The Elohim - Finally We Know The Truth! Vatican Bible Translator Reveals Shocking Information! Ep 1

Summary

The video presented by 'The 5th Kind' delves into a groundbreaking interpretation of Biblical texts, challenging longstanding views on the concept of God. Two scholars, Mauro Biglino and Paul Wallis, explore the linguistic nuances of ancient Hebrew, particularly the term 'Elohim.' They suggest that this word, often translated as 'God,' should be understood in its plural form, indicating multiple powerful entities rather than a singular deity. This perspective reshapes our understanding of ancient narratives and offers a more complex view of the origins of humanity and its place in the universe.

Highlights

• Mauro Biglino and Paul Wallis present a radical reinterpretation of Biblical texts. 🤓
• The term 'Elohim' is analyzed for its plural meaning. 📜
• The scholars argue that original texts suggest diverse beings, not a singular God. 👥
• Reading the Bible with the original terms offers a fresh perspective on its narrative. 📚
• Such interpretations may challenge traditional theological views. 📖

Key Takeaways

• Elohim might not mean 'God' as traditionally believed; it could indicate multiple powerful beings. 🤯
• The Bible’s original texts suggest a more complex narrative about human origins. 🌍
• Translating ancient texts involves significant interpretative challenges. 📜
• Different translations of the Bible can lead to entirely different understandings of its stories. 📖
• Exploring the concept of Elohim provides insight into a more fascinating, concrete, and logical Bible. 🕵️‍♂️

Overview

Delving into the age-old debate on the interpretation of the Bible, this episode by 'The 5th Kind' features two renowned scholars, Mauro Biglino and Paul Wallis, who challenge the traditional understanding of God. They assert that the Hebrew term 'Elohim,' often rendered as 'God,' actually possesses a plural form, which opens up exciting possibilities in understanding ancient texts.

Through meticulous linguistic analysis, the scholars propose that 'Elohim' refers to multiple powerful entities rather than a single omnipotent figure. This revelation shifts the paradigm on how we perceive Biblical narratives, posing profound questions about the origins and history of humanity.

Their work also highlights the difficulties in translating ancient scriptures, where even small linguistic nuances can lead to vastly different interpretations. By maintaining the original terms in place, they argue, readers gain a more coherent and logical understanding of these age-old stories and their implications for our place in the universe.

