Note, September 1, 2015: I revisit this matter on
http://imagicworldview.blogspot.com/2015/09/victor-alexander-and-maryah-controversy.html
I stumbled onto the maryah controversy after buying the
Aramaic New Testament and the Book of Isaiah: Eashaya from
Victor Alexander (v-a.com/bible, which I highly recommend).
I bought Alexander's translations because I wanted the
earliest, most authentic scriptures possible -- from the
ancient Aramaic texts, of course, which predate most Greek
and Roman influences (modern Aramaic texts do not).
Alexander has sought out editions the earliest Aramaic-
speaking Christians east of the Mediterranean read which
escaped destruction by Constantine and the Ottomans. I
think he, a native to the region, has the most accurate
and idiomatic English version available, and possibly the
only one using these most ancient texts. Reading Alexander's
translations is like finding a first century Christian reading
the original Scriptures and asking, "What's that?" and he
starts translating it to you, "This is what it says, . . . "
Alexander, however, belongs to the literal-historical camp,
and though he translates the texts faithfully, he has put
some of his own literalist insights and impressions in his
introduction and note sections. I cannot fault him for this
-- if I could read the ancient scriptures the way he can
and believed the literal-historical matrix as he does, I too
would be bursting to share what I had found.
Well, that is what I am doing here, except I am more in the
mystical-psychological camp, which Alexander's translation
supports better than he knows (and I mean "psychological"
after the fashion of esoteric Christianity and Neville
Goddard, not Sigmund Freud). I find Alexander’s translation
invaluable for understanding the true intent and nature of
the scriptures. For example, in Mark chapter 1, Alexander
notes that the literal meaning of Eashoa (Jesus) is The Life-
giving, Living Branch (which is our connection with God), and
that Nazareth of Galilee means Victorious Revelation. Thus,
if I understand Mark's grammar in chapter 1 correctly,
"the Gospel of Jesus Christ" really means the revelation
that came by the Life-Giving, Living Branch (which connects
us with God) who comes forth in Victorious Revelation
(parentheses mine).
After spending many years and thousands of dollars on
literalist seminaries and Bible studies just to find out
all the faults of my King James Bible, not buying
and reading this closest-to-the-original translation just
because it has some of the translator's own thoughts in its
notes would have been ludicrous.
(Alexander's text is not necessarily easy to read, and there
are a number of minor mistakes -- the dropping of a name or
a wrong word choice, but they are a pittance unworthy of
mention. Consider the scope of the undertaking by a one-man
operation and the grace in him to translate this stuff for
us at all. Note also, please, that Alexander's New Testament
translation begins with Mark, not Matthew. If you begin
reading with Matthew, you will miss important notes
Alexander has put in his first translation, Mark. I also
recommend reading at least these of his several essays online:
www.v-a.com/bible/bible.html; www.v-a.com/bible/resistingchange.html;
/abraham.html; and /god-in-the-flesh.html)
Regarding maryah:
In his translations, Alexander chooses to transliterate
three Aramaic words: 'maryah', used in the ancient text for
both lord/master (Heb. adonai) and the Hebraic Tetragrammaton
YHWH (Heb. Yahweh/Jehovah); 'Allaha', used for God (Heb.
Elohim); and 'Eil' -- Father (Heb. El). There are perfectly
good English words for these, namely Lord, God and Father,
but Alexander feels these English terms do not do the meanings
of the Aramaic words justice.
He is right, of course, but now we have these unfamiliar foreign
terms we do not understand in the place of English words we do.
Be that as it may, wanting to better understand his use of
'maryah,' I searched the internet and discovered . . .
. . . 'Mara' (mr) is the Aramaic word for lord, master. Its emphatic
form, maryah, and fellow declensions are used almost universally
in the ancient Aramaic for both lord/master and YHWH. Alexander
faithfully follows suit. Maryah occurs in the Aramaic the same
way as does 'kurios', the Greek word for lord, master, which
also is used in the place of YHWH in both the Greek Septuagint
(O. T.) and the Greek New Testament.
