***Disclaimer: I am not a messianic or a christian! I do not hold this work as inspired of any sorts. I simply did a linguistic study on this work in College so this is purely professional in nature******
Not to long ago Moshe Shulman, Famous counter-missionary, made the claim that Professor George Howard, author of "The Hebrew Gospel of Matthew" had retracted many of his claims about the Shem Tov Hebrew Matthew because of an article by William L. Petersen that criticised Professor Howards claims on the Hebrew gospel of Matthew. I have read both articles and it is not hard to conclude that George Howard, in his response, conceded very few points made by Petersen. Howard criticises Petersen, and rightly so, for having remedial knowledge of Medieval Hebrew and his archaic renderings showing such knowledge. I find it amusing that such bold claims can be made by Moshe Shulman about George Howard and the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew when there is clear evidence in Howards response that he did not concede as many points as was alleged.
Petersens Critique: http://rosetta.reltech.org/TC/vol03/Petersen1998a.html
Howards Response: http://rosetta.reltech.org/TC/v04/Howard1999.html
Read and see for yourself if Howard really conceded anything. As far as I can tell he kept to his claims.
Shalom,
Yosef Menachem
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Is Kitniyot permitted on Pesach?
Is Kitniyot permitted on Pesach?
This has been a very big debate in the Jewish community for many centuries. The Ashkenazim tend to say no and follow the Shulchan Arcuh HaRav which prohibits the consumption of Kitniyot. For the Sefardim and the Mizrachi Jews they follow the Shulchan Aruch, OC 453:1 and thus allow the consumption of kitniyot. There are those of us who do not follow either compositions of Jewish Law. Some of us follow the Mishneh Torah as laid out by the Rambam. Below is what The Rambam wrote in Sefer Chametz U’Matzah regarding the permission of Kitniyot.
Sefer Chametz U’Matzah 5:1
The prohibition against chametz applies only to the five species of grain. They include two species of wheat: wheat and rye; and three species of barley: barley, oats, and spelt.
However, kitniyot - e.g., rice, millet, beans, lentils and the like - do not become leavened. Even if one kneads rice flour or the like with boiling water and covers it with fabric until it rises like dough that has become leavened, it is permitted to be eaten. This is not leavening, but rather the decay [of the flour].
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א. אין אסור משום חמץ בפסח אלא חמשת מיני דגן בלבד. והם שני מיני חטים שהן החטה והכוסמת. ושלשה מיני השעורים שהן השעורה ושבולת שועל והשיפון. אבל הקטניות כגון אורז ודוחן ופולים ועדשים וכיוצא בהן אין בהן משום חמץ אלא אפילו לש קמח אורז וכיוצא בו ברותחין וכסהו בבגדים עד שנתפח כמו בצק שהחמיץ הרי זה מותר באכילה שאין זה חמוץ אלא סרחון:
The next issue that comes into play from the opposing side is that “you are obligated to follow the minhag of the community in which you reside!” For those of us who chose to become Talmidei HaRambam this becomes a problem to those who do not understand why we have chosen this path. You want to remind them that even the writer of the Shulchan Aruch said in Aovkat Rochel “that those who wish to follow the rulings of the Rambam, should continue following them, even if they are the minority in the congregation (i.e. the community) [text in Hebrew and citation to follow later].”
Conclusion:
Pay attention to the words of the Acharonim, but read carefully the words of the Rishonim! The words of an Acharon can not cancel or negate the words of a Rishon! So, my advice is to be very careful when disagreeing with your Rabbi on this point. You have to handle things very carefully if you take the route of a Rationalistic Talmidei HaRambam and still be an active member of the Kabalistic Jewish community.
Hold your Kitniyot up high, and chow down on Pesach!
Shalom,
Yosef Menachem
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Uri's response to my blog post on the Aramaic Targumim and the word בר with my response to Uri!
Below is the response I received from UriYosef in regards to my blog post on the Aramaic Targumim and the meaning of the word בר in Aramaic. The below response tells me several things about where he is going with his line of reasoning.
1. That he is unwilling to take a serious look at the Aramaic Language as we have it. He is only willing to take a narrowed scope of the language and claim "This is it!" and no other views in the Aramaic are valid regardless of the implications contrary to his claims.
2. While I admit that he did not use "midrashic" in association with the Targumim in his article, this was claimed about Uri by the person conveying this blog to Uri. That is where I received the idea that Uri said that the Targumim conveyed midrashic interpretations.
3. That Uri does not want to discuss the natural progression of language as it is associated with word meaning over time. This is in spite of the fact that Uri, fluent in Modern Hebrew, assumes that this natural progression of the Hebrew language maintained the original meaning of Ancient Hebrew words and that he can read the Hebrew Bible based on this assumption. Double Standards are amazing!
