Chutzpa in Translating Ancient Hebrew

Nadene Goldfoot                                           

                                                                         

Reading our Torah has been the challenge of the Jewish people.  Our history is that Moses himself wrote it through the 40 years of the Exodus.  He was a prince of Egypt and had been taught how to read and write, in probably the many languages that came into Egypt's realm. Our Torah has been copied over and over without adding or dropping a letter.  Though the style may have changed a few times, the letters have not.  If one error is made in the copy, it is to be destroyed.  Thus, we can rest assured the meaning and letters have not been changed.  "The oldest manuscripts discovered yet, including those of the Dead Sea Scrolls, date to about the 2nd century BCE. "
                                                                         

Rashi

We have had many rabbis working on the meaning of every word.  Rashi (Rabbi Solomon Yitzhak) 1040-1105) Troyes, France, Rhineland,  is about the greatest of them all.  Our prayer books of today still bear his comments which are genius.  Groups of rabbis used to meet and confer with the meaning of texts in the Rhineland of Germany back then.  
                                                                     

Rabbi Howshua Amariel presenting Rabbi Hi Ben Daniel,
the head of the Igbo Jewish community,
with a plaque.  

I just read about a Black rabbi from Chicago , Howshua Amariel, who moved to Israel several years ago and is claiming that HIS people are descendants of the Hebrew people "also known as the Phoenicians.  The question is, "Who are HIS people?"  I also question where he was ordained as a rabbi.   Blacks are Blacks in Chicago, tribal connections unknown.   Has he had a DNA test to find his origins like Ophra Winfrey has?

                                                                           

I found a photo of the bat creek stone. Thomas’ publication of the inscription in his ‘The Cherokees in Pre-Columbian Times’ (1890). This could even be a forgery.   Is this something likewhat Howshua translated as Paleo Hebrew?  

The Bat Creek stone was discovered in a small mound near Knoxville, Tennessee, USA. The archaeologists who dug it up in 1889 discovered a small stone tablet engraved with several mysterious alphabetic characters.

The stone was discovered by a team led by entomologist Cyrus Thomas from the Smithsonian Bureau of Ethnology's Mound Survey. Eight years earlier, Congress assigned the Institute to complete archaeological excavations. The main goal was to explore the prehistoric mounds. After just a few years of work, archaeologists had collected over 40,000 artifacts and wrote a seven-hundred-page report of their findings, which was presented in 1894.                               

Below are from Dead Sea Scrolls

      

He bases his belief on old Cherokee/inscriptions found in the Americas that he began translating about 12 years ago.  He called the find in Paleo-Hebrew derived from the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Samaritan text.                                                 

He made his find in a newspaper called "Jerusalem Chronicles" out of Memphis, Tennessee in 1998.  He was shown in a picture reading ancient Hebrew off the walls of a temple structure that was built by Jews in Elephantine, Egypt.

This is his ad on amazon about his book.  ""The missing link is finally revealed. The ancient hebrew torah scroll authenticates the belief that the children of israel and the phoenicians are historically linked." This work of reference can be used by linguists, scholars in their research and will serve as a tool to further understanding between nations and cultures. Howshua Amariel is a translator of Biblical Hebrew (also known as Ancient Hebrew or the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet) and the author of the interlinear style Paleo- Hebrew text, entitled “THIS REPORT: The Hebrew/Phoenician History called the Bible”. Aside from Amariel's claims, his work is also currently respected by the Igbo Jewish communities of Israel as being the most authoritative translation of the Torah scrolls into English.

Igbo Jewish communities in Israel?   The Igbo is the largest ethnic tribe in Nigeria !  Wikipedia tells me this: " Igbo Jews are members of the Igbo people of Nigeria who practice a form of Judaism. They either adopted Judaism newly, or are descendants of the Jews of Bilad el-Sudan."  Unlike people of the Masai tribe in Kenya, who have been found to actually have the history of being Jewish, these are new claimants as yet unproven and to my knowledge, are not going through any legitimate classes of studying Torah.   They are not like the Ethiopian Jews, either who have been studied by rabbis and found to have the right of such claims.  There have been other groups who have had such claims as the Igbo of Nigeria.  Their form of Judaism possibly includes  Messianic Judaism as they were introduced to Judaism through Christian missionaries.  
                                                                                   

Praying in Nigeria

The Igbo are one of Nigeria's largest ethnic groups with population estimates ranging from 20 to 50 million. Abor is convinced that the Igbo's ancestors were Jews.

"Agbai is one of the founders of the Ghihon synagogue. He plays an important role as a spiritual leader in Abuja's community of Igbo Jews. He attended Abor's bar mitzvah last year, an experience that Abor says made him feel like a man, and feel closer to the Jewish culture.

