Tag: Coincidences in the Bible

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My Research on the Bible and Biblical Hebrew Podcasts (audio)

Agag, Haman the Agagite, Gog, Magog, Gag — What binds them all together? (Podcast)

On the general concept of “Roof” in the Hebrew Bible, and what does it really signify:

Categories
Podcasts (audio)

“Shamayim” — The Most Counter-intuitive Yet Scientifically Accurate Word in Biblical Hebrew (Podcast)

The deeper meaning and implications of the biblical Hebrew Shamayim (Sky; A post of same title may be found here ):

Categories
Historical Coincidences My Research on the Bible and Biblical Hebrew

God of History and Verse Number in Torah

( See also: Jehovah – God of History? )

In the First Commandment, conveyed by the Divine to the Israelites in Mount Sinai, God “introduces” Himself not as creator of “the Heavens and the Earth” (Genesis 1:1), but as ruler of History.

This complies with Jewish tradition, which asserts that God continuously engages in human affairs, in the history of the created, to implement the unknown and humanly-unknowable Divine Design (refer to my related post: “And Elohim Saw Ki Tov” (“that it was good”)” (Gen. 1) — A Different Viewpoint).

The First Commandment starts:

“I am Jehovah your God, who have brought you out of the Land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage” (Exodus 20:2).

In compliance with this tradition, of Jehovah as God of History, Kabbalah claims that each verse in Torah corresponds to a single Hebrew-calendar year, and the verse consecutive (serial) number in Torah is indication of the Hebrew year, to which the content of the verse relates.

The above is based on introductory comments by Rabbi Benjamin Blech in a lecture of February, 1-st, 2021, a link to which is given below.

In this short post, we list verses from Torah (including some from the afore-cited source), with possible links to historic events that have occurred the same Hebrew year, as the verse serial number. We pursue Rabbi Blech comment that these cannot and should not to be used to predict the future; first, because the full historic significance of a Torah verse can only be comprehensively comprehended only post-factum (namely, after the Hebrew-calendar year, to which the verse supposedly refers, is already part of history); Secondly, because human prophesizing, lacking explicit Divine inspiration and authorization, goes against the most fundamental condition of human existence, namely, Free Will.

Here are some examples (from Rabbi Blech presentation and else):

  1. Historic Event: Nazi Germany executing the “Final Solution” (Holocaust still in full swing, 1944; Jews uprooted from their place of residence to Concentration Camps, mostly in other countries); Hebrew-calendar year: 5704 (1944); 5704-th verse in Torah: “And Jehovah uprooted them from their land in anger, and in fury and in great wrath and cast them into another land, as it is this day” (Deuteronomy 29:27);
  2. Historic Event: End of World War II (also end of Holocaust, now revealed in its full dimensions, with lingering question mark in the minds of people-of-faith – “where was God??”); Hebrew-calendar year: 5705 (1945); 5705-th verse in Torah: “The hidden belong to Jehovah, our God, and the revealed are for us and for our offspring forever, that we may do all the words of this Torah” (Deuteronomy 29:28);
  3. Historic Event: Founding of the State of Israel; Hebrew-calendar year: 5708 (May, 1948); 5708-th verse in Torah: “Then Jehovah your God will restore you from your captivity, and have compassion on you, and will gather you again from all the peoples that Jehovah your God has scattered you” (Deuteronomy 30:3);
  4. Historic Event: Mass Jewish immigration to the State of Israel during its first 3 and a half years of existence, mostly from Moslem Arab countries (“Some 688,000 immigrants came at an average of close to 200,000 a year… As approximately 650,000 Jews lived in Israel at the time … this meant in effect a doubling of the Jewish population”; Source: site of The Jewish Agency for Israel); Hebrew-calendar years: 5709 (1949) – 5712 (1952); 5709&5710-th verses in Torah: “If your outcasts be at the ends of the earth, from there will Jehovah your God gather you and from there will He fetch you; And Jehovah your God will bring you into the land which your fathers possessed, and you shall possess it, and He will prosper you and multiply you more than your fathers” (Deuteronomy 30:4-5);

Comment: Based on lecture of Feb 1, 2021:

Kabbalah: Can It Predict the Future? (Ft. Rabbi Benjamin Blech)

Categories
Historical Coincidences My Research on the Bible and Biblical Hebrew

Signature of Evil — “M” and “N” Combination in Names of Willing Executioners of the Jewish People (Bible perspective)

Following the sin of eating of the forbidden fruit, God asks Adam (original Hebrew followed by English):

וַיֹּאמֶר מִי הִגִּיד לְךָ כִּי עֵירֹם אָתָּה הֲמִן-הָעֵץ אֲשֶׁר צִוִּיתִיךָ לְבִלְתִּי אֲכָל-מִמֶּנּוּ אָכָלְתָּ

(בראשית ג: י”א)

“And He said: Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat?”

(Genesis 3:11)

The Hebrew word marked in red comprises three Hebrew letters:

{Hei (ה), Mem (מ,ם), Nun (נ,ן)}

Note that two of the letters appear in two forms: the first (read right to left) — as regularly written; the second — as it appears at the end of a Hebrew word (there are altogether five such Hebrew letters).

Surprisingly, the same word, marked in red above, appears in exactly same form (though pronounced differently) elsewhere in the Bible. This is the name of a biblical hero, Haman, who had “the privilege” of being the first person on Planet Earth to conceive, publicly declare and actively planning executing the “Final Solution” on the Jewish people. The book of Esther relates how Haman had initiated a plot to murder all Jews in all provinces of the kingdom of the Persian King Ahasuerus: “Letters were sent by couriers to all the king’s provinces, to destroy, to slay, and to annihilate all Jews, young and old, women and children, in one day, the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month of Adar … And the king and Haman sat down to drink” (Esther 3:13, 15). How very familiar…

Jewish Bible scholars failed-not noticing the astounding similarity between the above two words, similarly written but pronounced differently, while carrying absolutely different meanings:

 ” “המן מן התורה מנין? שנאמר (בראשית ג, יא) “המן-העץ “

(תלמוד בבלי, חולין קל”ט-ב)

“Haman from the Torah, how do we know that? As it is written (Gen. 3:11) “the tree of which” (Babylon Talmud, Hulin, 139-2).

It is an incredible coincidence that Haman found his death by being hung on a tree (Esther 7:10), while tree is mentioned, adjacent to “his name”, in Genesis 3:11.

The incredible coincidences, however, do not end there. They only start there…

Observing appearance of the last two letters in Haman’s name, “M” and “N” (adjacent to one another, when written in Hebrew), in names of historic foes of the Jewish people, those plotting to annihilate the Jewish people or its modern-day representative, the State of Israel — that combination of letters is incredibly represented therein, disproportionately and abundantly. Furthemore, the same order of the letters, as in Haman, is preserved throughout, without exception.

Examples:

  • Haman;
  • Nazi Germany;
  • Eichmann (Nazi officer in charge of executing the Final Solution (exterminating six million Jews) in Nazi Germany);
  • Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (father of the Iranian Islamic Revolution and its first Supreme Leader, 1979-1989);
  • Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (Second Supreme Leader, 1989 to present);
  • General Qassim Soleimani (chief architect of Iranian expansion in the Middle East, arch-terrorist assassinated via targeted-killing by USA, Friday, January 3 (US time), 2020).