4. The unmade claim on Uri's part is that only biblical Aramaic gets the term בר correct in its intent in meaning and others need not apply. The problem is that the textual vocabulary of the Aramaic portions of the hebrew bible are extremely limited and only literary. Uri builds a case from lack of contrary evidence to deduce that "Since the Bible doesnt use בר in the way of meaning "a son" then it must not mean that at all. This is a Fallacy of Silence and of Narrowing the field.
5. He did not address anything I said about the term בר in its usage in the Aramaic Language which shows contrary usage. Uri's only response was to return to his narrow playing field of limited Aramaic vocabulary in the Hebrew bible.
6. The best thing for Uri to do is save his ridicule for when honesty can come before pride. Uri must assume I spent "a lot" of time on my blog post.
Here is my message to Uri:
I did that post in 20 Minutes at 2:30AM. I got the exact response I expected from you! I dispelled the idea that בר is not a stand alone noun meaning "a son" by looking at the Aramaic language, for which you had no answer. I called out your narrowing of the field and argument from silence! Real, earnest, scholarship has to take into account all evidence for and against an argument. I did this in 20 minutes at 2:30AM having to work the next day at 6:00AM. Imagine what a serious blog post would look like with time and devotion put into it.
You cited in your article all of these instances of the usage of בר in the text but can you show me a place in the Hebrew bible where your claimed root "בְּרָא" is used as simply "a son" in the Aramaic portions of the Hebrew bible? You neglected to cite that in your article and I am curious. Also, did it ever occur to you, Uri, that this term,בְּרָא , can be and usually is, the definite form of the word? In Aramaic the definite form takes an א suffix to denote the definite. Take Ezekiel 18:19 and look at the Targum Yonatan and its usage.
Ezekiel 18:19 (Targum Yonatan)
וַאֲמַרתֻון ותימרון מָדֵין לָא לָקֵי בְרָא בְחוֹבֵי אַבָא וֻברָא דִין דִקשוֹט וְזָכֻו עֲבַד יָת כָל קְיָמַי נְטַר וַעֲבַד יָתְהוֹן מֵיחָא יֵיחֵי׃
Both of these are used for corresponding nouns in the Hebrew. Both words have the definite article in the Hebrew text of Ezekiel 18:19 being הַבֵּן.
At this stage, I do not see even a remote response to these claims perhaps Uri would like to elaborate on some other issues I am taking with him.
At this stage of his article I see two issues with what he wrote:
1. I never referred to the Targum as Midrashic in my article. At the bottom of Page 8 I have the following:
The Targum Yonatan, an ancient interpretive translation into the Aramaic vernacular of the
Hebrew Bible, has קָ בִּ ילוּ אוּלְפָנָא (qaBIlu ulfaNA), accept the Law.
2. The Aramaic of the Targumim came long after the Hebrew Bible was written, so it is a rather weak argument to support his claim by comparing the older Aramaic used in the Hebrew Bible with the more "modern" Aramaic employed in the Targumim.
If this is his idea of scholarship, then he is deluding himself. We'll see what other sort of misrepresentations he uses when he finishes it.
Uri
1. That he is unwilling to take a serious look at the Aramaic Language as we have it. He is only willing to take a narrowed scope of the language and claim "This is it!" and no other views in the Aramaic are valid regardless of the implications contrary to his claims.
2. While I admit that he did not use "midrashic" in association with the Targumim in his article, this was claimed about Uri by the person conveying this blog to Uri. That is where I received the idea that Uri said that the Targumim conveyed midrashic interpretations.
3. That Uri does not want to discuss the natural progression of language as it is associated with word meaning over time. This is in spite of the fact that Uri, fluent in Modern Hebrew, assumes that this natural progression of the Hebrew language maintained the original meaning of Ancient Hebrew words and that he can read the Hebrew Bible based on this assumption. Double Standards are amazing!
4. The unmade claim on Uri's part is that only biblical Aramaic gets the term בר correct in its intent in meaning and others need not apply. The problem is that the textual vocabulary of the Aramaic portions of the hebrew bible are extremely limited and only literary. Uri builds a case from lack of contrary evidence to deduce that "Since the Bible doesnt use בר in the way of meaning "a son" then it must not mean that at all. This is a Fallacy of Silence and of Narrowing the field.
5. He did not address anything I said about the term בר in its usage in the Aramaic Language which shows contrary usage. Uri's only response was to return to his narrow playing field of limited Aramaic vocabulary in the Hebrew bible.
