The Bible Unmasked

[Annette1]

Thank you, Xman! This was very enlightening for me. You unscrambled what I was detecting, but not able to formulate or articulate. I have a better understanding of how to discern all that you so aptly pointed out. It also called well deserved attention to the emotional ploys and it gave me some insight to some work I need to do on myself and more valuable lessons.

I think this is a very valuable thread; a must read. A lot has been unmasked in this thread.

 

[Laura]

Thanks X-man. WITS and PR sound like agents of Dominionism. See:
http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=8449.0

 

[ayamaya]

Seems like a precise phenomenological account of how psychopaths extrude emotional expression:


Quote from: pr

P.S.: If I "exibit" emotion, it can only be achieved if I have put the requisit amount of thought into the emotion. The same with a frown, tears or a smile; it is because I have applied thought to render my experience into emotion. While one CAN argue that this happens without words (and it sometimes does), we usually will have the necessary words in our thoughts to back up our emotions, especially if asked; Why are you: frowning, crying, smiling or laughing? One usually (but not always) does. It's called "vacalizing your thoughts/emotions". This won't happen without thoughts/words.

 

[Mountain Crown]

Good job X-man!

Pr's post was an attempt to undermine confidence in the fundamental aim of this forum, namely, critical thinking via networking.

 

[christx11]

Seems like a precise phenomenological account of how psychopaths extrude emotional expression:

Quote from: pr

P.S.: If I "exibit" emotion, it can only be achieved if I have put the requisit amount of thought into the emotion. The same with a frown, tears or a smile; it is because I have applied thought to render my experience into emotion. While one CAN argue that this happens without words (and it sometimes does), we usually will have the necessary words in our thoughts to back up our emotions, especially if asked; Why are you: frowning, crying, smiling or laughing? One usually (but not always) does. It's called "vacalizing your thoughts/emotions". This won't happen without thoughts/words.

[quote author=pr]If I "exibit" emotion, it can only be achieved if I have put the requisit amount of thought into the emotion.[/quote]

It could be said that this is very close to a description of the inability to understand emotion and lack of empathy and conscience in essential psychopathy.

Lacking empathy and an ability to understand emotion, the essential psychopath is left with the intellectual task of observing and learning to mimic true emotion.

Emotion then becomes a situational accomplishment of the intellect and a tool to be used for gaining its rewards.

Both WITS' persona and PR's persona displayed these traits.

WITS found no problem at all in attacking Laura. WITS said - sorry, but the word looked at in the context of its usage had no meaning. Normally the word sorry should carry an emotional value. But WITS followed "sorry" immediately with a justification for attacking Laura, that the attack was all OK because the author of the article writes like Laura - no conscience. Then WITS continued the attack or even it could be said that WITS' justification was the continuation of the attack itself.

In PR's world, WITS' behavior is overlooked, even to the point of demanding that forum members should have encouraged it further by telling WITS where the right place to inflict the attack should have been. Then PR also tried to impose emotional guilt on the forum members in several instances, using normal people's own emotions against themselves.

It is also interesting that PR selected the instance in Secret History about "shibboleth". How that word gained its notoriety was for its use to mark a person or group for extermination. All a part of the core program of the pathological hierarchy.

And Laura's link to the thread on the Dominionism is excellent and scary.

http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=8449.0

 

[Laura]

In the excerpt of The Secret History of the World (TSHOTW) series, under the heading "The Tribe of Dan", about 3/5ths of the way down the fourth page, Laura maintains that the word "shibboleth" occurs only once in the bible. That is correct, BUT, what she DOESN"T tell us, is THAT is ONLY correct in English translations. The word shibboleth occurs a total of EIGHTEEN times, seventeen of which are in OTHER ENGLISH WORD DISGUISES. I have seen one Hebrew word disguised with as many as ten English words in the King James Version (KJV) alone. That isn't usually discussed in the general understanding of bible exegesis. One must avail thenselves of STUDY helps, such as various translations, various concordances and Hebrew/Greek/English dictionaries when studying this book, especially if one doesn't, as myself, speak Hebrew or Greek.

Thought I would ask PR to please provide the 18 instances where the word "shibboleth" occurs in the Old Testament.

Since I work with the Zondervan Amplified translation, there are fewer "disguised" words to deal with. I also work with a complete concordance and an English, Greek and Hebrew lexicon beside me. According to these sources, there are two words that seem similar in Hebrew: shibboleth and cibboleth, I'm sorry that I can't reproduce the Hebrew characters here, but anyone who has a copy of Strong's can compare entry # 5451 to #7641 which is derived from #7640.

