April (4
Feb 2013) "Benjamin, E.D.S. and
The Bride."
Benjamin,
The
drunk Bride and EDS.
To
Clay
and all Doves
I
remembered I had looked into Benjamin and his special
abilities in 2010. And
these are my notes. I also found Annie’s blog of her
translation of the Bible
and that which had been hidden. (Personally I believe that God
allows things to
be hidden. He knows why and I don’t question Him….. but I am
curious as to the
WHY.)
Then
I
asked myself what was so different about Benjamin, it turns
out God had a
special task for him and I have found out since that I am
married to a
Benjaminite and may well be one myself. You’ll see why later.
After posting what I did
on Thursday
I got to thinking about the "drunk" thing. I wondered, if it
was a
translator thing rather than a language thing; if the New
Testament would have
the same oddities.
Imagine my surprise ... it did.
Before I get into the New Testament, I want to expound a bit
more on the Old
Testament, and what I said yesterday. I think it's good to be
clear on the fact
that some words are particularly difficult to
translate accurately,
especially from Hebrew, because the concepts of those words
are so incredibly
different from English. It seems sometimes like Hebrew words
need phrases,
sentences, or even paragraphs to come close at depicting the
original
intention. However, that being said ... neither the Hebrew
word used in the Old
Testament for "drunk" nor the Greek word used in the New
Testament
for "drunk" are this way. Both are quite simple and
straightforward.
Also, there is also only one word in each language for
drunkenness. Many times
(as you may remember from my post about seasons,
and the three different words translated "time" in each
language)
there may be more than one word that is translated into the
same word in
English. Again, the same cannot be said of these words. There
is only one word
in each language, and they both mean only one thing: drunk, as
in to be
intoxicated with alcohol. "To drink," referring to any liquid,
is a
completely different word.
There are four basic variations of the Hebrew root "שכר",
depending on what part of speech the root is occupying--noun
(2), verb, or
adjective--and all directly relate to being drunk. The root,
in one of these
four forms shows up 58 times in the Old Testament. Out
of these 58 times
there are 3 verses which are translated something
other than
"drunk." (I know I said in the original tidbit post that there
were
two; well, I found one more.)
[Now as a side study note: I am a fairly exhaustive studier,
but there is a
limit. I did not search for all 58 references in all
12+ translations
that I mentioned earlier. I would certainly be curious about
the outcome, but
that is more effort than I have at present. I did search this
in NASB, KJV, and
ESV, those three being the most espoused as accurate
translations.]
All of this means that these 3 instances are significant,
because there is
literally no reason in the language itself to translate this
word something
other than "drunk." I am inclined to suppose, then that the
reason it
was not a sincere effort at accurate translation, but rather
an agenda that
didn't allow for certain thoughts to be conveyed. I have to
say that this is
the first time in my personal study that I have seen something
this pronounced.
Something that I would feel confident in going out on a limb
on and saying was
a deliberate mistranslation.
The first two references I mentioned in my previous
post: Genesis
43:34, when Joseph and his brothers got drunk together,
and Song
of
Solomon 5:1, when the bridegroom is directed to get
drunk on the love of
his wife. The third is Haggai
1:6.
“You have sown much, and
harvested little.
You eat, but you never have enough; you drink, but you never
have your fill.
You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm. And he who earns
wages does so to
put them into a bag with holes." [ESV]
This verse is talking
about the constant
striving of man which feels like it is only after wind. No
return on the
investment, so to speak. So what is the little phrase cleverly
altered here?
"You drink, but you never have your fill." And yes, indeed,
the
Scripture here actually says, "you drink, but
don't get
drunk." Incidentally, there are two of the 12 BLB
translations which
do translate this as drunk. NASB (you drink, but not enough to
become drunk)
and Young's Literal Translation (to drink, and not to
drunkenness).
So now on to the New Testament.
As previously mentioned, there is only one word in Greek for
the idea of being
intoxicated, and only one essential translation of the word.
Again, there are
variations on the root, based on parts of speech, but the
meaning remains the
same.
The base root is μέθη: methē,
meaning intoxication or
drunkenness. There are 15 times this root is used in
the New Testament,
and 14 of them are translated plainly as "drunk." The 1
time
it is not is in John
2:10.
9When the headwaiter
tasted the water which
had become wine, and did not know where it came from (but the
servants who had
drawn the water knew), the headwaiter called the bridegroom,
and said to him,
"Every man serves the good wine first, and when the people
have drunk
freely, then he serves the poorer wine; but you have kept the
good wine until
now." [NASB]
Did you guess? Yep, the
phrase is
"when the people have drunk freely." I don't know Greek, so I
can't
personally translate this, but according to the inherent
meaning of the root,
this phrase would read more like "when the people are
drunk."
