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Is a prophecy about Jesus found in the very first word, בְּרֵאשִׁית / b'réshιt , in the Torah?5/12/2021 Someone asked me this and linked to a YouTube video by a missionary making this claim. Watching it and, even worse, reading the comments where he was praised for "proving" that Jesus is "found" in the word בְּרֵאשִׁית / b'réshιt made this blog post necessary.
While to someone informant of Hebrew the video's host may appear to know what he is saying, to someone with even a rudimentary knowledge of Hebrew it is obvious that he does not. In the video he said (among other errors) that the Hebrew word for "son" is "bar." Wrong. The Hebrew word for "son of" in Hebrew is בן (ben) not בַּר / bar. So this very basic word -- "son" is incorrectly translated by this supposed Hebrew expert. The Hebrew word for son is בן (ben), it is a masculine noun (nouns in Hebrew or either masculine or feminine). The smichut noun (possessive - "son of" not just "son") case is also בן. But what of the word בַּר / bar -- as in "Bar Mitzvah" which means "son of mitzvah" -- isn't that Hebrew? No. That is Aramaic, a totally different language. Bar / בַּר in Aramaic means "son of" but the word בְּרֵאשִׁית / b'réshιt -- the very first word of the Hebrew Bible is not written in Aramaic -- it is written in Hebrew! Aramaic and Hebrew are two totally different languages. The T'nach (Jewish bible) is primarily written in Hebrew, but there are a few parts where it is written in Aramaic. The first few words of Daniel 2 are in Hebrew, but with the middle of line four it shifts to Aramaic and continues in Aramaic until the end of chapter seven when it reverts to Hebrew for the rest of the book of Daniel. There are also two Aramaic passages in the book known as Ezra-N'ḥemyah (Ezra 4:8-6:18 and 7:12-26), as well as one isolated verse in Yirm'yahu / Jeremiah (10:11) and the two words יְגַר שָׂהֲדוּתָא / y'gar sahaduta (“evidentiary cairn” - Laban named it Yegar-sahadutha [Aramaic]) in B'réshіt / Genesis 31:47, which is a direct translation into Aramaic of the Hebrew word גַּלְעֵד / (Jacob's name for it). Some claim יְגַר שָׂהֲדוּתָא / y'gar sahaduta was in a language preceding Aramaic, but it does have that meaning in Aramaic... There is no Aramaic in the Hebrew bible in chapter 1. These missionaries generally say these "definitions" are Hebrew -- when they are no such thing. They are Aramaic and don't match the Hebrew meanings of words spelled similarly. The video's host then says that the first two letters bet / ב and resh / ר not only mean "son" in Hebrew when it doesn't -- he also goes on to say it means "the son" -- not just "son" or "son of." Also wrong. In Aramaic the word for "the son" is בְּרָא (b'ra) not bar / בַּר. In Hebrew the son of would be הבן / HaBen -- the heh for "ha" being Hebrew in a prefix for the word "the." If בַּר / bar is Aramaic for "son of" is there a similar word in Hebrew? Yes there is a similar word. What does the word בַּר / bar mean in Hebrew? The meaning of the Hebrew word bar / בַּר is “pure” or “clear" (not son). So right from the start: lies. And the presenter's claim that the first two letters in the first word in the Torah, בְּרֵאשִׁית / b'réshιt , somehow make up the Aramaic word בַּר / bar is nonsensical. Not only is it a different language -- look at the markings under those two letters in בַּר / bar and בְּרֵאשִׁית / b'réshιt They are different, right? They are NOT the same word they are not even pronounced the same! So what if the first two letters of b'réshιt begin with a bet / ב and resh / ר? How many words in English begin with the same two letters and have absolutely nothing in common? Consider the two letters "ch" as the beginning of words in English: chads. chafe. chaff. chain. chair. chais. chalk. champ And those are just a few! It is the same in Hebrew -- many words begin with a bet / ב and resh / ר? Let's just list a few found in Jastrow (a dictionary): בַּר בָּרָא בָּרָיָה בְּרָאִי ברבוי בַּרְבּוּרִים בַּרְבַּיִי בַּרְבַּרוֹן There are