The problem with maryah is that people compare the Aramaic and
Hebraic versions and see the obvious parallel between maryah
and YHWH, the sacred name of God, and over-read believing them
to be synonyms. They note that maryah is used of the Messiah,
God-in-the-flesh, and is also used of YHWH, so they must be
one and the same "person," right? And if maryah is used to
translate YHWH in the ancient Aramaic versions, then it must
have the same meaning as YHWH, right?
Well, no, it doesn't in either case. While Alexander's comments
indicate such an elevated view of maryah, it doesn't work that
way. The above would mean everything else in the text referred
to as maryah, lord, was also the "person," YHWH. And maryah is
used as a substitute for YHWH, not as its synonym.
Why didn't the translators of the scriptures into the Aramaic
language translate the Hebrew word YHWH accurately, substituting
for it instead the word lord/master? Superstitions? No. The
answer, I believe, lies in the nature of the Hebraic
Tetragrammaton YHWH, the so-called "name" of God. In my opinion,
YHWH is not a word or name but rather a picture which cannot be
translated, so a substitution was in order.
Our confusion starts with the Hebrew word ‘shem’, which we
translate as 'name'. Giving things names make them appear to
be distinct, different, separate. But ‘shem’ really means
'nature', as in the nature of a thing. The "name of YHWH" really
means the "nature of YHWH." Also: "this is my nature forever";
"thou shalt not take the nature of YHWH thy God in vain"; and
of Jesus, "thou shalt call his nature Jesus (the nature of the
Life-Giving, Living Branch of God)"; etc. So YHWH refers not to
the title of something distinct and separate from us but to a
nature or state which is as present as our own lives.
The ontological nature of YHWH, God, is, of course, beyond
mystical -- it is unknowable, ineffable. But the nature of
YHWH is discernable by perceptive observation of God's actions
and reactions. The Bible is all about these observations and
what may be construed from them.
From ancient times Jewish mystics -- spiritual, contemplative
observers -- have assigned mystical values to the characters
of the Hebrew alphabet. Their alphabet also serves as their
numerical system, so alphabetic combinations create numeric
sums which yield new mystical values which . . . it goes on
and on. Which is not bad. We should have minds which could
fathom the depths of understanding the Jewish mystics have
reached!
The Hebrew language went mystical because Moses followed the
"flocks (teachings) of Jethro" and realized that he was part
and parcel to the Ineffable's becoming: "I become!" This
discovery he was driven to share, hence, the Bible. Some
people hold that the ancient paleo-Hebraic/Aramaic scripts
(which share a common source), were not spoken but originally
were used exclusively for these mystical-value patterns and
mathematics.
Yod-Hey-Vav-Hey is a construct of these values, a message via
symbols meant to reveal something important about the nature
of God. The symbols represent concepts to be fathomed by
spiritual seekers, for God speaks to his seekers in their
pursuit: he illumines the seeking mind with understanding
(for the pursuit, in reality, is his.)
The symbols paint a picture the transcendent, supra-ethereal
ineffable God and its manifestation as the nature of existence.
Because YHWH is this message rather than a word, it has never
been assigned vowel points. Certainly we speak it as Yahweh,
Jehovah, and the LORD, but YHWH was not meant to be spoken --
its meaning is to be sensed in the mind and in the heart by
revelation: "This is with whom I have to do -- me!"
The meaning of YHWH in English is often said to be "I AM," but
the literal Hebrew is closer to "he will become." In Exodus 3:14,
the form God in Moses speaks is AHYH, "I will become." YHWH
reveals the process of God's becoming into this dimension, for
that action IS his nature. Perhaps confusingly, the word is
not necessarily the future tense -- it is the past, present and
future; for everything that God will ever become already exists
from the creation -- everything, from beginning to end. Our
individualities are progressing through creation as God becomes
to experience everything he has created. We are in the Sabbath.
I take the following roughly from Rabbi David Cooper's God is
a Verb (page 76) and Aryeh Kaplan's Jewish Meditation (pages
73-76) (we can learn a lot from what Jewish mystics think of
their own scripture):
The mystical value of the 'yod' (Y) in YHWH is divine life, the
spiritual force of the primordial, ineffable No-Thing, which is
beyond all comprehension and is the ultimate source of all
existence. This "Ineffable" is impossible to picture: we only
know that "it" is there because we are here. We can only surmise
what "it" is like by discerning what we are (hence the spiritual
pursuit to find out what we are).
