The Milta / Manifestation of the Eternal God is Your Mind
I do not frequent Internet chat rooms and forums, but a recent search sent me to one where I saw Victor Alexander getting some flack for translating the Aramaic word milta (Chaldee: miltha) with the English word 'manifestation.' A critic in the forum insisted that milta does not mean manifestation, but something more like 'mind.'
The word milta shows up in the Aramaic New Testament in John 1: 1, where the Greek New Testament uses the word logos. The problem is that both milta and logos are ancient philosophical terms that have no direct English translation and take rather a couple of pages to explain, and even then they do not mean exactly the same thing. Logos means something like 'word' or 'expression,' while milta is more like 'mind' or 'thought.' In all fairness to Victor Alexander, he clarifies his word choice for his translation in his note on John 1: 1, that milta means 'the essential connotation for a person or thing.' Why the critic cannot just accept that and go on with the rest of his day I do not know.
Neville Goddard's take on the meaning of logos was 'meaning,' as in: "In the beginning was the Meaning, and that Meaning was with God, and God was that Meaning." I personally like the critic's choice, 'mind,' and synthesize that with Alexander's 'manifestation': God's mind is his manifestation! They are one and the same thing: God's mind has become all this (see universe)!
Remember that we are dealing with an eternal being here, the Ineffable Source from which all has come. Whatever you think of this eternal being, your "God" is too small! Try to get a grasp on the concept of eternity. It is neither endless time nor the period before creation happened six thousand years ago. 'Eternal' means eternal. The fourteen or so BILLIONS of years since the Big Bang are the blink of an eye to the eternal and ineffable Most High. It has been around fourteen billion TIMES fourteen billion years, and considers that time the blink of an eye, because he has been fourteen billion times THAT...times any number. Eternity has nothing to do with years or time. It has to do with God Itself. There wasn't, isn't, won't be anything else. Eternity is nothing other than God, the ineffable Most High. Its existence IS eternity. And way back there in eternity past the Ineffable's mind was the Ineffable's manifestation. This certainly reminds me of Wisdom in Proverbs chapter 8.
And now it is time to stop misreading the Bible. In Genesis 1: 1 and John 1: 1, the revelations begin with the Aramaic word brasheeth. Brasheeth does not mean "in the beginning" as it is translated. Per Alexander, it means before the beginning. Its use is not a reference to the beginning of time or of creation, but the Beginning "Thing" everything that has come from. That Beginning was the mind of God, Its manifestation. Let me illustrate like this:
My son watches a television show called Chopped!, a cooking competition between chefs. The chefs are each given a closed basket which contains food items they must use in the dishes they will create. They do not know what food items will be in the baskets, but the baskets, which have been made up in advance, are what they must start with. Regardless of when they start, what is in the baskets is the beginning of what they will make. THAT is brasheeth: before the beginning of time there was THE BEGINNING -- the stuff the universe started with -- the Mind / Manifestation of God. Everything has come from THAT -- God's MIND!
God's mind is the "eternity" hid in man (Ecclesiastes 3: 11, Hebrew 'olam) -- Itself as man's mind! Incidentally, the Hebrew word for "child" in Proverbs chapter 8 is also 'olam. What a coincidence.
The word milta shows up in the Aramaic New Testament in John 1: 1, where the Greek New Testament uses the word logos. The problem is that both milta and logos are ancient philosophical terms that have no direct English translation and take rather a couple of pages to explain, and even then they do not mean exactly the same thing. Logos means something like 'word' or 'expression,' while milta is more like 'mind' or 'thought.' In all fairness to Victor Alexander, he clarifies his word choice for his translation in his note on John 1: 1, that milta means 'the essential connotation for a person or thing.' Why the critic cannot just accept that and go on with the rest of his day I do not know.
Neville Goddard's take on the meaning of logos was 'meaning,' as in: "In the beginning was the Meaning, and that Meaning was with God, and God was that Meaning." I personally like the critic's choice, 'mind,' and synthesize that with Alexander's 'manifestation': God's mind is his manifestation! They are one and the same thing: God's mind has become all this (see universe)!
