...people began to call upon the name of the LORD

If you get this right you might earn the tip of the rabbi's hat. I am not expecting you all to learn or know Hebrew, or even that you'd be able to follow me here, but what the heck, I'll try anyway, and will try to be as pragmatic as possible. First, there are a few things you should know about the Hebrew language and the way it is constructed before we start.

Now Hebrew is a so called Abjad (from the first few letters of the alef-bet, ABGD) language. A language made up from syllables made up from consonants where the vowels were originally merely assumed, not written.

Now, Hebrew is a very compact and intuitive language, like I say, a lot is assumed, and if you ask me, Hebrew is perhaps one of the most amazing languages in the world. Ever. By changing a single letter (like I will demonstrate below) you will add new meaning to the word or concept discussed, perhaps even turning it into a completely unrelated word or a simple word in Hebrew can translate into a whole sentence in English, but especially prefixes and suffixes are juggled to add pronouns and things like prepositions, articles etc. and bake them into the words themselves, typically by changing a single letter or voicing the word slightly differently.

So what you would do when seeing a Hebrew word, you would try to isolate the stems and roots involved, and all (or just about all) Hebrew words can ultimately be traced down to one of a great number of three letter root words. There are shorter or longer words, but if you break them apart, you will typically end up with a bunch of three letter words.

Soooo. Enough of the nitty gritty, let's have some proper nitty gritty. And this is where the fun starts:

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At the end of Genesis chapter 4 is quite a peculiar sentence:

To Seth also a son was born, and he called his name Enosh. At that time people began to call upon the name of the LORD. [ESV] Genesis 4:26

That people began calling upon [i.e. worshipping] the name of JHVH, the /hashem/, aka the Name of Jahveh, is actually considered a sin by most rabbis and naggars, and it has been so probably since the sentence was first written down, for the Name of God cannot be uttered or called upon, or so the story goes. In other words it's rather futile to add vowels between the four letters of the Tetragrammaton like JW do or others, like /jahveh/ or /jehovah/ etc. for the /hashem/ cannot be uttered, it is not a normal name, in all essence it is everything but a name. But. That didn't stop the people in the days of Enosh or Catholic monks and JW to do so. Like I said, it's no use, for the concepts involved with JHVH, the name or /hashem/ of God, is not linguistic at all. It's astronomical and geographical, JHVH has more to do with navigation and astronomy than being the name of some divinity, and there's a lot more to it, like I said, Hebrew is fascinating.

Now, let's travel back in Genesis to its very first sentence, look at the word typically translated Heaven there, Heb. השמים /hashemayim/ and compare it to the word used for the name of the LORD in Gen. 4:26, Heb. בשם /bashem/. Translated, Heb. בשם is "upon the name", if you remove the preposition "upon" the Bet turns into a Heh, and instead of /bashem/ you have /hashem/. Again, remove the definite article and you are left with /shem/. "Name".

Now the syllables to look for in all these words is Heb. שמ or rather שם, /shem/ מ becomes ם whenever it is in the end of a word. The word /shem/ means "Name". Now adding a ה in front of it, it becomes Heb. השם /hashem/ and the ה or /ha/ adds the definite article to the word, if you want to add the preposition "upon" to it, "upon the name"-- you'd change the ה prefix into a ב. If you have two names, you would add the dualty suffix -ayim to ha-shem and get ha-shem-ayim. And what do you know, that is the word translated "Heaven" in Genesis 1:1 /ha-shem-ayim/. The Name of God is dual, since there are two celestial hemispheres, and you can only see one of the hemispheres at a time.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. [ESV] Genesis 1:1

What Genesis 4:26 says in all essence is that in the days of Enosh, people started worshipping the host of heaven and started with religious astrology.

Got it?

Not precisely I don't think, no. You have me very interested though. Is there any more you can offer for someone that doesn't have a context to really put this into? You don't have to hold my hand the whole way, just a few steps here please.

Wait, I think I may actually. I don't want to voice it though and look like a fool. If you can please still walk me through I would appreciate it.

originally posted by: Utnapisjtim
Now, Hebrew is a very compact and intuitive language, like I say, a lot is assumed, and if you ask me, Hebrew is perhaps one of the most amazing languages in the world.

I think Hebrew is no different than any other language. Accuracy and completeness in expressing ideas is subject to the same limitations occurring in all languages. Ambiguity between author and reader is just as prevalent as with any other language.

