SB War with God
Consider the old riddle "Why did the chicken cross the road?". Everyone thinks they know the answer is "To get to the other side." but they are wrong. You will know the true answer, not when you hear it, but when you understand it.
Your assumption about a text affects the meaning you derive from the text. You were told the question was a riddle, but you assumed it was a simple literal question. Your assumption has set in motion the course of misunderstanding. "To get to the other side.", sounds like a reasonable answer to a literal question. You groan and think that is the dumbest riddle you have ever heard. In fact, some people are so arrogant to call it a non-riddle, being secure in their ignorance.
The true answer is "To get to the other side." I warned you ahead of time, that you would not know this was the true answer when you heard it, but when you understood it. In the genre of riddle, there is word play. The answer given in the first paragraph has no word play because you assumed it was literal. The second answer, which appears to be identical, is a different answer because there is word play.
'The other side" is a common euphemism for having passed from life to death. This is the basis for the true answer.
A feature of riddles is that one can hide things in plane sight because a riddle cannot be solved by the contents of the riddle. you must know something else. The riddle is known when the answer is given, or when the additional information is surmised. There is a clue. The question asks about a specific chicken; "The chicken."
In the country, chickens cross the road all the time. This isn't a secret, nor a mystery. But which chicken is THE chicken? It is the one that didn't make it, and it's carcass still lies in the road.
Now we can understand that when a dead chicken is seen in the road, the riddle is asked, and the answer is, "He wanted to die" worded as "To get to the other side."
The genre of the Bible is like the chicken riddle. If you read it literally, you don't really understand it.
The Bible has been read literally and produced thousands of literal answers which cannot be tested for truth. The use of Greek philosophy, rhetoric and debate does not produce truth; but merely gathers followers to the more cleaver debater. The literal answers seem plausible, as scholars attempt to tease out the author's intended meaning. By doing so they become hostile to God's word. They ignore his stated purpose that all the scriptures speak of Christ.
The apostle Paul said that the mystery had been hidden from the beginning. But the scholars become hostile in their declaration that there is no mystery and the Bible is plain. They even have a word for it: perspicuity.
Jesus said he taught in parables so that they would not believe, yet the scholar says he taught in parables to make it easy for ignorant peasants to understand.
God told Israel that they would become a parable to the nations. Their history is a parable of Christ, yet the scholar becomes hostile saying it is merely a literal history. God taught of Christ in the parable of the history of Israel so that they would not believe. He hid his teaching in riddle.
The scholar tells us Jesus was a good teacher. What kind of good teacher teaches so that his students do not understand? He was not a good teacher. He was a most superb teller of riddles in parables. [1]
His teaching in riddle could not be understood until something outside the riddle was known. One had to know that "the other side" is a euphemism for death to solve the chicken riddle. One has to know about the cross to understand the parable of Christ in the Old Testament record. The cross is the key to understanding his teaching. The genre of the Bible is a prophetic riddle hidden in the literal historic record. Now we hold the keys to unlock the mystery.
SB WWG Word play and Riddles [∞]
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Early childhood education experts say that the ability to understand childish word play, puns, and riddles is critical to language understanding. Punning builds connections between words and ideas. Word play teaches that words are merely symbols which may represent more than one idea. Riddles exercises the imagination as one searches existing knowledge and bridges them to new ideas. Initially, a child learns these skills by cheating. Someone tells them the answer. "Knock knock"... "Who's there?"... "<aa word to be played with>"... "<a word to be played with> who?"... "<the word play>". When God wrote Genesis 1 he forced the word play on us, but it is lost in translation. He repeats an idea using multiple symbols, which he uses throughout the rest of the Bible. The idea that he repeats is that he is the Creator. Starting with an invisible and silent aleph א he says that before the beginning he spoke and created the heavens and the earth when no one could see or hear him do it. [2] The first word bereshith בראשית is translated "in the beginning". [3] It means so much more than that.
