A different perspective on what the Bible was really talking about

from Mauro Biglino, an Italian Scholar of Religion and Hebrew text. Seems he was doing translations for the Vatican (not anymore because he went public with the information).

He was working on this, "The Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia is the first printed edition of the Masoretic text, derived from the Leningrad Codex of 1008 AD, which is the original text of reference of the Bible for the Roman Catholic Church, for the Bible of the Christian Protestant Churches – the King James Version – and for the Torah of the Jewish religion."

There are six videos of speeches with English subtitles on YouTube...

_http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4MXLB6SwPg

heavy stuff and seems to align with what the Cassiopaeans have told us. I have only seen two of the vids so far...
 
Hi ziggystarlust.

Since you are watching the videos, can you give a little idea on what this different perspective is supposed to be? For me, just a sentence or two or whatever will be fine. :)
 
sure...God wasn't talking to anyone but the Elohim were and they were bad aliens. Another interesting point was the discussion about the Garden of Eden. It literally said that we made a choice and have to live with the consequences of that choice-thus two points similar to the C's. Regarding the choice, the author stated in an Italian way, "You got the bike-now pedal it." Later gets into Moses meets Yahweh. Certain translations, to the author are fixed in concrete as to their meaning, but it is not what most people expect. Have seen the six vids and will look at them again on the weekend-that interesting...
PS...you won't believe the part about the "Smell of Burnt Meat"!
 
He has an e-book out too. "The Book that Will Forever Change Your Ideas About the Bible, The Gods Coming From Space" I have it, I'll post a few paragraphs from it. Adding a little more about who he says he is...

Mauro Biglino
"Mauro Biglino translated 23 books of the Bible for the Vatican. He had to translate the Stalingrad Codex (the version of the Bible which all three major monotheistic religions - Cristian, Jewish and Muslim - recognize as the official Bible) from the Hebrew, word by word, literally and with no interpretation whatsoever."

The book is a series of some of the real stinger translations, including the Hebrew characters etc. The book is only 223 pages long, and I had hoped it would be longer. :D My first time even attempting the quote thingy...I'm working on it. My computer won't allow me to copy and paste the ancient Hebrew typed words. It makes a big mess of it trying to read it. You can tell by reading the book that Mr. Biglino has read a lot of Z Stichin, and may even mention him in the book, don't remember.


Editor’s Preface
Everything you have heard, or read,
about religion must be put aside once and for all.
Only if you stand clear, your conscience freed
from even the smallest sign, you’ll know religion.
The so-called religions are exactly the opposite thing,
and the aftermath they get are clearly visible.
The whole world is split by several religions:
who goes to the synagogue, who goes to the temple and who goes
to the church. But can you glimpse a gleam of religiosity anywhere?
Osho Rajneesh

Human mind’s favourite game is to ‘project and interpret’ and the answers provided by religion do not shrink this law.
The manipulative strategy is the same at all latitudes, from Judaism to Christianity, from Islam to Hinduism, from the doctrinal Buddhism to the minor religions, up to the New Age, the modern panacea against unresolved existential anxieties. Many have said that, “faith is blind,” because it is based on unconscious needs, we have all been raised in the absence of wise and intelligent answers, and even today, institutions bombard children with lies at all levels (mental, inner, emotional, religious, physical, scientific) of existence.
All religious beliefs are blind and rely on the basic immature human mind.

A further revelation comes from the translation of another passage in the Old Testament – which, for obvious reasons, is rarely mentioned... – that holds a disconcerting statement that, as discussed in the dedicated chapter, does not require interpretation:
GOD DIES!

:cry:



ADMIN NOTE: corrected quote code
 
yep I really have to figure out how to do that quote thingy. Sorry for the mess...I'll ask for some help on my intro. :)
 
Found this one today, thought it was new, but it's from 2009. Just another example of questionable translations.

Professor Ellen van Wolde, a respected Old Testament scholar and author, claims the first sentence of Genesis "in the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth" is not a true translation of the Hebrew.

She claims she has carried out fresh textual analysis that suggests the writers of the great book never intended to suggest that God created the world -- and in fact the Earth was already there when he created humans and animals.

Prof Van Wolde, 54, who will present a thesis on the subject at Radboud University in The Netherlands where she studies, said she had re-analysed the original Hebrew text and placed it in the context of the Bible as a whole, and in the context of other creation stories from ancient Mesopotamia.