# 7640 is an unused root word shebel which means to flow, a lady's train, as in trailing after her.

# 7641 is shibbol (fem) or shibboleth - a stream (as flowing); also an ear of grain (as growing out), a branch, channel, flood.

#5451 is cibboleth which can be substituted for 7641 meaning an ear of grain.

In psalm 69:2 we read: "I sink in deep mire, where there is no foothold; I have come into deep waters, where the floods overwhelm me."

In this verse, the word "floods" is, indeed, the same Hebrew word that is translated as "shibboleth" in Judges 12:6.

Here is the passage from TSHOTW where I briefly discuss the term:

It was during the hieros gamos that the lights were extinguished, the hierogamy took place under the direction of the hierophant, in a tent erected for privacy, and when the lights were re-lit, it was a symbol that the old year had died, and the seed had been planted for the new year to be born. It is said that, “the ultimate mystery was revealed at Eleusis in the words, ‘an ear of corn reaped in silence’ - a sacred fetish that the Jews called shibboleth”.

This business of the “shibboleth” is an interesting clue here. The word itself is derived from an unused Hebrew root, shebel, which means, “to flow” as a lady’s train, or something that trails after a woman or flows out of her. Thus, the “ear of corn” is seen as something that grows “out of a woman”, or that grain “flows from her”, as grain is the gift of the goddess. We have here an image of just exactly what bio-electronic energy may have been required to transduce cosmic energy to bring down the cars full of baskets of grain as described in the Rg Veda:

The adorable Maruts, armed with bright lances and cuirassed with golden breastplates, enjoy vigorous existence; may the cars of the quick-moving Maruts arrive for our good. …Bringers of rain and fertility, shedding water, augmenting food. …Givers of abundant food. …Your milchkine are never dry. …We invoke the food-laden chariots of the Maruts.”

The word “shibboleth” occurs only one place in the Bible, in a truly tragic story in the book of Judges, chapters 11 and 12. It seems that there was a man named Jephthah who was the son of a harlot. He was kicked out of the family home by the legitimate sons of his father, Gilead, and went off and became a sort of leader of other dispossessed persons. Sounds rather like Robin Hood so far. Also sounds like David during his outlaw days.

As it happened, his brothers who had kicked him out, the “elders of Gilead”, were being attacked by the “children of Ammon”. They desperately needed help, and they knew that Jephthah had a reputation as a fierce warrior with a well-trained band of “merry men”. So, they went to ask Jephthah for help.

Jephthah pointed out that they had a lot of nerve asking him to help them fight their battles, but they persuaded him by saying “if you help us now, we will make you head of the family”. That was more than Jephthah could resist, so he agreed. Not only that, but he swore a public oath to Yahweh that if Yahweh made him successful in this enterprise, he would give as a burnt offering “whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return”. I’m sure the reader sees what is coming now. Jephthah was, indeed, successful in his battle.

And Jephthah came to Mizpeh unto his house, and, behold, his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances: and she was his only child; beside her he had neither son nor daughter.

And it came to pass, when he saw her, that he rent his clothes, and said, Alas, my daughter! thou hast brought me very low, and thou art one of them that trouble me: for I have opened my mouth unto the LORD, and I cannot go back.

And she said unto him, My father, if thou hast opened thy mouth unto the Lord, do to me according to that which hath proceeded out of thy mouth; forasmuch as the Lord hath taken vengeance for thee of thine enemies, even of the children of Ammon.
And she said unto her father, Let this thing be done for me: let me alone two months, that I may go up and down upon the mountains, and bewail my virginity, I and my fellows. And he said, Go. And he sent her away for two months: and she went with her companions, and bewailed her virginity upon the mountains.

And it came to pass at the end of two months, that she returned unto her father, who did with her according to his vow which he had vowed: and she knew no man. And it was a custom in Israel, That the daughters of Israel went yearly to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite four days in a year.

Well, aside from the fact that if we are to take the Bible literally, we have here a definite indication that Yahweh was originally a God who may have demanded human sacrifice, we most definitely have an indication that Yahweh at least accepted human sacrifice upon occasion! (...)

In the story of Jephthah’s daughter, we find that the editor of the biblical texts felt that the story could not be removed, but had to disguise the true nature of the sacrifice. The matter becomes clearer with the following:

Llew Llaw Gyffes (the Lion with the Steady Hand), a type of Dionysus or Celestial Hercules worshipped in ancient Britain, is generally identified with Lugh, the Goidelic Sun-god… ‘Would that it were no more than the Sun! It is the glowing face of Lugh the Long-handed - which nobody could gaze upon without being dazzled.’

