A Living and Active “History”
A Baptist might “steer” a word in the direction of baptist theology. The Methodist in the direction of Methodist theology. A Mormon might reign in a word to fit theirs. A Catholic, a Muslim, even a Hebrew professor might do it. Different Jewish sects have done it for ages. The Masoretes did it 1200 years ago to an extent unheard of—adding over 1,300,000 vocalization marks and changing over 1300 words (Ketiv, what is written to Qere, what is read). Even the Greek Septuagint (LXX) translation contains translation bias and even paraphrasing. This tendency to shape interpretations is a reflection of human bias and the desire to find meaning that aligns with one’s beliefs and/or traditions. It is essential to recognize bias in translation methodology because what we are ultimately after is life and peace. If there is no honesty within a bias, how can it be a bias toward life? Or peace? How can one trust it? Does anyone really want to put their faith in “what is read” and not “what is written”?
The RBT Project is an endeavor to uncover and rebuild the long-hidden “ruins” of the ancient languages as written through honesty. It bypasses the mess of Masorete markings, and researches the scripture as it was penned, stroke by stroke.
For centuries scholars have been perplexed at the undecipherable “accusative of time and place” within the language of Hebrew. This is because they have presupposed it to be an earthly temporal language written with an earthly temporal bias, like any other language. A temporal language of men like Greek has obvious syntax for the accusative of space and time. But how does an eternal language speak in the accusative of time and place, when what is eternal is, by definition, beyond place and beyond time?
The RBT understands (has a bias) that everything—the syntactics, markups, etymological meanings, and lexicographical particles, the difficult phrases, the homographs, the “peculiar orthographic anomalies,” as well as “untranslatable words” found in the sacred texts are intentional. It assumes the author wanted it that way, and didn’t need 1,300 words to be “corrected.” When a poem is written, the poet is writing in an intended style, way, or pattern. And so also the prophet. Only, a prophet would write much more enigmatically—much more carefully even, especially if being a prophet carried the risk of being ostracized, thrown into a pit, and killed.
Writing from Tomorrow?
It is predicated on the understanding that the Hebrew language itself is written from an eternal “frame of mind”, that is, living and active beyond space-time constraints. Is it even possible to communicate anything coherent in such a way? And what are the implications upon a body of literature? Most philological studies don’t take into consideration such a frame of mind. If one were to attempt to write some letter from the standpoint of tomorrow, what would it look like? Is it even possible? But before any such theoretical idea can be proven, one has to put his or herself into that linguistic frame of mind, then they may read and translate, and find out.
Tokens of Meaning
With the RBT, a focused effort is made to consistently translate Hebrew (and Greek) words in a way that keeps them distinct from one another, thus preserving the unique definitions as much as possible. This is not a new methodology, but was done also by a woman by the name of Julia Smith in the late 1800s.
A word represents a constructed sequence of letters that conveys a specific meaning. For example, miqneh (#4735), behemah (#929), and beir (#1165) are often inconsistently translated with similar terms (livestock, cattle, herd, beast, wild beast, etc.). Such translation practices assume that words are chosen without careful consideration or serve little literary purpose in their own right. Take the Hebrew word nephesh, for instance, of which the core meaning is “breath/soul” but is “translated” in all sorts of ways in the respected NASB:
any (1), anyone (2), anyone* (1), appetite (7), being (1), beings (3), body (1), breath (1), corpse (2), creature (6), creatures (3), dead (1), dead person (2), deadly (1), death (1), defenseless* (1), desire (12), desire* (2), discontented* (1), endure* (1), feelings (1), fierce* (2), greedy* (1), heart (5), heart’s (2), herself (12), Himself (4), himself (19), human (1), human being (1), hunger (1), life (146), life* (1), lifeblood* (2), lives (34), living creature (1), longing* (1), man (4), man’s (1), men* (2), mind (2), Myself (3), myself (2), number (1), ones (1), others (1), ourselves (3), own (1), passion* (1), people (2), people* (1), perfume* (1), person (68), person* (1), persons (19), slave (1), some (1), soul (238), soul’s (1), souls (12), strength (1), themselves (6), thirst (1), throat (2), will (1), wish (1), wishes (1), yourself (11), yourselves (13).
What?
Such translation philosophies like this diverge markedly from the word’s core semantic value. What you’re observing is not merely the breadth of semantic range but, at times, an over-extension, or even semantic overreach, where contextual interpretation replaces lexical fidelity. They employ roughly eighty different English words to represent a single Hebrew term, and this is only one word! Can a translation which claims “formal equivalence” yet still habitually permits contextual substitution be trusted?
