looked to Yehud as their spiritual home, though few wanted to go there. It was the Maccabees who gave
the Jews a national home of their own. All the Jews in the lands outside Yehud were called the diaspora, and the scriptural myth was written to support this new concept.
The give-away for me is that "their God" told them to move. Who
told the Juddin to move from a Mesopotamian land in actual history? It was none other than the first Jewish Messiah: Cyrus of Persia.

Don't forget the Collegeville Catholic Reference Library

Don't forget the Collegeville Catholic Reference Library

The Collegeville Catholic Reference Library 2.0 is reference by

Catholic Resources for Logos Bible Software.

It not only contains the NAB (New American Bible) but also:

The New Dictionary of Sacramental Worship
The New Dictionary of Theology
Consecrated Phrases
Locked material on The Rule of St. Benedict, etc.

The commentary is extremely useful when synchronized in Libronix with the NAB, or indeed with any other translation you may have, but it is most useful in explaining the text-critical footnote material.