Wednesday Studies No. 12
Takeaways from the study of Hebrew Bible
Here are the takeaways from last time.
1. There are two characters in the Hebrew alphabet that occur in Genesis 1:1 of every Torah scroll or Hebrew volume of scripture. The two letters are aleph/taw or AT. The letters are not a word and they are not vocalized when reading, nor are they translated when Hebrew is changed to English.
2. The letters are the first and the last letters of the Hebrew alphabet, and precede the verse in Revelations, I am the Alpha and the Omega.
3. There are no coincidences.
4. Alpha has a meaning in Hebrew, it is from the Phoenician, meaning ‘aleph’ or ‘alef’ meaning ‘ox’
5. Ox could be a pictograph or picture to illustrate the concept of food, life, strength, or sacrifice.
6. Taw is a Hebrew letter that is also on the Phoenician alphabet and the root is cross.
7. Could be a pictograph or picture to illustrate the concept of a physical cross, a mark (as in place your mark here), or death (as ‘x’ed out)
8. In Revelations the phrase Alpha and the Omega is certainly defined as the beginning and the end because the next phrase tells us so. It can also mean ‘the old’ because alpha is one of the oldest characters, and Omega ‘the new’, because it is the last letter in the newer Greek language.
9. Alpha and Omega could also be a pictograph for life and death, strength and cross, and sacrifice and the all-seeing eye.
10. The Old Testament is originally on scrolls. While the New Testament may have been in a scroll here and there, mostly they have been organized in books. Pagan religions all had their scripture on scrolls throughout the world. The Canon of scripture is organized in signatures and books, a new technology of the time, and very different from scrolls. The choice to use books instead of scrolls was intentional
