Peek Behind the Curtain
In the beginning God created [et] . . . . Genesis 1:1 NASB
Et – If you read this text in Hebrew you would read the following: beresheet bara Elohim et hashamayim ve-et ha-aretz. Let me try to display this in Hebrew letters:
Why is it important to see the Hebrew text? Because there is an untranslated (and perhaps untranslatable) word in this text, a word that appears all over Scripture. It is, of course, the et, the Aleph-Tav (or Taw) combination that acts as a linguistic marker telling you that the next word is the direct object of the verb. You will see it as the fourth word in the text (reading from right to left) and the sixth word in the text (in combination with the letter Vav). In this case, the et precedes the word hashamayim and the word ha-aretz. The direct object of the verb “created” is “the heavens” and “the earth.” So far, pretty standard stuff.
But what happens if I read the verse according to its face value. Then I get, “In the beginning God created et.” Some rabbis read the verse like this and they conclude that in the beginning God created the et, i.e., the aleph-tav, the Hebrew alphabet. The first things God created were the Hebrew letters, aleph through tav. Everything else was the result of the creation of the Hebrew alphabet. In other words, the sacred letters of the Hebrew alphabet were the vehicles by which God created all the rest of the cosmos. First came the letters. Then came the formation of those letters into words and the words manifested themselves in physical reality. Isn’t that what we see in the verse, “And God said, ‘Light,’ and light became”? Can the word be spoken without a prior alphabet?
This ingenious piece of exegesis points out more essential and crucial differences between Hebrew and the rest of human languages. First, Hebrew communicates through its structure as well as its phonetics. I have to see the words before I can truly understand them. The shape of the letters communicates something God wants me to know.
Secondly, the position of the letters is also vitally important. I must learn to read the text as it appears, not as I alter it to fit my mother tongue. In English I not only never see the place of the et, I also never see that the verse can be read as the primacy of the creation of the Hebrew alphabet. What does this imply about our assumed arrogance that God can communicate everything we need to know in our language?
The combination aleph-taw is used thousands of times in the Hebrew text. None of those are visible to the reader of a translation. How many of those do you suppose might communicate something deeper if we only saw them where they really are?
Topical Index: et, aleph-taw, Hebrew alphabet, Genesis 1:1, translation
Proverbs says that the first thing God created was skill and cunning (chokmah), not the alphabet. So where do you stand with this?
Next, re: aleph tav. This is the combination of the first and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet. In Greek, John writes, “I am the Alpha Omega…” In Hebrew, this is the aleph tav.
John writes, “In the beginning was the logos (the written word).”
Some say that when John wrote, “In the beginning was the logos…”, based on what Jesus said in Revelation, that the aleph tav in Genesis refers to Christ.
What are your thoughts on this?
Thanks.
Couple of things.
1. If John is thinking Hebrew but writing Greek, then the alpha-omega is really a repetition of the Hebrew aleph-tav. Whether it is limited to a Messianic referent is debatable.
2. John does not use the word “logos” in the same way that the Greeks used the word, so it is not precisely translated as “Word.” The reference is clearly to a Hebraic idea (John’s allusion to the Genesis account) and then “word” becomes “debar” and that has a lot wider range of meaning than simply “written word.”
3. As for the comment about God “creating” wisdom (chokmah) first, see Bruce Waltke’s The Book of Proverbs, Vol. 1, pp. 408-410 on the much debated translation of this verse.
Aren’t there scholars that say Revelation was originally written in Hebrew?
“In the beginning God created et”
Hmmm
I always thought John was a bit too abstract for my taste
John 1
That which was from the beginning
that which we have heard
that which we have seen with our eyes
that which we saw and our hands touched
concerning the Word of life
I’m a little surprised you didn’t mention Paleo-Hebrew here–what does that look like? I agree this is inspired exegesis and well worth the chewing.
Here’s a nit: wouldn’t the alef-tav need to be doubled to make it clear alef-tav is to be read as the actual direct object?
את is the direct accusative marker, nothing more. One can make the same big deal about the greek word αν which is never translated either.
I find this all very cabbalistic which seems to me to have Gnostic tendencies – special knowledge for insiders.
The problem I have with this is that one can’t apply the testing that the Scriptures requires, namely to test Scripture with Scripture.