A direct linkage between the sin of Adam and Eve (relating to God by Elohim, neglecting Jehovah), and its ultimate products — Haman, Eichmann and Soleimani.

(refer also to Hebrew Samech and Its Occurrence in Names of Jewish-Nation Enemies)

Categories
Historical Coincidences My Research on the Bible and Biblical Hebrew

Kavod — The Most Peculiar Word in Biblical Hebrew

Link to podcast-audio:

“Kavod – the most peculiar word in biblical Hebrew” (Podcast-audio)

Kavod in modern Hebrew means honor, respect or glory. A person may show Kavod to his fellow human being, and a military medal of honor, bestowed unto a military service person, is a medal of Kavod (Ot Kavod).

The word appears in the Jewish Bible no less than 199 times. Numerous times it appears therein in the same sense as in modern spoken Hebrew. Examples:

  • “Akhan, My son, give, I pray thee, respect to Jehovah, God of Israel..” (Joshua 7:19);
  • “And on that day it shall come to pass that the glory of Jacob shall fade..” (Isaiah 17:4);
  • “The Heavens declare the glory of God..” (Psalms 19:2).

Yet, this is only one sense with which Kavod appears in the Bible and it is not the most frequent one. A more frequent usage does not relate at all to the created giving glory to the Creator. Rather, it relates to Kavod as intrinsically linked to the Divine. And here we encounter the impossible combination of words:

Jehovah’s Kavod.

What does that mean?

Jewish bible interpreters have attempted, throughout the ages, to impart plausible meaning to this bizarre idiom; however, they have always relied on the traditional sense of “honor” or “respect” or “glory”. In most Bible translations (from biblical Hebrew), “Jehovah’s Kavod” translates into “Jehovah’s glory”.

As we shall soon realize, all those interpretations fall short of satisfactorily explaining most usages of this combination of words in the Jewish Hebrew Bible.

Thus, we are left helpless figuring out and imparting any sensible meaning to this bizarre expression; That is, until we scrutinize instances where it appears, and try to integrate these with scientific knowledge we currently possess about the universe. Once we do that, stunning amazement and deep appreciation for Jehovah’s Kavod follows.

Let us start with a few examples:

  • When Moses expresses desire to learn of Jehovah’s ways in leading His world, he asks: “Please show me Kevodcha” (“Your Kavod”). The Divine response: “..I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee; and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and show mercy on whom I will show mercy. And He said, thou cannot see my face for no man shall see me and live” (Exodus 33:18-20);
  • Prophet Isaiah explains why the world exists (seemingly the only time the Bible relates so explicitly to this question): “All that can be named, by My Name and for my Kavod I have created it, I have formed it, I have even made it” (Isaiah 43:7);
  • Prophet Isaiah delivers an account of his vision, hearing the Seraphim crying to each other, saying: “…Holy , Holy, Holy is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of his Kavod” (Isaiah 6:3).

How can we settle the first example with the last, while they seem so much at odds and unrelated to one another?

In the first example, Moses obviously requests to learn how the Divine is leading His world. While the response Moses gets is unsatisfactory (“I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious”), the Divine response affirms that what Moses really desired in his request (“Show me your Kavod”) is to learn the ways by which God is leading His world. No reference whatsoever to God’s glory, as the latter is seemingly implied by the last example!!

Jewish tradition makes a reasonable distinction between two types of Divine leadership of the universe: By Law-of-Nature and by Divine Intervention (often explicitly expressed on a personal level as Divine Providence, or Hashgachah Pratit).

The former, Law-of-Nature, relates to the Ten Divine “sayings” of Genesis Creation narrative (Genesis 1). Later, after Noah’s flood, God re-assures humankind that Law-of-Nature exists and that it is ever-lasting: “While the earth remains, seed time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night would not cease” (Genesis 8:22).

The latter, Divine Intervention, relates to divine intervention in the world to exercise a system of justice: “..Would not the Judge of all the earth do Justice?” (Gen. 18:25). However, this Divine intervention is mitigated by Divine graciousness and mercy, as the former quote of God’s response to Moses has shown. Furthermore, leadership by Divine intervention is not restricted to the confines of Law-of-Nature; Occasionally, it operates contrary to Law-of-Nature, as the Ten plagues of Egypt (Exodus 7:20-12:30) testify.

Let us assume that indeed Jehovah’s Kavod is an overall term for the two basic Divine leaderships of the universe: By Law-of-Nature and by Divine intervention.

Is there indication for Law-of-Nature in Jehovah’s Kavod?

Is there indication for Divine intervention (or Divine moral code) in Jehovah’s Kavod?

Expressed differently: Can one find evidence, within the term itself, that Jehovah’s Kavod indeed represents the double-faceted Divine leadership of the world?

Surprisingly, the answer is a resounding YES.

Let us address the former first. As quoted earlier, prophet Isaiah describes his vision of Seraphim crying to each other, saying: “the whole Eretz is full of his Kavod.” (Isaiah 6:3). However, as addressed in my book (Section 14.1, p. 201), Eretz (earth in biblical Hebrew) implies either “world” or “Earth”. Given current scientific knowledge, we may therefore re-translate Isaiah thus: “..Holy , Holy, Holy is the Lord of hosts, the whole universe is permeated with his Kavod.” (Isaiah 6:3).

Is there any hint in Jehovah’s Kavod for Law-of-Nature, something that, by modern science, permeates the whole universe?

We can think of one answer only:

The gravitation force!! (in modern spoken Hebrew, force of Kevidah).

By Einstein’s general theory of relativity, the gravitation field, generated by any celestial mass (like galaxies and stars), determines the most fundamental properties of the four-dimensional space-time, as we experience it in daily life and as we observe throughout the universe via astronomy, aided by scientific theory (Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity, with succeeding derivatives up to the present Super-string theory). There is indeed nothing else that we can state permeates the whole universe.

And how do we, mere Earth-bound mortals, experience gravitation force?

By feeling that every physical object, large and small, is heavy, carries weight. We nowadays are aware that this sensation of physical articles being heavy is due to gravitation force. That is how we experience it in our every-day life. Additionally, by modern science, we have learned that the gravitation force (indeed gravitational field) determines the fundamental properties of the four-dimensional space-time continuum, in which we live, and the gravitational field indeed permeates the whole universe.

So:

  • If Jehovah’s Kavod expresses modes of Divine leadership of the universe (as Moses used the term in his request to God, “Show me thy Kavod”);
  • And if one of the two modes of leadership, by Jewish tradition, is Law-of-Nature;
  • And if per modern science, the most central and fundamental force-of-nature to determine the basic properties of the space-time continuum, permeating the whole universe, is the gravitation force;

Given all that, does Jehovah’s Kavod in any way points to the gravitational force???

Amazingly, Biblical Hebrew makes the impossible and implausible link between two utterly non-related concepts: Jehovah’s presence in the world via Law-of-Nature, and the most basic force of the universe, the most influential on observed Law-of-Nature, only known by modern science— the gravitation force.

Heavy, in biblical Hebrew, is Kaved (same root as Kavod, implausible as this may sound). Examples (altogether 41 instances of Kaved in the Bible imply heavy):

“Behold, tomorrow about this time I will rain heavy hail, the like of which has not been in Egypt since its foundation until now” (Exodus 9:18,24);

“And now my father had burdened you with a heavy yoke and I will add to your yoke..” (1 Kings 12:11).