He wants to go deeper into Orthodox Judaism and take a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

"I want to live in Israel," Abor says. He hopes that there, he will get a better understanding of his forefathers."

                                                                                    
Jewish Voice Ministries International, a Messianic Jewish organization based in Arizona, coordinated the genetic test of more than 100 Igbo men.  Messianic Jews believe Jesus was the Messiah and, despite being labeled apostates by mainstream Jewish groups, still consider themselves Jews.  Jews consider them to be Christians as they believe in Jesus, and Judaism doesn't.  Jews believe in one G-d only, and the rest of us are simply humans trying to be the best we can.  Jews believe their's a bit of G-d in all of us, not just special people.  It's too close to the beliefs of the Greeks and Romans for us.  
  They are not capable of knowing the intricacies of Hebrew.  They do not know anything about translating or past history in this field, just as I wouldn't know, and I am an Ashkenazi Jew.  It would have been difficult for ancient Phoenicians or Israelites to sail to Nigeria being it's not on the Mediterranean sea but on the South Atlantic Ocean.  
                                                                           

That aside, let's examine who the Phoenicians were.  They were the ancient people of Syria who lived along the Syrian-Canaanite coast.  which became the Israelite coast.  Their main towns were Arvad, Beirut, Sodon, Tyre, Gebal (Byblos), Simirro and Sin.  In different eras they would expand north toward the later Antioch and then south to the Carmel and even to Jaffa.  Today Tyre is in Lebanon.  

Their language, known mainly from inscriptions, was akin to Hebrew.  The script used by them was also used by the ancient Hebrews and was transmitted with modification to the Greeks and then to other European peoples.  
                                                                             
King Hiram of Tyre was a close friend of Israel's King Solomon.  Later on, Phoenecia was incorporated in the Persian Empire, influencing the people southward along the coastline.  The Greek influence was great and Hellenization spread quickly along Phoenicia.  Pompey's campaign in 64 BCE brought all of their people under Roman rule.  This showed up in Tyre in maritime trade with their ships trading with almost the entire known world.  They discovered distant lands and disseminated the products of Middle Eastern countries.  They planted colonies from Cyprus to Carthage and Spain and paid tithes to Tyre.  

Their religion was the Canaanite faith described in the Tanakh and in Ugaritic poetry.  Their main gods were Baal, lord of fertility and rain, and Astarte, goddess of fertility.  They had a god of wr and a patrol-god of Tyre.  They worshipped under trees and on hills and also had temples with pictures in them.  They sacrificed children to Moloch and had many religious prostitutes.  What else with fertility looming big in their beliefs?  
                                                                       If their colonies reached Nigeria, Howshua could be right, though he hasn't given us any reason to think he has any Phoenician ancestry other than he's taken up translating ancient Hebrew texts-so he says.  Today we have DNA to sanctify such beliefs.  The Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) result has confirmed that Igbos are not Jews.  
                                                                         

Hebrew as we read it today.  

I don't put any stock into such finds as this claim.  I hope others don't either until it has gone through the gamut of being checked and verified by those whose business it is, verified scholars.  We are in the era of looking for and finding lost tribes of Jewish people today and bringing them to Israel if this is their goal, too.  In fact, it is prophesied to happen.  Hopefully, people will study Judaism under other circumstances that the whole Jewish nation approves of if their goal is to actually live in Israel as Jews.  Knowing how much has been done already by our well-known readers and students of the Torah, I shudder with other people taking a stab at this and are claiming authenticity.  

"A small, ancient sect known as the Samaritans rely on the Torah, and the Torah alone, as their sole religious text—and the Samaritans use a somewhat different version. Two weeks ago, the first English translation of this Hebrew text was published by Samaritan historian and scholar Binyamin Tsedaka: The Israelite Samaritan Version of the Torah. There are some 6,000 instances where this version of the Torah differs from the Masoretic text; the question for scholars is which version is more complete, or more accurate."


