Genesis 1.3- Let There Be Light

KJV: Genesis 1.3: And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

He said – ויאמר

As the judicious Maimonides said, it is necessary to spiritualize the sense of this word and to guard against imagining any sort of speech. It is an act of the will and as indicated by the hieroglyphic composition of the verb אמור, a power which declares, manifests and reflects itself without, upon the being which it enlightens. (The Hebraic Tongue Restored)

“Let there be…” – וירי

[Moses] writes first ירי–אור there-shall-be-light; then repeating the same words with the single addition of the convertible sign .ו, he turns suddenly the future into the past, as if the effect had sustained before-hand the outburst of the thought וירי–אור and there-(shall be)-became light.

This manner of speaking figuratively and hieroglyphically, always comes from the primitive meaning given to the word בראשית: for the heavens and the earth created in principle and passing from power into action, could unfold successively their virtual forces only as far as the divine will announced in the future, is manifest in the past. (The Hebraic Tongue Restored, p. 33)

“Light” – אור

I cannot repeat too often that all words of the Hebraic tongue are formed in such a way as to contain within themselves the reason of their formation. Let us consider the word אור light: it is derived directly from the word אור fire. The only difference between them is, that in the word which designates fire, it is the universal convertible sign ו which forms the link between the sign of power א, and that of movement proper ר: whereas in the second it is the intelligible sign וֹ. Let us proceed further. If, from the words אור and אוֹר , one takes away the median sign ו or וֹ there will remain the elementary root אר composed of power and movement, which in all known tongues signifies by turns, earth, water, air, fire, ether, light, according to the sign joined thereunto. (The Hebraic Tongue Restored, p. 33)

KJV: Genesis 1.3: And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

Rendition: Genesis 1.3 And the elevating expansive power complex (Elohim) willed forth the manifestation of light and there was light, the potential for the evolution of mind and consciousness.

Genesis 1.2 – Without Form and Void

Genesis 1.2: And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

“Without Form and Void” – Tohu Bohu – תהו ובהו

Following from the potentiality of creation in Genesis 1.1, we now are told that this potentiality was without form and content, that is the crude, undifferentiated borderland of polaric forces – tohu bohu.

It is the famous [kaos] of the Greeks, that chaos which the vulgar have also gradually materialized…
We know that the sign is that of life. We have seen that this sign being doubled, formed the essentially living root הה, which, by the insertion of the luminous sign, became the verb, to be-being. But let is imagine now that, wishing to express, not an existence in action, but only in power, we restrict the verbal root in the sole sign of life and extinguish the luminous sign י to bring it back to the convertible ו; we shall have only a compressed root wherein the being will be latent and as it were, in germ. This root הו, composed of the sign of life, and of that which, we know, is the link between nothingness and being, expresses marvelously well that incomprehensible state of a thing when it exists no more, and when it is, nevertheless, in power of existing…
Moses…expressed a contingent and potential existence contained in another potential existence…in another seed-producing power, which must be developed in order that it may be developed. (The Hebraic Tongue Restored, p. 30)

Darkness – השפ

This word is…in its figurative sense…a compressing, hardening movement; in its hieroglyphic, it is a combat, a violent opposition between the contrary principles of heat and cold. The root expressed a violent and disordered movement caused by an inner ardour which seeks to distend. The root depicts on the contrary, a sentiment of contration and tightening which tends to centralize. In the composition of the word it is the compressive force which prevails and which enchains the inner ardour forced to devour itself. Such was the idea that the Egyptian priests formed of darkness. (The Hebraic Tongue Restored, p. 31)[darkness = desire enchained]

“The Deep”[thom] – תהום

This is the root הו[being] modified now by the reciprocal sign ת, and endowed with the collective sign ם, which develops its power in infinite space. (The Hebraic Tongue Restored, p. 31) [idea of all desire, creative force]

“Spirit of God” [ruah] – רוח

It is figuratively a movement toward expansion, toward dilation. Hieroglyphically, it is strength opposed to that of tenebre. And if the word [darkness] characterizes a compressive power, a compression, the word רוח will characterize an expansive power, an expansion. In both will be found this eternal system of two opposed forces, which the sages and savants of all the centuries…have seen in Nature, and signalized by different names…

…contains all the ideas of expansion and exaltation, of ethereal breath, inspiration, animation, etc… (The Hebraic Tongue Restored, p.31)

“Brooding” – מרהפת

…the sign which terminates [rouah – breath] now, adds the idea of active generation…to dilate, to expand, to agitate prolifically. (The Hebraic Tonge Restored, p. 32)

