Eclectic Topics in no Particular Order
Various Topics Discussed
/>
Someone wrote "Hello, I ran into an article on William Lane Craigs website. It's about Rabbi Singer. The author raises some interesting points. Would you mind reviewing it?
I won't provide a link to a missionary site, but I will respond. In the link you provided Craig actually has some "Jewish" friend respond. Whoever that person is he is woefully ignorant (not terribly surprising). He says "[Rabbi] Singer... challenges interpretations of the Bible that Christians often assume to be self-evidently true. These other insights into biblical interpretation force us to read the Bible much more carefully. For example, the ending of Psalm 2 can be translated as "kiss the son" or "yearn for purity" depending on how much Aramaic influence one thinks that the author had." There is NO ARAMAIC in the Psalms! 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”) in B'réshіt / Genesis 31:47, which is a direct translation into Aramaic of the Hebrew word גַּלְעֵד gal'éd. NONE IN THE PSALMS. Yet that person goes on to say "Unlike Greek, Ancient Hebrew is a language where a small vocabulary had to express a wide range of meaning. This means that Hebrew words and phrases can be interpreted numerous ways. The rabbis tried to find all the ways that one can interpret a passage, which is why Rabbinics is such a fun discipline." What?? This isn't a question of interpreting a word! This is an issue of saying a word in Hebrew is actually a word from a completely different language that is not part of the poem! The Hebrew word for "son of" is בן (ben). בן (ben) is the noun and its smichut case is בן. Ben not bar... For the sake of argument, let's say that this one word, out of ALL the Psalms was Aramaic. Does it mean "the son"? Nope. The Christian translation is grammatically incorrect for Aramaic. There is no way it can be properly translated as "kiss the son" (or "do homage to the son") because the Aramaic for "the" is not in the text! In Aramaic the word for "the son" is בְּרָא (b'ra) which is the noun and its smichut case is בר (bar). The Christians translate the word בַר in T'hillim / Psalm 2:12 as if it were the Aramaic noun for "the son." The Aramaic בַר / bar is not "the son" that would be בְּרָא / b'ra. It isn't found in the psalm... The א suffix in Aramaic often represents the definite article "the." It is impossible to translate the phrase נַשְּׁקוּ־בַר as “kiss the son” because there is no definite article or accusative particle present! Even if we bought that בַּר / bar in T'hillim / Psalm 2:12 denotes “son” it would still have to be translated “kiss a son.”.... To be “kiss the son” it would have to be נַשְּׁקוּ אֶת הַבַּר or, using the Aramaic grammatical structure, נַשְּׁקוּ יַת בְּרָא. But this is all silly because there are no Aramaic words at all in T'hillim / Psalm —not even loan-words. If it were "the son" and was Aramaic, which it isn't, it would have to be בְּרָא (b'ra)-- and the word בַר / bar in T'hillim / Psalm 2:12 does not have an א (alef) at the end, thus giving us the definitive article "the." Just as in Hebrew the definitive article (meaning "the") is הַ (heh), in Aramaic the definitive article (meaning "the") is א (alef). And remember T'hillim / Psalm 2:12 is בַר (bar) not בְּרָא (b'ra). So IF this word (the ONLY one in the entire 150 psalms) was Aramaic it would not be "the son" it would simply be "a son" -- "kiss a son." That doesn't do much for the idea that this "fits" Jesus and thus the translators deceitfully translate it as "kiss THE son." “Kiss the son” (again, remembering it would have to be Aramaic, not Hebrew) would have be either the phrase נַשְּׁקוּ אֶת הַבַּר or, using the Aramaic grammatical structure, נַשְּׁקוּ יַת בְּרָא. But we know for a fact that even "kiss a son" is wrong because there are no Aramaic words at all in T'hillim / Psalms. Why waste your time with such ignorant people? Why would one word and only one word in T'hillim / Psalm 2 be in Aramaic? Since it is not Aramaic and does not mean "son" what does בַר mean in this Psalm? It is part of a hyphenated word, נַשְּׁקוּ־בַר. The verb נַשְּׁקוּ is the masculine plural imperative inflection in the pi'él paradigm of the root נשׁק. The verb נשׁק has two possible meanings, one of which is to kiss and the other means to arm [with weapons]. The word בַר in Hebrew can refer to grain (B'reshit / Genesis 41:35) or clean / pure (Iyov / Job 11:4). See Uri's article Psalms 2:12 "Kiss the Son? Where is that Son of a Gun?" The Stone T'nach translates נַשְּׁקוּ־בַר in T'hillim / Psalm 2:12 as “Yearn for purity” while the Judaica Press has “Arm yourselves with purity." Both are correct "kiss for purity" not making much sense -- context, context!
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
Categories
All
|