When you use a Bible in your own language (suppose in English), you must realize that you assume some things that aren't exactly so.
For one thing, you assume that it is possible to translate Hebrew. Another assumption is, that the translation is accurate. You base these assumptions on the fact that many people use the same Bible as you and nobody seems to complain about any inaccuracies. In fact, the Bible is considered "The Word of God" and "Infallible".
All these assumptions need to be checked in order to avoid the fallacy of "appeal to authority". If you like to believe something because somebody else says it, without being interested in the evidence for the assertions believed, you may be setting yourself up for huge disappointments. You have become a "blind follower". Why do you follow without investigating the evidence? Asking questions is the first thing you can do to figure out whether your beliefs are rooted in your own experience or in opinions and/or conditioning you received from authoritative figures in your life.
Therefore, it is advisable to try and look at the evidence, as it is available to you. In the past, there was a considerable barrier to consider evidence, as we haven't got computers in our homes since around the beginning of the '90-s and internet since the end of the '90s. In all the centuries, even millennia, before, we were confined to what was available in libraries, and only by special request could certain books be obtained. It was harder to find books on the subject. Today, we can use the internet to see for ourselves.
I'd like to give an example. Consider the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. mentioned in Gen 2. It seems perfectly plausible that the words translated with "Good" and with "Evil" are corresponding words in Hebrew. I'm going to show you, that it is possible that these words have been translated wrongly. For an essential element in the story, this has many consequences.
So, the Hebrew word for good is thov (Theyt-Vav-Beyt, in numbers 9.6.2). The Hebrew letters talk about a process starting with transformation (9), progressing through a connection (6) and resulting in form (2). As we can read in Gen 1, at the end of each day, God calls the day "thov" (good), because he had molded and formed things. Apparently God had created things that had never existed before. They were "good" because they remained as he had envisioned them.
The process thov is comparable to a recipe. If I know how to make bread and you ask me how to do it, I can give you a recipe for baking bread, so you could give it a try. Then, when you look at your result, you could be satisfied with the result if it were close enough to the bread you've seen (and tasted) with me. This would be good, because the recipe has worked for you. On the other hand, if you leave out some of the ingredients, e.g., you forget them, or you put in the wrong amounts, or your oven is not hot enough or too hot, or you leave the bread too long in the oven, your result would be far from similar from my bread. This would be called bad in our language, because you made some mistakes. We could go over the things you did and I could correct you so that next time you try the recipe, your results would be better. And from learning you could learn how to make a good bread according to the recipe.
The Hebrew word for evil is ra (Reysh-Oyin, in numbers 200.70). This word talks about opening your mind (Reysh = head) to what you can sense is there (Oyin = eyes). The reason this is "evil" becomes apparent form contrasting it with thov. The idea is initiated that following a recipe, following the law, following authority, will always result in good results, because those recipes, laws and authorities have done it before you, and know it better. If, however, the circumstances change, then the best idea may not be to follow a recipe or a law or an authority. Things have changed, so the needs, demands, and desired results have changed. Without ra, everything would remain the same. Therefore, ra is good! If everything were thov this would be bad!
In the creation story, this part is communicated where God is said to "rest" on the seventh day. Note that the number 7 is of crucial importance to understand the creation story. God did not "rest" because there was nothing else to do, nor did he really "rest", like he was lying on a couch. This "resting" (yishbot, Yuwd-Shiyn-Beyt-Tav, in numbers 10.300.2.400) means that God introduced the opportunity for creation (Yuwd) to exhibit behavior, change and unexpected results (Shiyn) as its limits (Tav) would allow. God introduced the Seven, the seed of "ra" by taking a distance after giving it the opportunity to evolve. Note that ra contains the number 70, which is the 7 in manifested form, namely those things that follow from unexpected events.
Mastering the recipe first, you could then change it deliberately or accidentally. And in some cases, you would find that your result would be different from what you were used to, but you would be satisfied. You could use other wheat, or use ingredients such as fruit or nuts and change the amount of water or oil. You wouldn't follow the original recipe exactly, but change it to your taste. This would be considered not good. In a context of maintaining tradition, you would not want to change the recipe, because it would change the tradition. It would be condemned by your peers. You would be conditioned by your culture to abandon your efforts to improve the recipe. It would be considered bad.
Ra in contrast with thov is now clear: you follow the recipe, or you change the recipe. But which is good, and which is evil? In some cases, it is good to follow the recipe (thov) and in other cases it is good to change the recipe (ra). In some cases it is bad to follow the recipe (thov) and in other cases it is bad to change the recipe (ra). So, how would you translate thov and ra?
Without knowing what the Hebrew is trying to convey, our word choices for key concepts in the Bible is flawed. It is so much flawed, in fact, that the resulting English Bibles can not be called "true" or "infallible"--authority maintains there are NO exceptions--in any way. At best it is an honest attempt to give an idea of what it says in Hebrew, but at worst, the depth of the message is totally lost in translation, leaving us with less than a recipe for a fruitful life, if that is the aim of adhering to the Bible.
How would you know what is going on in any part of the translation you read? And what does this mean for the results that you get from following the recipe, following the laws, following the Biblical text, of which you only have a changed version?
For good or for bad, we need to start to see what is there (ra), what is there in English translations, compared to what is there in the original Hebrew text. What we find may be unpleasant, unexpected, unwanted even. But only by overcoming our psychological resistances, we can learn from our past mistakes, and we may come to a common understanding of this enigmatic text, addressing our current needs for understanding ourselves (thov).