His death on the first Sunday in August - called Lugh nasadh, later altered to Lugh-mass or Lammas - was until recently observed in Ireland with Good Friday-like mourning and kept as a feast of dead kinsfolk, the mourning procession being always led by a young man carrying a hooped wreath. Lammas was also observed as a mourning feast in most parts of England in mediaeval times…

In some parts of Wales, Lammas is still kept as a fair. Sir John Rhys records that in the 1850’s the hills of Fan Fach and South Barrule in Carmarthenshire were crowded with mourners for Llew Llaw on the first Sunday in August, their excuse being that they were ‘going up to bewail Jephthah’s daughter on the mountain’. This, oddly enough, was the very same excuse that the post-Exilic Jewish girls had used, after the Deuteronomic reforms, to disguise their mourning for Tammuz, Llew Llaw’s Palestianian counterpart.

The sacrifice of Jephthah’s daughter is, thus, another instance where the new view of women as explicated by Hesiod and his Bible writing counterparts was being imposed on the Eastern Mediterranean world. It’s interesting to think about Pandora’s “pithoi” from which troubles flowed with the clue of the shibboleth that is included in the story of Jephthah:

12:4 Then Jephthah gathered together all the men of Gilead, and fought with Ephraim: and the men of Gilead smote Ephraim, because they said, Ye Gileadites are fugitives of Ephraim among the Ephraimites, and among the Manassites.
12:5 And the Gileadites took the passages of Jordan before the Ephraimites: and it was so, that when those Ephraimites which were escaped said, Let me go over; that the men of Gilead said unto him, Art thou an Ephraimite? If he said, Nay;
12:6 Then said they unto him, Say now Shibboleth: and he said Sibboleth: for he could not frame to pronounce it right. Then they took him, and slew him at the passages of Jordan: and there fell at that time of the Ephraimites forty and two thousand.

Another clue to the Eleusinian rites is that they were said to be celebrated by women only throughout all Greece in the month of Pyanepsion (late October), their characteristic feature being a pig sacrifice, the usual sacrifice to chthonic deities.

The Greeks attributed special powers to pigs on account of their fertility, the potency and abundance of their blood, and perhaps because of their uncanny ability to unearth underground tubers and shoots. Experts suggest that it was believed that mingling pig flesh with the seeds of grain would increase the abundance of next year’s harvest. The scholars also tell us that the ceremonies comprised fasting and purification, a ritualized descent into the underworld, and the use of sympathetic magic to bring renewed life back out of the jaws of death.

Thus we see that the participants in the Themosphoria revered swine, and their rituals featured the washing and sacrificing of young pigs sacred to Demeter (although this took place on the beaches at Pireas near Athens rather than at Eleusis itself). And somehow we find this to be a Canaanite practice that is now very strangely juxtaposed against a religion that is known for its ban on pork. Was that because the sacred animal of the rival religion was the pig, or was it because, in some deep inner core of the founding of the religion of Judaism, the pig is actually protected from being eaten because of reverence? And if so, why would that be the case? Was the pig ever an embodiment of a god? Well, let’s look at this for a moment. In Genesis 12:6-7 we find Abraham making a covenant with God.

And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Sichem, unto the plain of Moreh And the Canaanite was then in the land. And the LORD appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land: and there builded he an altar unto the LORD, who appeared unto him.

Next we find God telling Abraham in Genesis 22:2-3

And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of. And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and clave the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up, and went unto the place of which God had told him.

And in II Chronicles 3:1 we find:

Then Solomon began to build the house of the LORD at Jerusalem in mount Moriah, where the Lord appeared unto David his father, in the place that David had prepared in the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.

Another name for Moriah is Mount Zion. Isaiah tells us that Mount Zion is the Throne of the Lord of Hosts who, “scatters, distributes and treads underfoot”. The “Temple” was built on the “threshing floor” of Ornan (Araunah in another version), symbolic of the harvest god Tammuz, who demanded the “first fruits” of the grain. However, Jehovah wasn’t terribly interested in grain. He wanted blood:

Exodus 34:19 All that openeth the womb is mine; and every firstling among thy cattle, whether ox or sheep, that is male. 34:20 But the firstling of an ass thou shalt redeem with a lamb: and if thou redeem him not, then shalt thou break his neck. All the firstborn of thy sons thou shalt redeem. And none shall appear before me empty. 34:21 Six days thou shalt work, but on the seventh day thou shalt rest: in plowing time and in harvest thou shalt rest.

Jehovah’s claim to the Seventh day as sacred to himself identifies him with Cronos or Saturn. The Phrygian Adonis is said to have been metamorphosed into a fir by the Goddess Cybele who loved him, when he lay dying from a wound dealt him by a boar sent by Zeus.