This and similar methodologies/philosophies presume that the Hebrew language evolved over time from pictorial glyphs just like any other, and was functionally used just like any other. It overlooks the notion that through “Moses” a “language from beyond” breaking all normal linguistic conventions was inaugurated, even utilizing the ancient Phoenician elements.
The RBT translation minimizes the inclusion of fill words. If something doesn’t make sense, we don’t add words to make it make sense. We look closer for the sense. We refuse to ever be lazy in translating anything. In many cases a single word or clause is researched for days on end, in order to ensure that we aren’t missing something. Adding words, ignoring prepositions, modifying pronominal definitions, passing over “particles”, or concocting “special sub-definitions” which are entirely different from or even contradictory to the primary meaning in order to make sense of something that doesn’t seem to make sense, is cheating, and deceptive.
A Book of Dark(ened) Sayings, Brought to Light
Rather than distancing from or concealing the cryptic intricacies within the language, this translation immerses the reader in the enigmatic, heavenly thought pattern of “all in one” as simply as possible, that, being from heaven, ought to engender heavenly light—he who holds an ear to hear, let him hear.
The primary aim is to eliminate the “bias of the flesh”—earthly preconceptions, agendas, speculations, interpretations, the attitude of “we’re all doomed to die”—from the translation process, preserving the etymological or lexicographical meanings as they are known as much as possible. This allows readers a chance to understand dark texts for themselves. Let the reader understand (Matt. 24:15).
Biblical Hebrew fundamentally challenges modern theoretical notions of linguistics and authorship. For example, what is the purpose of writing a letter in reverse?
נ ׆
“The primary set of inverted nuns is found surrounding the text of Numbers 10:35–36.” Are they a textual-critical mark? An editorial annotation? Are they brackets denoting a separate “lost” book and thus signifying that there are actually seven books of the Torah as the Talmud states? The dispute over the meaning is an interesting one. Cf. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_nun)
Perhaps the inverted nun speaks of something heavenly? A dark mystery? In essence, this translation doesn’t rely on individuals “figuring it out” through contextual reasoning. Instead, akin to Jesus eluding the crowd, it skillfully avoids attempts by modern scribes to manipulate the text to serve any agenda. Instead, it seeks to present the text in its raw, unfiltered (unadulterated) form, revealing the narratives to be far more profound than previously believed. Translations over the past two millennia have been heavily marred by presuppositions and traditions. Reading these concretely translated words allows readers to place themselves more closely into a “heavenly context” to determine the intended message for themselves, eliminating authoritarian bias that has pervaded so many translations.
The Greek New Testament has also been subject to the same philosophies, agendas, traditions, and religious interpretations. Key words like “face of genesis,” “new woman,” “up-born,” “deep-knowledge,” “enigma,” and “wheel of genesis,” “zoe-life,” “psyche,” “throw-down,” “moo,” “down-hearing” are not translated as such. Instead readers are given religious vernacular like “resurrection” instead of “a standing up,” or “righteousness” instead of “justice,” “sin” instead of “missed.” The RBT adheres as closely as possible to primary and proper definitions, not metaphorical or extended ones, using classical Greek definitions rather than “contextualized,” “extended,” “tropical,” “elliptical” or religious idiom.
Religious “Usage”
Does “religious usage” of a word, really change the meaning of the word? The religious re-defining of many words apparently became embedded into scholarly consciousness, so much so, that secular lexicons often add sub-definitions (not primary) to their lexicon entries just for “special New Testament usage.” New Testament usage? But who was responsible for conjuring these new meanings or usages for existing Greek words? Were the authors really making up new usages and definitions for words that already had well known usage? And who is to say what these supposed new meanings really are? The New Testament authors did not leave us a “New Testament Lexicon” for all the supposedly new definitions they were creating. Or was it some other authority making up “new usages” of the Greek in later centuries, when it began to be translated, copied, and circulated abroad?
The result of this cannot be understated as it ultimately left what one might call a “Primary Gospel” buried deep beneath a “New Usage of Greek Gospel.” Additionally, religious usage left many “variants” (that is, changes and deletions) that have allowed translators to pick and choose what manuscripts to follow, sticking to the authoritative sources only when it was convenient, as can be seen in Romans 2:16 for example.