We finally address the second question, put forward earlier:

Is Jehovah’s Kavod also indicative of Jehovah’s leadership via Divine intervention, imposing the set of moral Divine commandments via a system of justice operating within the confines of free-will?

The answer is similar to that for the previous question: As Jehovah’s Kavod indicates a major Law-of-Nature (Gravitation Law), so it hints at a major Divine commandment, the fifth commandment, which starts with Kabed (meaning honor):

“Kabed thy father and thy mother” (Exodus 20:12; Deuteronomy 5:16).

We summarize:

  • Jehovah’s Kavod, mostly wrongly interpreted to-date as Jehovah’s glory, has been shown in this post to really mean, consistent with Jewish tradition, Jehovah’s double-faceted leadership of the universe;
  • It is completely incomprehensible why biblical Hebrew should link “glory” with… ”heavy” (as both derive from same linguistic root);
  • Aided by modern science, and pursuing the new interpretation of Jehovah’s Kavod, an incredible link has been established between Kavod and Kaved (both emanating from same biblical Hebrew root);
  • Consistent with the new interpretation, Jehovah’s Kavod is appropriately indicative of both force of gravity (leadership by Law-of-Nature) and of the Ten Commandments (leadership by Divine intervention).

Personal confession: Mind boggling…

Comments:

Comment [1]  (added April 28, 2019): The three-letter Hebrew root of Kavod (and related words) is “כ.ב.ד” (K.B.D). The gematria value of this root is the same as Jehovah (26). This is perhaps further evidence that Kavod in biblical Hebrew is indeed a general term for all modes by which the Divine manifests its presence in the world.

Comment [2] (added June, 17, 2020): The Coronavirus pandemic, denoted by WHO (World Health Organiztion) — COVID-19 (COronaVIrus Disease-2019), is indicative of, sounds like — Kavod (a stunning insight by Avinoam Ben-Mordechai); Read a separate post about the pandemic here.

Comment [3] (added June, 19, 2020): In the most prominent biblical demonstration of Divine intervention in the affairs of humankind (Divine leadership, Kavod), the Ten Plagues of Egypt, the word Kavod, with variations, appears Ten Times (within only three chapters!). Five times the word describes, as adjective, four of the plagues (“natural” disasters), stating that they were “heavy”; the other five times, Kavod describes Pharaoh’s “heavy” heart, refusing “Let My People Go”. Here is the list in Exodus (Chapter: Verse):

{ (8:11), (8:20), (8:28), (9:3), (9:7), (9:18), (9:24), (9:34), (10:1), (10:14) }.

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General

Free Will— The Act of Separating and Choosing

The essence of being human is exercising free will. This is the act by which we continuously create ourselves and form our personality and character.

The Divine has created mankind (“So God created mankind in his own image…”, Genesis 1:27); but He has also formed it (“And the Lord God formed mankind of the dust of the ground…”, Genesis 2:7). We, human beings, whether we wish it or not, are doomed throughout our lives to repeat, via exercising free will, the two acts of creating (establishing a solid link between soul and body, while we grow) and forming.

What is the needed environment for human beings to be able to exercise their free-will?

There are two conditions (necessary and sufficient):

[1] Existence of “Good” and “Bad” mixed together (as in “The Tree of Knowledge, good and bad”, Genesis 2:9);

[2] Hidden-ness of God and the concealment of God’s hidden-ness.

Prophet Isaiah delivers succinct and stunning expression to the existence of the first condition:

“That men may know from the rising of the sun to its setting that there is none besides me— I am Jehovah and there is no one else; Forming light and creating darkness, making peace and creating the bad, I Jehovah am doing all these” (Isaiah 45:6-7).

Note that creating (“something from nothing”) precedes forming ((“imprinting form on the created”), just as forming precedes making. Yet prophet Isaiah sets absence of light (darkness) and the bad (the harmful, the evil) at a level higher than that of light— the former were created, the latter was “just” formed.

Existence of the second condition, a daily human experience revealed in countless debates on whether God exists, is evidenced both by biblical Hebrew and by the Bible. In biblical Hebrew, “World” (Olam) derives from same root as all Hebrew words pointing to concealment. Examples: Ta’aluma (Mystery); He’almut (disappearance); Ne’elam (unknown (noun), as in an algebraic equation); Alum (secret, adj.). In other words, the whole world is testimony to the hidden-ness of God. Prophet Isaiah repeats same motive:

“Indeed, thou are a God who hides thyself, O God of Israel, savior” (Isaiah 45:15).

Concealment of God, however, is itself concealed (“Does God exist?”):

“And I will surely hide my face on that day…” (Haster Astir; Deuteronomy 31:18).

The repeat of same root twice (in two consecutive words) is traditionally interpreted by Jewish scholars as implying concealment of the concealment, an integrated fact of life that we all have probably experienced at one time or another throughout our lives (“Does God exist?”).

Having studied the two conditions for the existence of free-will, the next question to ask is:

What are the limitations to exercising free-will and what does the latter entail?

We continuously live in two worlds, intermingled and most often inseparable and indistinguishable from one another: “World of Law-of-Nature” and “World of Randomness”. We can exercise free-will only in an environment that allows choice, namely, in the “World of Randomness”. Unlike in the “World of Law-of-Nature”, where external constraints force us to behave in certain ways (and not others, namely, no free choice is available), in the “World of Randomness”, where randomness prevails, we are free to exercise whatever our heart desires. It is only then, in the “World of randomness”, that we become an agent of our own free will.

What exercising free-will is comprised of? It comprises two actions:

– Separating;

– Choosing.

We need to separate “Good” from “Bad”, before choosing. Most often in our daily lives, the good and the bad are intermingled to a degree that the two can rarely be told apart; Therefore, we need to separate before choosing. God created darkness (per prophet Isaiah), thereby allowing the good and the bad in our world to co-exist, mixed. Consider the biblical Hebrew word for “evening” (as in “…and there was evening and there was morning…”; Genesis 1:5, for example). The Hebrew word derives from same Hebrew root used for mixing (as in “mixture”). The “Tree of Knowledge good and bad” also implies mixed together. In biblical terms, one may allegorically assert that we all have eaten of “The Tree of Knowledge, good and bad”, where “Good” and “Bad” are mixed together in the same fruit. And since then, “Good” and “Bad” have become intermingled in our body and soul, delivering us our mission in life to grow and mature and create ourselves and form our personality and character, all via the process of separating (“Good” from “Bad”) and then choosing.

The act of separating (good from bad) is two-folded and it is expressed differently in the two worlds we inhabit:

  • In the “World of Law-of-Nature”, we need to separate “good” from “bad” because absent this separation we may choose the “bad”, thereby harming our well-being and possibly even endangering our life. Thus, buying fruit in the supermarket, we are careful to separate good apples from the bad ones (rotten apples) so that we can then make the correct choice of purchasing good apples only, benefiting our health and well-being. Separation is also inherent to many of our bodily processes (like in the kidney);
  • In the “World of Randomness”, the act of separating good from bad (or “good” from “evil”, as commonly used in biblical parlance) is a much harder task. Unlike in the “World of Law-of-Nature”, where science assists us in forming clear distinction and separation between the good and the bad, we do not easily, clearly and immediately differentiate between the two in the “World of Randomness”. Let us demonstrate with a simple example. I am selling a used car, aware that the car carries a certain defect. I can inform the buyer about it or I can inform her not. In the latter case, the thinking goes like this: “I have allowed the buyer to inspect and check the car thoroughly, have I not? However, the defect was not exposed. It is the buyer’s responsibility to identify the defect, not mine, is it not?”. Such thinking testifies to the daily blurring, in the “World of Randomness”, of “good” and “bad” (or “good” and “evil”, in biblical terms). Therefore, Jewish Torah explicitly instructs: “Thou shalt not curse the deaf, nor GIVE a stumbling block to the blind…” (Leviticus 19:14). In other words, one cannot hide behind an argument like the one just articulated. It is the seller’s responsibility to turn the blind into non-blind by alerting the buyer to the car’s defect.