The Elohim - Finally We Know The Truth! Vatican Bible Translator Reveals Shocking Information! Ep 1 Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 for hundreds and thousands of years   people around the world have turned to the  bible for information about god two scholars   Mauro Biglino and Paul Wallis argue for  a radically different interpretation seeking out the root meanings of key words  in these ancient texts they find another
• 00:30 - 01:00 quite different story emerges one with enormous  implications for our understanding of the human   race and our place in the universe for more than  two millennia readers have interpreted the ancient   texts of the bible as stories of god a seamless  narrative in which god creates the heavens and the   earth botanical and animal life and eventually  the human race however a number of anomalies
• 01:00 - 01:30 in the texts along with intriguing questions of  translation point to another possibility. Paul   Wallis is an internationally best-selling author  researcher and scholar of ancient mythologies   over the last decade paul's work has probed the  world's mythologies and ancestral narratives   for the insights they hold on our origins as  a species and our potential as human beings   as a senior churchman paul  served as a church doctor
• 01:30 - 02:00 a theological educator and an archdeacon in  the anglican church in australia paul's work   in church ministry has included training pastors  in the interpretation of biblical texts his work   in biblical translation and interpretation has  revealed a forgotten layer of ancient story with   far-reaching implications for our understanding  of human origins and our place in the cosmos
• 02:00 - 02:30 Mauro Biglino is an internationally best-selling  italian author researcher and highly regarded   scholar of ancient hebrew for many years he worked  for rome's saint paul press as a bible translator   providing with great precision the literal  meaning of hebrew words for vatican-approved   interlinear bibles it is an exacting discipline  the scholar must be rigorous in avoiding any kind   of interpretation of the word and give only the  literal etymological meaning of each word part
• 02:30 - 03:00 morrow's finding set him at odds with the  conventional expectations of the catholic world   and propelled him onto the international stage  where his work has opened up a world of cultural   memory recorded in the bible yet hidden from  the public for centuries by mistaken translation   and the dogmas of the church together morrow and  paul show that the root meanings of a series of   key words in the bible reveal an earlier  layer of information very different to the
• 03:00 - 03:30 story of god associated with the bible hidden  plain sight in the pages of genesis is an even   more ancient narrative one which reframes the  whole story of human beginnings the oldest word   in the bible rendered as god is the hebrew  word elohim but is that what the word means   and what are the implications of the translation  choices surrounding this mysterious word
• 03:30 - 04:00 hello everyone it makes me smile a little bit  to see this bible's tower that i consulted   to prepare this video it is a real pleasure for  me to be here with my friend Paul Wallis to talk
• 04:00 - 04:30 together about biblical topics i will tell you  about a very simple concept but very respectful   of the way of reading the so-called sacred test  then we will start from here with a series of   short videos with the aim of obtaining very simple  indication for a respectful reading of the bible
• 04:30 - 05:00 as respectful as possible  towards the ancient authors in this way we could do an autonomous  reading and we could get an idea of   what the bible probably tells us beyond  what theology has told us instead at the beginning of course i would also like to  give you some indications relating to the absolute
• 05:00 - 05:30 uncertainty that we have when we approach that  text i mean the awareness of the fact that we know   very little about that text to develop this topic  it is interesting to read some concepts expressed   by professor garbini professor at the la sapienza  university of rome professor of semitic philology
• 05:30 - 06:00 professor garbini argues that ibrahim  is a canaanite dialect south phoenician   actually hebrew is one of the many  dialects within the canaanite languages   we only know hebrew as it was reconstructed at  the end of the first millennium after christ
• 06:00 - 06:30 the so-called majority hebrew   at that time the important thing was not to  know the linguistic structure of those texts   but the theological implications deriving  from the various currents of judaism this means that when we read the bible  we do not read a text that followed   grammar rules but we read a text  that followed an ideological path
• 06:30 - 07:00 and grammatical rules were  not a problem for the authors this is important because over the centuries many  grammatical rules have been developed for example   those relating to the term elohim which from  plural witches must absolutely become singular
• 07:00 - 07:30 the linguistic and grammatical rules  have therefore been elaborated after   so we know only one of interpretation of the  biblical text that of the school of tiberias   which produced mesoretic hebrew the ibrio  language in the beginning it was expressed   through the consonants of the phoenician  language ibru was written without bubbles
• 07:30 - 08:00 we will never know how the  bible was originally read the vowel sounds were introduced  by the school of tiberias   between the 6th and 9th centuries after christ
• 08:00 - 08:30 professor garbini says that when we  speak of ancient languages even the   agreement of all scholars on the meaning  of a term is not a guarantee of certainty based on this information what we can honestly  do is try to do a literal reading of the bible regarding the term elohim in the face  of all these uncertainties i think
• 08:30 - 09:00 the best thing to do is  what i will tell you shortly elohim is actually a term that you don't  know how to translate for this reason   it is translated in many ways for example it is translated with the  term god but the jewish executives