Remember that we are dealing with an eternal being here, the Ineffable Source from which all has come. Whatever you think of this eternal being, your "God" is too small! Try to get a grasp on the concept of eternity. It is neither endless time nor the period before creation happened six thousand years ago. 'Eternal' means eternal. The fourteen or so BILLIONS of years since the Big Bang are the blink of an eye to the eternal and ineffable Most High. It has been around fourteen billion TIMES fourteen billion years, and considers that time the blink of an eye, because he has been fourteen billion times THAT...times any number. Eternity has nothing to do with years or time. It has to do with God Itself. There wasn't, isn't, won't be anything else. Eternity is nothing other than God, the ineffable Most High. Its existence IS eternity. And way back there in eternity past the Ineffable's mind was the Ineffable's manifestation. This certainly reminds me of Wisdom in Proverbs chapter 8.
And now it is time to stop misreading the Bible. In Genesis 1: 1 and John 1: 1, the revelations begin with the Aramaic word brasheeth. Brasheeth does not mean "in the beginning" as it is translated. Per Alexander, it means before the beginning. Its use is not a reference to the beginning of time or of creation, but the Beginning "Thing" everything that has come from. That Beginning was the mind of God, Its manifestation. Let me illustrate like this:
My son watches a television show called Chopped!, a cooking competition between chefs. The chefs are each given a closed basket which contains food items they must use in the dishes they will create. They do not know what food items will be in the baskets, but the baskets, which have been made up in advance, are what they must start with. Regardless of when they start, what is in the baskets is the beginning of what they will make. THAT is brasheeth: before the beginning of time there was THE BEGINNING -- the stuff the universe started with -- the Mind / Manifestation of God. Everything has come from THAT -- God's MIND!
God's mind is the "eternity" hid in man (Ecclesiastes 3: 11, Hebrew 'olam) -- Itself as man's mind! Incidentally, the Hebrew word for "child" in Proverbs chapter 8 is also 'olam. What a coincidence.
posted by Daniel C. Branham-Steele at
1:43 AM
5 Comments:
Hogwash ...
Your seemingly Endless Semantics here is exhausting ! Not to mention no mention of Christ ..."In the beginning was the Word" ...you know , that guy . Return ! I say Return ! Return to the Love ! The Christ ! Or ... continue to Strain at a Nat.
By
Unknown, at 7:35 PM
Dude, the only thing I am talking about here is Christ.
By
Daniel C. Branham-Steele, at 10:59 PM
Your positioning seems nonsequitur. Reasoning in seeking the core Truth. It is not argumentation or jousting.
By
ajhiker, at 8:39 AM
It is more in line with a report. I refer you to Tag Archives: miltha, https://adiakrisis.wordpress.com/tag/miltha/ , "In Greek, nouns derive from verbal roots, and the root of λόγος (word) is the verb λέγω (I speak). Passow notes that the basic meaning of λεγ- is 'to put together in order, arrange,' thus 'the word not according to its external form, but with respect to the ideas attaching to the form.'[6] This Greek concept seems to lack the Semitic concept found in the idea of מֵימְרָא/דָּבַר of an adjoined concrete deed.
"The classical definition of the term λόγος, dating back to Heraclitis (6th century BCE) is 'the rationality in the human mind which seeks to attain universal understanding and harmony.'[7] This is certainly not what John 1:1 is referencing.
"Boman and Bultmann, independently of one another, both assert that the Hebraic conception of 'the Word' is the opposite of the Greek conception,[8] and the present author stands in agreement with them. The religious מֵימְרָא/דָּבַר and secular λόγος most certainly constitute a clash between the set apart and the ordinary, the holy and the worldly – opposites indeed" (bold emphases mine).
Jesus is the DEED of the Ineffable, Its Manifestation, not just Its idea or the idea about It. Whatever the Ineffable is, It manifests "concretely" as MIND. And we are that.
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Daniel C. Branham-Steele, at 12:31 PM
Wow thank you so much for breaking that all down and taking the time to explain this Daniel!
By
Unknown, at 12:59 PM
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