NEW! Finally you can preview the first 4 chapters of B'rasheet (Genesis) in my new work on The Turah of YaHUAH. The first ever Turah (Law) in an accurate English literal translation with ancient Aibreet (Hebrew), and using manuscripts from the Sh'merunit (Samaritan text), Septuagint, Dead Sea Scrolls and common Masoretic texts. What is "Aibreet?" This is a word, spelled "ayin, bet, rawsh (resh), yood (yod), tau," for the "Hebrew" language or script. If you need help or wish to learn Aibreet (Hebrew) from Scripture and an ancient pictographic perspective, feel free to meet with us on Google plus. You can join in on our mid-week Google plus hangouts as well. Contact by email if you need help. For some songs that I have done pdf files on in Aibreet (Hebrew), see the Movies and Music page.
People often ask "Why is Hebrew so important? How can I start to learn?" Plainly
and simply, translations fall short. In order to make an understandable
English translation, translators have to change the order of words in
the original sentences sometimes. Thus, "the guy walked his dog" may end
up as "his dog walked the guy." And when you have a certain belief
system, be it Jewish or Christian, the English translator may
deliberately alter a text. Moreover, there are lots of things that are so much clearer in the
original text of Aibreet (Hebrew) than in English. For example, the word
for "eye" is "ayin." The word for "well" or "spring" is the same word.
The ancient Aibree (Hebrew) understood the "well" or "cistern" to be the
"eye" of the desert (B'rasheet (Gen.) 21:19 for example). Much like our eyes shed tears, so also the "well"
or "cistern" sheds water to a thirsty person. Things like that are not
conveyed in any English translation. If you are interested, you can check out The Scriptures link.
Ultimately,
a person’s most valuable study tools when it comes to Scripture are
history, context, and language. History and context commentaries and
references are abundant on the internet and in books. But when it comes
to language, we find that most people simply rely on the so-called
trustworthiness of the English translation, the pastor or rabbi’s
exegesis (taking out of the text based on the original words), or using a
concordance. But there is a problem with this practice, because a
concordance will only give you the root word of what the text is
referring to, not the actual phrase or wording. For example, the first word of the Scripture is "B’rasheet," meaning "in (B) the beginning (rasheet)."
The Strong’s concordance doesn’t have a reference for the letter "bayt"
(b) in front of "rasheet" (beginning) in this case. It is evident,
listening to pastors or so-called "Messianic rabbis," that they are
unable to read the original text, because the words they reference in
their preaching, teaching, and writing are cut from concordances and most often their pronunciation is horrible.
So,
PERHAPS YOU ACTUALLY WANT TO READ SCRIPTURE FOR YOURSELF. You may ask
"Where do I start?" Truthfully, you have taken the first step. You have
realized that you have a need. Your next step will be to learn the "Al
Bayt" (most commonly seen as "alef-bet"). This is where we get the word "alphabet" from. It means the Strong/Ox (al) House (bayt (commonly "bet")). Letters are the building blocks of the
words. So you first need to learn the 22 letters of Aibreet (Hebrew
script), and how to tell what vowels to put between them. For that, I
humbly suggest you could print off a copy of the document in this
regard. This document talks about the Name of the Almighty and a few
other names in Scripture. It shows how we know what the Name of the Most
High is, and some of the problems that have occurred in the
past. People in past centuries believed the Name of the Most High to
be pronunciations like "Yahweh" or "Yehuweh" or "Yehovah." It is in the article on Al-Bayt, Names and Vowels why I believe the Name of the Almighty is “YaHUAH.” You
will also learn about the letters of Aibreet (Hebrew script), the
evolution of language, and why seeing these letters as symbols can often
help our understanding of Scriptural words, names, and places. I've done two videos on this. The first is the letters Al (a) through theth. The second is from Yood (y) to tau (t). See the YouTube videos at the bottom of this page! Lastly,
you will learn about vowels in modern Aibreet (Hebrew script). You may check out the article also regarding Restoring Ancient Aibreet (Hebrew), which deals with the ancient versus
modern text, and some changes we can make to restore a purer text. Lastly there is a list of Ancient Aibreet Terminology which will be expanded/updated regularly.
Once
you learn how to read the letters and pronounce the vowels, you can be
on your way to reading through the Turah (Scripture). Most people start by learning in modern "Ibrit" as Orthodox Judaism calls it. You can proceed to read this pdf file regarding the "Basics of Biblical Hebrew." This is produced by Gary D Practico and Miles Van Pelt. Warning, Gary
hasn't learned that terms like "God" or "Lord" or other terms used in
his document have false origins. Thus, I do not use them in articles, website, daily life and worship. And of course, they are using modern Masoretic pronunciation/vowel-pointing. Nonetheless, it is a
great document if one wanted to learn modern Masoretic Aibreet (Hebrew). It is somewhat necessary when wanting to return to the ancient script. As you become fluent in learning the letters and
their vowels, you will notice that a lot of the time, the Masoretic
scribal vowel-pointing betrays the original text of Scripture.
Thus, some people will say "tov," believing the "waw" to be pronounced
as a hard "v" sound. Whereas some, like us, prefer to leave the "theth" as "th" and "bayt" properly as it is originally intended, so it is "thoob." Modern Israeli will often interchange "tob" and "tov." There is no rhyme or reason as to why.
Once
you learn the letters and vowel points, you need to start reading your
Turah (Scripture). I suggest you order a copy of the Hebrew to English Torah. That is the best I can suggest while I am working
towards publishing my own version of the Turah (Scripture) using the ancient script, modern Aibreet (Hebrew) in the center
and an accurate English transliteration and translation. Link for this is below until my version is ready.
Now
once you start reading your Turah (Scriptures), you will have troubles with
certain words, vowels, and understanding. Granted. This takes some time
and dedication. But, if you have troubles with a particular word, you
can listen to each chapter using Media Player (even slow
it down if they read too fast) by going here:
http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/ptmp3prq.htm. Once again, of course they are using modern Masoretic
pronunciation, and if you want to transfer it back to ancient then you
can consult my website resources or speak with me personally.
OR you can see a decently direct English transliteration in modern Masoretic by going here:
http://www.qbible.com/hebrew-old-testament/genesis/1.html#1.
You
should be on your way with these tools. You will see how
badly the English translators have often changed words to suit their
Jewish, Christian, or Messianic Jewish biases. Mind you, the Jewish
translation in English is much better than the Christian or Messianic
Jewish ones. Yet there is still much to be done to produce a proper work.
Some
people have also asked what the difference is by going back to the
ancient "early Semitic script." The only difference is that the ancient
script looks more like the pictures that they originally portrayed. For
example, the letter "al" (alef) literally looks like an ox head ("kine" in
Deut. 7:13). In my
view of things, not much has changed from ancient script until the
modern script, excepting how the letters are written, and the traditions
that have formed over "bet" (as Orthodox Judaism calls this letter) versus "vet" (v) or "waw" (w) versus "vav"
(v), or "pay" (p) versus "fay" (f). They make no explanation as to how these changes came about. We seek to restore them. Thus, I use only bayt (b), waw (ooh or oo-ah), pay (p). Please see my document on Restoring Ancient Aibreet (Hebrew) as stated above.
Sh'loom,
Sha'ul
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