Brit-Am Now no. 1329
April 16 2009, 22 Nisan 5769
Contents:
1. Additional Points Concerning Rabbinical Sources
2. Question on the Oral Law and Karaites
3. The Brit-Am Site (britam.org) on Quantcast
4. Question on Giants in the Bible
(a) Giants and the Sons of God
(b) Giants and Six Fingers
(c) Angels and Sexual Intercourse with Humans.
5. Max Rambow: Israel Should Seek Leader with Backbone
6. New Feature: Brit-Am Historical Researches (BHR)
7. John Wharton: Question on Abarbanel and the Lost Ten Tribes being in France.
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1. Additional Points Concerning Rabbinical Sources
re Brit-Am Now no. 1328
#1. Questions on Rabbinical Sources and Brit-Am
http://britam.org/now/1328Now.html#Questions
(#b) What is nature of these sources?
We replied under three headings:
(i) Confirm the fact that certain Biblical Passages are referring to the Ten Tribes.We would like to add:
(ii) Outright Ten Tribes Identifications.
(iii) Analyzes of Ten Tribes Characteristics Applicable to Brit-Am Findings
(iv) Hebrew Meanings of words and expressions. These are often not adequately transmitted in the usual translations
and in many instances encompass implications that strengthen the Brit-Am outlook.
(v) Ways of Reasoning that justify our conclusions.
(vi) Legalistic Declarations that give depth to our understanding. Examples include the Principle that the Lost Ten Tribes
definitely will return. Another important principle is that for the present the Lost Ten Tribes have the legal status of non-Jews.
(vii) Solve Biblical Conundrums. Most of the time the results of all our researches from disparate sources merge together into one comprehensive whole in which each part throws light on the other. It can happen however that the different sources appear contradictory.
For instance Joseph had two sons, Ephram and Manasseh.
Genesis 48:20 indicates that Ephraim would predominate over Manasseh.
Deuteronomy 33:17 speaks of THE TEN THOUSANDS OF EPHRAIM, AND ...THE THOUSANDS OF MANASSEH.
Other sources lead us to the conclusion that Manasseh prevails in the USA and Ephraim in Britain and its offshoots.
This would seem to contradict the simple meaning of Biblical verses.
Rabbinical Commentators however to some degree seem to agree with our conclusion and make observations supportive of them.
http://www.britam.org/GeneaologyofBlessings.html
2. Question on the Oral Law and Karaites
From: thomas malloy
Re: Brit-Am Message for Pesach and Its Significance
http://britam.org/Pesach.html
Dear Yair;
Brit-Am wrote
#This is similar to today. Even those Ephraimites who adopt Hebrew practices as taught in the Bible often prefer to invent their own interpretations or those of anti-Jewish Karaites and others. They are prejudiced against Jewish Rabbis and call them "Pharisees". In effect they declare that they are still against the Jews.#
I'm surprised to hear you call the Karaites anti-Jewish. I'm sure that Nehemiah Gordon, author of Karaite Corner will be surprised to hear it too. It's my understanding that the Orthodox Rabbis are the descendants of the Pharisees. However various Christian scholars seem to think well of them. In particular the book Jesus the Pharisee comes to mind.
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Brit-Am Reply:
The article is accompanied by a New BAMBI broadcast
http://britam.org/Broadcasts/newBAMBI/Pesach.mp3
In the broadcast we expanded more on this subject.
In short:
*God gave the Bible to the Children of Israel to be observed then and there and for all time afterwards.
If any doubts would arise they were to go to the Council of Sages that would exist in their time and receive direction from them. Whatever was decided had to be obeyed even if necessary on pain of death! (Deuteronomy chapter 17).
It is not logical that we would receive commandments without explicit directions as to what manner and at what time we were to maintain them. Some type of explanation had to exist. This is the Oral Law.
* The Rabbinical explanations in most cases are justifiable from Biblical verses.
* I have a personal grudge against they who say the Rabbis invented things or made decisions without authority to do so.
In my youth I became conscious that the commandments had to be kept.
I consulted numerous "authoritative" works that all send the Rabbis had added to the Torah and changed things. This kept me away from them for a long time.
When I finally did open up to consider Rabbinicial interpretations I began to understand that they were the only ones who understood anything.
* The Three Rs of Brit-Am include Reconciliation: Working towards the eventual re-union and present drawing together of hearts and minds
between Judah and Joseph. Do not be mistaken. Judaism is Rabbinical Orthodoxy.
We are not saying that anybody should accept something they cannot believe in.
On the other hand there is no justification in going out of one's way to be contrary (just for the sake of it) to what the Rabbis understand the Torah as saying.