When Yeshua says in Rev 1:8 “I am the Alpha and Omega” He does not say I am the ΑΩ but το Α και το Ω. If John wanted to emphasized the את I think he would have worked it around to say ΑΩ.
The only thing I can get out of Rev1:8 is that He is the beginning and the end. Which can be supported with the rest of Scriptures. The whole idea about את the being something special is all very nice and cunning, but how can you prove that with two or three witnesses.
I am not in disagreement with you, but I wanted you to know that there is another way of looking at all this. The transparency of the text isn’t quite so obvious. Paradigmatic thinking prevails in most cases and we must be aware of the paradigms if we hope to communicate across them.
I agree with you that paradigmatic thinking gets in the way most of the time. I agree with most of what Michael Rempel had to say as well. And I can honestly say that reading TW is what has changed my desire to learn Hebrew and Greek into actually studying it. I am not a total novice. I took online courses, immersion courses in Israel, study Greek now at a more advanced level because of you Skip. I thank God for the challenges you give us. But this really makes me very, very uneasy.
To say: “But what happens if I read the verse according to its face value. Then I get, “In the beginning God created et.” is to me implying that words have meaning apart from sentences, apart from the structure of a sentence. One has to prove that the word את is ever used as a direct object or a subject to get that sense.
And what do I do about the next time this participle is used?
Gen 1:4 And God saw את־ the light. וירא אלהים את־האור.
Gen 1:7 And God made את־ the firmament.
Can we say: God saw et? Can we say God made et? and ignoring the actual direct object? No, the et indicates that God looked at a specific object, namely the light He just created. The light was good. And God made the firmament He just mentioned in verse 6.
Another point is what to do with this when the direct object of the sentence is a pronoun and it is attached to the accusative participle? For example: Gen 4:14: Behold, you have driven me [אתי] out.
And how do I interpret the addition of a vav to the same word. Deut 32:51 …because you have not hallowed me [אותי] in the midst of the sons of Israel? Do me make something special out of the additional vav?
I am afraid that this is not exegesis, but eisegesis.
Now I am the first one to admit that it could very well be that God did create the letters, but it is still conjecture and can’t be proven either way. To me this brings up the question that if God really intended us to know this special knowledge, why didn’t He just say so? How can I test this to be the truth if it is not revealed?
But I don’t think anyone is disagreeing with you on this point. We are not suggesting that this is the ONLY way to read the text. We are only pointing out that some rabbinic tradition reads the text in this way. It might be isogesis, but in my humble opinion, the doctrine of the trinity verges on the same. Please don’t think that because there are alternatives to reading the text that means one is WRONG and the other RIGHT. That would certainly be a Greek way of looking at Hebraic concepts. What is here is just other ways of reading the same text – and the rabbis do this all the time.
So, now tell me what you do with the et in Genesis 4:1.
I read Guardian Angel 🙂 Lent my copy to a couple that said they really love it. I need to remember to get it back to reread it! 🙂
I think your explanation on pg 196 – pg 197 is built on the same point I am making. Et is the direct object marker.
I don’t want to beat a dead horse. So forgive me.
I understand the PaRDeS issue. My problem is with the Sod, the Esoteric / Secret part of this. It is Kabbalah that teaches that Creation was enacted through the Hebrew letters of the Torah.
I don’t think that the issue I am worried about is whether there are alternatives to reading the text or how our paradigms influence the way we read the text. I know that we agree there.
But I think that this is about Kabbalah and its evident links to Gnosticism/Mysticism which is as Greek as it gets. With some ingenuity, one can come up with all kinds of interpretations. Where are the checks and balances when it comes to these mystical interpretations?
I agree about Kabbala. Its direction bothers me too, principally because I am quite aware of the philosophical presuppositions. So I don’t endorse its view. Nevertheless, there are occasions when the Sod side of PaRDeS is intriguing. So, I think we are pretty much in agreement on all this. Thanks for the discussion.
This then raises the question: can we really know anything unless we are Hebrew scholars, or rely on those like you, Skip, to explain THE COMPLETE SET OF SCRIPTURES to us? It’s really quite depressing!
It almost makes me into an agnostic as far as epistemology is concerned – can we know ANYTHING in this regard?
Hopefully, the answer is that we can!
