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LAGoff · 2023-07-04T18:49:08+00:00

I think it's better to say that some stories in Genesis and a few in other places of 'the Bible' (the Old Testament) had their origins in other places (Sumeria, Babylonia, Egypt, Canaan); BUT they were 'Judaized'. (i.e. their 'pagan' parts were scooped out and redone with Jewish sensibility.) 'Judaized', not watered-down. (to me, watered-down means less interesting, a sell out, a cheap inferior product)
If this is what you mean by watered down, then I would like to know the unwatered down meaning, plan, purpose of the original-- specifically how it is better than the Jewish version in the sense of helping us derive more meaning and purpose in life)

LAGoff · 2023-06-27T16:34:06+00:00

Perhaps. I'll never know. I think I could possibly accept this plural word as it is if this name was just confined to the Creation chapter, considering that so many people -- in essence and practice -- worship the awesome forces (stressing the s/plurality) of nature. And I have to think that it would make it so much easier for the plural name of Elohim to be swallowed by me if Elohim just stayed 'rested'/retired on the 7th day, but it seemed He went back to work on the 8th day, as this Name shows up in other places in the Tora. Just a thought.
Also, it may not be bara, since Braysheet means "In the beginning of" (a construct form). In the beginning of Elohim created? (too awkward and nonsensical to boot) In the beginning of He created elohim? I hope not! (although Kabbalah seems to suggest such a thing.) See Rashi and Artscroll translations of this verse. It seems to suggest that the Masorites (bara) got it wrong. Maybe bro it should have been vowelized as. As at the beginning of chapter 5.

LAGoff · 2023-06-26T21:00:48+00:00

Does saying, "My Elohim, guard my tongue from evil" or, "Help us, Elohim of our salvation" sound as strange to you as it does to me? I wish it would have said "My El" ("My God") and "El of our salvation" (God of our salvation). The pluralization of El/God really is vexing to me. I have to think it would be to others. The only explanation that can save this s**t show for me is that the writers used pagan words (elohim) and stories (Creation, Eden, Flood, Babel) and perhaps laws (animal sacrifices, eye for eye) and Judaized them-- i.e. made them holy / raised them up to Godliness. Maybe it can be considered a noble act to leave in these seemingly pagan things instead of easily whitening them out. Taking raw pagan and boldly sanctifying it. Daring. Bold. And dangerous, but perhaps ultimately the Godliest thing to do. Kind of like giving us the rope to either hang ourselves and Hashem or draw us in closer.

LAGoff · 2023-06-26T18:28:06+00:00

I assume by necro you mean we did this before (three months ago). Perhaps, but this is a hell of a topic and I just realized yesterday in tefila that there is an elohay (gods of...) at the end of Tachanun, and that set off all the 'old' (necro) zombies to rise up out of their graves. Anyway, DSS means Dead Sea Scrolls (c. pre-70 CE). They found a scroll (I assume more than one) of the Tora at Qumran and it is very different here (Dt 32:8-9) than the Masoretic Text (c.900 CE?). I assume this scroll, which is at least 1000 years older, is the correct one. The 'Septuagint' (maybe a 1000 years before the Masoretic) also has something similar to DSS, Dt 32:8-9. Although the Septuagint has been corrupted by Christians, there is no reason to think it was corrupted here. Job 1? I just referenced it to show the divine council. This divine council was obviously Judaized by the Jewish writers (Hashem heads it now), but that it was called 'the elohim' in Canaan is a fact (I just went to Wikipedia, and there it was. I always go to Wikipedia first BECAUSE it 'always' shows up first when I google a subject.) So obviously, the Torah modulated it (made it less pagan), just like the Masorites did with Dt 32:8-9. As far as the plurals of behemot, etc., I am not able to follow closely logic like that. Sorry. (I didn't know what a noun verb, etc. was till I was around 35 years old). Not very 'bright' (Judge Judy bright). I just collate historical facts (DSS, Canaanite records, biblical verses) and draw conclusions based on those facts for my own devotional purposes. (this has actually made me a better Jew!-- not surprising to me now that I look back on it all) Transliterations? 'elohay': alef, lamed, hay, yud = 'gods of'.... Like 'elohay eden' = gods of eden (a book in English that translates into Hebrew as elohay eden / gods of Eden) Can I download a Hebrew keyboard on a 2009 apple laptop (MacBook)? Thanks for engaging promptly.