What I think is profound about certain languages is when people choose consciously or unconsciously to believe their language has some magical powers avoiding the limitations found in other languages when representing ideas or reality.

One man's interpretation is another man's delusion. One man's absolute truth is another man's foolishness.

All we know about God is the word God is just a word.

a reply to: Utnapisjtim

Very interesting. I somewhat actually get it having recently read a book about the Hebrew language.

Question is a number associated with each letter?
If you analyse the numbers as juxtaposed the other letter/number combinations, do new words emerge?

And finally, instead of comparing the numbers on the "flat" or one dimensional and compare them as in the shape of the walls of a cube, thus producing a 3 Dimensional intersection, would that yield even more words/data?

originally posted by: sputniksteve
Not precisely I don't think, no. You have me very interested though. Is there any more you can offer for someone that doesn't have a context to really put this into? You don't have to hold my hand the whole way, just a few steps here please.

Check out
==> www.abovetopsecret.com...
A-ha post ==> www.abovetopsecret.com...
==> www.abovetopsecret.com...

Wait, I think I may actually. I don't want to voice it though and look like a fool. If you can please still walk me through I would appreciate it.

Start there. The /hashem/ or *JHVH in all its essence is perhaps the most basic sword kata around, and found in all from Japanese and Chinese formations as well as in Norse and French formations, or for that matter African schools of the sword. Since all directions change 180° when you move across the equator or Solar zenith, there were two main divisions /karat/ in Hebrew means cut, it's the same word you see in Ch. /karate/ meaning "[strike with] empty hand" or Chinese martial arts, or Eng. "carats [possible cuts] of a diamond". The division also separates the six maindirections.

Draw up the Etz-hachayim ("Tree of Life") based on the given descriptions in Sefer Yetzirah and Ha-Bahir, and pay notice to how the letters of the paths/branches/letters were arranged according to the arts of warfare. Swords and axes. The Kabbalistic Tree of Life is a mere Kwon dummy like one below, and by uttering odd words, you can order or teach the motions, combinations, the katas or formations /yetzirah/ of sword fighting:



Compare with:

originally posted by: TonyS
a reply to: Utnapisjtim

Very interesting. I somewhat actually get it having recently read a book about the Hebrew language.

Question is a number associated with each letter?
If you analyse the numbers as juxtaposed the other letter/number combinations, do new words emerge?

Google "gematria", or go to the Wikipedia page about it here ==>en.wikipedia.org... ==> I could list a dozen more sources, books too, I have one beside me here by Solomon Gandz, a mastodont in the area. The Wikipedia article is quite OK.

And finally, instead of comparing the numbers on the "flat" or one dimensional and compare them as in the shape of the walls of a cube, thus producing a 3 Dimensional intersection, would that yield even more words/data?

I guess the old Hebrews used the same tools and techniques as the other neighbouring people, like the Babylonians and the Egyptians when calculating things. Abaccus and different calculator-rods were probably in motion, and there would be words for the directions in 3D space etc. Read Sefer Yetzirah really carefully, it explains it much better than I could ever do.

a reply to: dfnj2015

No I mean it, Hebrew is truly amazing. Look into the links I have provided here in this thread and look into Kabbalah and understand that, yes, the Hebrew language is indeed truly intrinsic and way ahead of its time in many areas. There are so many mechanics involved that it works like a living being. Like an autonomous and animated mechanical brilliant that is just so frigging amazing that I have no words, really. I can really prescribe a few rounds with Hebrew and Aramaic to anyone having a hard time with religion or any other condition involving such prominent amounts of madness and genius.

a reply to: Utnapisjtim

You may not agree, but I recently read a book about the mathematics and the author is of the mind, (though he's still researching, that there are something like near 1,000 complete, undeciphered texts in the old testament. Its geometric.

a reply to: TonyS

Find some cardboard and make yourself one of these:



Four circles inside each other (check out Ezekiel) Each turning its own direction held together by a pin in the middle. Here you can unravel thousands of hidden codes used in the Hebrew library. Unfortunately, the Romans and the Jews themselves destroyed much of this material for reasons pride, pay, power and politics mostly. But some have survived. You'll find a few simple Atbash codes in Jeremiah, words looking like gibberish turning into familiar names and words with a twist of a wheel. Also look at supposed Hebrew words like Harmageddon and Golgotha, they reveal in plenty. Using Albac sipher to Golgotha, you get a full bleeding name: Yitsaiel Michel, or Isai el-Michel.

a reply to: Utnapisjtim

Thanks, you do realize that there are only 2 copies of the original old testament and that both are incomplete.

originally posted by: TonyS
a reply to: Utnapisjtim

Thanks, you do realize that there are only 2 copies of the original old testament and that both are incomplete.

