Bit at a Time Bible Hebrew -- Genesis 4:1-4

Genesis 4:1-4

 

Ready to pick up the pace some more?

 

א וְהָאָדָם יָדַע אֶת־חַוָּה אִשְׁתּוֹ וַתַּהַר וַתֵּלֶד אֶת־קַיִן וַתֹּאמֶר קָנִיתִי אִישׁ אֶת־יְהוָֹה:

ב וַתֹּסֶף לָלֶדֶת אֶת־אָחִיו אֶת־הָבֶל וַיְהִי־הֶבֶל רֹעֵה צֹאן וְקַיִן הָיָה עֹבֵד אֲדָמָה:

ג וַיְהִי מִקֵּץ יָמִים וַיָּבֵא קַיִן מִפְּרִי הָאֲדָמָה מִנְחָה לַיהוָֹה:

ד וְהֶבֶל הֵבִיא גַם־הוּא מִבְּכֹרוֹת צֹאנוֹ וּמֵחֶלְבֵהֶן וַיִּשַׁע יְהֹוָה אֶל־הֶבֶל וְאֶל־מִנְחָתוֹ:

 

Translation:     The man had known Chavvah his wife and she got pregnant and birthed Qain and she said I have acquired a man with ****.

She added birthing his brother, Hevel, and Hevel was a herder of sheep and Qain was a worker of the earth.

It turned out at the end of days, Qain brought from the fruit of the ground a minchah to ****.

Heveh brought, he too, from the firstlings of his sheep and their chelev and **** turned to Hevel and his minchah.

 

I’m putting the vocabulary at the end of this lesson because most of it is uncommon and I want you to focus on some language issues.

 

First, remember that the past tense can be used in the sense of a pluperfect.  So when it says Adam “knew” Chavvah, and it’s in the past tense, this can either mean something truly ancient, or it can mean that one thing happened before another.  One interpretation of this verse is that Adam and Chavvah were physically married in Gan Eden, and Qain and Hevel were born there.  I discuss this issue on the Fact-Checking page.

 

Second, the word minchah had two meanings to the ancient Jews.  One was an offering of grain products which was not only perfectly acceptable, it was also required as part of the two daily sacrifices.  Usually that part of the service was reached in late afternoon and so there is a special service in a Jewish prayerbook called Minchah which is recited in late afternoon.  This sets up the tragedy.

 

Third, I didn’t translate chelev.  The usual translation of chelev is “fat,” but that doesn’t cut it the same way “firmament” isn’t equivalent to raqia and “work” isn’t equivalent to melakhah.

 

Chelev is the fat covering the kidneys and other abdominal organs that must be sacrificed to ****.  It is prohibited to Jews for food.  Jews can eat the fat between the muscles; Talmud gives the technical name for that fat as shuman.  If Jews were prohibited to eat all fat, they never could have eaten schmaltz which is chicken fat rendered out of the skin, and gribenes, cracklings made from the skin of the Chanukah goose, would never have been listed in a very old Jewish cookbook that I have.

 

Vocabulary in this lesson:

תַּהַר	Get pregnant
תֵּלֶד	Birth (v)
קָנִיתִי	I have acquired
תֹּסֶף	added
רֹעֵה	herder
צֹאן	sheep
יַּלְבִּשֵׁם	Dressed them
מִקֵּץ	At the end
מִנְחָה	Grain offering and by extension late afternoon prayer service
בְּכֹרוֹת	Firstlings of animals
חֶלְבֵהֶן	Their chelev
יִּשַׁע	Turn to

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights  Reserved

Fact-Checking the Torah -- What's it all about?

The Gan Eden episode is not “about” agriculture.  It is about the death penalty.

The keyword is mot tamut, the phrase that invokes the death penalty if due process is carried out.

Look at the sequence of events.

·         Gd gives a commandment not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

·         Chavvah and then Adam eat of the tree.

·         Gd asks Chavvah what she did.  She blames the serpent but admits she ate.

·         Gd asks Adam what he did.  He blames Chavvah but admits he ate.

·         Neither one of them dies.

Why not?

You know from long ago on this blog that when the death penalty is involved, there have to be two witnesses who warned the attempted criminal, who agreed to accept the penalty and then committed the crime.

Who warned Adam and Chavvah?

Not the serpent.  He promoted the crime.  He’s an invalid witness.

Not Chavvah and besides, she’s Adam’s relative so she can’t testify against him.  She’s also her own relative so she can’t testify against herself.  She admits that she ate but it’s inadmissible evidence.