Set, the Egyptian Sun-god, disguised as a boar, killed Osiris. Apollo the Greek Sun-god, disguised as a boar, killed Adonis, or Tammuz, the Syrian, the lover of the Goddess Aphrodite. Finn Mac Cool, disguised as a boar, killed Diarmuid, the lover of the Irish Goddess Grainne. An unknown god disguised as a boar killed Ancaeus the Arcadian King, a devotee of Artemis, in his vineyard at Tegea, and according to the Nestorian Gannat Busame, Cretan Zeus was similarly killed. October was the boar-hunting season, as it was also the revelry season of the ivy-wreathed Bassarids. The boar is the beast of death and the “fall” of the year begins in the month of the boar.

I am somewhat at a loss as to what PR's point was regarding this word anyway other than to insinuate that I was somehow hiding something. Most peculiar.

 

[Steve M.]

Thanks for sharing the book Laura. Joseph Lewis was a very insightful fellow. Thanks everyone for sharing your discernment, particularly (you) Xman, your feedback and clarity really helped strengthen the perception I had of the two persons who were attacking Laura, were actually in cahoots with one another. Not fearful for myself, but for Laura and others, why do these persons conscious or not come out of the wood work to attack and subvert these discussions? Are they not trying to get to the truth of our/their own slavery? Kind of dumb these questions and I've seen it happen a few times.

If I may, getting back to 'the bible unmasked' and I think I should ponder it some through the transcripts, while reading I came up with these notes/questions: Why do women suffer so much in our known history? What is it that men & so called god punish her for?

Without trying to mock those who are/were mocking themselves, at this point this is what I think. Once upon a time, in some history we do not even know, the feminine was considered God. Women had the run of the household, headed the governing bodies. It was a totally different world. Totally. Maybe it was when human DNA was changed and psychopaths were introduced, maybe it was when wicked men who overpowered their wives and spread news of their daring feats that we lost belief/function/ability in the/to network. Sort of only making noise, since I have much more to read and learn and it's really difficult to speak right now, outside of my obvious cloudiness, there's also the impact of what I've read, the book and other posts.

I went to bed last night after finishing reading all the posts (3 day reading), outside of (your) Laura's most recent. I'm deeply shaken on a personal level and on another level (again) impressed and thankful for those who shared their discernment. THANKS!

 

[Steve M.]

So far I've found nothing in the transcripts that particularly reference why woman has had to be punished in reference to the questions: Why do women suffer so much in our known history? What is it that men & so called god punish her for?

I know there were some things that were pointed out in the Wave a/or adventures with Cassiopaea in reference to the questions. I don't remember anything specific though. While digging I did find some references to Abraham, Jesus, Ezekiel, Sheba, King Solomon and others, but nothing mind blowing. I hope it is ok to post some of them here, if not I apologize.

Quoting various transcripts

October 18, 1994
Q: (L) Who was it who appeared to Ezekiel?
A: Lizard beings.

October 20, 1994
Q: Who was the Queen of Sheba?
A: Fictional.
Q: Did a great queen come to visit King Solomon?
A: Alien influence.
Q: Who was Arjuna?
A: Same as Sheba.
Q: Who is Shiva?
A: Same.

August 20, 2001
Q: Was this temple the source of the legends of the Temple of Solomon?
A: Yes.
Q: Was Solomon also King Menes of Minos of Crete?
A: No.
Q: Was Solomon a king of Egypt?
A: Yes.
Q: Which king of Egypt was the equivalent of Solomon?
A: Narmer.

July 26, 1997
Q: Are the Ishmaelis the carriers of the true bloodline, and the line of Isaac and Jacob, the Supplanter, the carriers of the monotheistic covenant, are the false line?
A: Close.

June 21, 1997
Q: Funny spelling! But, what is the contrast between the concept of the shepherd and the agriculturalist? This goes back to the very roots of everything? There is Cain and Abel, Jacob and Esau, Isaac and Ishmael...
A: Are not you "abel" to figure this out?

May 31, 1997
Q: Was Abraham a Kantekkian? Was the story of Abraham the story of the Kantekkians being brought to Earth?
A: No.
Q: Was Abraham a Kantekkian or a derivation?
A: Latter. But, so are you.
Q: Were the Jews that were genetically engineered and then planted in the Middle East... what year was this?
A: 130,000 years ago.
Q: Good grief! Have they managed to retain any racial purity for that long?
A: No.