The second word bara רא is translated "created", but also means:
The first verse says, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." The first chapter tells how he created everything in six days. Each day is like a table of contents entry pointing to one of six portions of scripture telling us that God is the creator. One might begin to think that the idea that God is the creator, was one of the most important things God wants to teach us. In fact, he says he is angry because although we know he is the creator, we don't acknowledge him as such. [4] There are many kinds of word play used by God. When you discover them, they give great delight as though you were a little child discovering language for the first time. |
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In the last section, Hebrew words were brutally torn apart and meaning was derived from the letters and combinations of letters within. This seems crazy, because we cannot do that in English. A cat has nothing to do with 'catastrophe', unless of course, you have a cat; then you know better. [Did you see what I did there?] Modern rabbis remember that Hebrew words get their meaning from the combined meaning of the letters. This is called 'Notarikon'. It is a property of the language. But the rabbis do not remember how to do it. There are many modern scholars who pretend they understand it. The version we use here has been tediously restored. |
Some violate the rules for notarikon. The letters must stay in their order because the order has meaning as well. But they scramble the letters to find new meaning. Some confuse Gematria with Notarikon; converting letters to numbers. Some distract you with anagrams.
The Notarikon used in this work was derived by reverse engineering 8000 Hebrew words to derive the meaning of the letters as if in a giant multidimensional crossword puzzle. The meaning of single letter prefixes and suffixes were first penciled in. When those letter were used inside of a word, the same meaning was retained leaving a riddle to solve for the other letters. Then known two-letter words, called sub-roots' or 'gates' such as 'father' ab אב were locked in. The gates that are not used by themselves were then penciled in, and crossed with longer word where they were used. When most of the gates were solidified, five years were spent with Genesis 1:1 and the alphabet to clean it up. When a natural catechism fell out, I figured I was close. Since God used words to create, and you need letters to form words, the alphabet precedes creation. From the message of the alphabet John could say the Lamb was slain before the foundation... and Paul could say you were chosen before the earth was made. |
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If you attempt to use any other work concerning Notarikon you may come up with some novel observations, but it will fall apart eventually. This proposed alphabet has been repeatedly single-blind tested, where a difficult pericope is chosen by another, in a challenge to unpack the mystery. |
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As seen previously, a single word may have many meanings derived from the letters within. All of that is lost in translation. Hebrew must be 'tasted', not merely read. This is a true context for the prophetic riddle.
The Western scholar taught to reason and think as a Greek is troubled by contradiction. "Answer a fool..." vs. "Answer not a fool..." seem like a contradiction if you are looking for a contradiction. But there are no contradictions in the Hebrew mind concerning the scripture. This is a presuppositional context.
Apparent contradictions are intentional riddles. In the 'answering a fool' riddle, what is the unknown key from outside the riddle? It is the venue. Why engage a fool in his folly privately? The fool is the one who says there is no God. There is no changing him since he has willfully declared himself to be God. Your debate is predicated on your belief that you are greater than he in foolish debate. You have become like him.
But in the public square, the answer is not for him; it is for the onlookers. The ideas he presents are shredded in the public eye so that truth is taught. Left unanswered, both he and the audience may presume there is not an answer.
Another form of context is the trope. A trope is where something represents another thing. In the Bible, if five men have coffee [a silly example] and one of them has sugar, they all had sugar. This seems like nonsense until you recognize the substitution. All the men represent Christ, so Christ had sugar.
Another way to look at this is to see pericopes as transparencies. Each pericope has parts and pieces of the picture of Christ, but none of them have all. The transparencies are placed in a stack, and the parts and pieces are aligned where they occur so that together, they tell the complete picture of Christ.
An example of this are three women at the same well, the well aligns the transparencies. Rebekah was chosen by the Father, Rachel was wooed and worked for by the Son, and at Sychar [meaning intoxicated as a hint of Pentecost] the town was gathered by the Holy Spirit. Together the stories tell us that the Father chooses the bride, the Son woos and worked for her, and the Spirit gathered her.
The concepts of scriptural context are not difficult to learn. They can be applied in English with no knowledge of Hebrew in many places. Much more requires enough skills in Hebrew to use tools.
SB WWG Traditional questions [∞]
Many of the traditional questions arise because the Hebrew text is being read with a Greek mind.
It has been said that there is no such thing as a stupid question. That is certainly a stupid aphorism. Paul identifies stupid questions as those which just create debate. Bible study in not supposed to be a debate, but a collaboration of solving riddles; solving the mystery.