For one thing, you assume that it is possible to translate Hebrew. Another assumption is, that the translation is accurate. You base these assumptions on the fact that many people use the same Bible as you and nobody seems to complain about any inaccuracies. In fact, the Bible is considered "The Word of God" and "Infallible".
All these assumptions need to be checked in order to avoid the fallacy of "appeal to authority". If you like to believe something because somebody else says it, without being interested in the evidence for the assertions believed, you may be setting yourself up for huge disappointments. You have become a "blind follower". Why do you follow without investigating the evidence? Asking questions is the first thing you can do to figure out whether your beliefs are rooted in your own experience or in opinions and/or conditioning you received from authoritative figures in your life.
Therefore, it is advisable to try and look at the evidence, as it is available to you. In the past, there was a considerable barrier to consider evidence, as we haven't got computers in our homes since around the beginning of the '90-s and internet since the end of the '90s. In all the centuries, even millennia, before, we were confined to what was available in libraries, and only by special request could certain books be obtained. It was harder to find books on the subject. Today, we can use the internet to see for ourselves.
I'd like to give an example. Consider the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. mentioned in Gen 2. It seems perfectly plausible that the words translated with "Good" and with "Evil" are corresponding words in Hebrew. I'm going to show you, that it is possible that these words have been translated wrongly. For an essential element in the story, this has many consequences.
So, the Hebrew word for good is thov (Theyt-Vav-Beyt, in numbers 9.6.2). The Hebrew letters talk about a process starting with transformation (9), progressing through a connection (6) and resulting in form (2). As we can read in Gen 1, at the end of each day, God calls the day "thov" (good), because he had molded and formed things. Apparently God had created things that had never existed before. They were "good" because they remained as he had envisioned them.
The process thov is comparable to a recipe. If I know how to make bread and you ask me how to do it, I can give you a recipe for baking bread, so you could give it a try. Then, when you look at your result, you could be satisfied with the result if it were close enough to the bread you've seen (and tasted) with me. This would be good, because the recipe has worked for you. On the other hand, if you leave out some of the ingredients, e.g., you forget them, or you put in the wrong amounts, or your oven is not hot enough or too hot, or you leave the bread too long in the oven, your result would be far from similar from my bread. This would be called bad in our language, because you made some mistakes. We could go over the things you did and I could correct you so that next time you try the recipe, your results would be better. And from learning you could learn how to make a good bread according to the recipe.
The Hebrew word for evil is ra (Reysh-Oyin, in numbers 200.70). This word talks about opening your mind (Reysh = head) to what you can sense is there (Oyin = eyes). The reason this is "evil" becomes apparent form contrasting it with thov. The idea is initiated that following a recipe, following the law, following authority, will always result in good results, because those recipes, laws and authorities have done it before you, and know it better. If, however, the circumstances change, then the best idea may not be to follow a recipe or a law or an authority. Things have changed, so the needs, demands, and desired results have changed. Without ra, everything would remain the same. Therefore, ra is good! If everything were thov this would be bad!
In the creation story, this part is communicated where God is said to "rest" on the seventh day. Note that the number 7 is of crucial importance to understand the creation story. God did not "rest" because there was nothing else to do, nor did he really "rest", like he was lying on a couch. This "resting" (yishbot, Yuwd-Shiyn-Beyt-Tav, in numbers 10.300.2.400) means that God introduced the opportunity for creation (Yuwd) to exhibit behavior, change and unexpected results (Shiyn) as its limits (Tav) would allow. God introduced the Seven, the seed of "ra" by taking a distance after giving it the opportunity to evolve. Note that ra contains the number 70, which is the 7 in manifested form, namely those things that follow from unexpected events.
Mastering the recipe first, you could then change it deliberately or accidentally. And in some cases, you would find that your result would be different from what you were used to, but you would be satisfied. You could use other wheat, or use ingredients such as fruit or nuts and change the amount of water or oil. You wouldn't follow the original recipe exactly, but change it to your taste. This would be considered not good. In a context of maintaining tradition, you would not want to change the recipe, because it would change the tradition. It would be condemned by your peers. You would be conditioned by your culture to abandon your efforts to improve the recipe. It would be considered bad.
Ra in contrast with thov is now clear: you follow the recipe, or you change the recipe. But which is good, and which is evil? In some cases, it is good to follow the recipe (thov) and in other cases it is good to change the recipe (ra). In some cases it is bad to follow the recipe (thov) and in other cases it is bad to change the recipe (ra). So, how would you translate thov and ra?
Without knowing what the Hebrew is trying to convey, our word choices for key concepts in the Bible is flawed. It is so much flawed, in fact, that the resulting English Bibles can not be called "true" or "infallible"--authority maintains there are NO exceptions--in any way. At best it is an honest attempt to give an idea of what it says in Hebrew, but at worst, the depth of the message is totally lost in translation, leaving us with less than a recipe for a fruitful life, if that is the aim of adhering to the Bible.
How would you know what is going on in any part of the translation you read? And what does this mean for the results that you get from following the recipe, following the laws, following the Biblical text, of which you only have a changed version?
For good or for bad, we need to start to see what is there (ra), what is there in English translations, compared to what is there in the original Hebrew text. What we find may be unpleasant, unexpected, unwanted even. But only by overcoming our psychological resistances, we can learn from our past mistakes, and we may come to a common understanding of this enigmatic text, addressing our current needs for understanding ourselves (thov).