• 09:00 - 09:30 themselves say that in the hebrew language there  is no term that indicates god as we understand it   as an omniscient omnipotent transcendent  spiritual entity that is to be worshipped elohim is also translated as judges legislators  governors the bright ones from above and so on
• 09:30 - 10:00 all of these terms that are used  actually indicate the functions that   this elohim performed but do  not say who they really were   the elohim were certainly judges they were  certainly legislators they were certainly   governors but who they really were and what  the term elohim really means we don't know
• 10:00 - 10:30 this is the fundamental thing since we don't  know we must have the correctness to say it here in genesis 2013 we see one of the  examples relating to those uncertainties
• 10:30 - 11:00 i mentioned earlier that concerns the  term elohim and the verbs that are used this is the passage where abraham tells   his story and tells when the elohim  brought me out of my father's house then you see that here the verb  is translated in the plural form
• 11:00 - 11:30 this is the bible translated for  scholars who know the hebrew language   this is the guide of the verbal  forms present in the old testament   and also here it is said that the verb it  is in the plural form in the third person so it is certain that the verb connected to the  term elohim is plural but in the bibles translated
• 11:30 - 12:00 for families the verb is theologically translated  into the singular because the term elohim must   indicate god and so it must have the verb in  the singular even if it is plural in ibraheem as you can see the bibles translated for  scholars respect the letter of the hebrew text
• 12:00 - 12:30 while the bibles translated for families  contain theological translations   that is they must convey an idea a different  concept from what is written in the original bible
• 12:30 - 13:00 these bibles are translated for the public and  therefore they have the translation of verb in   the singular form luther's bible the jerusalem  bible the bible of the german bishops conference the king james bible the septuagint  that is the bible translated
• 13:00 - 13:30 into greek the bible published  by the house of the geneva bible all this derives from the fact that elohim  be translated with the singular term god
• 13:30 - 14:00 witnesses translates the verb into the singular   but in the note it says that  in reality the verb is plural various commentators from different  schools try to explain why this
• 14:00 - 14:30 plural verb might must be translated  into the singular but each time   they are explanations that always have the purpose  of affirming that elohim refers to the one god i don't want to go into the merits of all  the explanations that have been worked
• 14:30 - 15:00 out to try to prove that elohim is singular to refute them it is sufficient for example   to take psalm 82 which clearly  speaks of an assembly of the elohim and follow what professor manuel tov of  the hebrew university of jerusalem says
• 15:00 - 15:30 he says that the various ways used by ibrahim to  indicate the term we translate with god actually   refer to different people and the  terms are l eleon and yahweh plural
• 15:30 - 16:00 l is probably one of the singular forms  of the term elohim the other form is uh
• 16:00 - 16:30 we still remember that even the jews
• 16:30 - 17:00 tell us that we will never know how the  bible was read because there were no vowels as you can understand all these terms   if they are considered without the  vowels they are all very similar
• 17:00 - 17:30 so we are faced with the same category   of individuals also from the  point of view of the name so we saw that from the point of view of  the meaning of nouns from the point of view
• 17:30 - 18:00 of the use of verbs from the point of view of   uncertainties in the translations we are  faced with a situation in which we don't know so in this situation of not knowing  what we can do a very simple thing to read the bible respectfully
• 18:00 - 18:30 i think it is right not to translate the  term elohim the term l the term aloha and when in the bibles we have at home we find the  term god we can replace it with the term elohim   living the word used by the biblical authors
• 18:30 - 19:00 so we will understand that without entering into  useless discussions and with the utmost respect   for the biblical authors if you read the bible  while keeping the terms they use we will realize   that we are faced with a bible different from the  one we are told but a bible much more fascinating
• 19:00 - 19:30 much more concrete much more understandable but  above all much more logical than what we are told at this point i give you an appointment here  in the videos with my friend paul wallis
• 19:30 - 20:00 to address other indications about the  most respectful way to read the bible ciao from italy i'm very happy to be in conversation with  mauro on these topics because my own research   journey in the eden series had brought me to  very similar conclusions and it was initially the
• 20:00 - 20:30 issues around the word elohim the plural form  of the word elohim that broke me out of my old   world of narrow christian orthodoxy to a point of  view from which i can see that the bible is not a   book about god in the way i thought it was but  it is actually representative of a kaleidoscope   of entities from the beginning of the hebrew canon  to the very end now the word elohim is the bible's
• 20:30 - 21:00 oldest word that gets translated as god but as  mado has pointed out it is a masculine plural form   that takes plural verb forms and as i began  drilling down into those questions i realized   that the problems thrown up by the plurality  of that word are not just a grammatical glitch   they represent an earlier form of the story  in which elohim was understood to represent
• 21:00 - 21:30 a diversity of beings there is a body in the  hebrew canon referred to as the sky council   in which a number of elohim sit in council  together now in my eden books escaping from   eden the scars of eden and echoes of  eden i argue that the elohim stories   make better sense if we do just as mauro just said  and read them with the word elohim still in place