6. The best thing for Uri to do is save his ridicule for when honesty can come before pride. Uri must assume I spent "a lot" of time on my blog post.
Here is my message to Uri:
I did that post in 20 Minutes at 2:30AM. I got the exact response I expected from you! I dispelled the idea that בר is not a stand alone noun meaning "a son" by looking at the Aramaic language, for which you had no answer. I called out your narrowing of the field and argument from silence! Real, earnest, scholarship has to take into account all evidence for and against an argument. I did this in 20 minutes at 2:30AM having to work the next day at 6:00AM. Imagine what a serious blog post would look like with time and devotion put into it.
You cited in your article all of these instances of the usage of בר in the text but can you show me a place in the Hebrew bible where your claimed root "בְּרָא" is used as simply "a son" in the Aramaic portions of the Hebrew bible? You neglected to cite that in your article and I am curious. Also, did it ever occur to you, Uri, that this term,בְּרָא , can be and usually is, the definite form of the word? In Aramaic the definite form takes an א suffix to denote the definite. Take Ezekiel 18:19 and look at the Targum Yonatan and its usage.
Ezekiel 18:19 (Targum Yonatan)
וַאֲמַרתֻון ותימרון מָדֵין לָא לָקֵי בְרָא בְחוֹבֵי אַבָא וֻברָא דִין דִקשוֹט וְזָכֻו עֲבַד יָת כָל קְיָמַי נְטַר וַעֲבַד יָתְהוֹן מֵיחָא יֵיחֵי׃
Both of these are used for corresponding nouns in the Hebrew. Both words have the definite article in the Hebrew text of Ezekiel 18:19 being הַבֵּן.
At this stage, I do not see even a remote response to these claims perhaps Uri would like to elaborate on some other issues I am taking with him.
At this stage of his article I see two issues with what he wrote:
1. I never referred to the Targum as Midrashic in my article. At the bottom of Page 8 I have the following:
The Targum Yonatan, an ancient interpretive translation into the Aramaic vernacular of the
Hebrew Bible, has קָ בִּ ילוּ אוּלְפָנָא (qaBIlu ulfaNA), accept the Law.
2. The Aramaic of the Targumim came long after the Hebrew Bible was written, so it is a rather weak argument to support his claim by comparing the older Aramaic used in the Hebrew Bible with the more "modern" Aramaic employed in the Targumim.
If this is his idea of scholarship, then he is deluding himself. We'll see what other sort of misrepresentations he uses when he finishes it.
Uri
Sunday, August 19, 2012
The Aramaic Targums: Translation, Interpretation, and Paraphrase.
The Aramaic Targums: Translation, Interpretation, and Paraphrase.
There are some out there who simply do not quite understand what the Aramaic Targumim are and what is included in their text. The Verb לתרגם means "to translate" in Hebrew. In some cases it can actually mean "To paraphrase" for the purpose of interpretation. From this verb comes the noun תרגום "translation" and מתרגם "Translator." This seems simple enough when looking simply at what the word means, but when we get to the actual Aramaic Targum we can see that this word can encompass more than we originally thought.
Certain people out in the counter-missionary world state that Aramaic Targumim are simply Midrashic interpretations of the actual biblical text. In a recent argument concerning the translation of the Aramaic word בר "son/son of" I came across a rather sad line of argumentation. I will cite and reference an article by counter-missionary author UriYosef and discuss why I disagree with his analysis that only ברא means "a son" and בר does not have that meaning.
VI. AN EXCURSION INTO THE ARAMAIC DOMAIN
As was noted in Section IV, the common Aramaic noun for son is בְּרָא , not .בָּר
Several applications of the Aramaic term בַּר are present throughout the Aramaic
portions of the Hebrew Bible, and these are shown in Table VI-1.
As is evident from Table VI-1, all (undisputed) applications of the Aramaic noun בַּר
in the Hebrew Bible show that the term is used in the possessive construct, son
of…, not as a free standing noun combined with the definite article, the son.
**(Note: I was unable to get the table fully imported due to formatting. I will fix this in the future, but for the time being, go to the link above and scroll down to the section noted for the table. please feel free to read Uri's article to see if I accurately represented his position.)**
Uri's Problem:
The first and foremost problem is that Uri limits his own playing field by claiming that "In the Hebrew Bible" not "in the Aramaic Language." This is a serious fallacious problem in that it takes only a narrow selection of the Aramaic language and does not fully encompass works written in Aramaic. I'm going to give at least two examples from the Aramaic Targumim that shows that בר can and does in fact mean "a son." Going into great detail about grammar is not necessary since this is not a linguistic analysis but simply a assertion of meaning in the Aramaic language.