She said she eventually concluded the Hebrew verb "bara", which is used in the first sentence of the book of Genesis, does not mean "to create" but to "spatially separate".

The first sentence should now read "in the beginning God separated the Heaven and the Earth"

According to Judeo-Christian tradition, God created the Earth out of nothing.

Prof Van Wolde, who once worked with the Italian academic and novelist Umberto Eco, said her new analysis showed that the beginning of the Bible was not the beginning of time, but the beginning of a narration.

She said: "It meant to say that God did create humans and animals, but not the Earth itself."

She writes in her thesis that the new translation fits in with ancient texts.

According to them there used to be an enormous body of water in which monsters were living, covered in darkness, she said.

She said technically "bara" does mean "create" but added: "Something was wrong with the verb.

"God was the subject (God created), followed by two or more objects. Why did God not create just one thing or animal, but always more?"

She concluded that God did not create, he separated: the Earth from the Heaven, the land from the sea, the sea monsters from the birds and the swarming at the ground.

"There was already water," she said.

"There were sea monsters. God did create some things, but not the Heaven and Earth. The usual idea of creating-out-of-nothing, creatio ex nihilo, is a big misunderstanding."

God came later and made the earth livable, separating the water from the land and brought light into the darkness.

She said she hoped that her conclusions would spark "a robust debate", since her finds are not only new, but would also touch the hearts of many religious people.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/6274502/God-is-not-the-Creator-claims-academic.html
 
Mauro Biglino's talk is very interesting. What kept going through my mind as I listened were Greek myths and Sumerian/Babylonian myths that describe winds and creatures and "hovering over the earth/water" etc, all in terms that are clear comet imagery. I've gone through some of this in detail in "Horns of Moses", including descriptions of Chuchulainn's "warp spasm" and descriptions of gods that were absolute horrors. Again, comets with plasma effects.
 
Hi Diane,

Interesting find which escaped my attention when it was first launched. Understandably it proved to be a hot topic which created quite a stir and elicited rather hefty polemics.

As I'm Dutch I decided to delve into this a bit more and after reading most of the relevant materials I seriously have to qualify the impression this news clip from The Telegraph may evoke -- as it probably would have been based on a rather sensationalist press release of Radboud University in Nijmegen and maybe a few related articles in Dutch dailies (Trouw, RefDag) but seemingly not on the inaugural lecture ("oratie") itself (so it wasn't a thesis after all), which is only available in Dutch as far as I'm aware.

Sources (all Dutch):

_http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellen_van_Wolde

_http://www.trouw.nl/tr/nl/4324/Nieuws/article/detail/1180688/2009/10/08/rsquo-Openingszin-Bijbel-klopt-niet-rsquo.dhtml
_http://www.refdag.nl/kerkplein/kerknieuws/prof_van_wolde_vertaling_genesis_1_1_onjuist_1_360880

_www.ru.nl/publish/pages/540187/oratievanwoldedef1.pdf
_www.ru.nl/publish/pages/540187/volzin09-24ellenvanwolde.pdf


I'm not quite sure how detailed my expose needs to be, so for the time being I will only touch on the main points of criticism brought forward by Dr. M.F.J. Baasten, a lecturer in Hebrew philology at Leiden University. For him it's not only not new as this has been proposed before on several occasions --some of them quite long ago-- but also was rejected each time on solid grounds.

Sources (all Dutch):

_http://www.bijbelgenootschap.nl/fileadmin/content/maw/MAW_2009-4.pdf
_http://www.bijbelgenootschap.nl/fileadmin/content/maw/MAW_2010-2.pdf (from page 22)
_http://www.scribd.com/doc/33082814/Scheppen-Scheiden-Baasten-Van-Wolde

Some quotes:
Van Woldes opvatting dat de aarde als ongevormde chaos, omgeven door
een oeroceaan, er al was op het moment dat God sprak ‘Er zij licht’, is
geen nieuw inzicht. Reeds de middeleeuwse joodse bijbelexegeet Rashi
(1040-1105) legt in zijn commentaar op Genesis 1:1 uit dat de chaos en de
oeroceaan er al waren. Hij hekelt degenen die menen dat dit niet zo is:

Verwonder u dan over uzelf, want zie, het water ging vooraf;
immers er is geschreven
En de geest Gods zweefde over het water (Genesis 1:2),
maar de Schrift heeft nog niet medegedeeld wanneer
de schepping van het water plaats had!