• 21:30 - 22:00 or if we use a root meaning the powerful ones when  we read the stories that way the stories change   but not in a random way they change in a way  that resolves many of the moral questions   we would have over the elohim stories why such  brutal and unconscionable things done how it is   that human beings get slaughtered in the conflict  of the elohim something that doesn't make sense
• 22:00 - 22:30 if elohim is translated in the singular as  god but the other thing that is revealed   is that the moment you re-read the stories  as stories of the elohim the powerful ones   you quickly realize that you're reading the  summary form of the source narratives from   out of ancient mesopotamia the narratives from out  of ancient sumeria babylonia arcadia and assyria   i sometimes get a knee-jerk reaction from people  of faith regarding what i argue for in the
• 22:30 - 23:00 translation of elohim as the powerful ones and the  knee-jerk reaction is when people of faith say ah   but wait a minute we know that god is father son  and holy spirit so this is the christian theology   of the holy trinity surely that's why elohim  the bible's oldest word for god is a plural   it must represent the persons of the holy trinity  well there are many problems to that reaction
• 23:00 - 23:30 and the first is that the holy trinity is a  christian doctrine it's separated from the work   and intent of the original authors by millennia  and the theology of the most recent redactors   of the hebrew canon was a monotheistic  theology they did not believe in multiple   gods and in fact the insertion of the holy name  yahweh over earlier elohim texts such as we see in
• 23:30 - 24:00 genesis 3 or genesis 11 reveals that that later  redactor is turning the stories of the elohim   into a story of god and it's those adjustments  that throw up many of the moral problems why would   a holy god genocide people why would a loving god  bomb people back into a pre-stone age condition
• 24:00 - 24:30 from having previously been a technological  civilization this is what we read in genesis 11.   so no it's not a representation of the  holy trinity and would it make any sense   for thousands of human beings to get killed in the  crossfire between the elohim is that what happens   when the father son and holy spirit get into a  spat of course not no the original stories are
• 24:30 - 25:00 about something else elohim what i would argue are  powerful ones now some theologians argue that when   the word elohim is understood as the powers or the  powerful ones that it doesn't specify what kind of   entities they are that this word could refer to  anything more powerful and advanced than humanity   and so we shouldn't draw specific conclusions  from the word tnt clarke published a theology
• 25:00 - 25:30 of the old testament which was modestly titled the  theology of the old testament it's edited by sdf   salman and in it they quote the theologian a b  davidson and he writes these words in contrast to   men angels belong to the class of elohim now i'll  pause right there because that's a reminder that   the word elohim gets translated in various ways  through the hebrew canon in one place it's god
• 25:30 - 26:00 and in another place it's chieftains or judges  or landlords in another place it's angels   how can this earliest word for god be so elastic  why would the ancients choose a word to denote   the unique transcendent god but also denote  random other entities who they never define   it's slightly ill-fitting so the quote goes on it  might be interesting to contemplate the question   of how the same name elohim came to be applied to  god and this class of beings agreed good question
• 26:00 - 26:30 then he goes on perhaps we should be  satisfied with the general explanation   that the name meaning powers is applied from  the standpoint of men to all that is above man   to the region lying above him that's  an interesting phrase isn't it   though the same name is given i.e to angels and  god the two are never confounded in scripture
• 26:30 - 27:00 well that's a rather disingenuous thing to say  the two were never confounded in scripture that's   a non-explanation of why the word can mean angels  here or false gods here or demons here or judges   here or god over here what's the truth of the  word and that's why i argue for re-reading the   elohim texts and leaving elohim in the text so  that the shape of the stories becomes that much
• 27:00 - 27:30 clearer to the modern reader another theologian  who points to the word elohim as representing   a kaleidoscope of powerful entities is michael  heiser and he rightly points out that the word is   far more elastic than we generally believe but  it's only a halfway explanation as to why that   is the earliest designation for god why would  god be categorized with archonic entities
• 27:30 - 28:00 other material beings why  would there be this competition   among yahweh and the other elohim and it's clear  in moments in the bible yahweh classes himself as   an elohim there's an occasion when his king wants  a prognosis on his health and he sends for advice   from the elohim of the people of ekron yahweh  gets furious and says is there no elohim here
• 28:00 - 28:30 that he could consult that he would  run off and consult the elohim of ekron   and it's a moment when you realize these elohim  are in competition with one another for hegemony   go to the ten commandments and you've got  something similar where there's a great forgetting   of the other elohim being commanded you're not to  bow down to them you're not even to depict them   you serve only yahweh and then moses successor  joshua says something very similar cut yourself
• 28:30 - 29:00 off from the elohim the egyptian serve and the  elohim your ancestors served on the other side   of the river in mesopotamia and you should serve  only yahweh so there we have a world of many   powerful entities but you serve this one and so  the yahweh character is set among the many elohim   of the hebrew stories you also have stories  about a sky council in which a number of elohim
• 29:00 - 29:30 sit in council together presided over by the  character yahweh how can you have a council where   a number of those entities are fictitious but the  president of the council is real and that's god   that's not quite coherent we have to realize there  is an earlier form of the stories prior to the   7th to 6th century bce edit and the original  form is a world in which there are many elohim
