Before I gt into the real meat of this blog, in the next section, I though I would address the feeling-tone of the Kabbalist writings I have been discussing. They speak of the sefiroth as forming a "tree" (the Bahir) and then quickly a whole "garden", with "channels" among sefirot. It strikes me that this language is remniscent of the setting for the magnificent gardens at the Alhambra, in Granada, doubtless only one of many like it in Muslim-ruled Spain, no doubt admired, and some built, as much by Jews and Christians as by Muslims. The distinctive thing is that water is an essential part of the design, at least of the one at the Alhambra. So the "channels of light" have a concrete parallel in the sparkling rivulets and fountains of the garden. Not only that, but it is built on a hillside, so that the water flows from level to level, garden to garden, in numerous variations. It is like the "worlds" above ours in the
Zohar, no doubt shared to some extent in the Neoplatonic heritage of Arab philosophy. The garden echoes the mystical levels of being in all their splendor, and the Kabbalists use garden metaphors to evoke the peace and splendor of the higher worlds and of the ever-flowing energies of and among the sefirot. Here are shots I found on the internet.
This fountain could be a sefira itself.
And this one of the "channels" of which the Kabbalists spoke:.
The channel with its sefira:
One of the "50 gates of understanding":
The ascent between levels:
Looking down from one level at the pools of the one below.
Very interesting blog, I would suggest that you use the 1582/1609/1610 Douay-Rheims translation instead of the Challoner revision you seem to be using (OT facsimile pdfs are available on archive.org and an indexed pdf of the 1635 combined version - only slight differences - is also on archive.org). The key difference is that the "modern" Challoner-revised 18th Century Douay-Rheims relies a bit too much on the 1611 King James Bible and retranslated a lot of content based on the Clementine Vulgate, whereas the original Douay relied on copies of the Jerome Vulgate. For example the Isaiah 34:10 in the original Douay-Rhimes is: "Night and day it shal not be quenched, the smoke therof shall goe up for everfrom generation unto generation it shal be defolate, there shal none passe by it world without end." Since it was translated pre-Clementine, Original Douay-Rheims is pretty useful for detecting changes between the Jerome Vulgate (of the 15th-16th Centuries) and corrected Sixtus/Clementine Vulgate. It was a literal (to the best they could) word-for-word translation so in your 1 Sam. 15:29 example where "will not lie" is missing from the original (which it is) shows that changes were made in the Vulgate on that line. The fact that the Challoner Douay-Rheims version has/does not have something is inconclusive as to the pre-Clementine Vulgate given his extensive revisions. Note that the pre-Douay-Rheims Wycliff Bible can be used as an second check on changes in the Vulgate, however because it wasn't a word-for-word translation like the Douay-Rheims, at can't be used in the first instance. The Wycliff Bible translates the Samuel line as "overcomer." Lastly if you consult the Brenton 1851 Septuagint translation (available online), you'll see that it has a different meaning entirely "..And God will not turn nor repent, for he is not a man to repent." Cheers
ReplyDeleteI just noticed your thoughtful and helpful comment. I have gone back and inserted the 1582 translations. There was practically no difference for the verses under consideration (all from the Hebrew), so I didn't bother with the distinction between pre- and post-Clementine.
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