Paleo-Hebrew
1.
What if anything, is someone to make of the
alphabet, the Phoenician (Canaanite) Alphabet, that the Hebrews once wrote
their scriptures in, up until the time of the captivity of Judah in Babylon?
(The letters in black are Paleo-Hebrew, and they are Phoenician/Canaanite
in origin, whereas the letters in blue are Babylonian/Assyrian/Aramaic. The
Babylonian letters became Jewish by default; as gradually everyone else who
used this alphabet stopped using these letters, and the Jews alone preserved
them, these letters came to be viewed by everyone, even Jews themselves, as
Jewish “from time immemorial”.)
2.
Perhaps nothing was lost, insofar as the
alphabet that the Jews adopted in Babylon, the Babylonian or Aramaic Alphabet,
was itself also derived from the Canaanite script. As far as the process of
transliteration was concerned, the Jews in essence switched a Paleo-Hebrew
letter out for a Babylonian letter.
3.
Strictly speaking, as far as preserving phonetic
denotations goes, there was little if anything lost in converting from
Paleo-Hebrew to the Babylonian script.
4.
The only point of interest may be that, on
occasion, the Paleo-Hebrew letters, insofar as they were directly derived from
Egyptian hieroglyphics, could be used to denote what the old Egyptian
pictographs denoted. That is, the Paleo-Hebrew letters could be used to convey
special meanings not only through direct sound-meaning correspondence, but by
their ancient, antecedent ideograms.
5.
For this reason I have taken an interest in the
deific titles, “Alpha and Omega”, the “First and the Last”, the “Beginning and
the End”.
6.
I have a sense that the three are synonymous.
Alpha is the first Greek letter, the beginning of the Greek alphabet, and Omega
is the last Greek letter, the end of the Greek alphabet.
7.
I find it interesting that of the three titles,
the one title that is exclusive to the period following the mortality of Jesus Christ
is “Alpha and Omega”. It is this title that I will focus on.
8.
As a brief background: Under the Law of Moses,
and in the Law of God that preceded it, the “firstborn” male child was seen as
the “beginning of a man’s strength”:
a.
Deuteronomy 21:17: “But he shall acknowledge the
son of the hated for the firstborn, by giving him a double portion of all that
he hath: for he is the beginning of his strength; the right of the firstborn.”
b.
Genesis 49:3: “Reuben, thou art my firstborn, my
might, and the beginning of my strength, the excellency of dignity, and the
excellency of power:”
9.
The word “end”, obviously denoting the period of
finality or completion, also signified the final state, a state that, curiously
enough, could indicate seeing the face of the Lord, or conversely, not seeing
it:
a.
Deuteronomy 32:20,29-30: (20) And he said, I
will hide my face from them, I will see what their end shall be: for they are a
very froward generation, children in whom is no faith. (29) O that they were
wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end!
(30) How should one chase a thousand, and two put then thousand to flight,
except their Rock had sold them, and the Lord had shut them up!”
10.
A verse in Exodus is also illustrative of the
use of “end” for a state in the presence of the Lord, including during this
mortal life:
a.
Exodus 8:22: “And I will sever in that day the
land of Goshen, in which my people dwell, that no swarms of flies shall be
there; to the end thou mayest know that I am the Lord in the midst of the
earth.”
11.
It was perhaps in this context that, immediately
after his crucifixion, Jesus Christ is recorded referring to himself both as “the
Beginning and the End” and by its synonym, “Alpha and Omega” (“Alpha” is the
first letter in the Greek alphabet, and “Omega” is the last letter in the Greek
alphabet):
a.
Revelation 1:8: “I am Alpha and Omega, the
beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is
to come, the Almighty.”
b.
3 Nephi 9:18: “I am the light and the life of
the world. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end.”
12.
Perhaps the title “Beginning and the End”
implies that Jesus is the firstborn of God the Father, and he, Jesus, is also the
end or objective, that is, to be in God’s presence.
13.
One must bear in mind that it has become the
custom in English to say “Alpha and Omega” using the Greek first and last
letters, mainly because our New Testament is based on Greek-language texts,
much of which were translations to Greek from Aramaic. This begs the question,
“what do the Aramaic-speaking Christians read in the same Biblical passages?”
They read “I am Aleph and Tav”, which are the first and last letters of their
alphabet. It so happens that “Aleph” and “Tav” are also the names of the first
and last letters in the Paleo-Hebrew (or original Hebrew) alphabet.
14.
Unlike the later Babylonian Hebrew letters, the
original Paleo-Hebrew letters still retained meanings that were denoted by the
Egyptian hieroglyphics from which they were derived. The letter "aleph" , A, denoted “power” and even a “powerful
leader”. The letter “tav”, T, denoted “covenant” or “cross”,
among other meanings. In and of itself this information seems to expand upon
the title that the Lord applied to himself, “Alpha and Omega”, which were the
Greek equivalents of “Aleph and Tav”. That is to say, this title may signify
that the Lord is the “Power and the Covenant”, the Aleph and Tav or Alpha and
Omega.
15.
