I used to think that opening my Bible meant I was hearing from God. But the more I read, the more I realized I wasn't hearing Him. I was hearing a committee of translators.
We are told that we have "The Word," but in reality, we have thousands of interpretations. We have layers of tradition, cultural bias, and linguistic guesswork piled high between our hearts and the original fire of the prophets. Amidst the shuffle of "thoushalts" and modern paraphrases, the raw, earth-shaking truth of the original text became an unheard word.
I'm tired of hearing the echo. I want the Voice.
This website isn't an academic exercise; it's a rescue mission. I am stripping away the "safe" English variations and digging my fingernails into the ancient words. I am looking for the truth that existed before the first printing press was ever built, the truth that hasn't been smoothed over by centuries of theology.This website isn't an academic exercise; it's a rescue mission. I am stripping away the "safe" English variations and digging my fingernails into the ancient words. I am looking for the truth that existed before the first printing press was ever built, the truth that hasn't been smoothed over by centuries of theology.
I don't have all the answers yet, but I'm done settling for "close enough."
If you've ever felt like there was a deeper, more dangerous, and more beautiful truth hidden just beneath the surface of your favorite translation, you aren't alone, I'm going back to the source to find the Creator who spoke it all into motion.
Let's hear it for the first time, together.
The Tanakh is the original Bible; the Hebrew Bible is the first. The Hebrew Bible is the source of all other Bible translations. There are over 900 translations in English alone. The Tanakh comprises 24 Books with 419,687 words. The Tanakh is primarily written in Biblical Hebrew, with a few passages in Biblical Aramaic (in the books of Daniel and Ezra and the verse Jeremiah 10:11). The Hebrew Bible is the canonical collection of Hebrew Scriptures, with three sections including the Torah, the Nevi'im, and the Ketuvim, in that order. The Torah, the five books of Moses, was the first to be canonized during the first Temple period, 516 BCE to 70 BCE. The second section of the Tanakh, the Nevi'im, was canonized somewhere between 200 BCE and 100 BCE. The last section of the Tanakh, the Ketuvim, was canonized between 100 CE and 200 CE. The total time it took to canonize the Tanakh is about 700 years, but the books date to a much older time. The Torah is God's laws or rules not to be changed ever, not even a single letter, and the Nevi’im is the section of the prophets and their message to a sinning nation. Many examples of ways a nation should not behave are in the Nevi’im and the prophets delivering God’s judgment on them. The final section of the Tanakh is the Ketuvim, or the Writings, which includes songs and poems. In this section of songs and poems, you will find examples of how to come back to God after you have failed (after repentance) because, without repentance, no amount of promises to God or prayers to Him will do you any good. God does not want empty promises or prayers from a sinful heart.
