1. Alef | Introduction to the Paleo Hebrew Alphabet
An intro to language before the Tower of Babel, Ashurbanipal’s library, why “love” is a gift in Hebrew, and the urban legend of the bull.
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Timestamps
0:00 The letter Alef
0:24 Intro to the Hebrew Alphabet
1:57 Ashurbanipal’s enigma
3:39 Intro to Hebrew word pictures
4:16 EL (GOD), the Chief Shepherd
4:46 Intro to Hebrew word roots
5:03 Hebrew word study: Love is a gift
5:51 Israel and the golden calf
10:30 Song: “There We Are”
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Transcript:
Female Speaker: So, today’s episode is about the letter “alef”. In the Hebrew pictograph, the picture is of a bull.
Before the Tower of Babel, man shared a single language and we believe that that language was Hebrew. Hebrew is expressed in 22 letters, which originally were shown as pictures, so one picture for each letter. The letter A for example in Hebrew is called “alef” and it’s the picture of a bull.
The letter B in Hebrew is “beyt” and it’s a picture of a house. So, if you look at the word “alphabet,” it’s sort of a Greek version of “alef beyt,” the original language that all mankind shared.
What makes this alphabet special and different from all of the other alphabets is the other alphabets were created as a response to what happened at the tower, when the languages were confused and different nationalities found themselves speaking different languages. So, they came up with letters and things to represent the new sounds that they were making.
But originally when Father created mankind, they were already created with the ability to speak and to understand things that HE told them. So, it’s our belief that HE made these letters and that HE designated what the symbols would be. Now if that’s true, then they should show some evidence of super intelligence because HE is who HE is and they definitely do and that’s one reason why we started these series and wanted to share some information with you about Father’s alphabet.
You’re live.
Male Speaker: You will learn to read in the original language. You will know the meaning of the letter. When we’re done, you will be able to read the enigmatic writings on the stones before the flood.
Female Speaker: That’s Carlos and he’s actually quoting a 7th Century BC Assyrian king named Ashurbanipal. Ashurbanipal had a pretty significant library back in the day, sort of equivalent to Alexandria at its time. It was also burned by fire.
Carlos actually wants to go to Nineveh and check Ashurbanipal’s ruins.
Male Speaker: Yes. So he had clay tablets that were burnt and baked and they found those but according to the writings from Ashurbanipal himself, that he had stones that were markers from before the flood and those markers had enigmatic characters on those and we believe they’re not looking for those. We believe they’re looking for clay baked tablets. Well, we want to go again and find the monumental stones that supposedly Noah left.
Female Speaker: That would be a bigger find than Dead Sea scrolls.
Male Speaker: That to me, that’s bigger than the Dead Sea scrolls, so yeah, we’d like to get down there.
Female Speaker: The way Father’s alphabet system works is HE uses the pictures of the letters to show you the meaning of a word. Take the word “father” for example. In Hebrew, the word for “father” is “ab,” “alef beyt”. The “alef” is a picture of a bull which is a picture of strength, a picture of leadership, of someone or something that is chief and that is powerful. The “beyt” is a picture of a house. So, what you have in the word “father” is the leader of the house, the strength of the house.
Another example is the Hebrew word for GOD which is “EL” and it’s spelled “alef,” “lamed”. Somewhere I believe it’s in one of the writings of Peter, they refer to our LORD as the Chief Shepherd. So, think about that for a sec while you look at this picture. Chief Shepherd is beautifully represented in the word “EL”.
The Hebrew language is based on a root system of words. So, there are several roots consisting of two or three letters that serve as the basis for the entire language and letters are added to those roots to form different words.
So, one example of that would be the word for “gift”. In Hebrew, gift is “hab”. If you were to add an “alef” to the root word “gift,” you end up with “ahab” which by the letters is a picture of the strongest gift or the most powerful gift and the word “ahab” in Hebrew is love.
So, if you think about it, HE says that greater love has no one than this, to lay down his life for his friends because if somebody dies for you, they have nothing left to give. That is the absolute greatest gift and the biggest demonstration of love that they could possibly show.
And you were telling me a story about the bull, the origin of the bull. Not the origin of the bull. The – how they turned the bull into something.
Male Speaker: The urban legend of the bull?
Female Speaker: The urban legend of the bull.
Male Speaker: Oh, here’s how it goes. It’s when Enoch wrote of the Adamic line from Adam of which the anointed one would come and redeem mankind: everyone of the descendants was a bull and we hear that angels came down and they wanted to make themselves bulls. So, they were there before and after the flood, so apparently they came again.
Now when Noah was in charge, he let them know “From me will come the bulls,” and somebody named Nimrod took it upon – that was his great-grandson – took it upon himself to name himself a bull and proclaim himself a bull. So, when that happened, he was the template for all other kingdoms from there on.
Female Speaker: We’ve got a lot of kings and leaders and warlords throughout history wearing the horns.
Male Speaker: They’re all wearing the horns. Now, when Noah landed, he stopped at Haran and he taught them well and Haran got taken over by the Hittites and the Hittites eventually conquered the Greeks, a section they call Luwians now. So, when they conquered the Greeks, they brought in some Greeks and they also had their bulls but they called them taurus because they were from the Taurus mountains. So needless to say, as time went on, Joseph was sent down to Egypt, the pharaoh, gathers grain through the providence of YHVH and over the course of seven years, saved up grain and over the course of the next seven years became owner of everything in the world, everything.
So, there was nothing left to buy. He even bought the Hebrew’s land. So, he owned everything in the world. In those days, Joseph I’m sure had the power to go up and visit his cousins in Haran. He could take the whole pharaoh army and visit his people and it was customary to go to the people in Haran to get wives, so I am sure when they visited Haran, they brought back some wives and they brought back the taurus from Haran because it was not worshipped in the Canaanites. Only Haran and the taurus, the Javanites, the children of Javan. So, they came back to Egypt. They started worshipping bulls. No doubt Father was mad. They got into slavery for it, punished, right? For being adulterers. When Moses came to deliver them, even with 10 miracles, they still worshipped taurus.
Female Speaker: The golden calf.
Male Speaker: The golden calf. So …
Female Speaker: There were no golden calves in Egypt.
Male Speaker: Egypt had Pepi, Osiris, a few others, but no bulls. So they brought a strange god with them when they brought wives and they must have been worshipping that god and Father got mad at them. Because if they were doing right, would Father have let them get enslaved? Probably not. Note to the bull worshippers. None of those bull worshippers made it through the wilderness, to let you know.
Female Speaker: This is Dawson signing out. Until next time while we still have the time. Next week, we will be going over the letter “beyt” and once we have a few letters under our belt, we can start reading some Hebrew verses together. One cool thing to look forward to about “beyt” is when it speaks of Father’s temple, the word is actually His house. See you guys.
[Music]
[End of transcript]