In Romans 2:16 the authoritative manuscripts have,
ἐν ᾗ ἡμέρᾳ “in which day” — with ᾗ as a relative pronoun, dative feminine singular agreeing with ἡμέρᾳ “day”.
Because this simply cannot be accurately translated as a definite day, “on the day which” (there is no definite article to signify a definite day) later copies removed the feminine relative pronoun ᾗ and added in ὅτε “when” to force certain readings :
ἐν ἡμέρᾳ ὅτε “in a day when” — ὅτε as a temporal conjunction, introducing a finite clause.
The feminine relative pronoun ᾗ refers the reader back to the previous words, e.g. the Heart, who jointly bears witness…
We found no translations following the authoritative texts on this verse.
Every translation follows the change — that is, nearly all modern translations render Romans 2:16 using a temporal clause, e.g., “on the day when God judges…,” even though the critical text preserves ἐν ᾗ ἡμέρᾳ, a relative clause.
The Scholar might call it “semantic smoothing” or maybe “an avoidance of wooden literalism” or some sort of crafty-speak of which there are endless ways a tongue can sway thoughts. But this isn’t a matter of “wooden literalism” versus “dynamic fluency.” It’s a case of lexical substitution that erases the embedded structure the author is trying to convey. The same translation committees that will appeal to “authoritative” sources will, at the same time, lean toward traditional renderings, theological bias, and reader familiarity, over authoritative sources when it is convenient. In this way variant readings become more of a tool to help scholars translate according to how they want things to read. With variant texts, they can pick and choose what they want as they go. This undermines the notion of the critical text being the true “final authority” in practice, and truly shows the “forked-tongue” nature of traditional translation practices. Are the authoritative texts authoritative or not? And if so, why so many deviations from them?
For our part, the RBT adheres to the authoritative texts as consistently as possible. When we see obvious changes, deletions, insertions, etc. that conflict with the authorities, we stick to authorities, plain and simple.
Importance of Hebrew Syntax: Ishmael and Isaac as the Seed of One
Take another look at Galatians 4:28-29 in the unfiltered literal translation, and you’ll notice that the distinctions between Isaac and Ishmael might not be as clear as previously believed:
“and you brothers, according to He Laughs (“Isaac”), are children of a promise. But just as at that time the one who was generated according to flesh was chasing the one according to the spirit, in this manner also now.” Galatians 4:28-29 RBT
Genesis 21:12-13 poignantly describes the promises to both Isaac and Ishmael:
“…for in He-Laughs (“Isaac”) a seed is being called to-you. And also, את-the son of the Slavewoman to a nation I am placing (“Ishmael”) him, for the seed of yourself is himself.” Genesis 21:12-13 RBT
Notice how the text points to Ishmael as being the seed of Abraham, while Isaac is also the seed of Abraham. That’s two seeds. But wait,
“And to Abraham were spoken the promises and to his seed. It does not say ‘And to the seeds, as of many, but as of one, ‘And to the Seed of yourself’ which is Anointed One (“Christ”).” Galatians 3:16 RBT
Is it perhaps saying that Ishmael and Isaac are an allegory of one and the same seed? No commentator or scholar has ever understood how Ishmael “persecuted” Isaac because there is no mention of such an event in the Genesis narrative. In fact, the mystery of all this becomes even more strange when we read Genesis 21:9 (the textual basis of the assumption of Ishmael “persecuting” Isaac) in the literal:
“And Noblewoman (“Sarah”) is seeing את-the son of Hagar of Dual-Siege (“Egypt”), whom she has borne to Father-of-Multitude (“Abraham”), is he-who-laughs.”
The author is referring to Ishmael in the participle “he who laughs,” which happens to be the meaning of the name Isaac, He Laughs. Could it be that Paul sees both the same seeds as of one? Looking at the text again it seems that indeed he does,
“…not to seeds, as of many, but [to seeds] as of one.”
Scholars have often referred to Paul as a dense writer, preferring compressed, elliptical constructions, very difficult to understand. But as can be seen, striking nuance and deeper things tend to burst out of the texts when they are not smoothed or glossed over. Perhaps it is the scholars themselves who are turning Paul into a dense, compressed writer?
Hebrew as Beyond Time and Place: To become, First, Last, Beginning, End
One of the most profound mysteries lies in how the ancient Hebrew language approaches the accusative of time and space. The existing scholarship on this topic is sorely lacking and remains inconclusive. It’s worth noting that even today, astrophysicists grapple with understanding space-time, and theories proposed by brilliant minds since Einstein are truly mind-boggling.