Once we understand the act of separation in the two worlds, and grasp the role of science in assisting us separating in the “World of Law-of-Nature”, how do we separate and choose right in the “World of Randomness”?

Moses, speaking to the Children of Israel on behalf of the Divine, set to them clear separation and clear choice:

* Separation: “Behold, I have given thee this day life and the good, and death and the bad” (Deuteronomy 30:15);

* Choosing: “I call upon heaven and earth to witness this day against you that I have set before thee life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore, choose life that both thou and thy seed may live” (Deuteronomy 30:19).

Is free-will an endowment of the human species, granted to it for eternity?

Not according to Scripture. The free-will act bestowed on humankind, that of separating and choosing, has a limited life-span. It is not eternal. Time will come when God will reveal Himself and then free-will, by definition, will be no more:

“For then I will convert the peoples to a non-confounded language that they all call upon the name of Jehovah to serve him shoulder to shoulder” (Zephaniah 3:9);

“And Jehovah will be king over all the earth; on that day Jehovah will be one and his name One” (Zechariah 14:7).

Furthermore, not only the task of separating and choosing no longer be in the hands of mankind; At End-Times, the Divine will conduct a process of separation of His own; However, the separation process will not be between “Good” and “Evil” (as the latter exists in the “World of Randomness”), but rather between the righteous and the evil (who exist amidst humankind):

“I will also turn my hand against thee, and will purge away your dross as with lye and remove all thy alloy” (Isaiah 1:25);

“Therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts: Behold, I will smelt them and try them…” (Jeremiah 9:6);

“As silver is melted in the midst of the furnace, so shall you be melted in the midst of it…” (Ezekiel 22:22);

“I will bring the third part through the fire, and refine them as one refines silver and test them as one tests gold…” (Zechariah 13:9);

“But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner’s fire and like the washers’ soap; and He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver…” (Malachi 3:2);

“Many will be purged, and purified and refined…” (Daniel 12:10).

 

 

 

 

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My Research on the Bible and Biblical Hebrew Videos

Biblical Hebrew Linkage to Physical Reality (Video; Hebrew, English captions)

A possible linkage between biblical Hebrew and physical reality is discussed in this new video, based on lecture delivered by Professor Haim Shore at Bar-Ilan University,  November 2015, now with English captions:

Biblical Hebrew Linkage to Physical Reality -Prof. Haim Shore (Hebrew with English captions)

 

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My Research on the Bible and Biblical Hebrew Videos

One-on-One with Avi Ben Mordechai and Haim Shore (Three half-hour episodes)

Below are links to three videos, produced by Avi Ben-Mordechai, following our three-hour talk during the meeting that took place at the office of the university:

Episode 1: https://youtu.be/BnNpyurCTq4

Episode 2: https://youtu.be/25-qKaLqLzk

Episode 3: https://youtu.be/GprBVEYNEsw

Episode 1 maintains a certain line-of-thought conveyed to the viewer from beginning to end. The other two comprise short excerpts from our talk about various subjects that came up during the conversation.

No pre-publication review of the produced videos had been done on my part.

I am indebted to Avi Ben-Mordechai for kindly allowing me to post these videos in public on my YouTube personal channel.

 

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General My Research on the Bible and Biblical Hebrew

Present-Day Double Message of the Forbidden Fruit

The forbidden fruit, in Adam and Eve Genesis narrative, carries a double message for our time.

As humans we experience two worlds: The “World of Law-of-Nature” and the “World of Randomness”. Violating law in the former incurs immediate penalty. In the latter world, we are uncertain of the consequence of our decisions and therefore it is in this world solely that we may exercise free will. I have addressed this distinction at some length previously (for example, here and here) and therefore will not elaborate on it further here.

The relevance to our days and time of the sin of eating of the forbidden fruit, as described in Genesis (3: 1-19), had been discussed by me in a separate post. Here I expand on that and address the double message conveyed by the story of Adam and Eve eating from the forbidden “Tree of Knowledge, Good and Bad” (Etz ha-Daat, Tov ve-Ra), or “Good and Evil” (as commonly translated, erroneously in my opinion).

Studying present-day relevance of the forbidden fruit, particularly with regard to the two worlds, as just described, reveals stunning new insights. Let us start by elaborating on the true meaning of the Hebrew Daat (knowledge).

There are two modes of learning (obtaining knowledge), which in biblical Hebrew are denoted by two separate terms: One may learn by absorbing new information, utterly dis-associated from the source of knowledge; or one may learn (and know) by experiencing, by connecting to the source of knowledge. An example for the first mode is conducting research on the Internet. No personal experiencing of the subject of learning is involved. An example for the latter mode is touring a mountainous area, as a result of which one is acquainted, connected, knowing by personal experience, the visited area.

The Bible is permeated aplenty with the distinction between “Acquiring knowledge” (Haskalah) and “Knowing by Experiencing”, or “Knowing by Connecting” (Daat). For example, prophet Jeremiah calls, in the name of the Divine: “Thus says Jehovah: “Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches; but let him that glories glory in this – Haskel (“Acquiring knowledge”) and Yadoa Oti (“Knowing Me”) that I am Jehovah exercising grace, justice and righteousness in the land, for in these I delight”, so says Jehovah” (Jeremiah 9:22-23). And elsewhere in the Bible: “He who keeps the commandment shall experience no evil thing (Lo yeda davar ra); and a wise man’s heart would discern (“Yeda”) both time and method” (Ecclesiastes 5:5). And similarly: “And Adam once more knew (Va-yeda Adam od) his wife and she bore a child and she called his name Shet” (Genesis 4:25). Likewise, in modern day Hebrew we wish a bereaved family Lo tedeo od machov (“You shall know pain no more”). Knowing here is devoid of any of the common sense reserved for knowledge, but everything to do with personal experiencing.

Given these sources and others, it is essential that we take note that the forbidden tree is not a tree of wisdom, neither a tree of understanding or of advice. No. This is a tree of “Knowing by Experiencing”, Etz ha-Daat, which spells a two-stage learning process: First we experience and then we internalize that experience so that we are capable of telling apart the “bad” from the “good”. The first stage of the learning process is prone to pain and suffering because only after experiencing the “good” and the “bad” may one tell them apart. Not a moment earlier. Adam and Eve, not privy to the agony associated with experiencing the “bad”, are eager to eat of the forbidden fruit noticing only the end result— that they will be like Elohim (God as creator). In modern day parlance, such a fake imaginary process of learning is called “Instant Learning”

But what is “Good” and “Bad”?

