In relation to the others recent posts started by myself, in hindsight it may have been better to first post an introduction. So better late than never, here it is...
For some reason, people of the twenty first century still seem to be not using the original Hebrew (and Greek) meanings of the words from the Bible.
Instead, they continue to employ various contemporary twentieth century evangelistic interpretations of modern meanings that have displaced the original ancient intended meanings and context.
Even ignoring the obvious self motivated modern translations by diverse sects and other religious groups, most people are not aware that the modern meanings conveyed by the English and other language translations of the Bible have gone through several processes of translation and interpretation - and therefore may not provide an exact account of what the ancient texts were trying to explain.
What we read in our modern English Bibles is a modern 'understanding' based upon modern religious interpretations - which is some two to three thousand years apart from the original intention, and was often based upon the values of the religious group making the translation or was influenced by political or society's values of the country in which it was being translated.
Let's look at the 1611 King James Version Bible. This has been translated and interpreted using the religious understanding from such times as when the Latin Vulgate Bible was being compiled and right through the Dark Ages. The cognition for the fifth century Vulgate Bible was influenced by the declining Roman Empire's religious views - which in turn had already amalgamated certain selected ideas from the Greek religion and earlier mythologies. The Hebrew Old Testament had already been translated and interpreted into Greek before it was again translated and re-interpreted by the Romans.
At this point most people say that their modern Bible was translated direct from the Hebrew Old Testament and/or from the Greek New testament, hence these arguments are void as only one level of translation and interpretations have been made.
But what is not realized is that even the most 'ancient' translations of these ancient texts have been somewhat influenced by religious translations and interpretations from the first to fourth century AD.
During debate with people who say that their use of the Hebrew meanings of the Hebrew Old Testament are accurate, I have found that they seem to not recognize that even the Hebrew language, its usage and translation and interpretation is different from the original 'first edition' Old Testament.
The language itself, and how the Hebrew written characters were sounded has changed, as biblical Hebrew was not used for many centuries (even millennium). The modern use of Hebrew is not an exact copy of the original biblical Hebrew, therefore there is a probable loss of accuracy.
So how accurate are the translations of our modern English Bibles ?
How many levels of re-translation and interpretation have diminished the original intended meanings ?
1. Many modern English Bibles came to be translated and interpreted via the KJV Bible.
2. The Old English Bible was somewhat based upon the Latin Vulgate Bible and was influenced by Dark Age religious concepts.
3. The Romans used the Greek translation of the Old Testament, and their interpretation of the Greek New Testament.
4. There are no original first century Greek Bibles left. It is my understanding that they were all most probably destroyed when Erasmus rewrote some of the ancient Greek manuscripts on behalf of the Roman Empire.
5. Even when 'original' Hebrew Old Testament manuscripts are used, the use of modern Hebrew to sound out the letters and translate the words still employs an ancient religious connotation which may have somewhat diffused the accuracy of the original meanings.
So as you can see, there are at least five stages of translation and interpretation that may have affected and changed the intended meanings.
With this in mind we need to 'see through' two to three thousand years of religious translations and interpretations and concentrate on the individual words from the ancient texts, and not take for granted that what we are told by our modern Bible's text and associated commentary (which often comes from a modern's person's beliefs and perceptions) is absolutely true and correct.
It is also not commonly known that most of the religious accounts retold in the various religious texts were originally oral stories, and that they were not written down until many years after the first account was told and often not by the person first telling the story. What if the second person got it slightly wrong when he retold the story or added his own religious beliefs, or added something to make the story more enjoyable or dramatic ?
So here right at the beginning of the religious stories we find another level of possible misunderstanding. That now makes six levels through which we must filter out the additional or diminished words now included in the modern versions of those ancient narratives.
But what if the first person did not comprehend what he saw and was told ?
This would mean that all the subsequent accounts are somewhat incorrect, making seven levels of likely misunderstandings.
Modern religious scholars seem to embrace a particular story from the Bible that they do not understand and state that it is merely symbolic. This then seems to give that part of the story an untouchable status that then excludes other possible outcomes or meanings to those words. But the ancient person who originally wrote it knew what he was writing.
For example, the works of Daniel, Ezekiel, and John (of Revelations) portray an account of angelic messengers showing and telling them of future things and events. They say things like 'the angel gave me a book to look at, told me to write down what I saw and what I was told', and then they give their account of what they saw and what they were told.
For some reason, religious scholars have decided that much of these prophet's works are just symbolic, and are waiting for a certain set of 'historical' events to occur as per how their own beliefs and perceptions dictate - based upon their own religious group's translations and interpretations of the various Bible stories.
But let's take the numerous levels of possible corruption into account and filter out the misinterpretations and mistranslations and return the words and the stories to their original meanings and context.
The Australian researcher Ronald Pegg says that reading the Bible needs to be done from an historical perspective, and not from a religious viewpoint.
So when Daniel, Ezekiel, and John say that they were told and shown 'future things' from a book (that had seven seals) by a angelic messengers who appeared to them in a bright light, it is reasonable to conclude that they were shown and told things of the future (by mysterious messengers) from some type of 'future' book that had seven seals.
They were also told a chronology of 'future' historical events (including a war) and astronomical occurrences that are to happen in the future just before a day of judgement is to be made on all religions.
At some point in human history that book with the seven seals will be written and produced.
At some point in time thereafter the angelic messengers will obtain a copy of that 'book' and take it back in time, and show Daniel, Ezekiel, and John its contents.
At various previous ancient times, those prophets were visited by the messengers and were shown and told about the future things in the 'book'. Soon thereafter, as requested, they wrote up their encounter with the messengers and what they saw and were told.