• 29:30 - 30:00 many powerful ones all presiding over their own  respective human colonies maori and i are not the   first people to point out the moral problems  thrown up by reading the elohim stories as   god stories there were some really significant  church fathers at the beginning of christianity   who pointed this out very clearly and who were  wishing to nudge the church away from regarding   the hebrew scriptures as foundational for  christianity that decision had already been taken
• 30:00 - 30:30 in acts 15 reading that book and yet the arguments  have to be had all over again in the first one two   three four centuries of christianity an origin  argued that if you read the elohim stories as   if they were god's stories and took them at face  value then you would end up believing in a god   of whom you had to justify the most brutal actions  we would have to believe of god he said quote
• 30:30 - 31:00 such things as we would not believe of the  most savage and unjust of men so he pointed   out very clearly there is a moral problem when  you translate the elohim stories as god stories   i completely agree with mauro that when the final  redaction of the hebrew canon was done in the 7th   to 6th century bce the agenda driving that edit  was an ideological one not a grammatical one
• 31:00 - 31:30 and that is why you can have texts where the  theological problem of too many gods has been   cleaned up but the grammar's a mess the fact that  the earlier grammar of the elohim stories survives   in stories where the name yahweh has been pasted  over the top is a clue that you're not reading   the original form and a clue that the original  form had more gods or advanced beings in it
• 31:30 - 32:00 than the current translation wants to give away  and the shape of the henotheistic world remains   the stories don't make sense until you realize  there are many powerful ones in the picture   in competition with one another when  abraham gives this explanation of   why he moved from ur of the chaldees he  says the powerful ones told me to move
• 32:00 - 32:30 and we have the elohim the plural form noun and  then told me to wander is a plural form verb   now the plural form verb is clear in the hebrew  so that survived that 7th to 6th century bce edit   but what that information does not  survive is the translation into english   because you translate it into english and  told me to is no different whether you've got
• 32:30 - 33:00 a single or a plural subject of that verb and  so the translation into english hides the fact   that abraham is actually referencing many powerful  entities and this is why it's important to go back   to the hebrew to look at the translation of these  words this is the power of the work that maori   has done because as a translator of interlinear  bibles he had to give a very precise rendering
• 33:00 - 33:30 of each word in the hebrew text with no  interpretation no theological um orthodoxization   of the text simply report what's in the  text and then you have the translations   either side and you can see i've got a plural  form verb in the hebrew and it's been changed   into a singular form word because the translators  want this to be about god when it clearly isn't
• 33:30 - 34:00 i argue in the eden series that when in the text  the elohim say let us make the humans to look like   one of us they really do mean that look like is  a very concrete term and one of us is very clear   the plurality is emphasized there if that word  is translated as god you've got a philosophical
• 34:00 - 34:30 problem and you've got a grammatical problem  as soon as you translate elohim as the powerful   ones the problem resolves elsewhere in genesis 3  you have the elohim arguing over how intelligent   human beings should be and one of them says we  don't want the humans to be as intelligent as   us and once again the conflict and the plurality  of the language throws up a problem that even a
• 34:30 - 35:00 child can recognize in the telling of the story  from conventional family translations of the bible   those questions resolve as soon as you realize  that you are reading a story about multiple elohim   conflicting over how intelligent human beings  should be not a news story it's actually a   summary form of the conflict between enlil  and enki in the ancient mesopotamian stories   in my book escaping from eden i argue  for the root meaning of the word elohim
• 35:00 - 35:30 as being the powerful ones and suggest that when  we read the stories that way they make sense and   they line up with their sources there's  a coherence to that picture which emerges   but if you don't want to follow that logic just  keep the word elohim in the elohim text and   re-read the stories that way and that's quite  sufficient for a different shape of the story
• 35:30 - 36:00 to emerge a story that has something different to  say about the world in which our ancestors lived   that gives different information about  our origins and our place in the cosmos the final edit of the old testament of  the bible the hebrew canon included the   layering of some beautiful and profound  theology over the top of ancient texts.   unfortunately mistranslating traumatic ancestral  memories as if there were encounters with god
• 36:00 - 36:30 is a choice with far-reaching consequences belief  in a violent xenophobic hierarchical god has   been used through the ages to justify  violent wars and all manner of abuses   however the fidelity which the ancient manuscripts  have been curated in the hebrew canon by countless   generations of priests and scribes means that  in our generation we can now return to these
• 36:30 - 37:00 fascinating artifacts of our pre-history and  ask how differently they might be translated to find out more about Paul  Wallis and Mauro Biglino   along with links to their published works  follow the links in the video description   thanks for watching the fifth kind   please subscribe and click the bell icon  so you never miss out on new content
• 37:00 - 37:30 for more thought-provoking programs  interviews and documentaries   check out our website at fifth kind dot tv you