One of the most often overlooked aspects by translators is the absence of distinct past, present, or future tenses in Hebrew verbs. Instead, Hebrew employs only “complete” and “incomplete” forms. Translators have traditionally assumed that these forms were merely linguistic limitations and that the ancient writers used them in creative ways to convey a past, present, or future “sense” and these have to be “interpreted” by the scholars. Interpreting the precise sense was left to context and educated “conjectures.” However, it is uncertain to them whether the ancient writers even conceptualized time in a past-present-future framework. This is because the design of Hebrew was meant to be, as the very definition of ‘Hebrew’ itself signifies, from beyond.
In the case of the “Complete/Incomplete” forms presented in the RBT translation, we aim to emphasize, rather than obscure, the distinction between them as much as English allows. This approach helps to vividly differentiate between a finished or complete action and an ongoing or incomplete one. Traditionally, modern tenses have been ascribed to Hebrew verbs based on contextual factors like prepositions, adverbs, dialogue, etc., rather than the verb conjugation itself.
The Hebrew language seems to perceive heavenly time as a singular unit—both “before” and “after.” A more fitting analogy might be to envision time as encompassing us from both the front and behind, akin to two horizons or as a continuous, circular flow of water. This concept could be likened to a ring of water flowing in opposite directions from a single source. The Hebrew text subtly alludes to these images and patterns repeatedly. This perspective differs significantly from our Western linear, chronological notion of plotting points from left to right. It is evident that Hebrew thought was fundamentally different from ours. They saw Genesis as the past and future, and their concept of “now” and “today” held profound significance, being as it were, not chronologically defined. Time was perceived in terms of completeness or incompleteness, a notion which is challenging to grasp in lieu of our conventional understanding of time. Consequently, comprehending and translating the Hebrew accusative of time and space has consistently posed a conundrum for scholars and translators because it doesn’t align with Western notions of time.*
If this non-chronological, aionic frame of thinking should be considered primitive, incoherent, or completely missing the scientific realities that we are so sure of today, would that not make modern translations which seek to cover it up all the more mischievous and misleading, each with the grandiose claim of being “the inspired word of God”?
Likewise, the Hebrew Scriptures appear to offer durations of time when we, in our modern context, seek specific points in time. This also extends to place versus direction, such as north, west, east, and south. Even Sheol (commonly referred to as Hell) is not depicted as a precise or terminative point or location but rather as a terminative direction (see note at Genesis 37:35 in RBT).
The Hebrew Scriptures may have been written from right to left for a purpose. What we perceive as moving forward may, in the Hebrew mindset, be akin to moving backward. Throughout the scriptures, a conspicuous literary “game” or cryptic element is discernible, involving inverse thought, opposites, reflection, type and antitype, doubles, pairs, and twins. The question, and perhaps the hidden truth, remains: What did we miss? Many words are found in the enigmatic dual or pair form, signifying that they are neither singular nor plural. These words include “eyes,” “waters,” “heavens,” “loins,” “breasts,” “feet,” “double,” “nostrils,” “footsteps,” “wings,” and more. Even words like “stones” and “Jerusalem” occasionally appear in the dual form, adding to the enigmatic “dual” nature of the language.
Time and space seem to be subject to this intricate literary enigma of the eternal, as exemplified by the words in Ecclesiastes 3:15: “Who is he who has become? He is long ago. And who is to become? He has become long ago. And the Elohim is seeking him who is chased.” (Ecclesiastes 3:15 RBT)
A statement like this gains coherence if we envision time as a wheel with the eternal “above” in the middle of it. This gives rise to the Hebrew notion of here—there—and back to here again. This three-part, time-defying enigma is also evident in the words regarding John: “he, himself is Elijah, who is destined/about to come” (Matt. 11:14). On the surface, it appears that Jesus is suggesting that John occupies two (or even three) “places” in time simultaneously, with the man in the middle not actually within a place in chronological time, but eternally in the middle. If so, he would form his own “trinity”, no? One, two, three, with the man in the middle.
Sign אות. Like a trinity of existence? Two born within aion time, and the eternal one in the middle.