Those accounts are sitting in what we now call religious texts, somewhat hidden under two to three thousand years of religiously motivated translations and interpretations.
We have been waiting for history and our chronology to catch up to the time when the book with seven seals is written and produced.
That time has come (and has passed us by like a thief in the night).
Apparently, as the Hebrew and Greek priests did not understand the concept of future history being told to them by messengers from the future, they deemed these encounters to be from GOD's messengers (angels). This is the religious perspective of which we know.
Daniel, Ezekiel, and John may also not have understood exactly they were being shown, but they faithfully wrote their individual accounts. For example:
Ezekiel 1:4-5 "And I looked, and, behold, a whirlwind came out of the north, a great cloud, and a fire infolding itself, and a brightness was about it…out of the midst of the fire…came the likeness of four living creatures".
1:10 "As for the likeness of their faces…a man…a lion…an ox on the left side…an eagle".
John Rev 4:6-7 "And before the throne there was a sea of glass like unto crystal: and in the midst of the throne…four beasts full of eyes before and behind. And the first beast was like a lion, and the second beast like a calf, and the third beast had a face as a man, and the fourth beast was like a flying eagle".
Daniel 7:2-4 "I saw in my vision by night, and, behold, the four winds of the heaven strove upon the great sea. And four great beasts came up from the sea, diverse one from another. The first was like a lion…"
Religious scholars generally agree that these three prophets (two from 600 BC in Babylon, and one from Patmos island in 95AD) are describing the same things.
They are all reporting future things, the images they saw from a 'book' shown to them.
Daniel chapter 12 gives reference to this book as being sealed up until the end time.
Ezekiel 2:9 "And when I looked, behold, an hand was sent unto me; and, lo, a roll of a book was therein".
Rev 5:1 "And I saw in the right hand of him that sat on the throne a book written within and on the backside, sealed with seven seals".
Because of the thousands of years of religious influence, these faithfully reported visual descriptions have been covered over by up to seven levels of misunderstandings and misinterpretations.
When all this is filtered out and the religious approach disregarded, the ancient commentators are simply describing the imagery from a future 'book' that has seven seals. The type of book is established by both Ezekiel and Daniel.
Ezekiel 2:9 "a roll of a book".
A "book" in ancient times was often known as a 'scroll'.
In an English dictionary the word "roll" means 'to turn in a circular motion'. It comes from a Latin word "rota" meaning 'wheel'.
In Strong's Concordance the etymology of Hebrew word 4039 "roll" comes from word 1556 which means 'to roll'. It is written in English letters as 'galal' and sounded as 'gaw-lal' (which sounds much like 'sca-la'). So the ancient Hebrew meaning of 'roll' is similar to the modern English definition.
So filtering through the various languages and checking their etymology, what is now written as 'a roll of a book' started out sounding like a 'gaw-lal' book, in Latin its feature was known to be like a wheel, and in Old English another characteristic was a book that turned in a circular motion.
If we did not have the Latin concept of 'wheel' then we may simply conclude that the type of book being described was just an ordinary ancient scroll-like parchment. But…
Rev 5:1 "in the right hand…on the throne, a book written within and on the backside, sealed with seven seals".
This wheel-like book (sounding to the Hebrews like 'gaw-lal') that rotated in a circular motion was placed by hand on some type of throne. Its contents were contained within and written on the backside. To access the information there were seven seals.
Ezekiel, Daniel , and John describe a specific sequence of images from it:
A
whirlwind of fire infolding itself, and
a brightness was about it…out of the midst of the fire…came the likeness of
four living creatures in
the middle above
a sea of glass (like crystal): their faces…
a man…a lion…an ox…something like the
wings of an eagle.
To cut a long story short, Ronald Pegg claims to have found the 'future' book from which these descriptions were taken. It is a compact disk. The PPHC Study Group has purchased a copy of the Ancients Civilizations of the Mediterranean cd-rom, and compared its pictures to the sequence of imagery cited by the three biblical prophets.
A compact disk looks like a wheel, rotates in a circular motion in the drive tray (throne) once it is placed there by hand, its data is contained within layers of plastic, and is physically and literally read from the backside by a laser beam. This particular cd-rom was produced by the SCALA company (sounds like gaw-lal).
To enter the main section of the cd-rom, first the white sailboat cursor (the brightness) has to be placed over the red Windrose compass (the whirlwind). This looks like the Sun, and with its four main compass points and four minor points in shades or red, it also looks like a fire infolding itself. Click the mouse with the hand - and we are taken to the Map Page.
The cd-rom's main menu page is a map of the Mediterranean, over which seven icons (seals) give access to the information.
In the middle of the screen (also called a throne) above the crystal sea of the Mediterranean Sea of the map (an actual picture of sea waves glistening in the sun) are four animal icons - a man's face, a lion (chimera), a cow (ox), and something that looks like wings of a bird (the capital icon).
Now all this is either just a sequence of a dozen coincidences, or as Ronald Pegg claims, he has discovered the source and origin of the biblical stories - being the 'roll of a book' shown to ancient prophets.
Now, as you may imagine, this caught our attention. When we were first told of these things, we did not believe it. When we saw the evidence for ourselves, we did not want to believe it.
But this is just the tip of the iceberg.
Mr Pegg has presented evidence for many of the Bible's stories.
We have investigated some of his other claims too, and have placed our results on a website as News Reports.
You are welcome to visit the
http://www.pphcstudygroup.org.au website and view this sequence of pictures for yourself.
Eddy Pengelly, on behalf of PPHC-SG.