The Rabbis have thousands of years of tradition, devotion, self-sacrifice, inspiration, and intellectual studies behind them.
* Nehemiah Gordon is against Brit-Am understanding concerning the Lost Ten Tribes.
He prefers to view them as being in the east.
I once gave a lecture at the Karaite Synagogue in Jerusalem. Nehemiah Gordon hosted and actively "moderated" the lecture.
They are not friends of ours nor of Ephraimites in general.
See also:
Loyalty to David is Required:
Ruth and the Oral Tradition
http://britam.org/DavidandOralLaw.html
Go to the Brit-Am Search Engine and you will find ca.23 different entries on the Karaites all
of them worth perusing.
http://www.britam.org/SearchEngines.html
3. The Brit-Am Site (britam.org) on Quantcast
Rank 89,642
This site reaches approximately 15,193 U.S. monthly people.
[Brit-Am Comment:
Actual Traffic is nearly twice this amount but the estimate may be based on statistics for the front page only. The estimate may be dated and we have been going DOWN quickly of late so the estimate may end up being right but we hope not.]
The site attracts a skewing older, more African American, HH income up to $60k audience.The typical visitor visits ccel.org.
http://www.quantcast.com/britam.org#demographics
Visitors
51% females
49 % male
African American
There are more African American visitors here than average.
22% Afro-American
74% Caucasian
2% Hispanic
!% other
This site attracts a less affluent audience.
There is a high index (53%) of College Graduates here.
Traffic Frequency
22% Regulars
78% Passersby
4. Question on Giants in the Bible
From: Darlene
Was wondering what the Hebrew meaning is for the sons of God, when the sons of God came to the daughters of men. Here in Norway about 5 yrs ago there was a women who had a son and he had 6 fingers and 6 toes. She had been born with the same and had operated away the extra finger and toe and was to have her baby operated on too. Im wondering do you think its genes that have been passed down from her ancestors or what. Is the sons of God mentioned in the bible fallen angels or what? Does this still happen today that woman can get pregnant with angels if it was that the bible meant by sons of God. If not angels, why do they get the six finger and toes? Does the six have any thing to do with the 666 number in Revelations and the beast? Darlene
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Brit-Am Reply:
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(a) Giants and the Sons of God
There are seventy entries discussing giants on our site.
http://search.freefind.com/find.html?id=97196080&pageid=r&mode=ALL&n=0&query=giants
see especially:
http://britam.org/joshua/joshua11.html
and the Commentary to Joshua 11:22
[Genesis 6:4] THERE WERE GIANTS IN THE EARTH IN THOSE DAYS; AND ALSO AFTER THAT, WHEN THE SONS OF GOD CAME IN UNTO THE DAUGHTERS OF MEN, AND THEY BARE CHILDREN TO THEM, THE SAME BECAME MIGHTY MEN WHICH WERE OF OLD, MEN OF RENOWN.
GIANTS: In Hebrew "Nephilim" connoting "Fallen Ones". Giants however did once exist.
Concerning giants, See our notes to: Joshua 11:22 "ANAKIMS"
GOD. Hebrew "elohim". This word is written in the plural but can be understood in the singular as occurs with other words in Hebrew (e.g. baalim" i.e. Owner).
It can mean "GOD Almighty" in the singular .
In the plural to can mean "gods", "judges", "mighty men".
In Exodus 21:6 the word translated as THE JUDGES is "Ha-Elohim" the same word translated as "GOD"
in Genesis 6:4.
[Exodus 21:6] THEN HIS MASTER SHALL BRING HIM UNTO THE JUDGES [Hebrew: "Ha-Elohim"]...
"The sons of God" in Genesis 6:4 the Hebrew can also be understood to mean "the sons of the Mighty Ones".
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(b) Giants and Six Fingers
A giant in the Philistine forces is recalled as having six [instead of five] digits on each hand and foot.
2 Samuel 21:20
And there was yet a battle in Gath, where was a man of great stature, that had on every hand six fingers, and on every foot six toes, four and twenty in number; and he also was born to the giant. - KJV
1 Chronicles 20:6
And yet again there was war at Gath, where was a man of great stature, whose fingers and toes were four and twenty, six on each hand, and six on each foot and he also was the son of the giant. - KJV
An extra digit is a fairly common phenomenon. In most cases they are removed by surgery in childhood.
It may reflect in some cases a certain genetic malfunctioning or it may be simply something different
from the normal. There is nothing necessarily wrong with this.