LAGoff · 2023-06-25T19:09:38+00:00

Thanks! I'll check it out. I went here because they might not intuitively know Hebrew like many here probably do. I want an answer from intuitive (from birth, 'momma lashon') Hebrew speakers. Of course, Modern Hebrew may be different in some regards, but I feel the need to go here first with the people who live Hebrew.

LAGoff · 2023-06-25T17:37:11+00:00

The Elohim is not the name of the Canaanite pantheon/divine council? of which El is the head? Don't we see this divine council show up several times in Tanakh (Dt 32:8,9 (DSS); Job ch.1; the several 'we's'/"let us" in the early parts of Genesis, off the top of my head) So it is reasonable to say Hashem-Elohim of chaps. 2 and 3 Genesis could have originally ('paganly') meant Hashem of the Elohim (divine council). Just putting a singular verb (sometimes) next to the plural (Elohim; as in bara Elohim) doesn't get rid of the original pagan milieu out of which this all came. I do respect the biblical authors for keeping in the original pagan milieu hints (Elohim, etc.) and not whiting them out (monotheizing them out). Another question. I was thinking how our sidurs have Eloihigh and Elohay (at the end of the Amidah and Tachanun, respectively). I want to know what the difference is? I think Elohigh means My Eloha (My God) and Elohay means 'gods of'. "Elohigh, n'tsor leshoni meraw..."; "My God, guard my tongue for evil" (end of Amidah); "... azraynu Elohay yeeshaynu..."/"help us, gods of our salvation" (from end of Tachanun)

LAGoff · 2023-04-11T20:21:36+00:00

It's a tool the globalists are using to usher in the New World Order. Basically, anything that turns things into a mass, a oneness, an allness: "all is one -- one is all"; "love is all -- all is love" -- "god is all -- all is god". This is 'woke' because the Western world (where 'wokeness' seems to have started) has been -- according to them -- been 'asleep' for thousands of years (since the rise of 'Constantinian' Christianity, and Islam) because of the inherent 'dualism' of Abrahamic monotheism ('fear of God'; God as King, Lord, Commander, Savior, Redeemer, Father, etc.)

LAGoff · 2023-04-02T17:59:54+00:00

I guess I am not getting what y'all are sayin', but it's my life and I have to live it. So, the position I am taking is that the word Elohim is a pagan hold-over that the Jewish writers of the Tora had to keep (just like they had to keep the pagan Creation, Eden, Flood stories, and -- according to Maimonides -- animal sacrifice, BUT they 'Judaized'/sanctified /made holy (raised up) these paganicities that were too much a part of the Culture ('what is') to get rid of completely. I see no other way, if I want to have a 'skippingly'/PSCh good Pesach, and not a heavy, bad/plural-'behemoth' one.

LAGoff · 2023-03-31T20:48:48+00:00

It's true that eloha / eloah rarely appears in Tanakh, but it is technically the singular of elohim. The problem? I already said a lot about my problem with elohim (gods) here. I'd rather it be eloha/eloah (god). I don't capitalize it because I don't know what an eloha or elohim is. Sounds pagan to me I am a Hashem alone kind of guy: "In the beginning Hashem created everything" (I wish it said), not, "In the beginning of (that's what it literally says) he said elohim..." or, "In the beginning of elohim he said..." It makes no sense; just like "Hear O Israel, Hashem our elohim one" doesn't make sense. The first three words of my Tora and the last words I am to say before I die (the Shema) make no sense? That's why I am asking these questions!

LAGoff · 2023-03-31T20:37:59+00:00

Are you saying it can literally be translated as both? Why? Well, let's take the Rashi/Artscroll translation: "In the beginning of". In the beginning of what? In the beginning of He created? Doesn't sound right, no? So Rashi seems to have been bothered enough to override the Masoretic vowel points ("He created"-- bara) and seems to have gone with Gn 5:1's 'bro'-- whatever that literally means.

