TheSong of the Dove
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Sources Reading Room

Sources Consulted in This Web Site

The sources consulted during the preparation of this web site fall into two groups: Scriptural and Supporting sources. In almost all instances, sources are translated directly from the actual languages in which they were written.
The core document for this web site is the original Hebrew version of the most widely read book in the world: The Book of Books, the Bible. The ideas of the web site are taken directly from the first sub-book of the Bible, namely Genesis.
The Hebrew Bible Being Taught - And Learned
The printed version of the Bible in Hebrew that serves as the source for all scriptural quotations that appear in this site is the Hebrew language Bible known as the Law, the Prophets and the Writings, published by the Mossad HaRav Kook Publishing House in 1989. This Tanakh, as it is called in Hebrew, derives its text from the Keter Aram Tsova, a greatly detailed, hand-lettered vellum Bible that was commissioned in the city of Aleppo, Syria some 1,200 years ago. In preparation for the release of what is considered to be the most accurate version of the Bible ever printed, the Keter manuscript was painstakingly checked against other priceless Hebrew manuscripts, notably the Bibles located in the St. Petersburg national museum in Russia and the Oxford University Museum in England. The Five Books of Moses used in this edition are also based on rare manuscripts of the Jewish Community of Yemen.

It should be noted that for millennia, carefully trained scribes have copied the Bible down through the generations. In addition, they have mastered and taught to their students a very detailed methodology for ensuring the complete accuracy of the text as it was received in antiquity. The Law section of the Bible, containing hundreds of thousands of letters, differs from each Hebrew Bible existing all over the world by the presence or absence of just nine letters, none of which changes the simple meaning of the text.

From the moment the Lord first presented the Law to Moses on the desert mountain called Horev, also known as Sinai, its meaning was explored, explained and taught. Tradition relates that the first Bible teacher ever was the Lord Himself, who taught the depth and breadth of the practical and esoteric Bible to Moses. Moses then taught what he had learned to the Elders and Leaders of that generation, and those leaders taught it to the next generation, until our very own times.

Some 2000 years ago, the vast body of traditional explanation and elucidation of the written text was first collected and put into writing. An enormous literature surrounding Scripture emerged, known today as the Midrash.

Over the past two millennia, while Christian monks throughout Europe were occupied with the task of preserving many Latin- and Greek-language treatises from the classical authors of antiquity, the Jews were engrossed in a far more ambitious project: the collection, teaching, writing and dissemination of the gargantuan corpus of scriptural commentary and tradition called the Midrash. In our day, huge amounts of materials have been preserved, and are still studied all over the world. It is from this invaluable resource that much of the sources supporting the ideas of this web site are derived.

Much of this ancient Midrashic material was written down in various dialects of Aramaic, a Middle Eastern, Semitic tongue which was the dominant language of commerce and discourse in the Middle East in that period. The Midrashic sources used in this web site are translated directly from their original Aramaic into the English that appears before the reader of this web site.

Principles of Translation

One of the fundamental principals of translation is that there can be no translation without interpretation. In the struggle to convey the meaning of a text for readers of a different language, the translator is forced to interpret the text in order to explain its meaning.

The Hebrew Bible was written in the Hebrew language in use in the Land of Israel more than three thousand years ago. In order for the meaning to be comprehensible to today's reader of modern English, a translator is forced to follow certain conventions. Following are the conventions behind the translation of verses that appears in this web site.

The Hebrew of the Bible has a rich word flow, and a syntax all of its own. The translator of the Bible from Hebrew often must choose: which system is best to follow more closely - the syntax and word order of the source language, Hebrew, or that of the destination language, in our case English?

Early translations of the Hebrew Bible into English have sought to maintain the Hebrew syntax and word order, but have often resulted in a translation that sounds awkward to modern ears. Modern translations of the Bible, on the other hand, often set aside the original syntax and word order of the Hebrew in order to make the translation flow and sound more familiar to the modern English-speaking reader. This approach can result in the loss of the unique flow that characterizes the Hebrew language.

In the translated verses of this web site, we have tried to strike a balance, maintaining the original flow of the Hebrew text wherever possible, but working to keep the current of the language flowing smoothly in English.

The use of archaic language in a translation of the Bible can convey a feeling of awe, which isn't necessarily such a bad thing; but on the other hand, this tends to push the text away from the reader, conveying to the reader the subtle feeling that the Bible is removed, distant in time and meaning, and even entirely beyond a mere mortal to comprehend.

The Bible itself testifies against this approach. The Bible warns that the text is not to be thought of as far away from a person, or impossible to comprehend; on the contrary,

"the word is very close to you, in your mouths and in your hearts, to do it." (Deuteronomy 30:14)

For this reason, we sought to avoid the use of many archaic words such as "thou", "thee", "covenant", "verily", "henceforth", etc., terms that are seldom used in today's spoken English. We hope that the text will seem fresh and familiar, and will speak in the manner of English texts that are written and expounded upon in our own times.
Jewish Immigrants From Peru Celebrate At A Wedding in Israel
The Hebrew language is unique among the languages of the world in that it is an ancient tongue that lay dormant for more than 2000 years until being resuscitated as the language of discourse and writing for an entire nation. One individual more than any other, Dr. Eliezer ben-Yehudah, who lived some 100 years ago, was responsible for this modern-day miracle. Today, almost all of the residents of Israel speak this ancient, revived Biblical tongue.

As Hebrew has come back again into daily, spoken usage, many Biblical words that were removed from daily life and fixed in meaning for generations are finding themselves drawn back into the very life process of an energetic nation, and are taking on new meanings, in print and in speech.

Translators of the Bible even seventy-five years ago had no real living language that could serve as a backdrop for their translations. The meaning of the words of the Bible were what they thought they must have been thousands of years ago. Today, those meanings are being refined in the crucible of the day-to-day language of a living people in its land. And because of this long period of dormancy, the ancient words of the Bible take on a fresh twist in the speech and writings of a modern nation riding the crest of the information age.

In contrast to today's speakers of Modern Greek or English, modern-day Hebrew speakers have very little trouble understanding the simple meaning of ancient source texts, since today's Hebrew is almost identical in syntax, spelling and pronunciation to its ancient counterpart.

It is for this reason that in many instances, when we are convfronted with a range of meanings for a given word, we tend to use its meaning as it has come to be in modern, living, spoken Hebrew. We take this approach because we believe that in its modern, spoken form, the language is truly holy.

Moreover, there are those who surmise that much of the prophetic material that appears in the Bible was written for future generations that were to come long after the time that the prophecies themselves were put into writing. This lends credence to the idea that the texts should be examined and expounded upon with an eye towards the way the resurrected language of Hebrew is spoken and experienced in our own times.