Kortom, aldus Rashi, toen God begon met het scheppingsproces (lees: het
onderscheid maken tussen licht en donker enzovoorts), waren de chaos
en de oeroceaan er al, maar hoe die er dan kwamen, wordt in de Bijbel
niet verteld. Het scheppingsverhaal van Genesis 1 vertelt hoe God orde in
de chaos schept; Genesis 1 gaat niet over Gods schepping (uit het niets)
van hemel en aarde.
Getuige de ondertitel van Van Woldes boek (Waarom Genesis 1:1 niet gaat
over Gods schepping van hemel en aarde) is zij dit kennelijk met Rashi eens,
maar een bijna duizend jaar oude interpretatie kan niet als iets nieuws
worden gebracht.
Moeten wij uit het voorgaande, met Van Wolde, afleiden dat God dan
niet de schepper van de hemel en de aarde uit vers 1 is?
Dat mag, maar het hoeft helemaal niet. We kunnen er ook, met Rashi en
de gehele klassieke joodse literatuur, van uitgaan dat God die natuurlijk
wel had geschapen, maar dat het scheppingsverhaal dit gewoon niet vertelt.

Zoiets valt trouwens ook af te leiden uit bijbelteksten als Genesis 14:19.

Bing translation modified said:
Van Woldes's view that the Earth as unformed chaos, surrounded by an Ancient Ocean,
was already there at the time that God said ' let there be light ', is not a new insight.
Already the medieval Jewish Bible exegete Rashi (1040-1105) explains in his commentary
on Genesis 1: 1 that the chaos and the Ancient Ocean were already there. He denounces
those who believe that it is not:

Marvel then about yourself, for behold, the water preceded in advance;
After all there is written
And the spirit of God was hovering over the water (Genesis 1: 2),
but the Scripture has not yet informed the reader when
the creation of the water took place!

In short, according to Rashi, when God began the creative process (read:
distinguishing between light and dark and so on), the chaos and the Ancient Ocean
were already in existence, but how they came into being is not told in the Bible.
The creation story of Genesis 1 tells how God brought order in the chaos;
Genesis 1 is not about God's creation (out of nowhere) of heaven and Earth.

Judging from the subtitle of Van Woldes's book (Why Genesis 1: 1 is not about God's
creation of heaven and Earth) she apparently agrees with Rashi on this, but a nearly
thousand-year-old interpretation can not be brought forward as something new.

Must we from the above, together with Van Wolde, deduce that God is not the Creator
of the heavens and the Earth from verse 1?
We may, but we don't have to at all. We can also, with Rashi and the entire classical
Jewish literature, assume that God of course had created those as well, but this just
isn't included in what the creation story tells.

Such a thing can indeed be deduced from Bible texts like Genesis 14: 19.

Dat het woord bara niet ‘scheppen uit het niets’ betekent, is ook een
bekend feit. In zijn Genesiscommentaar legt de middeleeuwse joodse
exegeet Abraham ibn Ezra (ca. 1089-1164) bij vers 1 al uit dat dit woord
niet vertaald moet worden met ‘scheppen uit het niets’, want in Genesis
1:27 staat ‘En God schiep (bara) de mens naar zijn beeld’ en hier kan dat
niet betekenen ‘scheppen uit het niets’, want de mens werd geschapen –
althans volgens Genesis 2:7 – uit ‘stof van de aarde’.

Bovendien vermelden talloze commentaren al dat er in Genesis 1 geen
schepping uit het niets kan staan, omdat dit idee onder invloed van het
Griekse denken in hellenistische tijd ontstaat en pas in de vroege kerk
algemeen wordt.

Bing translation modified said:
That the word bara doesn't mean ' create from nothing ', is also a
known fact. In his Genesis commentary the medieval Jewish exegete
Abraham ibn Ezra (ca. 1089-1164) explains right from verse 1 that this word
should not to be translated with ' creation from nothing ', because in Genesis
1: 27 it says "and God created (bara) man in his own image" and here
this cannot be meaning ' creation from nothing ', because man was created –
at least according to Genesis 2: 7 – from "dust of the Earth '.

In addition, numerous comments already mention that in Genesis 1 no
creation out of nothing can have been written, because this idea just emerges
under the influence of the Greek thinking in Hellenistic times and it became
only universal in the early Church.