June 9, 1996
…who is this Melchizidek fellow and why is Jesus said to be a priest after the order of Melchizidek? Who was this Melchizidek who was said to have received tithes from Abraham?
A: False prophet.
Q: (L) Why is Jesus described as being a priest after the order of Melchizidek?
A: We told you that 70 per cent of the Bible is false.
Q: (L) Well, 70 per cent would equal an amount that could consist of the entire old testament.
A: Yes.
Q: (L) Did Abraham pay tithes to Melchizidek?
A: No.
Q: (L) Did a Melchizidek live at the time of the patriarch Abraham?
A: Yes.

July 23, 1994
Q: (L) Was Mary a true virgin when she gave birth?
A: No
Q: (L) Did she conceive in the normal way?
A: Yes.
Q: (L) Was Jesus genetically altered?
A: After birth and during childhood.

I hope that wasn't too much. I believe I'm getting away from the initial point of Laura's posts on the subject. The above quotes have more information/communication(s) before and after what is quoted.

There are 44 references to Jesus in the transcripts between July 22nd 1994 and Aug. 5th 2000, though there may be more references within those transcripts (Same person, different subject/line of questions). There are 13 references to Abraham between 1994 and Aug. 23rd 2001 but no reference to Abram, so far as I can find. I bring that up cause in the book “5. Abram, is now spelled Abraham in the Bible.” (http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=4641.msg30526#msg30526 Note bottom of post.) I wonder if it was to avoid confusion between two supposed persons, but I don’t know if there was an Abram and an Abraham.

I think the reason I want to go on with trying to get more information about my questions is I still have bible and psychopath buffers. I still want to err on the 'benefit of the doubt' and I can't always trust my reading instrument, which is not at all developed. For example I could tell at WITS attacked Laura, but I couldn't tell I was being strung along to follow him without what was pointed out by others.

I imagine for many of the people who know me it's like "damn _____ get your head out of your ostrich hole! How many times do you have to see the duck (act, walk, talk..) to know it's a duck?! On one side there is fearing being mistaken about a person. There's "better to err on the side of being safe" ..there's just a lot of conflicting parts inside. I believe I'm progressing on getting a handle on these things. It's not always clear though, compared to the discernment others show. Sorry if that sounds like I'm taking measurement of others, I just don't know another way of describing it.

The subject interest me, outside the personal stuff. I have years of sunday suffering as a child and still have to deal with sisters and a mother who say things like "does it have anything to do with god or christianity? ..Then I'm not sure I want to read it." When saying, "hey mom, this book is pretty good, I think you might like to read it (offering a copy of the Wave, or something I read that I thought was interesting)."

 

[shaggy]

Hello every body.
I'm a brand new 2010 model on this forum, I been reading it and I like the religion parts a lot.
I am Deeply Religious but I am not a member of congregations,.
I don't really agree with today's doctrines.
I do believe in God, and the E=MC Squared and Quantum Physics.
But to talk about it to a congregation would be like Posting a reply about teh Bumble planes LOL.
But wanted to say hello and take care of your self and I will be here to give an Opinion. I used to post on Scott's page a long time ago, But haven't been there for a while.

 

[manitoban]

Hello every body.
I'm a brand new 2010 model on this forum, I been reading it and I like the religion parts a lot.
I am Deeply Religious but I am not a member of congregations,.
I don't really agree with today's doctrines.
I do believe in God, and the E=MC Squared and Quantum Physics.
But to talk about it to a congregation would be like Posting a reply about teh Bumble planes LOL.
But wanted to say hello and take care of your self and I will be here to give an Opinion. I used to post on Scott's page a long time ago, But haven't been there for a while.

Hi shaggy,

We encourage all new members to make a post in the Newbies section -- something about yourself -how you found the forum - doesn't have to be long. Welcome to the forum. :)

 

[shaggy]

Hello every body.
I'm a brand new 2010 model on this forum, I been reading it and I like the religion parts a lot.
I am Deeply Religious but I am not a member of congregations,.
I don't really agree with today's doctrines.
I do believe in God, and the E=MC Squared and Quantum Physics.
But to talk about it to a congregation would be like Posting a reply about teh Bumble planes LOL.
But wanted to say hello and take care of your self and I will be here to give an Opinion. I used to post on Scott's page a long time ago, But haven't been there for a while.

Hi shaggy,

We encourage all new members to make a post in the Newbies section -- something about yourself -how you found the forum - doesn't have to be long. Welcome to the forum. :)

Okie dokie I'm off to the Newbie section lol.

 

[Avi]

I would like to say first off that I found this thread after doing some research in a different area but related field, the linguistic aspects which reveal the Bible Unmasked. In other words was looking stuff up online yet off the forum, then came to the forum and found this thread so thought it apropos to post. If nothing else to keep track of the links!