Given the two worlds that we constantly experience in our lives, the “World of Law-of-Nature” and the “World of Randomness”, it is obvious that one needs to specify “Good and Bad” in terms of both worlds. Not coincidentally, the narrator of the story of the sin of Adam and Eve already relates to the Divine only by the double name, Elohim-Jehovah, imparting the two aspects of leadership that the Divine exercise in His world: Leadership by Law-of-Nature (scientifically exposed, “public” leadership by the creator, Elohim); and the hidden, concealed leadership by Jehovah in the world of free-will, in the seemingly “World of Randomness”. There is perhaps no better demonstration for the latter than the famous dialogue between Abraham and Jehovah:

“And Abraham drew near and said:” Wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked?  .. Shall not the Judge of all the Earth do justice?”; And Jehovah said: “If I find in Sodom fifty just men within the city then I will spare the whole place for their sakes” (Genesis 18:23, 25-26).

But fifty righteous men were not found, neither ten. And the people of Sodom were puzzled, probably to their last moments, why the world is so random and unexplainable. As were probably the residents of the corrupt “Sodom-like” ancient Pompeii, destroyed by random by mother-nature at 79 AD.

“Good and Bad” in the story of eating of the forbidden fruit therefore carries double meanings: “Good” and “Bad” in the physical world, which is governed by “Law of Nature” (imprinted on nature by Elohim, the creator); and “Good” and “Bad” in the “World of Randomness”, governed by “Law of Justice and Grace” (emanating from Jehovah, ultimate source of morality):

“For thus says Jehovah, creator of the Heavens, he is the Elohim that has formed the Earth and has made it”; Isaiah 45:18).

The double message of the “Tree of Knowledge” sounds loud and clear for our times:

Message 1: Not all that can be experienced in the physical world, in the “World of Law-of-Nature”, is allowed.

There is a spiritual dimension to our existence as human beings that imposes limitations on our behavior in the physical world and on what we may experience. Eating of the “Tree of Knowledge”, supposedly the most natural and beneficial thing to do, is not without boundaries. And once these are crossed, seemingly without inflicting physical harm, the spiritual dimension may adversely be affected, ultimately causing harm also in the physical world (due to loss of ability to exercise free will in the “World of Randomness”). This realization may at times be extremely excruciating and agonizing. Ask any ex-alcoholic, or ex-narcotics-addict, who had gone through rehabilitation, and you may get a faint idea what the process of “knowing by experiencing” may look like once the spiritual dimension of our existence is ignored.

(Again we note that Adam and Eve’s idea is limited, nearly contrary to reality: According to their perception, eating of the forbidden fruit would educate them how to distinguish “the bad” from “the good” in the physical world so that they would instantly be Elohim-like; all the while being unaware of the pain and suffering that this prolonged learning process, ignoring the spiritual dimension, may entail.)

Message 2: To live life fully, it is not sufficient to distinguish “Good” from “Bad” within Law-of-Nature only.

The “World of Randomness”, where free-will is exercised, has its own “Good” and “Bad”, decided by the “Law” that prevails in this world (law of morality, grace and righteousness; or law of Karma, as preached in some religions). And that law, relating to our spiritual dimension, should be heeded, learned and internalized no less than the “visible”, scientifically validated, Law-of-Nature, that we are so intent and careful on pursuing every single moment of our lives on this planet.

 

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Shorties

Shorty*: The Human Desire to be like God

At the core of all human endeavors is the burning desire to be like God. The desire is already expressed in the third chapter of Genesis:  “For God knows that on the day you eat of it” (of the Fruit of Knowledge) “then your eyes shall be opened and you shall be as God..” (Genesis 3:5).

But what does it mean to be like God?

The serpent expresses it explicitly: “You shall be like Elohim, knowing good and bad” (Genesis 3:5)  (Elohim is Hebrew for God as the creator).

Jewish prophets have incessantly preached differently:

“I am Jehovah speaking righteousness, I declare things that are right” (Isaiah 45:19) (Jehovah is Hebrew for God as source of morality and virtues).

Human history is the tale of nations and individuals seeking to be as powerful as Elohim via dominating resources (whether of knowledge, of humans beings (erroneously perceived as resource) or of physical properties).

Human history is also a tale of nations and individuals ignoring the message of the Jewish prophets that to be like God also means to be like Jehovah

(all the while concurrently harming the carriers of this inconvenient message).

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* A “Shorty” is a newly invented word for a new idea or thought, expressed as shortly as possible..

Categories
My Research on the Bible and Biblical Hebrew Videos

Is There Linkage between Biblical Hebrew and Physical Reality? (Video; Hebrew, English captions)

This presentation addresses the key question of whether biblical Hebrew is intrinsically linked to physical reality. Delivered at Bar-Ilan University, I explain in this lecture the methodology employed and demonstrate with some statistical results.

:”הרצאה בעברית שניתנה באוניברסיטת בר-אילן במסגרת יום עיון של ארגון “המטרה אמת

Is There Association Between Biblical Hebrew and Physical Reality? (Hebrew)

With English captions:

PowerPoint file used in the lecture (and some more) is linked below:

קובץ PP שנעשה בו שימוש בהרצאה (וקצת יותר) בקישורית שלהלן:

Prof Haim Shore Presentation at Bar-Ilan Univ_Hebrew-English_Nov 2015

Categories
My Research on the Bible and Biblical Hebrew

אורך חודש ירח ממוצע על פי בהר”ד ו-וי”ד בלבד

בפוסט זה אני מראה כי ניתן לחשב אורך חודש ירח ממוצע על פי שני מושגים ידועים ביהדות מקדמת דנא: בהר”ד ו-וי”ד (מופיעים, למשל, בכתבי רמב”ם ועוד).

החישוב נעשה על ידי הצבת משוואה אלגברית פשוטה ופתרונה על סמך המידע שמספקים שני המושגים שהזכרתי (ואלה בלבד!).

השוואת הפתרון לערך שנמסר באתר של סוכנות החלל האמריקאית (NASA) מראה סטייה של:

0.000005 ימים.

פרופ שור_משך ירח הלבנה הממוצע על פי בהרד ו-ויד_המהפך 4_הרב זמיר כהן_הידברות_2014

המאמר המקושר נתרם לספרו של הרב זמיר כהן מארגון הידברות: “המהפך 4” (2015).

פוסט נפרד מציג אותו חישוב, אם כי בצורה מקוצרת מעט, באנגלית (In English)

Categories
My Research on the Bible and Biblical Hebrew

Genesis Creation vs. Modern Cosmology – A Statistical Analysis! (Hebrew/English/Spanish videos)

Genesis Creation vs. modern cosmology— are their timelines compatible? (accounting for their different time-scales). Statistical analysis is employed in this post to examine this question.

Below are links to two new video clips (English/Hebrew), produced by Mr. Oren Evron. Each lasts about ten minutes and both aim to answer the following question:

Are Genesis Creation timeline and that of modern cosmology compatible, after all?

The findings shown are evidence-based, namely, results of data-based statistical analysis, which is addressed in detail (mostly in non-technical terms).

