Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Eric Weiss" <eweiss AT gte.net>]

I am not a Hebrew scholar, nor even well-learned in it, but to answer your 
statement: No, it is not any good. It is non-sense in all the meanings of 
the word.

I have read somewhere that we need a good critical edition of the Hebrew 
Scriptures on a par with Nestle-Aland's New Testament text, with the same 
extensive variant readings, etc. The Masoretic text as "the" Hebrew Bible 
has too long dominated the popular and religious mind, with the result that 
things like this can be written which imply that every letter in the Torah 
was divinely and eternally ordained and unerringly transmitted (much of the 
"Bible Codes" stuff is based on an eternally-unvarying Hebrew text).

I am definitely way out of my league on this subject, but I understand that 
the DSS and studies along those lines have put to rest the idea of "a" text 
of the Hebrew Bible or the Torah.

Talmudic legends may indeed have some basis in fact, but the reverence that 
some Orthodox Jews have for the Torah has allowed for the creation of 
fantastic stories about its nature and its composition. From my upbringing, 
I remember in the Passover Haggadah how the number of plagues that befell 
the Egyptians was increased by noting that God was said to have brought the 
Israelites out with a mighty arm (and persons have 2 arms) and an 
outstretched hand (and persons have 2 hands - plus, there are 5 fingers on 
each hand), thus multiplying the Biblical 10 plagues by 2 (arms) x 2 
(hands) x 5 (fingers per hand) = 10 x 2 x 2 x 5 = 200 plagues, or some such 
thing.

On 01/05/99, "a.c.smith AT juno.com (Andrew C Smith)" wrote:
> I copied the following from a rabbinic web page. I don't know if it's any
> good or not.
> 
> Exodus is sometimes called the Book of Shmos, the "Book of Names."
> Really, however, the entire Torah is a Book of Names. The Torah existed
> before the creation of the universe. In its primordial form, the Torah's
> "letters" were black fire on a "parchment" of white fire. When G-d
> dictated the Torah to Moshe, Moshe wrote it like a scribe copying an
> ancient text of fire. Until this dictation, the Torah only existed as a
> series of letters in a sequence which could have been broken up into
> different words and different sentences, with an entirely different
> meaning. Thus, the primordial Torah was the "DNA of existence,"
> containing every potential existential scenario. The Torah that Moshe
> wrote down was the scenario that was actualized. Something else: The
> entire Torah from its beginning - "In the beginning" -  until its final
> words - "before the eyes of all Yisrael" - is no more than names of G-d,
> one after the other after the other.  How can G-d have a name? A name
> defines. Definition limits. This cannot be that. Something with a name is
> by definition separate from everything else. Isn't saying that G-d has a
> name an impossible contradiction to His Oneness? The Torah is the
> blueprint of creation. Really, however, it is more than the blueprint. It
> is the means by which things exist. An architect's blueprint is
> inanimate. The Torah is dynamic. The source of all existence is rooted
> either explicitly or covertly in the Torah. On the infinite level, G-d
> has no name. When we talk of G-d having names, we mean that His names are
> the way that He relates to His creation. The Torah is the life-source of
> everything that exists because it is the names of G-d. The Torah, the
> blueprint and the dynamo of creation, necessarily must consist of G-d's
> names, for nothing can exist unless He wills it to exist; and His
> connection to this world is through His names. Nothing can have existence
> unless it is written in the Torah, which is no more than G-d's names, one
> after another...
> 
> One reason that the Jewish People thought that they deserved to be
> redeemed from Egypt was that they didn't change their names. Yet we know
> that no one "deserves" God's help; it is always given out of His
> generousity, His grace. Why was this idea about names so important? The
> name of a thing defines its essence. When Adam gave names to every
> creature, he understood that creature's individual essence and was able
> to express this in a name. Similarly, later in this week's Parsha, when
> G-d commands Moshe to lead the Jewish People out of Egypt, Moshe says to
> G-d "They will say to me 'What is His (G-d's) Name?'  What shall I answer
> them?"  In other words, if they ask me to define the essence of the
> Creator, what His name is, what do I answer? G-d is above definition. Man
> can have no concept of the real essence of the Creator. We can only know
> that there is a Creator. And that is precisely what G-d answered Moshe:
> "I will be that which I will be." My essence is the fact that I exist, I
> have always existed and I will always exist. That is My essence. That is
> My Name. That's what "not changing their names" means. The Jewish People
> didn't change their essence. They didn't lose their identity.  Even in
> the depths of exile they never stopped feeling that their essence was
> Jewish. Right at the beginning of the Book of Shmos, the Torah tells us
> "These are the names of the Children of Israel..." With these names they
> came, and with these names they left, their essence and their identity
> unaltered in any way.
> 
> ___________________________________________________________________
> You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail.
> Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com/getjuno.html
> or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866]