Not quite, I'm afraid you have misunderstood, we have quite a few complete "originals" that is "ancient manuscripts", there is no such thing as an original biblical document. If they ever existed, they sure are not around anymore. For said reasons. The four P's ending with Politics.

First, the two big ones:
There are two main Hebrew OT/Tannakh codices, the Leningrad and Stuttgart ones. These two are about a millennia old (a traditional copy of any ancient text had a maximum life of about 1000 years, before they would be re-copied. However, these are manuscripts written on fine vellum parchment and have been curated for properly, so they still remain relatively intact.

Secondly, the Dead Sea Scrolls:
There were found quite a few good chunks of the Tannakh, among them several more or less complete Torahs and there is the beautiful Isaiah Scroll and so on. The Temple scroll, wow. Most of these MSS are from the turn of the Anno Domine, but some are quite a bit older. Remember that OT contains nearly 40 separate books. The idea of gathering them into one codex was probably not common until quite modern times. There would be sort of canons, but there are many systems around.

Thirdly, the Red Herring:
The Aleppo Codex. Torn in half during conflict once, only one piece of it remains available and it too has been damaged by fire and has lost a few pages down the line of days.

Fourthly. the Pesh'tta:
A complete Tannakh written in 2nd c. AD Syriac

Finally, the oldest:
LXX, a Greek manuscripts of the OT books put together from the 3rd c. BC onward

In addition comes Tannakhs and Torahs etc kept in private by mostly rich and mysterious people and institutions, well, if you are into this kind of bollocks, there are many traps and seemingly lucrative invitations to be earned, to look at and study secret private books and libraries only to realise that you have sold your soul to some rich guy who will do anything to keep your studies for himself or otherwise stop you from sharing your research. Ancient manuscripts are shallow waters in short. DSS were one such mousetrap. For more than half a century it was made available only to a select few, mostly Catholic clergymen, and getting a chance of taking a mere peek at one of these fragments was like wishing for the Moon to fall down.

a reply to: Utnapisjtim

Peace be to you! Thank you for a very interesting topic.

I love the depth and fluidity of Semitic languages, as well as the abjad writing system. I am a long-time student of Arabic, and within the last few years; Hebrew. The Biblical study of Hebrew root words has also become an interest of mine. Very fascinating gems to uncover!


However, my reply is more or so based upon a literal reading of the scriptures:

I do not believe that the people of Enosh's time called upon God in the form of the Tetragrammaton (YHWH), but rather, they called upon El-Shaddai.

Exodus 6:3
"And God said to Moses, "I am Yahweh--'the LORD.' I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as El-Shaddai--'God Almighty'--but I did not reveal my name, Yahweh, to them."

It's easy to get carried away with using phonemes as a basis for etymology and assume too much about how words were first created in a language and how they relate to each other. It's actually pretty haphazard.

Besides, the Name of God is not so much a name as it is a sound. It's the sound of a Doppler shift. Like the sound a kid makes when he's imitating an airplane flying: Yeeeaaaow! with a little puff breath at the end to get rid of the last remaining air in your body.

(Don't use it in vain.)

a reply to: Utnapisjtim

You're correct, maybe I've misunderstood. I was thinking along the lines of the author of the book I'd read. The book btw is "The Chamberlain Key" by Timothy P. Smith. Smith's "system" was dependent somehow on not only the exactitude of originality of the letters themselves but also the spacing. (don't ask, I'm not that smart) Therefore he concerned himself mostly with the original of the Lenningrad and Stuttgart texts, (one of which he says is lost or not available). He managed somehow to get a photocopy of one of those texts. So, you know, he's down in the weeds of originality, not wanting to rely on later, many times over, copied texts.

Frankly, I don't know what to make of it, but I find it fascinating from a historical basis. I'd long taken the "bible code" business with a grain of salt.........sort of like I do with anything Georgio Tsukolokus does.

originally posted by: Sahabi
a reply to: Utnapisjtim

Peace be to you! Thank you for a very interesting topic.

