Victor Alexander and the Maryah Controversy: a Matter of Perspective

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.