bananabrain
awkward squadnik
good idea starting a new thread, chaps. perhaps now we can have a proper discussion. let me state my position straight out:
if you wish to demonstrate that a hebrew text says something other than what we say it says, you will have to offer some kind of proof for it other than mere assertion.
considering you are addressing the fundamentals of my faith, i don't think i will give you a break. i would say that since our position is that the Torah (as opposed to the rest of Tanakh, incidentally) remains as it was Revealed in terms of its *consonantal sequence* (as opposed to vowel-pointing or consequent interpretation for example) then all you have to do for a start is produce a document that demonstrates a variant reading of just one letter. of course the difficulty is that it cannot be reliably demonstrated that the said document is the "original" and that the masoretic text we rely on has been "doctored".
well, that's the problem, isn't it, since the assertion that the Torah itself is a "composite document", known as the "documentary hypothesis", remains academic theory and a pretty daft one at that, even if it remains, astoundingly, the view of the "scholarly consensus", at least the ones who can't bring themselves to admit the possibility of agreeing with traditional scholars more learned than themselves, or the possibility of Divine Revelation. nobody has so far produced a single one of these spurious "source texts", be it J, E, P, or Q, so why anyone should "believe" in their existence without any evidence is beyond me, at least in my understanding of the laws of evidence work.
sheesh. it always seems to be a bit of a red herring when someone says "oh, deary me, read this four-volume book, it'll prove that i'm right." i am at liberty to suggest that you first read the book "the written and oral Torah" by r. nathan lopes cardozo (at the very, very least) and study the whole of chumash with rash"i before you suggest anything about what the Torah means. i understand this geoffrey hodson chap was a leading light of the theosophical society for decades - but did he study with traditional jewish teachers? did he study the Oral Law? did he know hebrew and aramaic? in short, was he jewishly literate? if not, it is hard to see how he is qualified to comment on the plain meaning of the text, let alone its "hidden wisdom", which is a matter that requires at the very least, more facility with the Text than the ability to pick apart an english translation.
in other words, classical soul theory, as i'd call it. you live as a worm, then get promoted as you go on. although the transmigration of souls (gilgulei nefesh) is a well-established esoteric belief within judaism, nobody claims that their opinions are demonstrably factual, although there are a number of rabbis of the "wonder-working" schools, both hasidic and sephardic, who claim to be able to identify the "hosts" of previous transmigrations at least in human terms, although needless to say and regardless of my own beliefs, this could hardly be said to stand up to a laboratory test. in other words, all of this is speculation, so one opinion is likely to be measured against another, so no resolution is really possible.
i am well aware of the gender dynamics of the Divine Names, so you needn't worry about that. in terms of dividing the sexes, this is, as you may know, a long-established tradition we have from the midrash. in terms of "root races", this process is described in some detail within the book of genesis, although it should not be understood literally, as i have pointed out in several places - although we don't use names such as "atlantis" or "lemuria", nor does anyone claim to possess a tradition that goes that far back - we would obviously treat claims of this nature with deserved scepticism. the oldest traditional claim we have is that certain texts (for example the sefer yetzirah, or the sefer raziel hamalach) contain traditions from abraham and adam respectively) but nobody seriously suggests this can be verified. we are a conservative bunch and we have a very, very conservative approach to non-provable beliefs.
to quote freud, unusually for me, "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar". although i appreciate that there are "seventy faces to Torah" and an almost infinite number of ways to interpret each verse, word, letter and symbol, we have a principle that we cannot *separate the Text from its plain meaning and context*. so interpretations, as i have seen many times, purporting to interpret this or that symbol in purely astrological terms, violate this plain meaning and context. although there is a long-established tradition of jewish astrology (based in part on the sefer yetzirah) there is also a principle that "ein mazal le-yisra'el", meaning that we are not subject to astrological determinism. to trawl through the Torah picking up anything that looks vaguely astronomical and building a house of cards around it appears to me to be a futile venture if it ignores the normative meaning of the *exoteric* Torah. the two simply cannot be divorced.
interesting - never heard of that. where's it from?
i don't know about that. if that were the case, surely the likes of the medieval church, to say nothing of al-ghazali, al-farabi, ibn ezra and maimonides, would have been unlikely to defend him.