English version:

Genesis Creation vs. Modern Cosmology – New Scientific Findings (English)

Hebrew version (גירסה עברית):

Genesis Creation vs. Modern Cosmology – New Scientific Findings (Hebrew)

Spanish version:

Genesis Creation vs. Modern Cosmology – New Scientific Findings (Brazilian Portuguese)

Refer also to the videos page on this blog:

Videos (Hebrew, English, Brazilian Portuguese)

Categories
My Research on the Bible and Biblical Hebrew Videos

Prof. Shore’s Bible Findings – Simplified (New Short Videos, English/Spanish)

Two new video clips (Hebrew/English), each about ten minutes long, have recently been produced by Mr. Oren Evron. In these I explain, in plain language, the basic principles underlying my research on the Jewish Hebrew Bible and on biblical Hebrew. Below is the English version:

Two other videos (English/Hebrew) focus on Genesis creation narrative:

English:

 

 Hebrew : 

 

Categories
My Research on the Bible and Biblical Hebrew

“Good and Bad” and “Good and Evil” – Recording of meeting with Rav Ginsburgh and Rav Yaniv (Hebrew)

On a meeting that took place at Rav Yitzchak Ginsburgh residence (Kfar Chabad; June 12th 2015), a discussion evolved of the meaning of “Tov ve-Rah”, as alluded to in the sin of eating of the fruit of “the tree of knowledge of good and evil” (Genesis 2:9). The discussion focused on whether “Tov ve-Rah” implies “good and bad” in the utilitarian sense or in the moral (ethical) sense (as appearing in most English translations).

Participants to this meeting were, besides Rav Ginsburgh, Rav Samuel Yaniv, Mr. Pesach Melamed, Mr. Oren Evron and me.

A recording of part of the meeting (in Hebrew), addressing “Tov ve-Rah” in the Hebrew Bible and much more, is linked below (with permission):

Categories
Historical Coincidences My Research on the Bible and Biblical Hebrew

Agrippa Key for English Alphabet Gematria

A most intriguing finding, addressed in Oren Evron’s movie, is the nearly perfect correlation found for the trio of words, {moon, Earth, sun}, between the Hebrew gematria and the English Agrippa-Key gematria.

Although a table of Agrippa-Key may be easily reached via the Internet, we comply herewith with a request made by a viewer of this blog and present the Agrippa Key in the table below:

Agrippa Key_English Gematria

Categories
My Research on the Bible and Biblical Hebrew

The Two Books of the Divine and Their Scientific Linkage

What do we mean by “Two books of the Divine” and their “Scientific Linkage”? In this post, I discuss the significance of my research about the Jewish Hebrew Bible and biblical Hebrew.

Since my research findings were first published in a book (Shore, 2007) and later, when these findings had become more widely spread due to Oren Evron’s movie (Evron, 2014, 2015), I have received mixed responses, extending from complete apathy, to attempts to explain away the findings by attributing them to ancient Earthly civilizations that somehow possessed modern scientific knowledge, up to sincere and true appreciation of the implications of the findings as alluding to the divine origin of biblical Hebrew and the Hebrew Torah.

In all these responses, one element seems to have been missing, and that is the inevitable conclusion emerging from the new discoveries:

The two books of the Divine are scientifically linked.

What do we mean by “the two books”?

Since its primary inception at the historic event of receiving the Ten Commandments by Moses at Mount Sinai, Judaism has consistently emphasized the two aspects of the Divine, as experienced by humans: God as creator of the cosmos and Law of Nature (Genesis 1:14, 8:22), and God as source of morality and its dictates.

Those two percepts of the Divine correspond to our own personal experience as concurrently living in two worlds:

* “The World of Law of Nature”, where free will is not feasible since violating law of nature results in immediate, apparent and non-miraculous penalty;

* “The World of Randomness”, where apparently no law exists with adverse consequence for its violation, wherefore we are free to act as we please.

Example for the first world (“Law of Nature”) is jumping from the 100th floor of a high-rise, where ignoring (“violating”) gravity results in immediate unambiguous “penalty”; An example for the second world (“Randomness”) is responding to a beggar’s plea for money, where we exercise free will on how to react, with seemingly no apparent consequence and no implication to our own personal destiny (irrespective of how we have responded).

The Ten Commandments, relevant only to the “World of Randomness”, where free will can be exercised, convey to us the “news”:

By word of the Creator, you are not completely free to act as you please.

Our own personal experience of the world as allowing free will, however only to a confined degree, namely, only in “The world of randomness”, this personal experience is expressed in biblical Hebrew in two concepts of the Divine, as creator and as source of morality. These concepts are epitomized in two names for the Divine, which repeatedly appear throughout the Hebrew Jewish Bible:

Elohim and Jehovah

(Please relate to my talk with Avi Ben-Morechai, accessible on this blog).

Prophet Isiah explicitly reference these two names and what they stand for:

“For thus says Jehovah that created the heavens, Elohim himself that formed Earth and made it, he has established it, not a wasteland created He it .. I am Jehovah and there is none else” (Isaiah 45:18).

The two books of the Divine, corresponding to these two names, are the physical cosmos, subject of investigation by modern physics, and Hebrew Torah. These two books have heretofore been perceived as unrelated to one another (at least not scientifically). For example: To this day, well known physical constants, like the speed of light or the electromagnetic charge of an electron, are accepted by modern physics as given. Furthermore, it is accepted that there is no scientifically established theory to determine these constants, apart from stating that if these constants were minutely changed the cosmos as we know it would not have been in existence (see lengthy discussion of this issue, for example, in Wikipedia, entry “Fine-tuned Universe” and references therein).

Obviously, no one ever linked these physical constants to biblical Hebrew.

The scientific new discoveries have changed this perception. They lead unavoidably to the conclusion that numerical values of biblical Hebrew words represent quantitative values of major physical properties of objects that the words stand for. For example, Eretz (Earth in Hebrew) represents Earth’s geometrical properties (like diameter and surface area) but also Earth’s mass, all of which are major physical properties of Earth. The scientifically unexplainable nature of the physical constants, alluded to earlier, become explainable in light of the new scientifically established discoveries: The speed of light (a physical constant) is what it is because light in Hebrew is Or, with a numerical value of 207 (which, by proper change of scale, converts into the physical speed of light).

By establishing the deep significance of the numerical values of Hebrew words, namely, their relationships to actual physical properties observed in the cosmos, the two worlds experienced in our lives, the “World of Law of Nature” and the “World of Randomness” (where apparently no law prevails unless one regards the Ten Commandments and their derivatives), these two worlds are scientifically unified and experienced as originating in one source. At the same time, the two books of the Divine, “Law of Nature” and “Law of Morality”, Elohim and Jehovah, respectively, no longer are experienced as separate “entities”: One subject to scientific enquiry; the other existing as a controvertible article of faith.

Rather, physical reality and morality are experienced as stemming from a single source.

With this, an ancient prophecy starts to begin to have its imprint on the annals of human history:

“..On that day Jehovah will be one and his name One” (Zechariah 14:9).

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Comment: Above post may be downloaded as a PDF file:

THE TWO BOOKS OF THE DIVINE_Haim Shore_April 2015

Categories
My Research on the Bible and Biblical Hebrew

Q&A with Haim Shore

Pursuant to recent introduction of Oren Evron’s English-version movie: “The Torah – Math Unveils the Truth”, a document of questions and answers (Q&A) is linked herewith:

Q&A with Prof Haim Shore (English)_Movie_The Torah-Math Unveils the Truth_Feb 2015

Link to the movie:

Oren Evron’s Movie: “Torah – Math Unveils the Truth”

Categories
My Research on the Bible and Biblical Hebrew

New Movie on Prof. Shore’s Biblical Research Findings (English-Hebrew)

A while ago I was approached by Mr. Oren Evron, who had suggested to produce a movie based on findings from my research on the Bible and on biblical Hebrew (as these are described in my book).