Meaning, among other things, that everyone was already drunk
when Jesus
performed his first miracle.
Do you suspect that the general Christian stigma of not
drinking alcohol is one
of the sacred
cows I'd like to topple? Well, you'd be right. :)
Although I don't think
I'm on the warpath. But the more I read of Scripture, and the
more I study in
the original language the more I am convinced that
conservative Christianity
pulled that one out of its collective behind.
How about
Joseph.
Genesis 43:34 is a very interesting verse.
In the NAS it reads:
He took portions to them
from his own
table, but Benjamin's portion was five times as much as any of
theirs. So they
feasted and drank freely with him.
It seems obvious, doesn't
it? But in fact,
the end is translated incorrectly in this version, and in
every version
available on blueletterbible.org
(a
frequent reference site for me).
In Hebrew, this verse reads something like, "And he lifted
portions
(liftings up) from [before] his face to them, and much was
the portion of
Benjamin from the portions of all of them: five hands. And
they drank and they
got drunk with him."
That's really what it says! These words aren't ambiguous
either. Rather plain:
To drink. To get drunk.
Does it make you wonder? It makes me wonder. It makes me
wonder if the gentile
translators of the Bible had an agenda (Jewish translations
translate this
correctly; Judaism itself doesn't have any of the stigmas
Christianity has
concerning drinking). It makes me wonder how this plays in
metaphorically,
since many people view Joseph and the details of his life as a
foreshadowing of
the Messiah. It also makes me wonder what happened in that
room that evening. :-)
The possibilities there are endless.
As a point of note: the word for "drunk" used there is in fact
translated as "drunk" in every other usage in the Bible--Noah,
Hannah, Uriah the Hittite, and many prophetic passages--with
the exception of
one other;
Song of Solomon 5:1:
I am
come into my garden, my sister, [my] spouse: I have gathered
my myrrh with my
spice; I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey; I have drunk
my wine with my
milk: eat, O friends; drink, yea, drink abundantly, O
beloved. [KJV]
"Drink abundantly" is this
same
word. There are only two versions (out of the 12 English
versions available on
BLB) who translate this other than "drink abundantly." NAS
translates
it "imbibe deeply" and ESV translates it, "be drunk."
Now
My thoughts;
Obviously
Joseph
and his brothers had to get drunk, to be able to grieve, weep
and to forgive themselves,
and get to that point where they can say ‘I love you, man’.
Most
women can cry
more freely, so it doesn’t seem so important for them to get
drunk, in fact in
most cultures you seem to be classed as a lush or a tart if
you get drunk,
whereas not so much for men.
And
isn’t there a
feast where Jewish men are required to get drunk. I can’t
remember which one.
My notes on Benjamin
and his drinking ability.
Benjamin
had five
hands of drink at Joseph’s party, so he could really drink.
Five times as much
as the others.
Was
it because he
was tall? If so, then Joseph had to have been as tall as him;
as they wept on
each other’s necks.
It
was probably
because he was both tall and well-built. Remember King Saul
was chosen because
he was head and shoulders above everyone.
Benjamin
was the
youngest and it was written that Joseph was the son of Jacob’s
old age, so what
does that make Benjamin? In fact his age was against him in
the drinking stakes.
In New Scientist 13
June 2009, The Last Word;
The
Ethanol in alcohol is
metabolised almost exclusively by the liver. The liver enzymes
responsible are
alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH), catalyse and an enzyme complex;
microsomal ethanol
oxidising system (MEOS).
Repeated
use of alcohol will
increase the amount of these liver enzymes, and subsequently
improve its
ability to metabolise alcohol.
I believe his
ability to consume drink was connected
to something he had inherited from his father; Jacob, after
the wrestling
encounter with the Angel.
Somehow
his liver
is processing the alcohol quicker.
I
have had a
theory about Jacob and his son Benjamin, after finding out
that as a family we all
have Ehlers Danlos syndrome.
It
a genetically
autosomal dominantly inherited syndrome. (I.e. if one parent
has EDS, all their
children will get it.)
I
believe that
this Angel genetically modified Jacob; as a blessing (but I
don’t think Jacob
thought it was, as he had a limp after that,) and the only
child born after
this encounter was Benjamin. In fact to celebrate and remember
what happened to
Jacob, the Jews don’t eat the shank (hip bone). Jesus is
coming back for those
that limp. (In Psalms?)