We moeten overigens constateren dat precies deze hypothese van Van Wolde al eerder geformuleerd, getoetst en verworpen is. Stefan Paas heeft erop gewezen dat diverse geleerden, onder meer op grond van oudoosterse mythen, het ver-moeden koesterden dat bārā de basisbetekenis ‘scheiden’ zou hebben. Daarover schrijft hij:
Especially in Genesis 1, where ... [bārā] is interchanged with ... [bādal] (‘to divide’), such a derivation is attractive. However, in other texts this pre-supposed original meaning does not seem to play any role (…). We must be very cautious about allowing one context to determine the meaning of a word. In addition, it is probable that ... in the Old Testament stands apart from this ultimate ‘original meaning’ and functions as theological jargon (coined, perhaps, in priestly circles?) (…).
Paas geeft hier deze hypothese weer en legt uit dat de betekenis ‘scheiden’ in het scheppingsverhaal op het eerste gezicht aantrekkelijk is, maar dat juist op grond van het gebruik van dit werkwoord elders in de Bijbel dit toch niet het geval lijkt te zijn.
Source: Stefan Paas, Creation and Judgement. Creation Texts in some Eighth-Century Prophets (Leiden 2003) 74–75. Dit is de Engelse versie van zijn Nederlandstalige proefschrift uit 1998.

Bing translation modified said:
Incidentally, we must constate that exactly this hypothesis by Van Wolde was formulated, reviewed and rejected before. Stefan Paas has pointed out that various scholars, on the basis of among other things ancient eastern myths, cherished the assumption that bārā would have the basic meaning of ' to separate ' . He writes about this:
Especially in Genesis 1, where ... [ bārā ] is interchanged with ... [ bādal ] (' to divide '), such a derivation is attractive. However, in other texts this pre-supposed original meaning does not seem to play any role (...). We must be very cautious about allowing one context to determine the meaning of a word. In addition, it is probable that ... in the Old Testament stands apart from this ultimate ' original meaning ' and functions as theological jargon (from coined, perhaps, in priestly circles?) (…).
Paas renders here this hypothesis and explains that in the creation story the meaning ' to separate ' is attractive at first sight, but that precisely based on the use of this verb elsewhere in the Bible it does not seem to be the case after all.
Source: Stefan Paas, Creation and Judgement. Creation Texts in some Eighth-Century Prophets (Leiden 2003) 74 – 75. This is the English version of his Dutch-language dissertation from 1998.

Zoals blijkt uit het hierboven gegeven citaat van Paas, is het voorstel om bārā als ‘scheiden’ te vertalen niet nieuw.
Paas (Creation and Judgement, 74) wijst erop dat al in 1961 de betekenis ‘scheiden’ is voorgesteld door É. Dantinne, ‘Création et séparation’, Le Muséon 74 (1961)
441–451. Ook C. Westermann, Genesis: Kapitel 1–11 (Neukirchen-Vluyn 1983) 48 bespreekt deze kwestie

Al eerder hebben onderzoekers gesteld dat de ‘oorspronkelijke betekenis' van dit werkwoord ‘scheiden’ zou zijn, en op basis daarvan gesuggereerd dat die betekenis ook in Genesis 1-2 aan de orde zou kunnen zijn. Terecht echter wordt door Paas onderscheid gemaakt tussen een veronderstelde ‘originele betekenis’ van een woord en een ‘actuele betekenis’ in de context waarin een woord gebruikt wordt.
Dit was ook precies de kritiek van Bob Becking en Marjo Korpel in Trouw van 14oktober 2009 (p. 24):
we moeten een onderscheid maken tussen etymologische herleiding en actuele betekenis. Het is niet onmogelijk dat de etymologie van bārā iets met ‘splijten, snijden, nader vormgeven’ is, zoals de pi‘el-vorm van deze wortel zou kunnen suggereren en zoals diverse Hebreeuwse woordenboeken al aangeven, maar dat laat onverlet dat we de actuele betekenis van dit werkwoord alleen kunnen vaststellen op grond van de manier waarop het in teksten voorkomt.
Eerder heb ik al eens geschreven dat het woord opvoeden zonder twijfel is afgeleid van voeden; dat is de etymologie. Maar dit zegt niets over de betekenis:als een oude heer klaagt dat hij veel beter is opgevoed dan de jeugd van tegenwoordig, bedoelt hij daarmee niet dat het eten vroeger beter was.