Not Adam.  He’s Chavvah’s relative, and he’s his own relative, so he can’t testify against her or against himself.  His admission that he ate is not admissible evidence.

Not Gd.  He’s the judge in the case.

The keyword mot tamut (OK, it’s a key phrase) tipped off the audience to watch for violations of due process.  When Gd obeyed the laws that they believed He had established for them to follow, it satisfied them that this story took the proper course.  It was reassuring that even in the most ancient of times when there were only two people, the laws still held.

You’re going to say, but the requirement for warning developed late in Jewish history.

Go back to where  I cited Samuel II, 14:6-7.  In David’s reign, after he had control of all the Jews, but before Shlomo was born, a case came up where the community wanted to execute a man for murder, without interfering in the crime.  He got mad and forbade them to perform an illegal execution.

So define “late.”  The Gan Eden episode makes sense culturally as early as 900 BCE.  But as I go along, you might realize that “early” and “late” mean different things to Jewish history than they do to western scholars, whose urban legends are what we are destroying after all.

But now Gd has a dilemma and that's for next week.

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights  Reserved

 

Bit at a Time Bible Hebrew -- Genesis 3 plus audio

Genesis 3

http://www.mechon-mamre.org/mp3/t0103.mp3

א וְהַנָּחָשׁ הָיָה עָרוּם מִכֹּל חַיַּת הַשָּׂדֶה אֲשֶׁר עָשָׂה יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהִים וַיֹּאמֶר אֶל־הָאִשָּׁה אַף כִּי־אָמַר אֱלֹהִים לֹא תֹאכְלוּ מִכֹּל עֵץ הַגָּן:

ב וַתֹּאמֶר הָאִשָּׁה אֶל־הַנָּחָשׁ מִפְּרִי עֵץ־הַגָּן נֹאכֵל:

ג וּמִפְּרִי הָעֵץ אֲשֶׁר בְּתוֹךְ־הַגָּן אָמַר אֱלֹהִים לֹא תֹאכְלוּ מִמֶּנּוּ וְלֹא תִגְּעוּ בּוֹ פֶּן תְּמֻתוּן:

ד וַיֹּאמֶר הַנָּחָשׁ אֶל־הָאִשָּׁה לֹא־מוֹת תְּמֻתוּן:

ה כִּי יֹדֵעַ אֱלֹהִים כִּי בְּיוֹם אֲכָלְכֶם מִמֶּנּוּ וְנִפְקְחוּ עֵינֵיכֶם וִהְיִיתֶם כֵּאלֹהִים יֹדְעֵי טוֹב וָרָע:

ו וַתֵּרֶא הָאִשָּׁה כִּי טוֹב הָעֵץ לְמַאֲכָל וְכִי תַאֲוָה־הוּא לָעֵינַיִם וְנֶחְמָד הָעֵץ לְהַשְׂכִּיל וַתִּקַּח מִפִּרְיוֹ וַתֹּאכַל וַתִּתֵּן גַּם־לְאִישָׁהּ עִמָּהּ וַיֹּאכַל:

ז וַתִּפָּקַחְנָה עֵינֵי שְׁנֵיהֶם וַיֵּדְעוּ כִּי עֵירֻמִּם הֵם וַיִּתְפְּרוּ עֲלֵה תְאֵנָה וַיַּעֲשׂוּ לָהֶם חֲגֹרֹת:

ח וַיִּשְׁמְעוּ אֶת־קוֹל יְהוָֹה אֱלֹהִים מִתְהַלֵּךְ בַּגָּן לְרוּחַ הַיּוֹם וַיִּתְחַבֵּא הָאָדָם וְאִשְׁתּוֹ מִפְּנֵי יְהוָֹה אֱלֹהִים בְּתוֹךְ עֵץ הַגָּן:

ט וַיִּקְרָא יְהוָֹה אֱלֹהִים אֶל־הָאָדָם וַיֹּאמֶר לוֹ אַיֶּכָּה:

י וַיֹּאמֶר אֶת־קֹלְךָ שָׁמַעְתִּי בַּגָּן וָאִירָא כִּי־עֵירֹם אָנֹכִי וָאֵחָבֵא:

יא וַיֹּאמֶר מִי הִגִּיד לְךָ כִּי עֵירֹם אָתָּה הֲמִן־הָעֵץ אֲשֶׁר צִוִּיתִיךָ לְבִלְתִּי אֲכָל־מִמֶּנּוּ אָכָלְתָּ:

יב וַיֹּאמֶר הָאָדָם הָאִשָּׁה אֲשֶׁר נָתַתָּה עִמָּדִי הִוא נָתְנָה־לִּי מִן־הָעֵץ וָאֹכֵל:

יג וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָֹה אֱלֹהִים לָאִשָּׁה מַה־זֹּאת עָשִׂית וַתֹּאמֶר הָאִשָּׁה הַנָּחָשׁ הִשִּׁיאַנִי וָאֹכֵל:

יד וַיֹּאמֶר יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהִים ׀ אֶל־הַנָּחָשׁ כִּי עָשִׂיתָ זֹּאת אָרוּר אַתָּה מִכָּל־הַבְּהֵמָה וּמִכֹּל חַיַּת הַשָּׂדֶה עַל־גְּחֹנְךָ תֵלֵךְ וְעָפָר תֹּאכַל כָּל־יְמֵי חַיֶּיךָ:

טו וְאֵיבָה ׀ אָשִׁית בֵּינְךָ וּבֵין הָאִשָּׁה וּבֵין זַרְעֲךָ וּבֵין זַרְעָהּ הוּא יְשׁוּפְךָ רֹאשׁ וְאַתָּה תְּשׁוּפֶנּוּ עָקֵב:      

טז אֶל־הָאִשָּׁה אָמַר הַרְבָּה אַרְבֶּה עִצְּבוֹנֵךְ וְהֵרֹנֵךְ בְּעֶצֶב תֵּלְדִי בָנִים וְאֶל־אִישֵׁךְ תְּשׁוּקָתֵךְ וְהוּא יִמְשָׁל־בָּךְ:      

יז וּלְאָדָם אָמַר כִּי שָׁמַעְתָּ לְקוֹל אִשְׁתֶּךָ וַתֹּאכַל מִן־הָעֵץ אֲשֶׁר צִוִּיתִיךָ לֵאמֹר לֹא תֹאכַל מִמֶּנּוּ אֲרוּרָה הָאֲדָמָה בַּעֲבוּרֶךָ בְּעִצָּבוֹן תֹּאכֲלֶנָּה כֹּל יְמֵי חַיֶּיךָ:

יח וְקוֹץ וְדַרְדַּר תַּצְמִיחַ לָךְ וְאָכַלְתָּ אֶת־עֵשֶׂב הַשָּׂדֶה:

יט בְּזֵעַת אַפֶּיךָ תֹּאכַל לֶחֶם עַד שׁוּבְךָ אֶל־הָאֲדָמָה כִּי מִמֶּנָּה לֻקָּחְתָּ כִּי־עָפָר אַתָּה וְאֶל־עָפָר תָּשׁוּב:

כ וַיִּקְרָא הָאָדָם שֵׁם אִשְׁתּוֹ חַוָּה כִּי הִוא הָיְתָה אֵם כָּל־חָי:

כא וַיַּעַשׂ יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהִים לְאָדָם וּלְאִשְׁתּוֹ כָּתְנוֹת עוֹר וַיַּלְבִּשֵׁם: 

כב וַיֹּאמֶר ׀ יְהוָֹה אֱלֹהִים הֵן הָאָדָם הָיָה כְּאַחַד מִמֶּנּוּ לָדַעַת טוֹב וָרָע וְעַתָּה ׀ פֶּן־יִשְׁלַח יָדוֹ וְלָקַח גַּם מֵעֵץ הַחַיִּים וְאָכַל וָחַי לְעֹלָם:

כג וַיְשַׁלְּחֵהוּ יְהוָֹה אֱלֹהִים מִגַּן־עֵדֶן לַעֲבֹד אֶת־הָאֲדָמָה אֲשֶׁר לֻקַּח מִשָּׁם:

כד וַיְגָרֶשׁ אֶת־הָאָדָם וַיַּשְׁכֵּן מִקֶּדֶם לְגַן־עֵדֶן אֶת־הַכְּרֻבִים וְאֵת לַהַט הַחֶרֶב הַמִּתְהַפֶּכֶת לִשְׁמֹר אֶת־דֶּרֶךְ עֵץ הַחַיִּים: 

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights  Reserved

It's embarrassing

Most countries in Europe broadcast in more than one language, including English.
I was emailing with a fellow language geek and mentioned this.
RFI
BBC
Deutsche Welle
IBA
RAI
NHK
and others broadcast in more than one language.


