"SURVEY QUESTION" FROM STAN TENEN --
WHAT DOES
THIS SAY?
From eTORUS
Newsletter, March 2001
Can you explain the simple meaning of the
following
line? It is taken verbatim from the screen of a cable TV
program.
Exact translation is not required, just the basic meaning is requested.
"DJ FM AM J JASON"
Hint: "Word divisions" may or may not be
expressed
properly and "punctuation" has been omitted on purpose.
Please also explain your point of view and
assumptions
in making a translation. For example, perhaps you notice
"FM
AM" and think that this refers to the two common modes of radio
broadcasting:
FM and AM. If this is a presumption you decide to make use of,
please
say so. (I am using this as an example because it is a common
inference
among those I have already asked, but I am not saying here whether or
not
this is a correct or a spurious assumption.)
I have not received many
"solutions" to this
question, which is okay because my point was in posing it.
The author's INTENDED meaning of the letter
sequence
has nothing to do with a "DJ" (disk jockey) on an "FM" and "AM" radio
station
named "J Jason."
The originally unspaced letters "DJFMAMJJASON"
appeared on the MSNBC business report on a chart showing the past
year's
performance of a particular stock. Since the report was in
November
2000, the monthly chart of the stock's performance started with
December 2000.
Quite naturally, the horizontal (time) axis on
the bottom edge of the chart listed Dec., Jan., Feb., Mar., ......
Oct.,
Nov. Thus the INTENDED meaning of "DJFMAMJJASON" is not a word,
words,
or a phrase or sentence. It is a list of the initial letters of
the
names of the months of the year starting with "D" = December of the
current
year.
My point is that this is EXACTLY what has
happened
with the Hebrew text of Genesis. The undivided, unpunctuated,
sequence
of letter-operator "initials" has been interpreted as words in a
narrative language sentence. The true situation is that each of
the
Hebrew letters should have been interpreted as entire "word" in a
formal
operator system. Hebrew words are actually a "acronyms" for sequences
of
formal (non-phonetic, non-narrative) operations.
The same problem appears in the most basic
kabbalistic
text, the Sefer Yetzirah ("Book of Formation"). There is a
(rather
famous) word - "B'limah" - that translators do not agree on and cannot
translate unambiguously. As it turns out, this is not really a
word
at all. It is a list of the letters at the beginning of the
Hebrew
text of Genesis that must be paired (based on the symmetry of the
alphabet)
in order to find the geometry in Genesis that the Sefer Yetzirah goes
on
to describe and make use of.
The first verse of the Hebrew text of Genesis
(28-letters) makes use of only 12-letters of the alphabet. This
means
that there are literally hundreds (over 900) distinct narrative
"translations"
that can be found by separating the undivided string of letters to form
what appear to be different sequences of Hebrew "words." The most
famous of these "translations" reads: "In the beginning God created the
heavens and the earth." The problem is, this is only one of
the hundreds of possibilities and the only thing it has to recommend it
over most of the others is that it conforms to our traditions,
presumptions
and expectations for what we think the text should say.
As an acronym-like sequence of
letter-operations,
the Hebrew text of Genesis actually sets out to outline "creation" in a
modern sense. Pairing the letters folds the text-string into
recognizable
geometric forms that have immediate meaning. The first thing the
text string does is to specify the geometry of the letters used to
write
the text itself. This is extremely logical. After all, in
a technical text, the first thing you do is define your symbols.
In my opinion, "translating" Genesis into
narrative
language has pitted the various cultures and traditions that make use
of
it against one another.
Narrative "translation" of Torah to the
exclusion
of the deeper meaning at the letter level has been consistently
condemned
by the rabbinic tradition as dangerous and misleading ever since the
Septuagint
Greek translation was ordered by Ptolemy Philadelphus, circa 285 BCE.
The tragedy of misrepresentation and the
misunderstanding
it inspires among the people who revere the Hebrew Bible continues to
this
day.
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