Bij nader inzien is het voorstel om bārā als ‘scheiden’ te vertalen dus niet nieuw. Het is al eerder voorgesteld en afgewezen.

Bing translation modified said:
As is evident from the above quotation from Paas, the proposal to translate bārā as ' to separate ' is nothing new.
Paas (Creation and Judgement, 74) points out that as early as 1961 the meaning ' to separate ' is proposed by Dantinne, ' Création et séparation É. ', Le Muséon 74 (1961)
441-451. Also c. Westermann, Genesis: Chapter 2012 1 – 11 (Neukirchen-Vluyn 1983) 48 discusses this issue.

Previously, researchers have stated that the "original meaning" of this verb would be ' to separate ', and suggested on that base that this meaning might also be pertinent in Genesis 1-2. However, justifiably a distinction is made by Paas between a supposed ' original sense ' of a word and a ' current relevance ' of it in the context in which a word is used. This was precisely the criticism of Bob Becking and Marjo Korpel in Trouw of 14oktober 2009 (p. 24):
we must draw a distinction between etymological tracing and current meaning. It is not impossible that the etymology of bārā would be something like ' splitting, cutting, further design ', as the pi'el-form of this root might suggest and as various Hebrew dictionaries already indicate, but that does not alter the fact that we can only determine the actual meaning of this verb by virtue of the way it is used in specific texts. Previously, I had written that the word 'to educate ' (opvoeden) without doubt is derived from ' feeding ' (voeden); that's the etymology. But this says nothing about its sense: when an elderly gentleman complains that he is much better educated than today's youth, he does not mean that in the past the food was better.

Upon closer inspection, the proposal to translate bārā as ' to separate ' is so not new. It has already been proposed and rejected.


All in all, as Academia functions nowadays, this turned out to be a very detailed discussion about translations, interpretations and word particulars -- with IMO very little consequence for overall meaning and certainly not a ground breaking revolutionary development as was suggested in the Telegraph article. Sorry to say.

Additional sources (all Dutch):

_http://www.refdag.nl/opinie/genesis_1_1_niet_verkeerd_vertaald_1_361262
_http://www.refdag.nl/kerkplein/kerknieuws/hertaling_openingszin_bijbel_niet_revolutionair_1_361072
_www.ru.nl/publish/pages/540187/ellenvanwolde.pdf

Video (all Dutch):

_http://www.ru.nl/humanities/publicity-campaign/professors/ellen-van-wolde/ (second one with English subtitles)
_http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIVK0jvz02s
_http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHwQvHrVGkc


Thanks for reading and my apologies for the lenght of it.
 
ziggystarlust said:
from Mauro Biglino, an Italian Scholar of Religion and Hebrew text. Seems he was doing translations for the Vatican (not anymore because he went public with the information).

He was working on this, "The Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia is the first printed edition of the Masoretic text, derived from the Leningrad Codex of 1008 AD, which is the original text of reference of the Bible for the Roman Catholic Church, for the Bible of the Christian Protestant Churches – the King James Version – and for the Torah of the Jewish religion."

There are six videos of speeches with English subtitles on YouTube...

_http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4MXLB6SwPg

From the first video, he talks about the Hebrew word ruach, 'God's spirit', pointing out that it actually means wind. And the Sumerians depicted the root of the word as something looking like a disc and some wavy lines (comet coma and trail?). And 'God's spirit' "hovered over the waters". Seems like cometary imagery to me!

In part two, he talks about the "image and likeness of God" and how humans were created from pieces of God containing its image. He interprets this as DNA and cloning (a la Sitchin). Could be DNA/viruses from comets, and the myth of humans being created from the 'bodies' of gods is ubiquitous in myth...

Part four: "glory of god" (kevod) = "powerful and heavy object". God had to show this to Moses to prove his identity, but warned that "if I pass too close by you with my glory, I'll kill you." Moses had to hide in a cleft of rocks so it didn't kill him, but his face got burnt.
 
I know this thread is ancient but Im wondering has there been any futher development around Mauro Biglinos "translation" of the Stuttgartensia Bible? How legit is he with this literal translation?
 
I know this thread is ancient but Im wondering has there been any futher development around Mauro Biglinos "translation" of the Stuttgartensia Bible? How legit is he with this literal translation?
I've been watching Mauro Biglino videos, VERY Interesting!
 
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