This idea came reading Secret History of the World for I thought to myself - concerning the 4 primary documents come today to be known as the bible, what type of professionals in that field would be qualified and knowledgeable about such things? And if they know of the problems and errors as Laura demonstrates (assuming they do) how could they continue in their line of work.

In other words, getting into the source problems a bit more than reading about the problems from someone so knowledgeable and voracious and talented researcher as Laura.

And that is not to say I've exhausted the recommended reading list for this forum or the bibliographies, but in my weird way and at what pace I find things, try to stitch the stichs together. (poor pun)

For it strikes me as odd that we can have statements like:

This book is dedicated in all seriousness to rabbis, priests and ministers, in the hole that it may bring them to realize the fraud they are perpetrating by preaching the Bible as the Word of God, and as a moral ant intellectual guide for or the human race.

-- Joseph Lewis. (n.b. one assumes in the hope rather than in the hole)

and

"By this time the whole world should know that the real Bible has not yet been written, but is being written, and that it will never be finished until the race begins its downward march, or ceases to exist.

-- Robert G. Ingersoll.

yet such relative silence on the topic by those involved in teaching/translating for a life calling. This (the relative silence) - speaks volumes and should be seen as a huge rift that will become more pronounced as/if more people come to be aware of the inherent flaws and troubles behind the Judeo-Christian tradition.

I am not one whose life calling has lead me to be qualified to speak definitively on this topic, hell, its been years since I've seen a concordance! Yet when I undertook the study of Greek the purpose spurring me on at that time was the intense desire to know the words of Christ in "pure" form - this being the mindset of one not yet come upon the knowledge that even the Greek rendition of the NT concerned merely a fragment of the entire picture, for the stunted mind of my emotional youth, latching onto salvation and preached indoctrination of Jesus having made obsolete the Old Testament, ignored or merely failed to consider that such an approach, the very reason I took to study as I did, could lie open even greater mysteries like a suspense novel with thriller twists and plots. So here is another look at the issue of the Jew permeating the world today, what it means to be concerned or associated with the text and the term, Hebrew. Gawd, it really is embarrassing sometimes to see the scopes of my ignorance and so most of this is shared on a hunch. Where that hunch leads yet still remains ding an sich.

But since these links were gathered - hope that placing them within this thread serves some purpose to the overall theme of discussion. The series or sections of text Laura began this thread with are fascinating and when it comes to the question of a virgin birth, particularly, I think the scholars and linguistic professors of the world have much to answer for because the secrets surrounding this great scam upon the people of the world (the validity or so-called authority of the "bible" and its concomitant affect upon society, beliefs, freedoms, laws and economics) are "secrets" that should be explored and exposed.

Please find the links interesting in terms of debate and the clues they reveal (translations, interpretation) for the text under scrutiny; if they prove to be too cumbersome or tangential than accept my apologies.


The first is an article regarding a 1997 monograph on the Septaugint of Proverbs: http://rosetta.reltech.org/TC/vol07/Cook2002.html


A short blurb of the text upon which the article is based: http://www.paperbackswap.com/Septuagint-Proverbs-Jewish-Johan-Cook/book/9004108793/


Wikipedia entries: (septaugint)

Jewish scholars first translated the Torah into Koine Greek in the third century BC.[6][7] According to the record in the Talmud,

'King Ptolemy once gathered 72 Elders. He placed them in 72 chambers, each of them in a separate one, without revealing to them why they were summoned. He entered each one's room and said: 'Write for me the Torah of Moshe, your teacher.' God put it in the heart of each one to translate identically as all the others did'[8] . . . According to one assessment "the Pentateuch is reasonably well translated, but the rest of the books, especially the poetical books, are often very poorly done and even contain sheer absurdities".[10]

So the poetical books (e.g. Proverbs) are generally considered with concern for translation accuracy.

The short declaration above:

"The Greek text is analyzed on four levels: the semantic, syntactical, stylistic and the theological. The conclusion is that the impact of Stoicism on this Greek version has been overestimated in the past."

The text/monograph itself:

http://books.google.com/books?id=Y03rmLI1N7oC&printsec=frontcover&dq=The+Septuagint+of+Proverbs+-+Jewish+and/or+Hellenistic+Proverbs%3F+Concerning+the+Hellenistic+Colouring+of+LXX+Proverbs.&source=bl&ots=6rPCnZqttY&sig=biDVYZt4fgtK61cx-nwfMLF9uns&hl=en&ei=MZiKTKajNYyJnQemxLXtCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBIQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false


So what about those scholars and the translation rendered? That is, prima facie, the topic of this book.