Resource:
http://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2018/04/how-moses-wrote-torah-and-why-it-hasnt.html  be sure to read this one!  April 10, 2018 
https://planofgod.wordpress.com/2012/07/15/ktav-ivrit-%E2%80%8Bthe-ancient-hebrew-alphabet/
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
http://dailypost.ng/2017/08/07/new-dna-test-result-reveals-igbos-jews/
https://forward.com/news/365443/african-lost-tribe-debates-dna-testing-for-jewish-roots/
https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-life-and-religion/132004/the-other-torah
https://www.cnn.com/2013/02/01/world/africa/nigeria-jews-igbo/index.html
Info from Zara I.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Hebrew_writings

Brigitte Gabriel Calls Rashid Khalidi on Translation of Sura From Quran On Beheading

Nadene Goldfoot                                                            

                                                          Professor  Rashid Khalidi

In 1982 I was in Safed, Israel during the Lebanon War.  In fact, I was in the Army Hospital in Haifa to find out about when pins would be removed from my elbow when I noticed that the hospital was almost empty.  They were getting ready for battle-injuries.  I wound up baking cakes to feed our IDF who would be reporting to their posts by walking or hitch-hiking.  My husband and I had made aliyah in 1980 and were in Israel as  immigrants  from Oregon.  My Jewish paternal grandfather was born in Telsiai, Lithuania and my grandmother from Suwalki, Poland/Lithuania.  I come from a Jewish family.

At the very same time, Rashid Khalidi, Muslim,  was in Lebanon. He has just agreed with his friend,  Obama,  in that IS is not Islam by reading a translation of the Quran over PBS.     Khalidi became politically active in Beirut, where he resided through the 1982 Lebanon War.  He was teaching at a Lebanese University, possibly AUB (American University of Beirut) .  New York City born in  1948, he is the son of a Saudi citizen who says he has Palestinian origins and was born in Jerusalem and was a worker for the UN.

Rashid's father was  Ismail Ragib Khalidi, who was born on 13 November 1916 –died  2 September 1968)  was a senior political affairs officer for the United Nations Department of Political Affairs.    He was the brother of Husayin al-Khalidi .  Husayn Fakhri al-Khalidi  1895–26 December 1966) was born in Jerusalem like his brother. He worked as medical doctor for the Department of Public Health in Aleppo, Syria.   Husayin al-Khalidi was mayor of Jerusalem from 1934 to 1937.   The  Khalidi father and uncle were born in Jerusalem, then still part of the Ottoman Empire.

 Though a Saudi citizen, the question arises as to why Ismail and Husayin  were born in Jerusalem.  Many Arabs had come into Palestine looking for work from the Jews.  His father could have been one of them.  It's rare that any Palestinian is accepted as a citizen of another Arab country, so I doubt if this happened and Ismail moved to Saudi Arabia and became a citizen.  More likely their parents came from Saudi Arabia to Palestine  looking for work and education.  

Ismail  Khalidi attended St. George's School, Jerusalem and the Arab College (Jerusalem) (1927-1936). In 1939, he received his B.A.in political science from the American University of Beirut. "   Israel became a state on May 14, 1948.  Khalidi also served as the Assistant Editor, Middle East Desk, United States Office of War Information from 1942–44 and the Secretary of the Institute of the Arab American Affairs, from 1945-48. He was a member of the UN for 19 years, joining originally as a radio announcer He died on 2 September 1968 at the age of 51 in Beirut, Lebanon

 Rashid's  mother was born in the USA of  Lebanese parents..  Khalidi attended the UN International school.   He serves as the  Edward Said   Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University.   Khalidi  is a strong Palestinian activist and blames America and Israel for all the Middle East problems which isn't surprising.   He's also a big time supporter and associate of  America's president, Barack Obama.  To be criticizing the USA and a friend of its president is certainly contrary.  I cannot say he is a Palestinian, though.  Being his father was in Jerusalem while working for the UN does not make his father a Palestinian. His father, Ismail Khalidi and his brother, Husayin al-Khalidi were Saudis.

Obama was heard on TV to say in a speech that IS is not Islamic.  Khalidi has been backing him up on this.  On a PBS segment Khalidi gave an explanation of Sura 47, verse 4 of the Quran where Khalidi says does not justify beheadings.  Khalidi and Obama are saying that IS is not following the Islamic law.
                                                                     

He has been called on this by Brigitte Gabriel, founder and president of Act for America.  She's one of the leading national security experts in the world on the rise of Islamic terrorism. 

"Brigitte Gabriel, Christian,  is an American journalist, author, social commentator and activist.  Gabriel says that Islam keeps countries backward, and that it teaches terrorism.  She should know, because she was born in Lebanon to Maronite Christian parents as Nour Saman on October 21, 1964.  .  .
                                                               
She was in Lebanon  at the same time that I was in Israel and Rashid was in Lebanon.  She was there before, during the Lebanese Civil War where Islamic militants launched an attack on the Lebanese military base near her family's house and destroyed it when Gabriel was 10 years old in 1974.  She suffered from being hit by shrapnel during this attack.  The family was forced to live underground in all that remained which turned out to be like an 8 by 10 foot  bomb shelter for 7 years.  All they had was a small kerosene heater, no sanitary supplies, no electricity or running water and little food.  She had to crawl in a ditch along the road to get spring water as she had to evade Muslim snipers.  So, in 1978, 2 years before I moved to Israel, her family was warned of an impending attack by the Islamic militias on all Christians.  