The second character, the first 'hey' (H) in YHWH, is the divine
life's desire, its wanting to expand. The Ineffable desired form,
to bestow its nature unto other dimensional existences. The
character 'hey' is a picture of an open hand stretched out to give
and to direct (this is also the meaning of the Hebrew word 'Judah';
this is the source and nature of the Law). Hey depicts an outflow
of benevolence, the pouring forth from self (whatever the invisible,
ineffable No-Thing is) into manifestation. Kaplan offers the "coin"
of existence as that which is to be bestowed, but it is the whole of
divine life which is to be formed.
Ah, maybe you see the problem here: nothing to give to. You need
somebody to love. The desire to give birth to form is also the
impetus to create a womb, a medium for form to be born through.
This is why the "rib" of Adam -– the excitable creative member --
becomes Eve, or as she is called in the New Testament, Miriam --
Mary, the mother who has never known a man. Divine life's desire
is every thing's "mother."
The third character in YHWH, 'vav' (W), is the picture of a nail
or peg which affixes, joins. 'Vav' is the divine life’s
transcendent power to effectively "flip" into the existence of
that which it desires. It is the effective agency of transcendent
becoming. By such movement the Holy Spirit, the consciousness of
God, becomes individual consciousnesses. Your and my imagination,
our awareness of being, is what it has become.
The fourth character in YHWH, the second 'hey' (H), is again a
hand. If you followed the flow of action above, you will notice
that the second hand is a manifestation of the first . . . and
not. Desiring us to live, God imagines us as alive indeed --
living, breathing, seeing, feeling, hearing, smelling, tasting
-- experiencing. God dreams our experiencing of conscious
existence. Imagining what our experience would be if we were alive,
as though we were alive, the Spirit descends to our level of
contraction and opacity and flips into the dream -- his imagining
of our experience enlivens our bodies and his consciousness becomes
our perspective of experiencing existence. We are us, but a moment
before we were God dreaming what it would be like for us to be alive
as us. We are God's consciousness -- emptied of all awareness and
memory of what it really is -- living the dream! How else could
God experience this dimension of "death"? The Ineffable has laid
aside all to experience all.
This explains to me why we are so stupid (no offense, but we are).
Though we are God, we were made unaware of the fact. We have been
"ignoranced." In the transitional flip we were made unaware of our
true nature by God's imagining carnal man's conscious awareness,
and then becoming it. Talk about faith! The ineffable Holy Spirit
descends into this dimension of death made unaware of what it is!
Each of our individualities are God submitted to trusting the rest
of God to resurrect it. We have no idea of how low consciousness
initially goes -- to quantum particles? -- or how long the process
is until this same "ignoranced" consciousness ultimately realizes
full restoration to conscious Godhood.
Yod-hey-vav-hey is a message: “You are God, because God is you!”
All four components of YHWH are the same God. There is only one
God: “YHWH, he is God, there is no other!” We have our silly,
superstitious doctrines of separation, but they are refuted with
every occurrence of YHWH in scripture: God-in-the-flesh . . . is
you!
Now, how is anyone going to translate all of that into a simple
word or phrase in a foreign language? It cannot be done. YHWH is
not the name of God, it is a picture of our nature.
Thus, while 'maryah' does not mean YHWH, it does point well to
YHWH's true meaning. "Lord" is the best substitute that anyone
has come up with. The anointing, our connection with the rest
of God, Christ, is our pattern, and he is indeed the LORD -- he
just isn't what we thought he was. Those who think that maryah
means both God-in-the-flesh and YHWH are closer to the truth
than those who think otherwise.
We all need to wake up, to mature and un-stupid ourselves. Everyone
of us needs to discover what God means practically by what he says.
One thing is certain: if he has become us, then we are him, and if
we are him, then we need to call the unseen world he desires into
being. Faith -- our imaginal believing -- is our touch point with
the agency of its becoming.