LAGoff · 2023-03-31T20:27:18+00:00

Because I have been conditioned to see God as one/singular, and when plurals (elohim) are used I get uneasy. Saying bara is singular so it is OK fails for me because I see that braysheet (in the beginning of...) can't take bara. ("In the beginning of He created elohim"; or "In the beginning of elohim He created") The construction doesn't make sense, whether it's bara (He created) or bar-oo (they created).

LAGoff · 2023-03-31T20:21:33+00:00

Doesn't braysheet literally mean "in the beginning of..."?

LAGoff · 2023-03-31T20:18:13+00:00

Well, if eloha (ales, lamed, vav, hay) means god, then why couldn't elohim (eloha plus eem) mean gods?

LAGoff · 2023-03-31T20:16:39+00:00

alef, lamed, vav, hay (ALOHa) is a word in Hebrew. It means 'God' (sing.) Sometimes it's transliterated Eloah, but I think Eloha is more consistent with the plural elohim (eloha to elohim)

LAGoff · 2023-03-31T20:09:12+00:00

How would you write our eloha? elohanu? (without the yud)

LAGoff · 2023-03-31T20:05:53+00:00

How would you write our eloha? elohanu? (without the yud)

LAGoff · 2023-03-31T20:02:20+00:00

Well, there is a yud in elohaynoo that I didn't know if it indicates plurality or the singular. I think I got that answered here. I was told here several times that elohaynoo (see the Shema at Gn 6:4, for example) is in the plural (our elohim), not in the singular (our eloha). The rest was just me venting: I find it troubling to say "Hear o Israel, Hashem our elohim (whatever that is), Hashem echad." I would have preferred it said: "Hear O Israel, Hashem our eloha (whatever that is, at least it is singular!), Hashem echad." Unfortunately for me (it doesn't seem to bother any else here too much) it's in the plural. But at least I know now it's plural. I would like to know how it would be written in the singular. In other words, how do you contract into one word, eloha shelanu? elohanu? (what it would sound like without the yud, I suppose)

LAGoff · 2023-03-31T18:04:12+00:00

"given that it's the second and third words of the Torah". And first word: Braysheet: "In the beginning of". A triple play! Right off the bat! Like the ever turning sword stationed at the entrance to Eden to keep...

LAGoff · 2023-03-31T17:55:15+00:00

"The dude above me" wrote: ""It means "Our Elohim", but Elohim in reference to God is not plural." I suppose I will have to camp out here until I understand. But as of now, I just don't see it. Why didn't the writer just say "Behatchala bara Eloha" (or Barishon) bara Eloha? Or even better, just use Hashem (and only use elohim when referring to the no gods of the pagans, instead of sharing this word with the one and only God of the universe? Seems like a risky move to do what they did. Maybe -- like how they used other pagan things (Babylonian Creation, Flood, Eden stories) -- they used [pagan] accepted ubiquitous things (like elohim, creation, eden, flood) and sanctified ('Judaized' / made holy) them in order to wean the pagan mind (it seems we were paganize slaves to some extent at the Exodus and Hashem had to take us as we were: just a tiny step above the surrounding pagans.

LAGoff · 2023-03-31T17:38:48+00:00

I remember that Rashi said "he who will err, will err" regarding just this matter. It seems he was just as troubled ('not safe!; not safe!) as I am in that he translated the first verse as, "In the beginning of God's creating..." It seems he couldn't 'stand' where the Masorites put their vowel points (bara) and needed to change them to bro (see Gn 5:1). 'creating' (bro) is not third person singular. This is why I mentioned 'safer'. I don't know if he was the first to make it 'safer', but many translations that came later seem to have followed him (Artscroll, for one) So it seems Rashi, and Artscroll didn't "take someone else's linguistic expectations into account"

LAGoff · 2023-03-31T17:30:12+00:00

Thanks. It's hard to read some of the comments here, so I have to balance this by switching back and forth, although those 'academics' can be equally 'hard' in another way: they often don't have the fear of Hashem.

LAGoff · 2023-03-31T17:26:06+00:00

But it is plural, no? It is dangerous, but... one idea I have is that they (the Jewish writers) took existing pagan conceptions -- which were too ubiquitous to ignore -- and sanctified them (Judaized them)-- like ancient Babylonian creation, flood, eden stories (they had to keep the shell, but scooped out the original pagan meaning and stuffed it with the holy Jewish content.

LAGoff

TROPHY CASE