And HOPE abounds. Yes, we can know, but we cannot be naive in our knowing. Knowing Scripture is not simply reading the text. It is study and struggle and hints and culture and etymology and listening to the Spirit, who sometimes speaks in a strange tongue. What we learn is not agnostic hopelessness but rather FINITE perspective. There is always more – ALWAYS. And we must push forward knowing that YHWH will not abandon us nor leave us directionless forever. But He does teach in parables and they are “dark sayings” for sure.
Hi Skip,
Twas great to see and hear you teach in good old blighty at Gathering stones prior to your recent voyage.
On the subject above, Alev & Tav – “The strenghth of the covenant”, is this not an interpretation of these letters?
Many Blessng’s Simon
Help a poor English speaking dude out!
How in the world had God been able to effectively communicate
with me and billions of other non-Hebrew speaking people now
and throughout the centuries?
While I deeply respect and appreciate the deep richness and
meanings in Hebrew, as I also appreciate the dramatic differences
in my wife’s German language, it hasn’t stopped God’s loving nature
and character from miraculously entering in to change man’s inner
being, no matter what language they speak.
I suspect and heartily believe God’s sovereignty far surpasses
the limitations of any language.
But you confuse “communicate” with “understand.” If I give you a lecture on the relationship between string theory and ten dimensional space, I communicate the information in words you know (hopefully) but that does not mean you UNDERSTAND what I am saying. God communicates. You hear. And then you assume that He is speaking words with the same definitions that you have. Result? You hear but you fail to understand. Now, you can believe what you hear according to your definitions, but that does not entail that you understand what God actually intended. Of course, you will get some of it because some human ways of life (cf. Wittgenstein) cross all cultures and languages (e.g., the experience of pain), but I hope that we are not ready to settle for our limited ways of hearing what God says. I hope we want to know all that we can about what the author of Scripture intended. And that means we must dig it out.
God’s sovereignty surpasses the limits of language, but that does not entail that He communicates “outside” of those limits. If He is going to speak to me, He must speak in ways that I can UNDERSTAND, and He has chosen to do so in Hebrew and Greek. Who am I to suggest that He made a mistake and that what I know in ENGLISH (etc.) is good enough.
You need to be cautious about rejecting the mystical traditions just because the church has not embraced them. The PaRDeS structure is striking when you understand it, and fully active especially in the Johannian literature. Also recall HOW Torah was transmitted. No printing presses, no mechanical means at all. So every copy of every text had to be verified. The beginning of the ‘games’ that make this interesting and compelling had to be there.
Also consider that Hebrew is the earliest form of human communication. Pictures and picture groups came first. Sounds came later and they are somewhat arbitrary. The signs and symbols are not arbitrary. Language itself is something of a model of the world. So we cannot dismiss the notion out of hand. And while other languages express many things, Hebrew is G-d’s chosen vehicle to express His intimate and amazing thought to humanity. It is purpose built for that one task.
On proving scripture with scripture, I would say sure. But first learn Hebrew. If you dont know it IMHO you are not qualified to answer the question one way or another. There are ways of thinking that one person can grasp and easily work with, and the next person cannot. But please dont dismiss other people’s ways simply because you dont get it. (Or I dont get it, which happens often enough) The essence of the new covenant requires us to each know of his neighbor that they know the Lord, that they are loyal to G-d. Let us consider that there is but one who is worthy to judge that well. Apart from obvious sin, or obvious character flaws we need to give grace and room for that expression which is not our own, but which is also not at odds with scripture. There surely will be debate and discussion about that, but that is for our own education. All of scripture is our spiritual play ground. And some people like some toys better than others. But obedience and love are the signs Messiah gave for us to know one another. Not matters of doctrine, or is one method of knowing better than another.
Rein I would say Skip has barely scratched the surface of the Hebrew meaning and there is a lot more in scripture than we know or understand yet. Look at the stuff the people who have investigated the aleph tav have found. Ask yourself if the findings are significant or not. Presently I am undecided about the answer to that question, but I wont dismiss someone who has invested more deeply than I have simply because I dont yet see as they do. I may never see as they do, but the love I am called to is thankful that people are playing with the toys and getting goodness out of them for themselves. Halacha is about walking. In order to make progress forward you give up a little lateral stability and fall. Gravity does the real work, you just manipulate it to move yourself forward. If you stop in any one position that is not made to be a stopping place you fall down. But if you dont go through the positions and accept a little off balance as an exchange for forward movement you go nowhere. Human thinking has to work that way. We cant comprehend or hold more than a few things in our heads at once even if we ‘know’ them.