Genesis 30:5 (Targum Onkelos)
וְעַדִּיאַת בִּלְהָה וִילִידַת לְיַעֲקֹב בָּר:
Translation:
"And Bilhah conceived and bore Jacob a son."
Isaiah 9:5 (Targum Yonatan)
אַמַר נְבִיָא לְבֵית דָוִד אֲרֵי רָבֵי אִיתְיְלִיד לָנָא בַּר אִתְיְהַב לָנָא וְקַבֵּל אוֹרַיְתָא עֲלוֹהִי לְמַטְרָהּ וְאִתְקְרֵי שְמֵיהּ מִן קַדָם מַפְלִיא עֵצָה אֳלָהָא גִבָּרָא קַיָם לְעַלְמַיָא מְשִיחָא דִשְלָמָא יַסְגֵי עֲלָנָא בְּיוֹמוֹהִי
Translation:
"The Prophet said to the House of David, For a Child was born to us, to us a son was given; and he will accept the Torah upon himself to observe it, and his name shall be called before the Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty G-d, who exists forever, "The anointed one in who's days peace will increase upon us."
I am by no means a rocket scientist but I think we can see plainly how בר is being used in each of these passages and what it clearly means.
The Claim of the targums being midrashic:
Uri has made the claim that these targumim are making midrashic interpretations of the text and that they are not actually translating anything in the text. Let's look at both the Hebrew and Aramaic text of each and let's see if we can determine what is in fact translation, paraphrase, and interpretation.
Isaiah 9:5:
The Hebrew reads:
כִּי-יֶלֶד יֻלַּד-לָנוּ בֵּן נִתַּן-לָנוּ וַתְּהִי הַמִּשְׂרָה עַל-שִׁכְמוֹ וַיִּקְרָא שְׁמוֹ פֶּלֶא יוֹעֵץ אֵל גִּבּוֹר אֲבִי-עַד שַׂר-שָׁלוֹם:
Translation:
For a child has been born to us, a son has been given to us; and the government is upon his shoulders and his name was called wonderful counselor, mighty G-d, eternal father, a peaceful ruler. Targum Yonatan:
אַמַר נְבִיָא לְבֵית דָוִד אֲרֵי רָבֵי אִיתְיְלִיד לָנָא בַּר אִתְיְהַב לָנָא וְקַבֵּל אוֹרַיְתָא עֲלוֹהִי לְמַטְרָהּ וְאִתְקְרֵי שְמֵיהּ מִן קַדָם מַפְלִיא עֵצָה אֳלָהָא גִבָּרָא קַיָם לְעַלְמַיָא מְשִיחָא דִשְלָמָא יַסְגֵי עֲלָנָא בְּיוֹמוֹהִי
Translation:
"The Prophet said to the House of David, For a Child was born to us, to us a son was given; and he will accept the Torah upon himself to observe it, and his name shall be called before the Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty G-d, who exists forever, "The anointed one in who's days peace will increase upon us."
Highlighted red are what we can consider to be paraphrasic and or interpretations within the text of Targum Yonatan to Isaiah 9:5 due to the fact that there is no correspondence with the Hebrew text. The remaining which remained black are what can be considered a translation in the real sense of the word in that it contains no exegetical glosses or paraphrasing of the text. To translate the remaining part of the Targum that is not paraphrasic or exegetical we have: "For a Child has been born to us, a son is given to us......His name shall be called.....wonderful counselor, the mighty G-d....."
Genesis 30:5 (Hebrew):
וַתַּהַר בִּלְהָה וַתֵּלֶד לְיַעֲקֹב בֵּן:
Translation:
"And Bilhah conceived and bore Jacob a son"
Genesis 30:5 (Targum Onkelos):
וְעַדִּיאַת בִּלְהָה וִילִידַת לְיַעֲקֹב בָּר:
Translation:
"And Bilhah conceived and bore Jacob a son"
The Targum Onkelos seems to exhibit zero paraphrase or interpretation of the verse in question. So there is no need to go into specifics here.
Conclusion:The Targum Onkelos seems to exhibit zero paraphrase or interpretation of the verse in question. So there is no need to go into specifics here.
Based on the evidence above we can see two things very clearly. One, that בר does indeed mean "a son" in the Aramaic Language as opposed to the claim made by UriYosef that it does not. Second, We can see that the Aramaic Targumim, while it can and does contain paraphrasic and exegetical readings, it does contain actual translation of the text which is also evidenced above. Now, it is up to you to decide on what is truth!
Shalom,
Yosef Menachem
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