Qualifications in the field: (first off is an early 90s look at the direction of using computers for increased translation capabilities and analysis)

http://books.google.com/books?id=KouWwyV5vScC&pg=PA205&lpg=PA205&dq=the+peshitta+project,+cook&source=bl&ots=H1dJMCh2OX&sig=K9YfOct-zJhkepL3wPRdXw4YQ0U&hl=en&ei=shWPTJyBNZKinQeF4fCADQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBIQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=the%20peshitta%20project%2C%20cook&f=false

Cook, J. 1987. "Hellenistic Influence in the Book of Proverbs (Septuagint)?" BIOSCS 20: 30-43.

Cook, J. 1994. "hrz h#$) (Proverbs 1-9 Septuagint): A Metaphor for Foreign Wisdom?" ZAW 106: 469-474.

Cook, J. 1997a. The Septuagint of Proverbs - Jewish and/or Hellenistic Proverbs? Concerning the Hellenistic Colouring of LXX Proverbs. VTS 69. Leiden: Brill.

Cook, J. 1997b. "Contrasting as a Translation Technique in the LXX Proverbs." In From Tradition to Interpretation: Studies in Intertextuality in Honor of James A. Sanders, ed. C. A. Evans and S. Talmon, 403-414. Leiden: Brill.

Cook, J. 1998. "Towards the Dating of the Tradition 'The Torah as Surrounding Fence.'" JNSL 24, no. 2: 25-34.

Cook, J. 1999. "The Law of Moses in the Septuagint Proverbs." VT 49: 448-461.

Cook, J. 2000. "Textual Problems in the Septuagint of Proverbs." JNSL 26/1: 163-173.

Cook, J. 2001. "Ideology and Translation Technique: Two Sides of the Same Coin?" In Helsinki Perspectives on the Translation Technique of the Septuagint, 195-210. Ed. R. Sollamo and S. Sipilä. Septuagint and Cognate Studies. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature.

Cook, J. forthcoming. "The Ideological Stance of the Greek Translator of Proverbs." In IX Congress of the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies: Oslo, Norway, 1998, ed. B. A. Taylor. Septuagint and Cognate Studies. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature.

Peer Review

In his 1998 review of the 1997 monograph, Cox of McMaster Divinity College says:

1. It is a rare day that brings the publication of an entire monograph devoted to a book of the LXX/Old Greek corpus. Further, the book of Proverbs has not received adequate attention, so a monograph such as this is doubly welcome.

And then further, he apparently didn't like it:

23. The author has a particular fondness for the word "nuance," which he uses as a noun (110 times), as a verb (twice), as a participle (once), and all too often in its adjectival form "nuanced" (41 times!): a total of 154 times. The noun is almost always misused for the word "meaning," which makes its constant use doubly annoying, but then the author can also use the words "implication," "connotation," and "concept" as synonyms for "meaning." What holds true for "nuance" also holds true for the word "lexeme," which the author uses more than 340 times, again incorrectly, in place of "word." Lexemes may be words, but not all words are lexemes.

24. The author also makes up words, such as "surmission" (p. 78), "antipole" (p. 112), "creational" (pp. 212, 215, 233), "thematical" (p. 291), and resurrects archaic words, such as "whoso" and "unto." All in all the book represents one long, sustained, debilitating assault on the English language.

25. Finally, one may mention the book's idiosyncratic stylistic features, like the use of semicolons for colons; the lack of commas; "Dutchisms" (?) like Herodoth and Jahwe; the mixing of English and Latin for the names of church fathers, e.g., Joannes Chrysostomos; and non-standard abbreviations for the names of books of the Bible. The pointing of the Hebrew and the accentuation of the Greek are often imprecise, though this is, I grant, more an issue of appearance than of substance. The Greek text of Ben Sira 5:9 on p. 271 lacks a full translation: cf. the NRSV footnote ad loc. There are a few spelling errors and the occasional "clinker," like "it is omitted in various Greek mss, such as Sa, Ach and Arm" (p. 209)!

26. Reviewing this book has been a distressing experience for me: I know its author and count him as a friend, and I recognize the amount of work that is represented in this book. But there are some books which should never appear in print. This is one of them. There is, within these 342 pages of text, something worthy of publication that is no longer than a fraction of what appears here. That book is almost completely drowned in the swamp of verbiage through which the reader wades.

27. This book before me cannot be commended, but that is not the fault of a reviewer who can only assess what comes into his or her mailbox. Rather, the responsibility for the many problems of this book is shared by the author and by the publisher, in this case Brill, who together have advanced to us a book so badly written that I can think of no other book remotely like it.