Her life was saved when the Israeli army invaded Lebanon in Operation Litani in 1982.  Her mother was seriously injured later and taken to an Israeli hospital.  She was amazed that Israelis showed such care and humanity for them which was the opposite of the propaganda she had heard about Jews when she was a little girl.  Israel's border with Lebanon had been protected by Major Hadad and his men, of the Christian Maronites.  Israel had a deal with him to take in his family if, G-d forbid, anything happened to him.  

Brigitte speaks Arabic, French, English and Hebrew.  She  reads Arabic being it was the language used in Lebanon and has studied the Quran.  She finds that this paragraph of Sura 47 verse 4 was not read entirely for the PBS audience and is not what most Qurans says.  She gives us the translation from the Quran published in Saudi Arabia:
                                                                          

"So, when you meet (in fight-Jihad in Allah's cause) those who disbelieve, smite (their) necks till when you have KILLED (emphasis added) and wounded many of them, then bind a bond firmly (on them, i.e.take them captives.).  Thereafter (is the time) either for generosity (i.e. free them without ransom), or ransom (according to what benefits Islam), until the war lays down its burden.  Thus (you are ordered by Allah to continue in carrying out Jihad against the disbelievers till they embrace Islam and are saved from the punishment in the Hell-fire or at least come under your protection.),  but if it had been Allah's will, He Himself could certainly have punished them (without you).  But (He lets you fight) in order to test some of you with others.  But those who are killed in the Way of Allah,  He will never let their deeds be lost."  

She notes that the word, KILLED is pretty important and is in this Quran in 47/4.  Khalidi evidently did not use this word in the reading which caught Brigitte's attention.  He's trying to downplay the proper translation as a defense for Islam's terroristic directions.   I note that the paragraph does not say you have to behead ALL of them or kill all of them in battle, but taking prisoners is allowed.  I don't believe IS has been doing this from the TV pictures of long lineups of Iraqi soldiers  killed.  But it certainly does allow for beheading and why not?  When the Quran was written, beheadings were the usual thing done by Islam.  

Khalidi has stated that there is a legal right under international law for Palestinians to resist Israeli "Occupation" of which is an untruth in itself.  Israel is not "occupying Gaza."  Israelis, according to international law, have a right to live in Judea and Samaria, and that is not "occupying."  

Khalidi gave a speech to the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and said that killing civilians is a war crime.  It's a violation of international law.  (This is exactly what Palestinian Hamas has been doing to Israel which is what caused Israel to finally go into Gaza a month ago).  However, Khalidi was not talking about Israel's woes.  He was using this reference to defend Palestinians.  The New York Sun editorial caught this and criticized him for it as he did not distinguish between Palestinian combatants and noncombatants and was implying that all Palestinians have this right to resist.  This turns out to be incorrect under international law.

.  Khalidi was an opposer of the Iraq War March 19, 2003 to May 1, 2003 was the beginning.   The U.S. completed its withdrawal of military personnel in December 2011, during the ninth year of the war.^] However, the insurgency is ongoing and continues to cause thousands of fatalities. Khalidi  has been telling Obama that we owe reparations to the Iraqi people.  Here we are fighting IS now from the sky over Iraq and Syria.  

What Brigitte may not have known is the tie Rashid Khalidi has to Jerusalem, causing him as an Arab to be highly motivated to defend the Palestinians and their behaviors since Netanyahu has said there's little difference between Hamas terrorists and IS.  I wonder if Obama knows of his family's  connections.  

 "In Brigitte's view, Palestinian nationalism has largely been replaced by "holy obligation" motivating adherents to commit "terrorist murder.   She states that the legitimization of Palestinian suicide attacks within Israel has now evolved to where, "Islamists believe that they may commit mass murder anywhere in the world to advance their holy cause." As a result, she believes the world now suffers "from a plague of Islamic terrorism... authored and perfected by the Palestinians."

With regard to the two-state solution, Gabriel states: "Forcing Israel to accept a two-state solution is not going to work unless the Palestinians first are forced to clean up their act and eliminate hatred from their schoolbooks, teach tolerance to their people, and preach acceptance of Israel and the Jews as a neighbor."  This has been my thoughts, exactly.  Thank you Brigitte.  

Resource:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rashid_Khalidi

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brigitte_Gabriel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_invasion_of_Iraq
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ismail_Khalidi