I happily accepted but clarified that my input to the production of the movie will be restricted to ensuring that my research findings are appropriately presented (from the scientific and the statistical perspectives).

The result is a fabulous high-quality movie, which presents, in a straightforward and easy-to-understand fashion, the findings and their profound significance.

A link to the channel, where the movie is posted, is given below:

“The Torah – Math Unveils the Truth” (English)_by Oren Evron_Feb 2015

A link to the movie with built-in Hebrew subtitles is given below:

הסרט עם תרגום מובנה לעברית:

“The Torah – Math Unveils the Truth” (English-Hebrew)_by Oren Evron_Feb 2015

Categories
My Research on the Bible and Biblical Hebrew

Average Length of the Lunar Month Calculated from Baharad and Ve-Yad

This post shows how average lunar month may be algebraically calculated, accurate to five decimal points, from two ancient Jewish concepts, Baharad and Ve-Yad, associated with Written Torah (Genesis) and Oral Torah, respectively.

The average duration of the lunar (moon-based) month is, according to NASA site, 29.530589 days. Jewish tradition offers two concepts, basic to the Jewish calendar:

Baharad and Ve-Yad.

Both are related to an “attempt” to include the six days of creation (no regular days by any account) in the regular Jewish calendar. This is done by defining an imaginary year that preceded the start of the first lunar renewal in the Jewish calendar (starting, according to Jewish tradition, with the completion of the creation of Adam).

In the article, linked below, I show that these two concepts alone, Baharad and Ve-Yad, are sufficient to obtain a solution to an algebraic equation, which implies that the average duration of the lunar month is 29.530594 days (a deviation of 0.000005 days from the value cited at NASA site).

Haim Shore_Average Length of Lunar Month Calculated from Genesis and Jewish Tradition_Oct 2014

Same article appears in Hebrew in a separate post.

Categories
My Research on the Bible and Biblical Hebrew

Interview with Rav Zamir Cohen of Hidabroot and Prof. Haim Shore (Hebrew)

On February 4th, 2013, I was interviewed, together with Rav Zamir Cohen of the Hidabroot not-for-profit organization, on the significance of my research results both from the scientific and the Jewish perspectives.

A link to this interview, posted on Hidabroot web site, is given below:

“Torah and Mada” – An Interview with Rav Zamir Cohen and Prof. Haim Shore (Hebrew)

Categories
My Research on the Bible and Biblical Hebrew

“And God spoke to Moses and said to him: I am God”

“And Elohim spoke to Moses and said to him: I am Jehovah” (Exodus 6:2). I consider this bizarre verse, with two names for God, one of the most important verses in the Torah. In this blog entry, I explain why.

The exact verse, as it appears in common English translations, is:

“And God spoke to Moses and said to him: I am the Lord” (Exodus 6:2).

As seen above, the original Hebrew indeed uses two different names for God: Elohim and Jehovah. Why use in this short verse two different names and how is this significant?

The linked article below addresses this question.

Haim Shore_God spoke to Moses and said to him I am God_April 2014

Categories
My Research on the Bible and Biblical Hebrew

The Mathematical Precision of Biblical Hebrew

Reading ancient Jewish texts, one is often bewildered at the seriousness with which Jewish scholars, as well as other individuals of faith, have addressed words and verses in the Hebrew Bible, in ancient times as well as at present. For example, if the same word appears in two different locations in the Bible, in seemingly unrelated contexts, the general attitude in ancient Jewish interpretations of biblical text is that probably some hidden message in conveyed, which should be uncovered, about the linkage between the different usages of a seemingly identical word.

A famous example is the word “איכה”, spelled the same but pronounced differently and also carrying different meanings in Genesis (3:9), where it means “Where art thou?”, and in Lamentations (1:1), believed to be written by prophet Jeremiah, where the same word means, in today’s everyday parlance, “How come?” (Like in: “How come you are still here?”).

One is naturally tempted, or inclined, to relate to this careful analyzing of the meaning of each word and verse in the Hebrew Bible, and the meticulous exploration of hidden meanings in them or in their mutual relationships, as excess and exaggeration of people of faith, who believe in a Divine source for the Hebrew Bible.

Is this inconceivable that the Hebrew Torah had been written with occasional random selection of words and phrases, not unlike one may find in any typical human text? Why treat each word so seriously?

In other words: Have not Jewish scholars, in their lengthy explanations of every single word and verse in the Hebrew Bible, somehow crossed the fine line of reasonable interpretation of sacred text?

The purpose of this blog entry is to demonstrate the mathematical precision of the Torah text. This precision often leaves one stunned at the high level of attention-to-detail displayed by Torah words and their inter-relationships. This knife-sharp precision of expression cannot but arouse respect for Torah text, even for non-believers. Accordingly, none of the four examples, to be expounded below, relates in any way to articles of faith but only to the exactness of expression, which leaves one doubtless about what biblical Hebrew text, words sentences or verses, intended to convey.

Example 1: “And there was evening and there was morning the first day” (Genesis 1:5)

This is the common verse that one may find in English translations of the Hebrew Bible.

Alas, this is not what is written therein!

In 1993-1994, I had spent a year in Madison, Wisconsin, where I was a visiting professor at the invitation of the local branch of the Wisconsin University. A few days after arrival to Madison, I went to a local bookstore to purchase an English version of the Hebrew Bible. I made up my mind in advance that I would buy only a translation that fulfilled a certain criterion I had set in advance: that the fifth verse of Genesis was properly translated. I had to examine several different translations before finding a single version, where the verse appeared correctly translated:

“And there was evening and there was morning one day”.

Why is “one day” kosher and “first day” is logically impossible?

Answer: You can denote something “first” when, and only when, it appears at first position of an orderly sequence of objects. When there is yet only one object, it is nonsensical to denote it “first”, even if other objects may join at a later time. The Torah makes it no secret that the days of creation happened consecutively, in an orderly succession. Therefore, one cannot logically denote the first day of creation “first” when there was not yet a second day, a third day and so on.

“First day”, or “Day one”, are logically wrong; “One day” is correct, and this is how it appears in the Hebrew Bible.

Mathematical precision!

Example 2: “Thou shall love thy neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18)

This is one of the most well-known verses of the Bible. Alas, this is not what is written in the Hebrew text. A common joke of young Israelis:

Friend 1: “Tell me, A fisherman, does he love fish?”

Friend 2: “Of course he does”;

Friend 1: “So why does he eat them?”

The source of the joke humor (agreeing that one exists..) is that the same word, “love”, is employed in two divorced senses. When one asks his friend “Do you love wine?” and “Do you love your child?” the meanings imparted are incompatible with one another. One loves wine because it satisfies her needs. When same question is asked about one’s own child it implies total readiness to satisfy someone-else’s needs, the child’s needs. The first love implies taking. The second love implies unconditional giving. And when one gives it is most often expressed with the qualifying “to”, like in: “The money was given to the needy”.

