2. Bet | Paleo Hebrew Alphabet | Ziggurats, Origins of the Hebrew Language, and more
The origin of the Hebrew letters, Ziggurats, and the first few words of Genesis.
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Timestamps:
0:00 Heading out into the storm
0:27 Intro to the letter Bet
0:49 Aramiac script, ancient lingua franca
1:46 The fall of Man
3:19 Zephaniah’s prophecy about language
3:59 Pronouncing the letter Bet
4:25 Genesis 1:1-2 in Hebrew
6:22 Song: “My Father’s Courts”
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Transcript:
Dawson: OK, folks. I’m about to head out into the storm so I can better appreciate how good it is to be inside. We who are about to die, salute you.
Ah, it’s not so bad. The second letter in the Hebrew alphabet is “beyt” and the picture is of a house and just as a house is something that you go into, the letter “beyt” is actually used as a prefix in Hebrew. If you place it in front of a word, it means in or inside. The very first word of Genesis is “bereshit” which means in the beginning.
If this is your first time looking at the bible with Hebrew letters, one thing you might notice is that the letters don’t look very much like pictures at all and that’s because these are not Hebrew letters. These are Aramaic letters.
Aramaic was sort of the English of its day back in the days of the Assyrian and the Babylonian empires. In 6th Century BC, the Jews were taken from their land by Nebuchadnezzar to Babylon and when they came back, they came back with the Aramaic script. Lots of the nations in that area, Mesopotamia and Middle East, they used the Aramaic script similar to how today the English language and the Spanish language both use the same letters but have completely different meanings, pronunciations and words.
Speaking of Babylon, I asked Carlos for his thoughts on “beyt” and he brought up a pretty interesting point about Nimrod, the first ruler of Babylon and also on the letter itself.
Carlos: Mankind, Adam, was originally meant to live in the garden under the trees. The only reason for beyt was for house of worship. Houses were not put into place until after the fall when Adam made a mistake and there was a curse on the earth. After that, shelter was sought after.
And those days, they sent angels to help. Instead of helping, they went bad. You know, they taught them all kinds of things with beyt that was never meant to be.
If you’re going to proclaim yourself an alef – a bull, then you are going to have to make yourself a beyt but you want to keep doing the beyt. Nimrod proclaimed himself an alef and built himself a beyt, which Creator destroyed, hence the languages. Beyt.
Dawson: At the Tower in Babel, HE mixed up everyone’s sounds so they couldn’t understand one another and so that men could not act in one accord because their plans and their ways were not His. But His prophet Zachariah said that at the end of the age, HE will restore to us a chosen and pure speech and that this language will be restored for the very purpose of men acting together in one accord because in those days, we will use our common speech to call on His name and serve Him together.
It’s never too late, day or night, to go to the tree of contemplation.
Carlos: Now you could use it like a B or like a hybrid BV such as tov, tova, and what do they say – how they say happy years?
Dawson: Shana tova.
Carlos: Tova, sounds more like a V than a B. Don’t worry about this. You will get used to it.
Dawson: It’s starts off in the beginning. Bereshit bara Elohim, GOD created. Et hashamayim v’et ha’aretz, the heavens and the earth. V’ha’aretz hayetah tohu va’vohu: and the earth was without form and void. V’choshek and darkness al pene tehom was upon the face of the deep. V’ruach ELOHIM and the Spirit of GOD merachephet al pene hamayim hovered over the face of the waters.
Carlos: That’s awesome. In the beginning, GOD created, create, put altogether, bah-rah, put it all inside. You lose it in translation because it’s originally translated in Greek and then they use a little bit of Greek and Latin but it’s in the beginning, bah-rah, you put it altogether. It all came together. He made it come together. Bah-rah, he created. There’s a word called ex nihilo, out of nothing]. That’s Greek (correction: Latin). That’s another language and a different tape no doubt.
Dawson: OK. So now that we’re at the end of episode two, you’ve learned two letters and can officially say …
Carlos: Spell your first word.
Dawson: Spell your first word, av, Father.
Carlos: Alef, beyt, pronounced “av”. Remember I told you that kind of hybrid B sound? Kind of B, kind of V. Av. Hope you enjoyed it.
Dawson: All right guys. So next week, we will be taking a look at gimmel and arguing about whether or not it’s a foot.
Carlos: A camel foot or not.
[Music]
[End of transcript]
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