If working together to solve a crossword puzzle, debate has no place. Speculative answers are penciled in, then clarified and corrected by other answers. The same is true for Bible study.
Scholars have said for centuries that leaven represents sin. This is an expression of their hostility toward the word of God. It confuses people who read the Bible and makes them think they must turn to the expert scholar to make sense of things. Any child can ask the question, "How did the Hebrews get rid of their sin before the Passover if the Passover represents the cross?"
Rather than debate it, we penciled in sin for leaven, then it didn't make sense, so we have to find another answer. Leaven represents teaching. They got rid of the old teaching before the cross in order to receive the new teaching after the cross.
Questions may be identified as the wrong genre if they ask about the literal historical record rather than address what it teaches about Christ. They may be identified as argumentative if they presume a distrust of God or his word. They may be pushed to an appendix if we wish to address them but the length would be a distraction from the main flow. They may deserve a larger treatment because there is not a foundation of understanding laid yet and be pushed to another book.
The primary scope of this investigation will be Ge 1:26 - 5:32. Hidden in prophetic riddle, the accounts of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, and Seth tell us of the Great war with God. how it started. it's greatest battle and how it ends.
The real people involved in the historical account are not the subject of the story. Jesus said all the scriptures speak of him, so the purpose of the historical accounts are to tell us about Christ and the cross.
The main story consists of sub parts which are seen both sequentially and as transparency overlays. The cross scene will be shown several times.
The sixth day of Genesis 1 tells us there is a mystery. God says he will make man in his image and likeness, but then he only makes man in his image. When was the likeness completed? Not until Genesis 5:2. This helps define the scope of the story.
Primary cross scenes include Adam's sleep, hiding in the tree, the ejection, and Cain and Able with Seth.
Genesis 1 is not only the first account of creation, but as prophetic riddle, it is the table of contents to the rest of scripture. Each day points to one of six other divisions of the Bible. (See Appendix A)
Prior to creation, God dwelt in darkness. [1] Light represents his holiness which has a primary attribute of being separate. He is different from us. He is the creator and we are the creature. He could not express his holiness, since there was nothing to be separate from. God is one.
Once he had created something, by the nature of creation he was separate from it. On day one, God declared "Let there be light" or "I am holy". Isaiah later records the seraphim cry, "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts." The seraphim knew that God was three times separated. This is clarified by the four beasts in revelation: "which was, and is, and is to come." He was separate as the Father because he was before creation. He was separate in teh Son as he walked on earth. Although Jesus was God with us, he was separate because of his sinless life. And he is separate as the Spirit even though he dwells inside us. Though we may become so intimate with God as we are co-heirs with Christ, though we are the very body of Christ on earth, we will never be of divine nature.
Genesis 1 is mentioned now to put our study in context. Day one of creation points to our story of Christ.
- 2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness [was] upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
- 3 ¶ And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
- 4 And God saw the light, that [it was] good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
- 5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
the earth ha-erets הארץ - Hei ה means 'not understood'. It hints at the mystery of the earth. John derives doctrine from his discovery of the mystery and says that there are three in earth who testify: the Spirit א the water ר and the blood ץ. [2]
vain and empty teu ubeu תהו ובהו - The testimony of God on earth was vain and empty. There was no Word until Christ.
and darkness was upon the face of the deep - and grace was all the vain people saw.
and the Spirit of God moved on the face of the waters - The spirit of God who was separated from men by ignorance, stirred up trouble between the expression of holiness and grace.
And God said, Let there be light, and there was light - and God who is separated from man by ignorance , the creator of heaven and earth said, Light, Light, or "I am holy in heaven and earth."
He separated his expression of holiness from his expression of love.
He called the light Day. Each day is a picture of his holiness. Night is a picture of Grace. Evening the cross. Morning the resurrection.
It was called Day One, not the first day. This day includes all the other days as per Gen 2:4,5. Therefore our pericope also includes all the other days and is a picture of time from the beginning to the end.
SB WWG Bible TOC - Creation Story
SB WWG Resolving the Creation Contradiction
- ↑ See SB WWG Glossary:Light
- ↑ see SB WWG Glossary:earth
