Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Sujata <shevaroys AT yahoo.com>]

Just a quick note to apologize to anyone that might
have perceived rudeness on my part in my response to
Shoshanna. None was intended.
Best wishes,
Sujata

--- Shoshanna Walker <rosewalk AT concentric.net> wrote:

> >Shoshanna,
> >a) God did teach you, but you have forgotten!!
> 
> OK, I am being friendly, this is not a friendly (or
> accurate) statement
> 
> >b) It was Jewish elders that translated the Torah
> to
> >Greek, so I dont see why the name couldnt be
> written
> >in Greek at the time of writing down Oral Torah
> 
> In any case, it wasn't written as pronounced - as I
> have posted 
> twice.  "LeAlem" - remember??
> 
> Now see this, and read carefully:
> 
>
http://www.shemayisrael.com/chanukah/more/chanukah.htm
> 
> "Five elders translated the Torah into Greek for
> King Ptolemy (a 
> successor to Alexander the Great). The day this was
> accomplished was 
> as unfortunate for Israel as the day that the Golden
> Calf was 
> worshipped, because it is impossible to present a
> truly adequate 
> translation of the Torah in any foreign language. On
> another 
> occasion, Ptolemy gathered together seventy-two
> elders and placed 
> them in seventy-two separate rooms, not informing
> any of them why he 
> was summoned. He approached each of them and said,
> "Write down the 
> Torah of your teacher Moses for me." Hashem arranged
> that the same 
> thoughts occurred to all of them and they made the
> same thirteen 
> modifications in their translations. [This
> translation is commonly 
> known as Targum Shiv'im, or the Septuagint.]
> (Sofrim 1:7-8; Megillah 9a)
> 
> "The Tur (Orach Chayim 580; see also Shulchan Aruch,
> ad loc.), 
> quoting the opinion of the Halachot Gedolot, tells
> us that one should 
> observe a fast day on the eighth day of Tevet
> because it is the 
> anniversary of the day that Ptolemy commissioned his
> translation of 
> the Torah. On the day the translation commenced,
> adds the Tur, "A 
> three day period of darkness descended upon the
> world." This, Rav 
> Cohen suggests, is the "darkness" of the Greek
> exile.
> 
> "II. THE LIGHT OF THE ORAL TORAH
> 
> "It remains to be explained why the translation of
> the Torah should 
> cause global darkness. What was the great tragedy of
> translating the 
> Torah into another language, and why should it cause
> the world to 
> become dark? The tragedy, Rav Cohen explains, is
> implicit in the 
> words of Massechet Sofrim-"because the Torah could
> not be translated 
> adequately." Although the written text of the Torah
> can be translated 
> with reasonable accuracy into another language, all
> the nuances-the 
> double-entendres and the various implicit
> insinuations in the words 
> of the Torah-are lost in the process. Gematria
> (numerology), 
> acrostics and other word-based analyses are
> impossible to carry over 
> from one language to another. The entire body of the
> Oral Torah which 
> lies beneath the surface of the written text was
> thus severed-and 
> deleted-from the Torah. It is interesting to note
> that, as Rav Cohen 
> points out, the Sadducees (a sect that believed in
> the literal 
> interpretation of the written Torah and denied the
> existence of an 
> oral tradition) were a powerful force in Israel only
> until the 
> Hasmonean uprising which culminated in the Chanukah
> miracle (Megillat 
> Ta'anit, Ch. 5). Once the Hasmoneans succeeded in
> uprooting Greek 
> culture from the hearts of the Jewish people, the
> Sadducees also 
> submitted to the halachic renderings of the
> Torah-true elders of the 
> generation. The Greek influence on Torah analysis
> that caused the 
> Sadducees to give credibility to the written word
> alone was done away 
> with along with the Greek culture. The Oral Torah is
> compared in the 
> Midrash to a light that illuminates the darkness:
> 
> 
> Best wishes,
> 
> Shoshanna
> 
> 
> 
> >c) From Isaiah.."Blessed be Egypt my people,
> Assyria
> >my handiwork, and Israel my inheritance." - God's
> eye
> >view is far different than man's, He may not mind a
> >Greek guy knowing His name :)
> >
> >Best wishes,
> >Sujata
> 
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> 


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