many, many words which begin with a bet / ב and resh / ר! Plus the first word in the Hebrew Bible actually begins with the letter resh / ר. Hebrew uses prefixes and suffixes to give additional meaning. The very first letter in the Hebrew Bible - bet / ב - is a prefix -- a letter before the actual word which gives it an additional meaning... When used as a prefix the Hebrew letter ב / bet can mean in, at, with, or by. In the first word of the Hebrew Bible the ב / bet is a prefix to the word réshιt / רֵאשִׁית. With "b'réshιt " the letter ב / bet means "in" The word réshιt / רֵאשִׁית means "beginning of..." The beginning of "what" you might ask? The next word which is בָּרָא / bara. The first two words of the Hebrew bible are בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא "at the beginning of G-d's creating of..." The word בְּרֵאשִׁית / b'réshιt has to be followed by another noun like "creating." The word רֵאשִׁית réshιt - "the beginning of [something]" - occurs 47 times in the T'nach, and it is followed by another noun in every case. Hebrew is also based on root words. The word réshιt / רֵאשִׁית means "beginning of." It is a feminine noun. Masculine is רֹאשׁ / rosh (masculine noun) which means "head" as in Rosh HaShana -- the head of the year. So this person doesn't know the meaning of "son" in Hebrew or "head" for that matter! Neither of his claims hold up to basic Hebraic understanding! In Aramaic "bar" means son of and "resh" means head -- but once again B'réshιt is HEBREW, not ARAMAIC. Then the video's presenter states that the letter alef / א means G-d. Again -- total nonsense. Alef / א is a letter in the Hebrew aleph-bet, but it is not a name for G-d. אָלֶף [Alef] is the (feminine) name of the first letter in the Hebrew alphabet. אָלֶף [Alef] is generally not an actual word in biblical Hebrew, though it appears in the T'nach (bible) as a variant of the Hebrew word אֶלֶף [Elef], meaning "one thousand" (see, Shmuel Alef / 1 Samuel 17:18, T'hillim / Psalms 84:11, Divrei Hayamim Alef / 1 Chronicles 12:14). Moreover, there is the verb אָלַף [aLAF] used in the Hebrew Bible, meaning "to teach", "to learn". {The word אָלֶף [Alef] is also used in many later, i.e., more modern, Hebrew expressions.}. They probably get the idea that alef means G-d from their own Greek testament. The "alpha and omega" even among Christians is fairly new -- 19th century. The Textus Receptus (received text) was created in the 15th century used the Greek symbols "Α and Ω" (not "alpha" and "omega"). The Textus Receptus does not say "alpha and omega" (in words), but rather "Α and Ω". In the 19th century Delitzsch and Zalkinson (independently) translated the Christian bible into Hebrew. Both of them elected to translate "Α and Ω" into "alef" and "tav." BTW this whole lie is based on the idea that Hebrew is based on pictographs -- like Egyptian hieroglyphics. It isn't. The letter shin / ש symbolizes a flame. It can up to 5 meanings: 1. tooth 2. steadfast 3. change 4. return 5. year. But again -- Hebrew uses root WORDS not root letters. The next letter is a yud / י. The word hand sounds like the letter but it isn't the single letter -- the Hebrew word for "hand" is spelled יד -- a yud and a dalet -- not just the single letter yud / י. The letter ת / tav never ever meant cross. And again Hebrew was never pictographic either. The missionaries use a Canaanite alphabet where their letter resembles a cross and ignore the ancient Hebrew aleph bet version of ת / tav which looks more like an "x." There is a Hebrew word for "a cross" and it is צְלָב (tslav). There is no Hebrew word in the T'nach which depicts or resembles a cross. In the ancient k'tav ivri script the letter tav resembled the English letter "X". Missionaries love to use smoke and mirrors (which they call types and shadows) to try to find Jesus where he doesn't exist. This is a good example of this. In the Hebrew Bible prophecy is NEVER based on hints or "shadows" -- it is always based on plain meaning (p'shat).
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