“Waters” – מים

[The roots contain] the idea of passive relation, or plastic and creative movement…(The Hebraic Tongue Restored, p. 41-42)

The so-called “heaven” in the first verse, the name of which is Shamaim, contains a Yod between two Mem. This sequence indicates the cosmic movement of Sheen acting against Mayim, the so-called waters: the two Mem (40) between which Yod is playing against its partner Aleph in the game of existence versus life…and it plays against its very destruction. And that which plays against it is the so-called Spirit of God, which is the tremendous vital energy of Sheen originated by Aleph…
Yod must always be in possession of two contrasting qualities; strength and softness…If Yod insists on one of these qualities against the other, what happens is a “dead death”. (Suares)

KJV Genesis 1.2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

Rendition: Genesis 1:2 And the compressive, inward forming power of the universe (Earth) was as yet only potential within all potential Being: and therefore the inner radiant desiderative force was held captive to the harsh compressive force (Darkness) within the infinite source of potential existence (the Face of the Deep); and the Expansive Power (Divine Spirit) of the Elohim (elevating expansive power complex) was pregnantly moving upon the face of the universal fecundity of existence (Waters).

Genesis 1.1 – Bereshith/Elohim/Heaven and Earth

KJV: Genesis 1.1 In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.

The first thing that strikes one in examining Genesis is the word “God.” Now, this word runs throughout scripture and sometimes you find “LORD God” and sometimes “the Lord.” If one looks at the Hebrew word being translated, we find different words used as well. The assumption is usually made that they are all referring to the same thing, just different names for the one thing we term God. However, if we accept that names have profound meaning in Biblical Hebrew, names being but a particular complex of powers, forces and energies that is unique and does something no other “name” does, then we have to look further.

One observation easily made is that Genesis 1 involves only that complex of powers termed Elohim. What exactly is meant by this term? We can accept the term “God” but this evades a deeper understanding of why this particular name is given to “God” at this point. If we look at what d’Olivet has to say, based on the roots and signs, we find that it is

…derived from the root אל, which depicts elevation, strength and expansive power…in its abstract sense only the relative pronoun he employed in an absolute manner. Nearly all of the Asiatic peoples have used this bold metaphor. הוא (hoa), that is to say, HE, is in Hebrew, Chaldaic, Syriac, Ethiopic and Arabic, one of the sacred names of the Divinity; it is evident that the Persian word Goda, God, which is found in all the tongues of the North, is derived also from the absolute pronoun, HIM-Self. It is known that the Greek philosophers and Plato particularly, designated the Intelligent Cause of the Universe in no other way than by the absolute pronoun.

[It is further] composed of the pronoun and the absolute verb היה, to be-being…The verb itself, united to the pronoun אל, produces אלוה (Eloah), that-He-who-is, the plural of which Elohim, signifies exactly HE-they-who-are…(The Hebraic Tongue Restored, p. 28)

Thus, we could say that Elohim is the expansive and elevating power of Being which is involved in the creation of a universe. For Suares, Elohim is a process wherein the very polaric principle of Being enters into existence in time (Yod – 10).

…The problem, reduced to its essential equation is: pulsation of life and cosmic resistance. (Suares, Cipher of Genesis, p. 78-79)

The second schema, Elohim (Aleph-Lammed-Hay-Yod-Mem: 1.30.5.10.40) is the process through which Aleph (1) by initiating a physiological [expansive, occupying-of-space] movement (30) in life (5) comes into existence (10) and acquires the appearance of a metamorphosis (40) which offers resistance to life and therefore gives birth to living beings. (Suares, Cipher of Genesis, p. 84)

Elohim, it will be recalled, is the evolutionary process within the duration of existence. (Suares, Cipher of Genesis, p.134-35)

The next term we need to contend with is that translated as if in a fairy tale “in the beginning.” The deeper hieroglyphic sense has to be extracted and unfolded from the rots and signs:

“The word…is a modificative noun formed from the substantive ראש , the head, the chief, the acting principle, inflected by the meditative article ב and modified by the designative ending ית …

Thus one can deduce the hieroglyphic sense…Now, what is a principle? I shall state in what manner the earliest authors of the word [resh] conceived it. They conceived a sort of absolute power, by means of which every relative being is constituted such; they expressed their idea by the potential sign א and the relative sign ש united. In hieroglyphic writing it was a point at the centre of a circle [sacred geometry]. The central point unfolding the circumference, was the image of every principle. The literal writing rendered the point by א , and the circle by ס or ש . The letter ס represented the sentient circle, the letter ש the intelligible circle which was depicted winged or surrounded with flames.

