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<DIV>I thought I would pass along a short excerpt on Biblical prophecy from a
rabbi I asked a few questions of about the prophecies in Daniel and Isaiah
(Yishayahu in the Hebrew -- you can trace the connection if you look
carefully.,... Ish ay ah).</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>This perspective struck me as something of a Balm of Gilead for the more
trite and arrogant conflicts that sometimes preoccupy Christians, over what it
means that the Bible is The Word of God, or "the complete and perfect word of
God," what its authority is, and how "literally" to understand it. (It wouldn't
be a bad idea if Muslims applied this perspective to understanding the Qu'ran
either). There is more arrogance than piety to theological debate, but here is a
perspective which puts the divine and human in their proper relationship, or so
it seems to me.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Siarlys</DIV>
<DIV><BR> </DIV>
<DIV><EM>The problem lies in expressing sublime, metaphysical concepts in
<BR>(necessarily) human terms.</EM></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><EM>Nvi, plural nevi'im, is the word generally translated by "prophet";
<BR>nevu'a is what they undergo in communicating with the DivineNot being a
navi, </EM></DIV>
<DIV><EM>I have no idea what the experience of nevu'a is <BR>like, save from the
descriptions contained in the literature. It sounds <BR>like an extrememly
stressful, painful, and difficult one for most nevi'im.</EM></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><EM>They are made to perceive something ineffable and beyond human
capacity, <BR>and then bidden to describe to others (the nevi'im generally refer
to this <BR>compulsion as a "massa", or "burden"). This attempt to describe the
<BR>indescribable in human terms results in the highyl figurative and
<BR>allegorical language of poetry, which is the most semantically dense mode
<BR>of human expression.</EM></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><EM>If we then take that "massa" and translate it into yet another human
<BR>language, the distortion only gets greater.</EM></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><EM>The moral of the story is that you can't take literally much that a
navi <BR>says in the throes of nevu'a, and you really can't translate it
well.</EM></DIV></BODY></HTML>