Kenneth, the introduction in your book is a jewel, it brought back to me the great Spinoza :iskander wrote:Thank you . I have downloaded the pdf and I will enjoy reading it.kennethgreifer wrote:iskander,
I put my psalm book on my site to read for free if you want to see it. It has a different title "Hebrew Bible Quotes that Have Been Misunderstood for Thousands of Years, Volume 4." http://www.hebrewbiblequotes.com/
Kenneth Greifer
Thanks again!
Online Library of Liberty: The Chief Works of Benedict de Spinoza, vol 1 (Tractatus-Theologico- page 92I will now point out its difficulties and shortcomings, which prevent our gaining a complete and assured knowledge of the Sacred Text.
Its first great difficulty consists in its requiring a thorough knowledge of the Hebrew language. Where is such knowledge to be obtained? The men of old who employed the Hebrew tongue have left none of the principles and bases of their language to posterity; we have from them absolutely nothing in the way of dictionary, grammar, or rhetoric.....
And not only are these gone, but we are lacking in a knowledge of Hebrew phraseology. The devouring tooth of time has destroyed nearly all the phrases and turns of expression peculiar to the Hebrews, so that we know them no more. Therefore we cannot investigate as we would all the meanings of a sentence by the uses of the language; and there are many phrases of which the meaning is most obscure or altogether inexplicable, though the component words are perfectly plain.....
In addition to the sources of ambiguities common to all languages, there are many peculiar to Hebrew. These, I think, it worthwhile to mention.
Firstly, an ambiguity often arises in the Bible from our mistaking one letter for another similar one. ....
A second difficulty arises from the multiplied meaning of conjunctions and adverbs ......
The third very fertile source of doubt is the fact that Hebrew verbs in the indicative mood lack the present, the past imperfect, the pluperfect, the future perfect, and other tenses most frequently employed in other languages; in the imperative and infinitive moods they are wanting in all except the present, and a subjunctive mood does not exist.....
Besides these sources of ambiguity there are two others, one very important. Firstly, there are in Hebrew no vowels; secondly, the sentences are not separated by any marks elucidating the meaning or separating the clauses, Though the want of these two has generally been supplied by points and accents, such substitutes cannot be accepted by us, inasmuch as they were invented and designed by men of an after age whose authority should carry no weight. The ancients wrote without points (that is, without vowels and accents), as is abundantly testified; their descendants added what was lacking, according to their own ideas of Scriptural interpretation; wherefore the existing accents and points are simply current interpretations, and are no more authoritative than any other commentaries.-
Politicus, Tractatus Politicus)
Excellent work Kenneth, well done!