A principle thus conceived was, in a universal sense, applicable to all things, both physical and metaphysical; but in a more restricted sense it was applied to elementary fire; and according as the radical word אש was taken literally or figuratively, it signified fire, sentient or intelligible, that of matter, or that of spirit.” (The Hebraic Tongue Restored, p. 25-26)

If we look at the main characters of the word, we can see that this expresses the nature of the universe as power in principle, containing within it the polarity between the point and the periphery, or the outwardly raying (centrifugal) force and the inwardly raying (centripetal) force, being the nature of perfection and holding within it all possibilities of manifestation:

ב B – Image of active and interior action.

ר R – sign of all movement, good or bad, of the renewal of things as to their movement.

א A – The sign of power and stability, or unity and of guiding principles.

ש SH – sign of relative duration and movement – potential rising to manifestation.

י I – Image of potential manifestation: of spiritual duration, of eternity of time and of all ideas relating thereunto

ת TH – Sign of reciprocity, the idea of perfection of which it is the symbol.

If we examine the letter-number configurations we get much the same concepts:

Bayt (2) Raysh (200) Aleph (1) Sheen (300) Yod (10) Tav (400).
Bayt (2): …This whole duality of existence – and of our own thought – is conveyed by no. 2.

Raysh (200): As 2 multiplied by a hundred, Raysh represents the totality of the universe, or interstellar space, of the myriads of stars and al the planets… It includes the totality of nature, all existence…Raysh (spelt Raysh-Yod-Sheen) gives birth to Sheen, the great cosmic breath that is everywhere and in everything…

The non-thinkable has for its symbol the Aleph (1). The Aleph is always itself and never itself. It is every recurring though never the same. Aleph creates, it is creation, it is not created, yet it exists…Aleph itself is beyond all consciousness, human or cosmic…beyond the reach of our thought, beyond the reach of our mind.

Sheen (300): Prodigious cosmic motion. Movement of everything that exists. All organisms live through Sheen (300), either through or against its action, because Sheen is similar to the powerful breath which vivifies and carries away. Only the most extreme weakness can elude or oppose it.

Yod (10): Existence which both betrays and satisifies life….Yod is the manifested existence in time of Aleph, the timeless, the immeasurable.

Tav (400): Tav is the cosmic resistance to the life-breath which animates it. Without this resistance of Tav (400), life could not come into existence. This resistance to life is that which enables life to produce its prodigiously varied manifest forms.

Such is the first glimpse of the untranslatable Bereshyt. (Suares, The Cipher of Genesis, p. 66)

In essence, the term contains in germinal form all that is of existence, and the rest of Genesis and scripture is an unfolding of this existence in potential. Just as the seed contains the whole of the later plant, so Bereshith contains the whole of creation about to be created by the exalted and exalting expansive, occupying-space complex of power known as Elohim.

In fact, if the word signified simply, in the beginning…why did not the heavens and earth, created at that epoch, still exist at that time [when light and dark were created in verse 2]; why should there be need of a successive development; why should they have rested an eternity in darkness; why should the light have been made after the heavens and before the sun…? [Bereshith means] in principle; that is to say, not yet in action but in power; as Saint Augustine interpreted it. This is the thought of Moses, profound thought… in which he depicts with a masterhand that state of a thing, not only in contingent power of being, but still contained in another power of being; in short, without form, in germ in a germ. (The Hebraic Tongue Restored, p. 29-30)

So then we are left with the final two terms translated as “heaven and earth” – Ha Shamaim Vay Et Ha Eretz

The manifestation is twofold: there is the existence of that which contains and the life of that which is contained…External circumstances and interior life…The whole of existence is always in the grip of two forces…
Existence is the continuing factor: vegetation and the animal kingdom. In all these existences, the pulsation of creative life – discontinuous, timeless – is so profoundly buried and hidden away that it seems to be absent…
…In this game between existence and life, the text already implies that whereas the fixed role of the vegetable and animal kingdom is existence-versus-life, the role of man is to change sides in the game: to be Aleph against Yod. From the amoeba up to man, all life is within the realm of continuity. Man, says the Book of Genesis is called upon to enter into that which transcends continuity and time. Reciprocally, when Elohim is entwined with YHWH, the process of life enters into existence…(Suares, The Cipher of Genesis, p. 79-80)

Thus, we have in verse 1, the beginning of being in the universe as potential, the two tendencies of powers: that of an outwardly manifesting or expanding, expansive power (“heaven”) and one of an inwardly developing or concentrating, compressive power (“earth”). This is the essence of the universe as existence, that is, creation. Here we have the mathematical language of point/center and circle/plane/circumference.