Pretty harsh and certainly strong in stance or opinion on the matter,I think, even in the field of cutthroat professional scholarism. For such a review to be true to the field of researchers then one wonders about Brill and where they may or may not fit into Protocol 12. This is speculative on my part in many ways however. Regardless, one wonders what such debate that appears to be hotly contested might mean in respect to the topic and let us say duty of translators revealing the possible correspondence between Hebrew and Greek versions of translation, not to mention the larger picture of what religion, based upon these texts, has done in the world today.


http://rosetta.reltech.org/TC/vol03/Cook1998rev.html


Yet it has taken its place within the genre of the topic, others in the field make use of the monograph and reference the authour.

http://books.google.com/books?id=kboLy_NBxc4C&pg=PA3&lpg=PA3&dq=The+Septuagint+of+Proverbs+-+Jewish+and/or+Hellenistic+Proverbs%3F+Concerning+the+Hellenistic+Colouring+of+LXX+Proverbs.&source=bl&ots=A11iN-PIRv&sig=KB0USEwzB6eQuP98vh0cOkM9yP0&hl=en&ei=qI-OTI_0NMKrngeIz72pCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CBgQ6AEwAjgK#v=onepage&q&f=false


Who is a journal editor

http://www.jstor.org/pss/1454778

and this:

http://academic.sun.ac.za/jnsl/Volumes/JNSL%2029-1%20abstract%20and%20bookreview%20for%20website%20A.pdf


Then there are others who are quoted in the text and in the field.

http://www.kalvesmaki.com/lxx/Secondlit.htm

http://www.britannica.com/bps/additionalcontent/18/23882621/Proverbs-822%C3%84%C3%AE31-Three-Perspectives-on-Its-Composition

http://www.emanueltov.info/docs/varia/Sollamo2.varia.pdf

Finally:

http://books.google.com/books?id=RBSO35k25_YC&pg=PR27&lpg=PR27&dq=bible+and+computer,+conference+participants,+stellenbosch&source=bl&ots=DAFhOWuHWb&sig=xUPxa_6FaXlGkc12m8eZryfsOE4&hl=en&ei=6JyOTOiSEZHtngfO7czyCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CBUQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false

I am not making any defined statement on these links, only finding them interesting in a general and admittedly un-defined way. I sense there is something to be taken from here, yet unsure what it is, which reminds me of the following:

With this creative show they inadvertently fulfilled a desire of the AIBI expressed by the well-known Professor Eugene Nida at the last AIBI meeting in Aix-en-Provence, that post-modernist man prefers to have more of the senses than just the audio involved in the experience of a message. ALL senses have to be appealed to, also the smelling sense, which I actively experienced last night during the African Odyssey.

In short, perhaps my aim is to wonder how and why of it all? How is it such studious degrees and professions have arisen and continue today (and who is who in the zoo) if the entire story as promulgated is twisted, inverted, creatively interpreted (something Cook repeatedly states) and is, in short, erroneous, from a practical occurrence level (virgin birth) not counting the problem surrounding translation, as a theme, as a concept, as an original (sole) approach or as a group effort at masking the truth.

how you get to the bottom-line and find the gaps which occur in trying to patchwork quilt the cover-up, Laura, is remarkable.

Wisdom and Folly, the lesson of Proverbs?

 

[Chang]

Laura,

Thanks very much for sharing those excerpts with us.
I've spent the last few weeks trying to make some headway with this 'religion' thing, and its been frustrating.

I always had a hard time with the 'blind faith' concept, but it was a great ploy, gotta give'm credit for that.

I mentioned earlier in a reply to Rob, how I was drawn to the Native Americans. I never realized how they were slaughtered because of their spiritual knowledge. I didn't even know that there were 12 million people here at the time Columbus landed.

And then I found s book that tore into the hap-hazard way the New Testament was put together. As it turns out, there was a great deal of fraudulent material entered into that 'holy' book. How can a holy book be written by a disingenuous author? It CAN'T!

Duped Again!!!

BTW, did you write a book exposing the bible, or the myth of Jesus? I seem to remember reading something to that effect, many years ago. My mind is like a steel trap (thats been left out in the rain).


Best,

Chang

 

[thevenusian]

Hi Chang,

Laura has written extensively and in great detail about religion and the Bible in her book Secret History of the World.

You might also be interested in checking out the Bible History section in Recommended Books from the QFS

 

[Chang]

Venusian,

Thanks very much for the reply. Sorry I took so long finding it, I guess I'm having trouble navigating. There must be an easy way to find a response to your posts, isn't there? I know there are a couple links at the top of the page, but they don't seem to do what they were intended, or at least what I expect from them. Maybe I expect too much, who knows?

But thanks!!!!

Chang