actually, we do. the "leaders of the generation" are pretty well documented in the Oral Law so, we could say that according to both josephus and the babylonian talmud, we have sources which say that shimon ha-tzadiq ( Simeon the Just - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ) went to meet alexander the great on his progress through the near east. another candidate would be his disciple antigonos of sokho ( Antigonus of Sokho - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ) both of whom were alive during the life of aristotle, i believe. failing that, if aristotle himself travelled to the area, he could have met any one of the men of the "great assembly" established by ezra himself.
we certainly might conclude that moses, as an adoptive egyptian prince, was instructed in egyptian sorcery, although that was probably more of a priestly thing. however, there comes a point where the sorcerers can no longer keep up with the miracles moses performs under Divine sponsorship.
again, show me an ancient kabbalistic document where this sequence exists and another where it has been removed and you have a case; without it, this is nothing but the purest speculation, despite its superficial resemblance to kabbalistic thought.
i'll write more when i've got time, but it seems to me that all you've got here is HPB's take on the contemporary wellhausian higher criticism, most of which has been decisively debunked by the likes of driver, to say nothing of our own scholars.
b'shalom
bananabrain
if you wish to demonstrate that a hebrew text says something other than what we say it says, you will have to offer some kind of proof for it other than mere assertion.
AndrewX said:you want to know why the Hebrew Old Testament is not the "unadulterated, perfectly preserved, untainted and utterly precise Word of G!D," then we will need to do more than trot out two or three little examples of alterations in the script. Give me a freakin break already, will ya?
considering you are addressing the fundamentals of my faith, i don't think i will give you a break. i would say that since our position is that the Torah (as opposed to the rest of Tanakh, incidentally) remains as it was Revealed in terms of its *consonantal sequence* (as opposed to vowel-pointing or consequent interpretation for example) then all you have to do for a start is produce a document that demonstrates a variant reading of just one letter. of course the difficulty is that it cannot be reliably demonstrated that the said document is the "original" and that the masoretic text we rely on has been "doctored".
Argue from an Orthodox Jewish position, and watch how fast I can vacate the proverbial room and leave a vacuum
well, that's the problem, isn't it, since the assertion that the Torah itself is a "composite document", known as the "documentary hypothesis", remains academic theory and a pretty daft one at that, even if it remains, astoundingly, the view of the "scholarly consensus", at least the ones who can't bring themselves to admit the possibility of agreeing with traditional scholars more learned than themselves, or the possibility of Divine Revelation. nobody has so far produced a single one of these spurious "source texts", be it J, E, P, or Q, so why anyone should "believe" in their existence without any evidence is beyond me, at least in my understanding of the laws of evidence work.
I would say this, however. If you seriously want to know a bit about even the first book of the Torah, as far as what Theosophy has to say about it, then either order, or borrow, any of a set of several books by Geoffrey Hodson entitled, `The Hidden Wisdom in the Holy Bible.'
sheesh. it always seems to be a bit of a red herring when someone says "oh, deary me, read this four-volume book, it'll prove that i'm right." i am at liberty to suggest that you first read the book "the written and oral Torah" by r. nathan lopes cardozo (at the very, very least) and study the whole of chumash with rash"i before you suggest anything about what the Torah means. i understand this geoffrey hodson chap was a leading light of the theosophical society for decades - but did he study with traditional jewish teachers? did he study the Oral Law? did he know hebrew and aramaic? in short, was he jewishly literate? if not, it is hard to see how he is qualified to comment on the plain meaning of the text, let alone its "hidden wisdom", which is a matter that requires at the very least, more facility with the Text than the ability to pick apart an english translation.
In English, it means that our Souls are all Individual Beings, each with its own history, spiritual evolution and destiny - apart from our own in the sense that the Soul is one full turn ahead on the evolutionary spiral. In a former cycle, they were as we are, and they too, had to overcome the tests and trials of life incarnate in form (the same types of form as we are experiencing).
in other words, classical soul theory, as i'd call it. you live as a worm, then get promoted as you go on. although the transmigration of souls (gilgulei nefesh) is a well-established esoteric belief within judaism, nobody claims that their opinions are demonstrably factual, although there are a number of rabbis of the "wonder-working" schools, both hasidic and sephardic, who claim to be able to identify the "hosts" of previous transmigrations at least in human terms, although needless to say and regardless of my own beliefs, this could hardly be said to stand up to a laboratory test. in other words, all of this is speculation, so one opinion is likely to be measured against another, so no resolution is really possible.
