MEMRA 2015 Module 2 Discount Ends in Ten Days

2 Comments

1. 

   Chavoux on July 7, 2015 at 2:07 am

   Hi dr Heiser,
   Due to money and time issues (currently doing PhD) I will not be able to register this time around, but have a number of questions:
   1. How different is Ugaritic from BH? Compared to e.g. Aramaic or “Moabite dialect” ? With some BH and learning their cuneiform alphabet, would I be able to read and understand it (like I can e.g. understand the Moabite inscription)??
   2. Would you advise me to try and learn more than one laguage simutaneously (Greek scares me!)?
   3. What would be the main reasons for learning the different languages?
   E.g. Hebrew, Greek Aramaic: Read Bible in original, Egyptian, Akkadian: read archaeological texts from Egypt and Babilonian empire, Ugarithic ?
   4. Totally unrelated:
   Would you say the heavenly council consisting of elohim or benei elohim (with satan included) in the early days changed into a council of YHWH and his angels later? Just a change in terminology, or progressive revelation? And how (when?) would “the Angel of UHWH (/his face) fit into this scheme? How does this fit with the expulsion of satan and his angels from the council? And with our worship and spiritual warfare today? (If you already answered these questions elsewhere and I just missed it, my sincere apologies)!

   • 

     MSH on July 11, 2015 at 11:49 pm

     In order:

     1. There’s a lot of shared vocab between the two, so the dialect analogy isn’t a bad one. Some grammatical differences between them all, though. Likely the biggest is the general absence of matres lectiones, which makes Ugaritic morphology ambiguous at points.
     2. No, especially if you are in a degree program. Frankly, Greek is more memory work than Hebrew, but the trade off is that a lot of Greek vocabulary has convenient analogies to English words.
     3. This is something only you can really answer. It depends on what you want to read or analyze. Learning several in the Semitic family (along with Egyptian) helps you in comparative linguistic work.
     4. I can’t briefly answer this here. “Satan” in Job 1-2 is not the enemy of God in Gen 3. See https://drmsh.com/2010/02/01/the-absence-of-satan-in-the-old-testament/. The rebel of Gen 3 was a divine throne guardian and thus a council member if you define “council” as any member of the heavenly entourage and not just “decision participants.” My book The Unseen Realm addresses all this. It is due out imminently, so stay tuned here.