The last thing I would suggest is trust G-d. I say this for myself more than for anyone else. Trust that God will move people, that they will walk and not fall down. Be the best junior partner G-d has and play with the toys G-d places in front of you to play with. Trust that everyone else will get good toys placed in front of them too. And be nice about sharing. Daddy likes it when we play nice. He has to remind me of this more often than I like. Playing nice means obeying His word, and living out the thing we are made to be to the fullest.
I hope I’m not confused.
Jesus said clearly and distinctly for our understanding:
“It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing.
The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are
life.” Jn 6:63
Then the qualifier. In verse 64 Jesus adds:
“But there are some who do not believe.”
God’s Word further says for our understanding:
“Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to
the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to
the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone
is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold
all things have become new.” 2 Cor 5:16-17
I’m not confused. I’m changed.
http://www.alephtavscriptures.com/
Have any of you investigated this at all?
Thank you Lori for this link. I was familiar with Aleph Tav connection to John’s writings in John 1 & Revelation, but I only barely scratched the surface. After reading through his introductions, I for one will be ordering Bill’s monumental work.
God is good, always!
“Have any of you investigated this at all?”
Hi Lori.
I found some of the material to be very interesting, but the interpretations
Seemed a bit far-fetched
[quote]You need to be cautious about rejecting the mystical traditions just because the church has not embraced them. [/quote]
So I’ve been discovering more and more the past two years. Recently, I’ve been going through Stephen Verney’s Water Into Wine (on John) for the second time. I would say that “mystical” isn’t the word I’d use, but I certainly observe there are supernatural things in the text that we prefer to gloss over in favor of an intellectual gospel where we are in control. John 3 is a perfect example.
Evangelicals stop with, “you must be born again.”
But Jesus says two radical things to Nicodemus. First, that if we are not conceived from above we cannot see the Kingdom of God. Then he says, if we are not conceived from above we cannot enter the Kingdom of God. When the Greek word see is brought back into Hebrew, it becomes ra’ab of which there are 1202 uses. And these uses, beginning in Genesis, range from, “and God saw that it was good,” to 2 Kings where Elisha “palal’s” that his servant will “see” (ra’ab) the angelic host protecting them from the Syrians encamped outside his door!
To see as God sees comes available once we are conceived from above and we develop our walk and relationship with Him!
And once we are entered into the Kingdom, we discover from Paul in Col 1:13 that we were transferred (rhuomai) from the kingdom of darkness into the Kingdom of God’s beloved Son.
Then Jesus says that, “My words are spirit and life.” Ruach – wind, life – nephesh.
All of this I observe to be supernatural (mystical if you prefer).
In light of Romans 8:14, to be led by the Spirit is supernatural.
“It is, of course, the et, the Aleph-Tav (or Taw) combination that acts as a linguistic marker telling you that the next word is the direct object of the verb. ”
The AlaphTaw is much more than that! It is also connected to covenant keepers, and possessions.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXYftg_H3pM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFztsE8Xr6A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWuDOb6l010
Bill Sanford spent 4 whole years immersed in studying this topic and has arrived at very inspiring conclusions, writing a new Bible with the AlpehTaws fully pointed out from Hebrew Scriptures and explaining the significance of their function in Scriptures.
A very interesting TW! We do put up a defense when we are confronted with a new ‘thing’. Goes to show how SET our minds/paradigm can be.
Wow! Just watched all of these teachings. My eyes have been opened even more and I can’t even begin to explain the stirring and repentance as well as joy of who my precious Messiah is to me. I had a dream in 1999 that I could not understand yet shared with many others and received no understanding about Torah and Yeshuas actually showing me where to find truth in the Torah. This is pushing me even more to choose His truth and His way.
Hi Babs,
(Big Smile) Amein! Shalom!
Thank You, ABBA for giving us the understanding!
We have just decided to pursue this study in the paleo letters that are taught by Eric Bissell ~ eriktology ~ paleosfr@gmail.com. Happy digging!
Amazing that in every human there be the Hebrew letters. If we seek Him we shall see the revelation unfold and the spark of life happens!