many human beings were - literally - animals, in the pre-Atlantis, or Lemurian period (Root Race) on planet Earth. This concerns a time in human history before G!D Divided the sexes, and if you don't like the fact that we can speak frankly of [G!D] as Jod-Hevah, male-female, then again, I suggest we take that up elsewhere, as it would only serve to derail this thread.
i am well aware of the gender dynamics of the Divine Names, so you needn't worry about that. in terms of dividing the sexes, this is, as you may know, a long-established tradition we have from the midrash. in terms of "root races", this process is described in some detail within the book of genesis, although it should not be understood literally, as i have pointed out in several places - although we don't use names such as "atlantis" or "lemuria", nor does anyone claim to possess a tradition that goes that far back - we would obviously treat claims of this nature with deserved scepticism. the oldest traditional claim we have is that certain texts (for example the sefer yetzirah, or the sefer raziel hamalach) contain traditions from abraham and adam respectively) but nobody seriously suggests this can be verified. we are a conservative bunch and we have a very, very conservative approach to non-provable beliefs.
But bananabrain, when it comes to New Age things, you of all people should know and appreciate where terms like this come from. What did the people do, while Moses was upon Mt. Sinai receiving the Ten Commandments? What was the nature of their reversion, and why? WHAT was it they crafted, in gold, to worship and adore?
to quote freud, unusually for me, "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar". although i appreciate that there are "seventy faces to Torah" and an almost infinite number of ways to interpret each verse, word, letter and symbol, we have a principle that we cannot *separate the Text from its plain meaning and context*. so interpretations, as i have seen many times, purporting to interpret this or that symbol in purely astrological terms, violate this plain meaning and context. although there is a long-established tradition of jewish astrology (based in part on the sefer yetzirah) there is also a principle that "ein mazal le-yisra'el", meaning that we are not subject to astrological determinism. to trawl through the Torah picking up anything that looks vaguely astronomical and building a house of cards around it appears to me to be a futile venture if it ignores the normative meaning of the *exoteric* Torah. the two simply cannot be divorced.
Thomas said:A late Greek tradition has it that Aristotle on his travel to the lands of the eastern Mediterranean met a very wise Jew from whom he learned much wisdom.
interesting - never heard of that. where's it from?
Besides, in Aristotle, a pupil of Plato, one feels a return to a polytheistic astral religion.
i don't know about that. if that were the case, surely the likes of the medieval church, to say nothing of al-ghazali, al-farabi, ibn ezra and maimonides, would have been unlikely to defend him.
We also don’t know of any “wise and knowledgeable man” approximating Ezra’s stature in the next few generations.
actually, we do. the "leaders of the generation" are pretty well documented in the Oral Law so, we could say that according to both josephus and the babylonian talmud, we have sources which say that shimon ha-tzadiq ( Simeon the Just - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ) went to meet alexander the great on his progress through the near east. another candidate would be his disciple antigonos of sokho ( Antigonus of Sokho - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ) both of whom were alive during the life of aristotle, i believe. failing that, if aristotle himself travelled to the area, he could have met any one of the men of the "great assembly" established by ezra himself.
we're told that Moses had mastered all Egyptian learning, a passage that I think draws on the scene in Exodus where Moses engages in that battle of sorcery with the Egyptian wizards.
we certainly might conclude that moses, as an adoptive egyptian prince, was instructed in egyptian sorcery, although that was probably more of a priestly thing. however, there comes a point where the sorcerers can no longer keep up with the miracles moses performs under Divine sponsorship.
Andrewx said:we have the Kabbalistic (and ancient) idea that:
"The Breath becomes a stone; the stone, a plant; the plant, an animal; the animal, a man; the man, a spirit; and the spirit, a god."
Nick shared this same quote recently, and it is relevant here, as this is a universal teaching, save where it has been excised from the Scripture, or amended, or concealed.
again, show me an ancient kabbalistic document where this sequence exists and another where it has been removed and you have a case; without it, this is nothing but the purest speculation, despite its superficial resemblance to kabbalistic thought.
i'll write more when i've got time, but it seems to me that all you've got here is HPB's take on the contemporary wellhausian higher criticism, most of which has been decisively debunked by the likes of driver, to say nothing of our own scholars.
b'shalom
bananabrain