To grasp this ancient Hebrew concept of space-time, we would have to consider the idea of a circular time continuum, and even then, it remains a challenging concept to grasp. But therein we read the Bible repeatedly telling us that we must “grasp” the eternal. Scholars and translators have struggled to comprehend these Hebrew notions, resulting in translations that often miss these subtleties of syntax.
Julia Smith and Robert Young are some exceptions, as they attempted to preserve this strange aspect of the language in the Smith Parker Translation and Young’s Literal Translation (YLT) respectively. However, throughout history, many Christian scholars have regarded the transition from the Hebrew Bible to the Greek New Testament as grounds for deeming Hebrew thought outdated or irrelevant for contemporary understanding. Consequently, they replaced the enigmatic writing style of the Bible with a “watered down” narratives, focusing on particular “messages” of “well known stories.”
Yet the Hebrew writers seemed to have viewed the beginning as also the end. From the eternal vantage point in the middle, the beginning is also the end. This concept appears to be illustrated through various picture—enigmas in Ecclesiastes 1:1-11, in the words of Hagar, and even in the organized arrangement of Jacob’s family as they crossed over a torrent-valley in Genesis 33. Ecclesiastes was intended to be read literally, as the author skillfully crafted riddle-like sayings throughout the text:
Vapor[Abel #1892] of vapors, the gatherer has said, vapor of vapors: the Whole is vapor.
What is the profit to the Adam in the whole of his labor who labors below the Sun?
A generation walking, and a generation coming in, and the Earth to the eternal is she-who-stands-firm.
And the Sun has broken forth, and the Sun has come in. And toward his standing-place he is panting [running the race, Ps. 19:5, Heb. 12:1], he-who-breaks-forth is himself there.
He-who-walks toward freedom [south/right] and he-who-circles-around towards hidden [north/left], he-who-circles, he-who-circles, he-who-walks is the Wind, and upon his circuit the Wind is he-who-turns-back [cf. John 3:8].
The whole of the Brooks are those-who-walk toward the Sea, and the Sea is not full [satiated]. Toward a standing-place which the Brooks are those-who-walk there, they are those-turning-back to walk.
The whole of the Words are tired. A man is not able to speak [mute]. An eye is not satisfied to see [blind]. An ear is not filled to hear [deaf].Who is he who HAS BECOME? He who IS BECOMING. And who is he who has been made? He who is being made. And nothing of the whole is new underneath the sun.
Is there a word of whom he is saying, ‘See, this one is new’? Himself HAS BECOME long-ago to the ages, whom HAS BECOME from-to our faces [from our faces to our faces, 1 Cor. 13:12]. There is no remembrance [foresight] to the First Ones; and also to the Last Ones WHO ARE BECOMING. HE IS BECOMING not to them a remembrance with those WHO ARE BECOMING to the Last One.”Ecclesiastes 1:2-11 RBT
This Hebrew literal is not easy to understand. But notice how Ecclesiastes 1 is full of participle verbs which speak of actions with specific pronominal suffixes (he/she/them), but without any definite indication of time or place. The participle form in Hebrew is absent of any accusative of time or place. The Hebrew participle is often called a “non-finite” verb form. In other words, it carries a timeless sense.
Accordingly, each circuit would be considered a “remembrance” just like each day is a called a memory. Imagine yourself walking into a memory. We call such an experience déjà vu. It has happened “before”. The whole Hebrew Bible is structured in this manner—there is only complete, and incomplete. What is becoming, and about to become, and has already become “long ago”. That is the essence of the “eternal,” and those born of the eternal.
The wind is he-who-makes his circuit, the words are recorded in “history,” and then they are fulfilled, exactly, for what has been made is he who is being made, i.e what is complete is yet being completed. From his face, to his own face. The thinking of the Hebrew Scriptures is not based on then, but right now as the Sabbath Day is called “Today” and thus “Today, if you hear the voice of himself” (Heb. 3:7,15 4:7, Ps. 95:7). And the idea of “Heaven” is such that then and now are one. Or should be. Behold, now is the time of favor [a stooping down]; behold, now is the day of salvation.
Preserving the real text, in all its enigmatic, even absurd-sounding glory gives every reader the chance to know the real mind behind it, so that even if one should disagree, they can disagree with the real text. Or if an atheist should consider it outdated, primitive thinking, they can now have the chance to base their arguments on the real text rather than having to rely on translations made up of contextual substitutions.
Notes:
*See Meek, Theophile James. “The Hebrew Accusative of Time and Place.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 60, no. 2 (1940): 224-33. doi:10.2307/594010.