Deutsche Welle proudly lists 30 languages.
BBC 27.
NHK 17.
RFI 12.
IBA 12 including Hungarian (Magyar), Romanian, and Ladino.

The US? 
Feh!
We expect everybody to learn English. 
We're also too lazy to learn other languages.

Except for me and people like me, such as the one I was emailing with and those who will be attending the Polyglot Confereing in NYC in October.
http://polyglotconference.com/

If you know of one US media outlet that routinely provides media in languages other than English (or Spanish which is becoming a majority language), let me know and I will collect the links and post them here.
I'm not holding my breath.

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights  Reserved

I'm just saying -- I am become Death

Shatterer of --- corporate computer systems.
It happened inevitably, as everything does nowadays, that the anniversary of my signup for FiOS rolled around.
And my account went to a very bad place.


You have to understand that there was some kind of synergy going on in the universe when I signed up.
My copper wire was deteriorating, and Verizon wouldn't fix it.  My ability to connect to the net was shaky.
So I asked Verizon to install FiOS.


It was the hottest summer on record in the DC region.  At the end of June we were having "feels like" temps over 100.
Then the derecho came through.  It wiped out power for a couple of million people from Richmond Virginia almost to Philadelphia Pennsylvania. 
The only reason I survived not having even a working ceiling fan is that on a whim a few months earlier I bought a Victorian-type lady's fan from a website in California that specializes in steampunk clothes and accessories.  So I did have some airflow.
I expected power to be out for as much as 3 days, which happened in the year of Hurricane Isabel, the worst hurricane in the DC region in 70 years.
It took only 22 hours in 2012 and I was lucky at that.


Meanwhile at a Verizon data center, a generator burned up and Verizon was out of commission anyway, so even my copper wire didn't work.
I managed to borrow a cell from somebody I knew, and call Verizon, and tell them not to have the techie call ahead to see if I was there, but just come ahead and install the FiOS.
It was scheduled for Monday, July 2.
But Verizon had the torched data center and hundreds of downed wires to deal with.
I felt blessed when the tech showed up Tuesday, July 3.
So I had Internet again, and the power was back, and I gave a big sigh of relief.



Exactly 1 year later the FiOS went out. 
I got a tech to come out and it was something outside the house and after a couple of days I was back.
The next year the identical thing happened, and I went to Starbucks, bought a coffee, and used their WiFi to convince Verizon that this was identical to 2013, so the next day a tech came out and fixed it.



2015's incident was even more bizarre.
I could get online.
I could email from gmail.
I could login at Verizon's website.
But it said that my primary email address was at the ISP I had been using in 2012 when I signed up!!!!
It took 3 tries and 4 hours to get their computers to let me change that.
Then it wanted a verification email.
So I clicked the link and it told me it had successfully sent the verification email.
One small problem.
There was NO email in my inbox.
Not on Verizon's webmail, not in the Outlook on my computer.
I tried back for a total of 24 hours with no successful email.
I sent a feedback survey every time.
Finally after lunch I called Verizon's tech support line.
I proved to the guy that between the link to send the verification email, and my inbox, there existed a huge black hole into which the bits were falling.
He said he got their email experts involved.  They could see immediately that I was telling the truth.
It took them like 10 minutes to find out which server was dropping the bits and restore the links.

I'm just shaking my head.  There's no way to tell what horrible thing will happen next June 30.

I'm just saying...
© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights  Reserved

Fact-Checking the Torah -- Genesis 2:4-3:24

For this week, your assignment was to read Genesis 2:4 to 3:24.

There is no archaeological find matching this episode, which I will refer to as the “Gan Eden” episode or narrative.

There are plenty of finds about creating humankind.  One is in Enuma Elish; humans are created by Marduk out of the blood of Kingu, whom Marduk vanquished.

In Atra-Hasis humans were made by sacrificing the god Geshtu-E and mixing his blood with clay, then bringing “the goddesses” into play.  The purpose of humans was to take on the terribly hard work of irrigation imposed on the minor gods.

The scientific material that relates to the Gan Eden episode includes satellite imagery showing that in the region of the Tigris and Euphrates confluence, are a dry riverbed and an intermittent river.  I don’t know what the names of the latter two are, or were.  The episode gives Gichon and Pishon as the names of the two rivers that met up with the Tigris and Euphrates in Eden.

