The Basic Basics

[hyssop]

Most of the "Old Testament" scriptures are written Hebrew.

1. Hebrew is read from right to left, top to bottom on a printed page. One also reads a Hebrew book from right to left, so the last page of a book written in English would be the first page of a book written in Hebrew.

Example: The first letter of the Hebrew word for G_d, ~iyhO l?a, is a.

2. There are 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet (some of which have multiple forms). All 22 letters are consonants.

3. The vowels are not part of the alphabet. They are little marks (e.g. dots, lines, etc.) that appear above, under, or next to the consonants of a word.

Example: In the word, ~iyhO l?a, the consonants are "~yhla" and the vowels are " i O ? ".

Vowel markings are not printed in the Torah scrolls. So, the two Hebrew word forms ~Ar'[ and ~Wr'[ are really the same Hebrew word, ~wr[, in the Torah.

4. No capital letters exist in Hebrew.

5. Print and cursive forms exist for each consonant.

6. Letters are never connected to each other within a word (neither in print nor in cursive).

7. 5 of the 22 consonants have a different form (look differently) when they appear as the last consonant of a word.


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[Matthew23]

Hyssop, I'm not sure if I'm seeing the "letters" that I am supposed to see in your post. Should they be Hebrew letters that I'm seeing or should they look like this:

~iyhO
~iyhO l?a
etc...

Do I need to download something for my browser?

matt

[hyssop]

Matt,

You need the BST Hebrew fonts. The link is on the main forum page in the two-sentence paragraph under "Hebrew Basics," and you can download the fonts from there.

Please let me know if you run into problems.

[Matthew23]

Ahh. That's much better. Thanks.

[Matthew23]

HELP!

Hyssop, I need a favor-

I've been conversing with a Mormon (on another forum). Mormons believe that YHWH has a "father", and I've been trying to show this fellow that YHWH does NOT have a father. Now, he's trying to tell me that the Hebrew phrase "YHWH Elohim" could be translated as "God's Yahweh" as well as "the LORD God". Seems to me like this could be easily refuted, but the problem is, I don't know Hebrew, so I can't do it legitimately.

What would you, having some knowledge of the language, have to say about this?

sincerely,
matt

[hyssop]

Matt,

I think that I know where this guy is coming from, and he may have Hebraic grounds (albeit, a stretch) for doing so. I've not got the time at the moment to respond in detail (I've got to leave for work in 4 hours). Also, I have weekly Hebrew lessons with an Israeli native who could certainly fill me in on whether or not one could use this interpretation. I will ask him the question this coming Sunday and get back to you.

[Matthew23]

Okay, I'm not in a hurry. Thanks, Hyssop.

matt

[hyssop]

Matt,

Let me give you a quick overview of where I think your acquaintance's argument lies:

YHWH and Elohim are both nouns.

YHWH is translated L_rd, and Elohim is translated g_d (we won't go into the fact that g_d is in the plural form and should be literally translated g_ds).

Usually, when two nouns follow one another in Hebrew, there is an implied "of" between them. For example, in the last half of Gen. 1:2, there are two Hebrew nouns back-to-back. They are Ruach (spirit) and Elohim (g_d) -- translated into English "Ruach Elohim" becomes "spirit <I>of</i> G_d" or "G_d's spirit."

So, I believe that your guy is translating "YHWH Elohim" as "YHWH <I>of</i> G_d" or "G_d's YHWH." If that is the translation, then G_d has a YHWH. If YHWH represents the name of the eternal creator, the "father" of all creation, then g_d has a father. I'm not sure that there is concrete Hebraic proof that one <U>cannot</u> translate the two words this way. HOWEVER, there is one grammatical point that a person could make (hey, if we're going to split hairs, let's get splitting).

<B>Hebrew rule:</b>
When two nouns follow one another with an implied "of" between them, the first noun is written in the <I>construct state</i>. VERY OFTEN, the first word's consonants and/or vowels change their form slightly. VERY OFTEN, the first word looks exactly the same as it would if it were not in the construct state. However, to my knowledge, there are no nouns with an "AH" ending as in the voweled version of YHWH that do not change forms when written in the construct state.

For example, the word translated as <I>bank</i> in Gen 41:17 is <I>Sahfah</i> (Strong's 8193): <FONT FACE="BSTHebrew" SIZE=6>h"p'v</font> (Notice the "<FONT FACE="BSTHebrew" SIZE=6>h"</font>x" ending)
When <I>bank</i> is followed by <I>river</i> (Strong's 2975) to form "the bank <I>of</i> the river," it changes into the construct state: <FONT FACE="BSTHebrew" SIZE=6>roa.y;h t;p.v
</font> (Notice that the "<FONT FACE="BSTHebrew" SIZE=6>h"</font>x" ending changes into "<FONT FACE="BSTHebrew" SIZE=6>t;</font>x") Again, to my knowledge, this is always the case, but I would be interested to see if your guy can come up with, say, 3 different nouns that are exceptions to this rule in all of the Tanach--I think it would be pretty easy to find 100 that follow it.

That brings us to YHWH, or: <FONT FACE="BSTHebrew" SIZE=6>h'woh.y</font>
I can't tell you how "handy" it is that YHWH has the "AH" ending. That's because, if it should be translated "YHWH <I>of</i> g_d," then YHWH should be written in the construct state; it is not. The "<FONT FACE="BSTHebrew" SIZE=6>h"</font>x" ending was not changed into "<FONT FACE="BSTHebrew" SIZE=6>t;</font>x"

I hope this helps.

[Matthew23]

Makes sense to me! This is good stuff. The word of G-d is so AWESOME! Every "jot and tittle" means something

I look forward to hear what your Hebrew instructor has to say.

Thanks again,
matt

[Matthew23]

Hyssop, I need your help again...

I'm trying to get Hebrew fonts to work on this computer, but it's not happening. I've got Windows XP. What do I need to do?

thanks in advance,
matt

[hyssop]

Matt,

I haven't been using XP very long and, until I read your post, I didn't realize that my Hebrew fonts weren't working either. The way that I got them working was to download the BST Hebrew fonts. The link is on the main forum page in the two-sentence paragraph under "Hebrew Basics," and you can get the fonts there.

NOTE: I downloaded the Windows NT/2000 fonts. But, instead of unzipping them into the c:\winnt\fonts directory, I unzipped them into the c:\windows\fonts directory. Otherwise, the "Instructions for installing fonts" (under the WindowsNT/2000 selection) are valid.

[Matthew23]

Got it. I was unzipping it to the wrong folder.

thanks,
matt

[jefffletcher12]

Numbers

I have been told that every number has a specific Hebrew picture that is attached to it. Example, 1 G-d, 2 tablets, and so on. If this is true, great, I would love to be able to know what all the numbers mean. Does anyone know? Or is there a website that I can be referred to? Thank you very much for your help.

[hyssop]

Welcome, Jeff:

I'm really not very familiar with the numbers and pictures. However, a quick look on the Internet gave me the following - http://www.apocalypse2008-2015.com/hebrewmystery.html

hyssop

[jefffletcher12]

thanks hyssop

Thanks for getting back to me so quickly hyssop. I think this is what I was looking for but the numbers are different than what I have learned. So either this is wrong or what I have learned is wrong. Thanks again though.