An apparently second century A.D. apocryphal
book called the (Infancy) Gospel of Thomas relates the tale of a Jewish
teacher, Zacchaeus, who desired to teach the child Jesus letters. The discussion
of the significance of how a knowledge of these letters will serve the student
gives insights into what may be implicit in the title, “Alpha and Omega” or “Alpeh
and Tav”:
a.
¶6: Thou has a sensible child, and he has some
mind. Give him to me, then, that he may learn letters; and I shall teach him
along with the letters all knowledge, both how to address all the elders, and
to honour them as forefathers and fathers, and how to love those of his own
age. And He said to him all the letters from the Alpha even to the Omega,
clearly and with great exactness.
16.
Might “Alpha and Omega” also denote omniscience,
a knowledge of all things, but a knowledge tied to written texts, and a
knowledge that leads the possessor of it to honor forefathers and love those of
his age? The suggestion from the (Infancy) Gospel of Thomas can possibly expand
upon the understanding of the deific title.
17.
Bearing in mind the ideographic significance of
the first and final Paleo-Hebrew letters, “Aleph and Tav”, namely “Power and
Covenant”, notice what we read in The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of
Jesus Christ, 2 Nephi 3: 17-21. Here the prophet Lehi is quoting from certain
brass plates called The Plates of Laban, metal engravings of the Torah and numerous
books of scripture held by the Jews up to the time of Jeremiah. At this point
in The Book of Mormon narrative, Lehi has quoted the prophet Joseph (eleventh
son of Jacob, the son of Isaac). Then Lehi reads a quote from Joseph that
purports to be a revelation, the Lord speaking directly to Joseph. As far as
the text is concerned, this passage, from beginning to end, is in the voice of
Jehovah:
a.
17: And the Lord hath said: I will raise up a
Moses; and I will give power [A] unto him in a rod; and I will
give judgment unto him in writing. Yet I will not loose his tongue, that he
shall speak much, for I will not make him mighty in speaking. But I will write
unto him my law, by the finger of mine own hand; and I will make a spokesman
for him.
b.
18: And the Lord said unto me also: I will raise
up unto the fruit of thy loins; and I will make for him a spokesman. And I,
behold, I will give unto him that he shall write the writing of the fruit of
thy loins; and the spokesman of thy loins shall declare it.
c.
19: And the words which he shall write shall be
the words which are expedient in my wisdom should go forth unto the fruit of
thy loins. And it shall be as if the fruit of thy loins had cried unto them
from the dust; for I know their faith.
d.
20: And they shall cry from the dust; yea, even
repentance unto their brethren, even after many generations have gone by them.
And it shall come to pass that their cry shall go, even according to the
simpleness of their words.
e.
21: Because of their faith their words shall
proceed forth out of my mouth unto their brethren who are the fruit of thy
loins; and the weakness of their words will I make strong in their faith, unto
the remembering of my covenant [T] which I made unto thy fathers.”
18.
It is interesting that this ancient quote from
Joseph, preserved only in The Book of Mormon, but attributed to the Lord, this
quote begins declaring that the message given to Moses would begin with the
word denoted by Aleph, “power”, and this quote ends with the word denoted by Tav,
“covenant”. Thus this quote from the Lord is contained within the idea of “Aleph
and Tav”, “First and Last”, “The Beginnning and the End”. The (Infancy) Gospel
of Thomas quote also seems echoed in the passage insofar as the message that
the Lord will declare will go forth in the written format, to include text
written by the Lord himself.
19.
I wish to make a similar observation at a later
point in The Book of Mormon, in the book called Third Nephi. Here it is Jesus
Christ addressing his disciples approximately in 34 or 35 A.D. (3 Nephi 27:
13-17):
a.
13: Behold I have given unto you my gospel, and
this is the gospel which I have given unto you—that I came into the world to do
the will of my Father, because my Father sent me.
b.
14: And my Father sent me that I might be lifted
up upon the cross [T], that I might draw all men unto
me, that as I have been lifted up by men even so should men be lifted up by the
Father, to stand before me, to be judged of their works, whether they be good
or whether they be evil—
c.
15: And for this cause have I been lifted up;
therefore, according to the power [A] of the Father I will draw all men
unto me, that they may be judged according to their works.
d.
16: And it shall come to pass, that whoso
repenteth and is baptized in my name shall be filled; and if he endureth to the
end [T], behold, him will I hold
guiltless before my Father at that day when I shall stand to judge the world.
e.
17: And he that endureth not unto the end [T], the same is he that is also hewn
down and cast into the fire, from whence they can no more return, because of
the justice of the Father.
20.
In this latter passage it is curious that if the
term “cross” is substituted for its Paleo-Hebrew letter/ideogram equivalent, “Tav”,
[T], then the cross of Jesus becomes
the end point, the objective, the very presence of God. Curiously this passage
also notes that Jesus is able to draw all men unto him only by the “power” [T] of the Father. In essence, this
passage, although not stating the deific title “Aleph and Tav”, “Alpha and
Omega”, this passage seems to be pregnant with that message.
21.
These observations could be purely coincidental.
These observations could perhaps be random occurrences. However you, my reader,
may choose to analyze this would be valid in its own right. Nevertheless,
however one wishes to view these Book of Mormon parallels to Aleph and Tav, the
points addressed are actually textual.
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