Another scientific tidbit is that edin is a Mesopotamian word for areas east of the current Euphrates bed.  Once they were irrigated and productive.  The Euphrates course changed westward, however, and the work of keeping up the eastern irrigation canals became more expensive than the government could pay for from the produce.  The eastern lands were abandoned and the name for them was edin.  This was in about the 3000s BCE, the Jemdet Nasr period, when desiccation resulted in consolidation of political power in city states which then governed the work of irrigation.

Nothing in the Gan Eden episode discusses irrigation.  It assumes that rain waters things.

The Gan Eden episode is not “about” agriculture at all.  In its 42 verses, agriculture never comes up.  It talks about eating bread “in the sweat of your brow.”   But “bread”, Hebrew lechem, means food in some contexts, “bread” being the base food in Jewish culture.  In similar contexts, some Western narratives use a word that translates as “meat”.  This underlies the translation of the last word of Luke 17:7 from Greek as “sit down to meat,” when what it really means is to go to a triclinium somewhere for a meal at which the servant will recline on a couch.  The “meat” translation suits Victorian westerners, while the Greek refers to giving a servant the same leisure for a meal as his master.

Anyhoo.

Humans ate seeds of all kinds long before agriculture started, including picking and then reaping and finally planting seeds of wheat, spelt, barley, rye, and oats.  By 18,000 BCE humans in southwest Asia were using sickles to collect the seed-bearing grain heads.  There’s no sense inventing a special tool to cut off the heads of grain unless they had long been part of the human diet, contrary to what the “Paleo” diet people will tell you.  By 7800 BCE, the stalks of grain show strong heads that could not simply fall apart in the wind or as animals brushed through.  By 3000 BCE, humans in Mesopotamia were organizing to ensure a supply of water to irrigate their main food source, which also produced the famous Mesopotamian beer.  (Hmmmm.)

But it was hard sweaty work for tens of thousands of years before anybody used a stone mattock to turn over virgin sod and put seeds into the ground on purpose, planning to reap the full-grown crop.

The Gan Eden episode is not mainly, let alone exclusively, about agriculture.  It mainly revolves around use of the term mot yamut, which you first saw in the posts about the death penalty, and that usage set up an expectation that controlled the narrative.  That is next week’s lesson.

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights  Reserved

Bit at a Time Bible Hebrew -- Genesis 3:22·24

Genesis 3:22-24

 

כב וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָֹה אֱלֹהִים הֵן הָאָדָם הָיָה כְּאַחַד מִמֶּנּוּ לָדַעַת טוֹב וָרָע וְעַתָּה פֶּן־יִשְׁלַח יָדוֹ וְלָקַח גַּם מֵעֵץ הַחַיִּים וְאָכַל וָחַי לְעֹלָם:

כג וַיְשַׁלְּחֵהוּ יְהוָֹה אֱלֹהִים מִגַּן־עֵדֶן לַעֲבֹד אֶת־הָאֲדָמָה אֲשֶׁר לֻקַּח מִשָּׁם:

כד וַיְגָרֶשׁ אֶת־הָאָדָם וַיַּשְׁכֵּן מִקֶּדֶם לְגַן־עֵדֶן אֶת־הַכְּרֻבִים וְאֵת לַהַט הַחֶרֶב הַמִּתְהַפֶּכֶת לִשְׁמֹר אֶת־דֶּרֶךְ עֵץ הַחַיִּים:

 

Translation:    **** Gd said behold the man has become like one of us to know good and evil and now lest he put out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat and live forever…

**** Gd sent him from Gan Eden to work the earth that he was taken from.

He pushed out the man and He established, away from the east of Gan Eden, the keruvim and the flash of the sword that revolves to guard the road of the tree of life.

 

Vocabulary in this lesson:

עַתָּה	Now, at this time
יִשְׁלַח	He put out
יָדוֹ	His hand
גַּם	also
לְעֹלָם	forever
יְגָרֶשׁ	Push out, divorce
יַּשְׁכֵּן	establish
לַהַט	flash
חֶרֶב	sword
מִּתְהַפֶּכֶת	revolves
דֶּרֶךְ	Road, path

 

Can you identify what binyan mithapekhet is?  Can you tell me why it is used?

 

Notice that Gd wouldn’t have to worry about people suddenly being able to live forever if He had created them to be immortal. 

 

Notice that I didn’t translate keruvim.  The only thing we know about them, from Exodus, is that they had wings and a front and back, and that the keruvim on the cover of the ark faced each other.

 

In the next lesson I’m going to give you the whole text for chapter 3 and a link to the audio.

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