Polydactyly
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polydactyly
#Polydactyly or
polydactylism(from Ancient Greek (polus) "many" + (daktulos) "finger"), also known as hyperdactyly, is a congenital physical anomaly in humans having supernumerary fingers or toes. When each hand or foot has six digits, it is sometimes called sexdactyly, hexadactyly, or hexadactylism.#
The condition has an incidence of 1 in every 500 live births.
One study by Finley et al. combined data from Jefferson County, Alabama, United States and Uppsala County, Sweden. This study showed incidence of all types of polydactyly to be 2.3 per 1000 in white males, 0.6 per 1000 in white females, 13.5 per 1000 in black males, and 11.1 per 1000 in black females.[3] ================================================
(c) Angels and Sexual Intercourse with Humans.
A Jewish legend does say that there were fallen angels who had sexual intercourse with humans and produced offspring.
This source however to my mind is mistaken.
Maybe every woman should consider her husband an angel?
Are angels only male?
5. Max Rambow: Israel Should Seek Leader with Backbone
In the Brit-Am Commentary to
1-Kings 9:10-16
We said:
#International pressures, Arab intransigence, a left-wing media and Establishment all combined to force Israel to undertake sundry obligations and agreements with the Palestinians.
The Palestinians then immediately began to blatantly break all the terms they
had agreed to but had never intended to keep anyway.
Israel would be in its right to disregard all agreements that have been made since the other side never ever kept its part of the bargain.
Nevertheless Israel is only able to react to Palestinians provocations to a limited degree since the powers that be will not let her do more and they consider Israel to still be bound by its "obligations".#
Shalom Yair
Don't you think Israel could not honor those one sided agreements if the right leader came along? (one with some backbone.) I mean Iran and North Korea do it all the time. I think the world would howl but they would have to accept it. How different would that be then what we have now?
Sincerely Max
6. New Feature: Brit-Am Historical Researches (BHR)
This feature will give summaries and updates of various Brit-Am issues
and interests in the field of historical research.
Our first posting of BHR is now available:
BHR-1
Brit-Am Historical Researches
http://www.britam.org/BHR/BHR1.html
Contents:
Chronology: The Dating of Mycenean Civilization and the Fall of Troy
Velikovsky - Summarized
Notes and Summaries from:
"The Dark Age of Greece"
by Immanuel Velikovsky (published posthumously on the Internet)
Brit-Am Introduction - Excerpt
Mycenean Culture is associated with the city of Mycenea in Greece.
In reality finds identified as Mycenean usually mean a Greek-influenced style outside of Greece.
Mycenean finds are common in the land of Israel as well as in Britain and Scandinavia.
Conventional dating places Mycenean Culture at around 1200 BCE in the Bronze Age.
We believe they should be dated after 700 BCE and may help us prove a movement of peoples from the Middle East to the West.
Velikovsky was interested in claims of his own but his research in revising Chronology can help us.
Velikovsky is not the only sources we have on this matter. There are others who have made similar points.
In conventional chronology exists the concept of a "Dark Age" of about 500 years (ca. 1200 BCE-700 BCE) in which after some great catastrophe civilization all but ceased to exist. Velikovsky and others claim that if anything it is the "Dark Age" which is non-existent.
Velikvovsky says in effect that there was no gap between the situation conventionally described as existing in 1200 BCE
and that of 700 BCE.
7. John Wharton: Question on Abarbanel and the Lost Ten Tribes being in France
Sir,
Could you please tell me what the name of the commentary of Abarbanel is in which he places the 10 tribes in France, and England in the end times. And do you know if that commentary is translated into English? I would love to get a copy of it that I could read.
Thank you very much for any help on this question.
John
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Brit-Am Reply:
We referred to his commentary on Obadiah 1:20.
The Abarbanel DOES NOT explicitly mention the Ten Lost Tribes here but he does elsewhere. We need to consider the Abarbanel in the light of all he said on the subject throughout his very copious commentary as well as what he says on this particular verse in the light also of what the other Commentators say.
As far as we know there is no English Commentary of the Abarbanel.
Both Rashi and Nachmanides considered the Lost Ten Tribes to be in Zerefat.
Rashi identified Zerefat or at the least (according to Israel Veil) with North France.
Nachmanides identified Zerefat with France (North France) and the area to the north of it.
Abarbanel identified Zerefat with France and England (by which he seems to mean Britain in general) and the area to the north of it.
Additional Commentatories exist that support the Brit-Am understanding.
See also:
France in Biblical Codes
http://www.britam.org/codesarticles/CodesFrance.html
here we find the name in Hebrew for France (Tsarfat, Zarefath) encompassed by the Clans from the Israelite the Tribe of Reuben.
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