KJV: Genesis 1.1 In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.

My Rendition: 1.1 The beginning of the universe lies in the elevating, expansive power complex of Being creating in principle (the potential existence of) the primoridal polarity of an expansive, outward manifesting, centrifugal power (Heaven) and a compressive, inward manifesting, centripetal power.

In the Beginning…Part 1

The answer: “The Bible” and the question is…What is the single most comprehensive and scientific work of Western culture?

The Bible is widely regarded as a religious text, a matter of belief, rather than a serious and profound work of science. Scripture, when read correctly, however, is consistent with and complementary to more modern rational explorations of our world and ourselves. The first book of the Bible, entitled appropriately, Genesis, deals with the creation of the universe. The Bible is written in a symbolic language called Biblical Hebrew. Modern languages are not symbolic and, thus, interpretation of these symbols poses problems. Only a few individuals have been able to begin the process of avoiding the perils of Scylla and Charybdis (materialism and mysticism) in order to find the deeper, dynamic meaning of scripture, that is, one that has a living aspect, as relevant to the past and future as it is alive in the present. This work needs to be continued and extended, but in the meantime we can already obtain a valuable idea of the depth of insight to be found, insights that confirm the discoveries of natural science and can also enrich and enliven them.

The next set of blogs will examine the creation account of Genesis. We will try to see behind the ostensible story of characters and events, either believed literally as such, or held to be a mythopoeic way of expression, both of which raise logical problems and absurdities. What emerges is a powerful story of powers, forces and energies, expressed in an enduring code that transcends any particular cultural context or language evolution. The history of Biblical Hebrew is one of beneficial arrested development, such that the purity of the symbols have been preserved.

Before we go into the interpretation of Genesis itself, let’s take a brief look at the language known as Biblical Hebrew. Let’s first look at what one scholar of Biblical Hebrew has to say generally:

The twenty-two graphs which are used as letters in the Hebrew alphabet are twenty-two proper names originally used to designate different states or structures of the one cosmic energy, which is essence and semblance, of all that is. Even though they correspond to numbers, symbols and ideas, those twenty-two vastly exceed all the most exhaustive sets of classes: they cannot be distributed among things because they factually are that which they designate….

We are approaching here a language which is not a by-product of sensorial references, but a would-be transmission from the unknown. Hence the difficulty of explaining it…

Whereas our A,B,C, and so on, are mere representations of vocal sounds, the names Aleph, Bayt, Ghimel, etc. are projections of biologically structured energies in different stages of organization…

The decoding of Genesis … is therefore not a mere matter of transposing from A-B-C to Aleph-Bayt-Ghimel, but a process of penetrating an unknown world by means of a manner of thinking which has to be experienced by the very use of the language which must be learned in order to understand it…

I found there is some quite substantal evidence that Hebrew might indeed be the original world language… (Suares, The Cipher of Genesis, p. 12-13)

While the actual status of Biblical Hebrew is a little uncertain, there seems a general consensus as to its antiquity and importance. The standard academic version is that Hebrew came from a hypothetical proto-Semitic language, as can be seem in Wikipedia entries.

However, there is a growing thread that places Biblical Hebrew itself as the original prototype language, grounded in symbols and body-mind gestures of deep meaning connected to a primordial wisdom (http://www.ensignmessage.com/archives/hebrew1.html ) such that “all English words can be traced beyond German, Latin, and Greek to their ultimate origin in Biblical Hebrew… because ALL languages link up to this original Mother Tongue” and more importantly, “language in its pristine form (Hebrew) is a natural science like chemistry or physics…” (http://edenics.homestead.com/word_intro1.ht).

In essence, the deeper meaning of language, which is the written form or sign (hieroglyph or hierographic), holding the original gesture of mind and body of a thought or idea, is still accessible in Biblical Hebrew due to the arresting of its cevelopment early on which preserved its “youthfulness” from degradation over time into mere figurative and material meanings. As Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote to a friend: “it is the fundamental Mistake of Grammarians and Writers on the philosophy of Grammar and Language to assume that words and their syntaxis are the immediate representatives of Things, or that they correspond to Things. Words correspond to Thoughts; and the legitimate Order & Connection of words to the Laws of Thinking and to the acts and affections of the Thinker’s mind.”

It is from this understanding of language in general and Biblical Hebrew in particular that we will undertake a deeper examination of the “hidden” meaning preserved in “The Book” which has so influenced Western culture and thought, and will reveal itself to be a profound scientific document.