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Beitrag 78 von 87 Beiträgen.

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Verfasser: Martin007

Datum: Donnerstag, den 15. November 2007, um 8:33 Uhr

Betrifft: Bravo

Hier eine andere Arbeit dazu:

When such guesses have been made in texts obviously concerning Asherah, it is time to see again what the original text yields, and it is just as allowable to guess differently. Because of this, I feel free to attempt a retranslation of the story of the Garden of Eden, based on my interpretation that the story is about Asherah.

Looking at the text of Gen. 3:16

To the woman, he said, I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to your children. You [sic] desire will be for your husband and he will rule over you.

The first word for pain, etsabon, is usually translated here as "the difficulties of your pregnancy." This word is used only three other times in the Tanach and is translated as "bitter work" (Gen. 3:17, 5:29). However, the word may derive from the verb, itsab, which can also mean "creation" or "forming," and is also used for "divine creation". It is therefore possible to read "creation" here, rather than "pain."

Similarly, the second word for the pain of childbearing, esteb, is translated by Gesenius, one of the classic dictionaries for biblical Hebrew, as "a slight or offense," "tiring work," or "something won with difficulty." It means "pain of birth" only in this one place in Gen. 3:16. There is no need to invent an exceptional meaning here since we can use the usual meaning of the word. Finally, the word, yimshal, interpreted as meaning that husband shall rule over wife, comes form the verb to rule or govern (limshol), but Gesenius also translates it as "to mock" or even "to be made the same." Taking the liberty of ourselves inserting these alternative meanings in the text, we arrive at a quite different verse:

To the woman, he said, I will greatly increase your creativity and you bearing of children will be a hard-won achievement. You will desire your husband and he will (be made the same, i. e. will) desire you.

We can proceed similarly with Gen. 3: 17-19, the punishment of Adam:

Cursed is the ground because of you; though painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat of your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.

The word "cursed," arurah, is obviously negative and seems absolutely unambiguous. It is this word that makes it quite clear that the text is about punishment. And yet, scholars with Kabbalistic background have informed me that arur may mean "to charge with energy," that is, "charge" as the positive version of "curse," an old-fashioned word that is disappearing from the English language. Replacing the curse with a charge allows us to examine the other negative aspects of the "punishment," and we find that these may not be so negative after all.

Take "painful toil, the same word is used here as in Gen. 3:16, and here too it can mean creativity. This leaves only "thorns and thistles" as clearly negative. This seems unambiguous, as thorns and thistles are greatly disliked by farmers because they multiply in corn fields, which must be specially plowed to get rid of them. Hosea also uses overgrowth with thorns and thistles to express the abandonment and desolation of the altars in the bamot (Hos. 10:8). But because these are the only negatives remaining in the text, we can speculate that they are a replacement for something else. The sort of substitution in Isaiah 55:13 is suggestive -- "instead of thorn bush will grown the pine tree and instead of briers the myrtle will grow."

Retranslanted, and speculating with the substitution from Isaiah 55: 13, Gen. 3:17-19 could read:

The earth is charged with creative force for your yield. You will be able to eat of it all the days of your life. She will sprout pines and myrtles for you and you will eat the plants of the field. With the sweat of your brow you will eat this food until you return to the earth since you were taken from the earth, for you are earth and to earth you will return.

What does this text tell us now? The woman is promised the creativeness of bearing children, which is a hard-won but great achievement. She is promised the gift of desiring her husband. Many of us immediately assume the desire must be obsessive or unrequited and, therefore, a curse. Instead, it seems more of a curse for a woman to have a man whom she does not desire, or to live a life lacking the joy of desire. In the text, the desire is not unrequited, her husband will desire her. Mutual desire is the gift of life.

What is the man promised? The promise to the man is a beautiful analogy with the promise to the woman. As the man cannot bear, he cannot be promised the life-giving of the woman. Instead, the earth is charged to carry out this role for him and to be fruitful. The charge for the man is to use his creative powers in transforming the Earth’s products into food, to maintain the life that the woman has created. The woman creates life with hard work, and the man creates food with hard work. That these creative processes are hard work is not a curse. All creative processes or transformations are hard work, but we usually regard them as well-won achievements. The final verse is also no curse, for, of course, the earthling Adam must return to the earth for he is of the earth (adamah). The final return to one’s source is a promise and not a curse.

I am suggesting, with this reading of the text, that what is put negatively in Jahweh’s mouth as a curse or punishment was originally a very positive charge. However, rather than trying to redeem the text as it now stands, I m suggesting that this passage was originally spoken by Asherah, listing all the things she would do for her worshippers, just as we find in the wisdom texts.

Quelle: http://www.pinn.net/~sunshine/book-sum/kien.html

Fazit: Jede BibelÃ¼bersetzung ist Interpretation und gibt das wider, was der Ãœbersetzer/ Auftraggeber glaubt oder will, das gegelaubt wird.