I love the depth and fluidity of Semitic languages, as well as the abjad writing system. I am a long-time student of Arabic, and within the last few years; Hebrew. The Biblical study of Hebrew root words has also become an interest of mine. Very fascinating gems to uncover!

Pleasure is all mine, Padawan And I agree, the simple complexity of these languages makes them unique and the mechanics involved are most often simply clever, from the sort of cup-table system of building abjad syllables in Tigrinya and Ethiopian to the beauty of Arabic caligraphy and the Hebrew system of roots and how all the ancient pantheons and mythologies are all remaining within the language, even though the ruling schools of theology see these gods, demons, angels and heroes as pagan, they have remained within the very fabric of the language. The world would be a much poorer place without the Semitic languages, indeed. I only wish I could really sit down and devote enough time to it in order to learn these languages by heart. I respect you in your language endeavours, and I always find your threads insightful and clever. Kudos, it's always a pleasure! Even when you're wrong....

However, my reply is more or so based upon a literal reading of the scriptures:

I do not believe that the people of Enosh's time called upon God in the form of the Tetragrammaton (YHWH), but rather, they called upon El-Shaddai.

Exodus 6:3
"And God said to Moses, "I am Yahweh--'the LORD.' I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as El-Shaddai--'God Almighty'--but I did not reveal my name, Yahweh, to them."

Indeed. All good points. I really like Friedman's take on the Documentary Hypothesis. He explains this quite well. If we read Exodus, we learn that JHVH was unknown until in the days of Moses, and revealed to him first, that portion of Exodus belongs to the combined Elohist/Priestly source. Now if that was true then how can Genesis 4 speak of worship of JHVH? I refer to my OP, and I see that I may have said that the /hashem/ of 4:26 was JHVH, that's probably the Kabbalist in me writing. However. The central point in my discourse isn't really relevant to the literal JHVH-name as the dual Redactor/Jahvist text of Genesis 4:26 may suggest-- but my main point would be that the explanation of the worship of the /hashem/ (whatever the name may have been), it relates to heaven and astrology, the messengers and constellations-- it explains the duality of the word for heaven in the Priestly Genesis 1:1 and how what they were worshipping in the days of Enosh was not a name as such, but the two /shemayim/ the night sky with its pantheons, and its two hemispheres divided by the Equator and the Axis Mundi.

originally posted by: Blue Shift
It's easy to get carried away with using phonemes as a basis for etymology and assume too much about how words were first created in a language and how they relate to each other. It's actually pretty haphazard.

Well, it may be easy to be carried away in most languages, but in Hebrew especially and other Semitic languages too, these phonemes, syllables and root words are put together with quite the touch of the divine. From understanding what the different letters represent (they were originally pictograms), you can by far get a good clue as to what the given three-letter root word relates to. Nothing is coincidental in Hebrew. For instance A is Alef, and in Paleo-Hebrew it's easy to see that it is the head of a bull or ox. Now B or Bet is a house. Put together /ab/ means Lord or Father in Hebrew, as in "the bull/lord of the house".

Besides, the Name of God is not so much a name as it is a sound. It's the sound of a Doppler shift. Like the sound a kid makes when he's imitating an airplane flying: Yeeeaaaow! with a little puff breath at the end to get rid of the last remaining air in your body.

(Don't use it in vain.)

Hehe

He rode on a cherub and flew; he came swiftly on the wings of the wind. [ESV] Psalms 18:10

There are ancient lore about Moses making a flying machine in the desert. Perhaps just a kite or something, but he is supposed to have flown. There are quite a few oddities in the Hebrew library that defies common ideas about exactly how advanced the ancients were.

a reply to: dfnj2015
Language is so flexible that just raising an eyebrow, changing you facial expression, your volume or tone, can completely change the meaning.

Imagine someone coming across the posts in ATS a hundred years from now. How much of it will they get right?

but, your book.....its not the bible...

so.....j witness....okcool wit me

but, make sure you refuse to be a victim of a numerical limit,

originally posted by: GBP/JPY
but, your book.....its not the bible...

Yes.

so.....j witness....okcool wit me

I am an atheist. Agnostic at best.

but, make sure you refuse to be a victim of a numerical limit,

Like say, what was that you said again?

a reply to: Utnapisjtim

Everything you need to know about the tree of life and it's relation to the formation of the universe and us is here:

Sacred geometries