The Hebrew Torah, in an obvious effort to clarify that the intended meaning is “Love in order to give”, rather than “Love in order to take”, formulates the command to “love thy neighbor” as follows (literal (word-for-word) translation):

“Love to thy friend as yourself”.

Interestingly, this is the sole chapter in the whole of the Hebrew Bible, where this bizarre combination of “love to” appears (it re-appears in verse 34 of same chapter). Apparently, when a command is given in the Torah, the language of the law should be clear-cut, as in a legal document, leaving no space for confusion.

Mathematical precision.

Example 3: “If in spite of this you still do not listen to me but continue to be hostile towards me, then in my anger I will be hostile towards you, and I myself will punish you for your sins seven times over” (Leviticus 26:27-28)

Here the various translations diverge mainly because the word that is at the heart of these verses, Keri, appears only in this chapter (several times) and nowhere else in the Bible. Furthermore, Keri is not explained and is hard to comprehend based on relevant context. So naturally interpretations diverge but they all imply rebellion against God.

But what does “rebellion against God” mean?

In my book I dedicate a whole section to how the Bible, and Torah in particular, relate to randomness (therein, Section 3.3). The key word here is Keri, the root of which is K.R.H, shared by all words relating to randomness or to “occurring by random”. In fact, the Hebrew Karah (meaning occurred) and the English counterpart sound alike.

Employing this insight, the above verse can be literally translated from the Hebrew origin thus (my literal translation):

“If in spite of this you would not obey my laws and walked with me in Keri, then I would walk with you with the wrath of Keri, and would also be tormenting you seven times over for your sins”.

The original Hebrew contains only 19 words (versus 41 for both alternative interpretations displayed earlier). Therefore some further explanation is due. “Walk with God” appears earlier in the Torah, for example: “and Noah walked with God” (Genesis 6:9). It means, simply, that Noah related to God, with no further qualification. Apparently, taking account of the Hebrew root of the word Keri, “walking with God in Keri” implies a belief that God’s code for leading his world is completely incomprehensible to humans and therefore it looks to humans as  random. God’s response: If you hold on to this belief, that whatever occurs to humans is independent of their own conduct, then I will punish you with further randomness. In other words, if you do not believe that Divine Justice prevails in how the Divine “manages” the world (like in “why bad things happen to good people?”), then I will burden you with further randomness so that you will be tormented by turning blind to how Divine justice permeates world affairs. Your belief in randomness will thus transform into a self-fulfilling prophecy, tormenting you seven times over by your inability (or lack of will) to establish linkage between your own conduct and whatever happens to you.

In nineteen words, selecting a magically focused single word, Keri, the Bible conveys precisely the idea intended.

Example 4: “Thou shalt not… put a stumbling block before the blind” (Leviticus 19:14)

The English translation of the original Hebrew verse, and as it commonly appears in various English versions of the Bible, distorts the original meaning of the Hebrew text. The latter appears, bizarrely one may add, with the word “give” rather than “put”, namely:

“Thou shalt not… give a stumbling block to the blind” (Leviticus 19:14)

This lends the verse a whole new meaning; and Jewish scholars painstakingly interpreted it using a panoramic view of the basic idea the text intends to impart.

I have addressed this verse in great detail, based on traditional Jewish scholarship, in Section 1.3.3 of my book.

(Book downloadable free in this blog, at  About).

Conclusion

The four examples intended to deliver a taste of the mathematical precision with which the Hebrew Bible succinctly conveys ideas and information. These examples may hopefully generate deeper understanding of why Jewish scholars have traditionally attributed so much importance to the exact articulation of every verse and word in the Bible; and why the Hebrew Bible has so meticulously been duplicated (copied) from generation to generation in order to guarantee that the exact wording of the Bible be preserved and that the mathematical precision of biblical text not be lost.

As a result, current day Bible continues to serve, as it did in the past, a source of inspiration and of guidance to humankind.

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This post is downloadable in PDF format at:

Haim Shore_Mathematical Precision of Biblical Hebrew_April 2014

Categories
My Research on the Bible and Biblical Hebrew

Hebrew-English presentation on the Bible and on biblical Hebrew (with color ‎graphics)‎

This presentation expounds on various research findings given in my book: “Coincidences in the Bible and in Biblical Hebrew” (Shore, 2 Ed., 2012).

The book is now available for free download at this blog’s home page (“About“).

Presentation is divided into eight parts:

  • “Laban – the Case of a Lost Identity” (Ch. 15 in the book; in Hebrew);
  • “Chance” and “Cold” – two separately developed scientific concepts of entropy that are actually one (and also expressed by a single word root in biblical Hebrew; Ch. 3 in the book; Hebrew);
  • Average lunar month according to Jewish sources (Ch. 18 in the book; Hebrew; See also separate blog entry on the subject);
  • “When a sample of observations are aligned on a straight line”: “A parable” about measuring temperatures on both Celsius and Fahrenheit scales (Ch. 23 in the book; English);
  • Relationships between numerical values of sets of Hebrew words and related physical traits (three consecutive examples with color plots; Hebrew-English):
    • Example 1: Time-cycles (“Day, Month, Year”; Ch. 12 in the book);
    • Example 2: Celestial diameters (“Moon, Earth, Sun”; Ch. 8 in the book);
    • Example 3: Velocity (“Light, Sound, Standstill” or “Lightening, Thunder, Silence”; Ch. 21 in the book);
  • Results from a computer simulation study aimed to estimate probabilities (Hebrew);
  • The planets example (An extensive example of relationships of size-sorted physical traits of celestial bodies to numerically sorted biblical names; Hebrew-English);
  • Genesis creation story – A statistical analysis (English);

To watch the PDF file in presentation mode, open with Adobe Reader and then go to: View -> Full Screen Mode. To manipulate slides click mouse-left to advance and mouse-right to retreat to previous slide.

Prof Haim Shore presentation_Bible and biblical Hebrew research_March 2016

Categories
My Research on the Bible and Biblical Hebrew

New Articles Related to My Research on the Bible and Biblical Hebrew

In this new blog entry, I deliver links to three new documents related mostly to the statistical analyses associated with my research on the Bible and on biblical Hebrew:

1. Three chapters from my book: “Coincidences in the Bible and in Biblical Hebrew”. These chapters mostly address the statistical perspective of my research work, as expounded in the book. Bookmarks may assist navigating between chapters:

Coincidences in the Bible and in Biblical Hebrew_Book by Haim Shore_2nd Revision_2012_Three Sample Chapters

2. An article in Hebrew, published recently in “Ha-mahapach 3”, by Rav Zamir Cohen of Hidabrut Oganization.

הידברות מקריות בתורה ובשבת הקודש

3. An article invited by Rav Zamir Cohen for the upcoming book “Ha-Mahapach 4”. The article explains how average lunar month duration can be calculated, from ancient Jewish sources (including the Hebrew Bible), to be 29.530594 days vs. NASA’s estimate of 29.530589 days.

פרופ שור_משך ירח הלבנה הממוצע_עבור המהפך 4_הידברות

Categories
My Research on the Bible and Biblical Hebrew

An Interview with the Author in The Jerusalem Post (Dec. 4th, 2009)

Link to an interview with professor Haim Shore, about his statistical analysis research of the Bible and biblical Hebrew, on The Jerusalem Post (Dec. 4th, 2009) :

An Interview with the Author in the Jerusalem Post (Dec., 4th, 2009)