EDS
sufferers can
have a quicker metabolism than others. This is because of the
body’s need for protein
and co-factors, are being used up in higher quantities by torn
and exercised
muscles. This is because the connective tissues are a lot
looser in people with
EDS. It is now thought they have a higher need for Vitamin C
too.
The advantage of EDS
(here’s
the blessing) is that if you provide
all the body’s
nutritional needs; you can build up the muscles really
quickly. The
disadvantage is that you must intake optimal nutritional needs
constantly, during
and after the muscles have bulked up. Our Specialist doctor
noticed that most
top athletes have a benign form of EDS.
Herodotus
mentions
a tribe in Scythia that had many scars, (due to lack of
vitamin E.) This tribe
is thought to be a tribe of the Diaspora.
So
EDS is only a
problem if the food and diet are missing nutrients. The
Israelite diet would
have high amounts of Vitamin C and Vitamin E (and many others,
being in the
Fertile Crescent), so the Benjaminite tribe would have been
symptom free, plus
they had all the benefits of these modified genes.
Saul
came from the Benjamin tribe and apparently he was good
looking, and head and
shoulders above the other tribes’ members.
Benjaminites
also seem to be regarded as Mighty Men of Valour and fierce
warriors. King
David even had a special unit of Benjaminites.
In the Israelite civil
war; Judah against
Benjaminites, the Benjamin tribe first killed 40,000 of the
Judah tribe, before
getting nearly wiped out. They were indeed fierce warriors.
But they held their
abilities in too high esteem, which led to their downfall.
600
men were left,
which was all it needed to repopulate the tribe and continue
the special
abilities they had, namely EDS.
In
this Pdf‘Ich bin
Benjaminer’ it talks about the
special attributes of the Benjamin tribes.
Benjaminites
were
ambidextrous, as they could change their bows and slings from
hand to hand. (I
am, as was my mother.) (We have to change hands often because
of our EDS, as I
believe the Benjaminites had to.)
They
have a lethal
aim due to good hand-eye coordination skills. (Check)
They
have excellent
survival and self-protection, innate skills. (Check)
They
tend to be
tall, well-built and comely. (Check)
They
were very
good at running and were athletic. (Check)
They
usually have a
T-shape face made of straight eyebrows across a long straight
nose. (My hubby
has this.)
They
were a small
tribe because of fertility problems, again due to EDS.
They
can build
muscle bulk in half the time. (Found this out, due to my
eldest needing
physiotherapy for her EDS symptoms.)
(Priests
in Egypt
knew that being ambidextrous was needed to make both of the
brain’s hemisphere
balanced (Maat symbol) to be able to access abilities of your
pineal gland. Not
New age but hidden knowledge.
What this means
to the Bride.
She
will be a
formidable Army following Jesus into a battle which they will
win. She will
have a lethal aim and be beautiful. Run without need of a
rest.
Song
of Solomon 5:1:
I am come into my garden,
my sister, [my]
spouse: I have gathered my myrrh with my spice; I have eaten
my honeycomb with
my honey; I have drunk my wine with my milk: eat, O friends;
drink, yea, drink
abundantly (get drunk), O beloved. [KJV]
So
maybe in Song
of Solomon, Jesus was saying He will be getting the Bride
drunk so she can
relax and enjoy being there. Some people are going to be
anxious due to the
abrupt change and will need to cleanse the memories as to what
has happened to
them pre Rapture. (I have had a couple of post rapture dreams
and in them I
wasn’t a reset person-ie my memories were intact. So I know I
am going to need
a way to release my pent up emotions.)
We
are going to
get drunk at the banquet and laugh and giggle. It’s going to
be fun and I am
looking forward to it. Personally I am tea-total, due to poor
adrenals, and BTW
I do not condone getting drunk on Earth.
This
webpage
proposes that both Esther and King Saul were Benjaminites.
This
ties in with the
Bride of Christ and Esther, and the Feast ofLots/Purim.
Plus
in one of my
earlier letters, my youngest had a dream of a sleeping wolf.
The FULL MOON in
January 2013 is on the 27th and is called the Wolf
moon.
Benjamin
was
called the Ravening wolf (ravenous means to tear apart).
So
I now think
this means that this Wolf(Benjamin/Saul/Esther/Bride of Christ) will sleep till
January 27th and
then wakes up and tears the enemy apart.
So
to sum it up I
don’t think Benjamin is the Bride, as this tribe has been
woven into most of
the other tribes. But this tribe is a prequel of the Bride, as
was Esther and
what Jesus has imparted into her.A
warrior princess.
Plus
all but one
of Jesus’ disciples were Benjaminites.
What
do you
think?? Am I on to something?
If
I got anything
, please forgive me and point it out-I’m always willing to
learn more.