Letter to Mark - 2
From idontknownuthin
As I became more comfortable with the hermeneutic, I discovered that every word helps paint the picture of Christ.
In scriptures the word 'sleep' is used for death. Rib also means 'limping' and 'side', 'took' also means 'married', 'flesh' means 'man', "closed up" also means "deliver".
Knowing that Adam is a shadow of Christ I substitute his name and Gen 2:21 now loosely reads:
- "And the Lord God caused death to fall upon Christ, and he died: and he married a certain limping side, and delivered mankind."
Anyone can verify the word substitutions from a Hebrew dictionary.
Initially, this seems like a very unlikely way to communicate. As adults, we are accustomed to filtering out the alternate meanings of words automatically, based on the context of the conversation. Children are unable to do this.
When I first started to teach myself Hebrew, I thought I would take a shortcut. I realized that the earliest Hebrew words didn't have vowels. Seeing that there were sometimes three, four or five identical words differing only by the vowels, I would only have to learn one third, fourth or fifth as many words if I simply learned them without the vowels.
This fortunate mistake put me in the same position that a child is in when he is first learning language. When he hears a word, he must consciously try to apply all the meanings of the words, with which he is aware, in order to make sense of what he is hearing.
We take great amusement in the products of childish mistakes in understanding when he has misapplied a meaning to a word. But we also reward those who are able to intentionally build these multiple meanings into phrases that can be understood in multiple ways. Bob Hope was famous for his double entendre.
It is important that we distinguish between what is called allegory, and what I and the author of Hebrews call shadows. The meaning of shadows is firmly attached to the same words used in the literal interpretation. Allegory has no rules and was invented by the Greeks to make their myths say something figuratively that they couldn't say literally. Allegory is used primarily by those who do not wish to believe the literal interpretation.
There is good allegory, though it is invention, it faithfully represents truth, though possibly, not from the passage being allegorized.
The interpreter of shadows has no such freedom. The raw material for meaning must come from the words themselves. A shadow does not exist, unless something real exists first. The Jewish interpreters have a saying: "The pashat never loses it's meaning." This is a good saying. It means that the literal meaning never disappears. There must have been a real Tamar for there to be a shadow of the birth of Christ in the Tamar narrative.
So unlike the Greeks who sought to change the essential message of the myths with allegory, the shadows must build upon what is already known about truth, not alter it.
Not totally foreign
The idea that Hebrew words have multiple meanings is not completely foreign to us. The Bible itself often tells us the meaning of someone's name. Some have found 'hidden' messages in long lists of names. Others are amused to discover that the word for 'wife' also means 'burning ember' and are delighted to embarrass the elderly sisters by announcing from the pulpit that when Adam first saw his wife he proclaimed "Hot stuff!".
All of this suggests that we have been hearing the muffled words of the Lord.
See if you can hear his voice if we remove some sayings from their context:
- "If you do right, won't you be lifted up?" - to Cain
- "Because of you, I will live" - Abram to Sarah
- "God will provide himself, the sacrifice" Abraham to Isaac
- "He was dead, but now he is alive" - Prodigal son
- "His love for the world, and betrayal because of riches, killed him and he became desolate" - parable of the sower paraphrase
- "Take these, and whatever account you have against them I will pay" - Good Samaritan
The reason that you can hear the muffled words in these sayings, is because of the double meaning of the words. The word 'because' in Hebrew and in English can be understood as "causative" or "emotive".
In the case of Abraham to Sarah, in the literal it means "the actions you take will save my life". But in the shadows it is understood as "my love for you motivates me to rise from the dead."
In the case of Abraham to Isaac: We hear in the literal "God will provide a sacrifice for himself." But in the shadows we hear "God will provide himself as the sacrifice."
Even without using the double meanings or words that sound alike, or are spelled alike, we can find multiple meanings in the words used. We must simply trust that we are hearing the voice of God, and then dig to see that it is true.
