A tangent about typesetting

I wonder just how shocked folks were when Peter and John taught in the temple. They were arrested for teaching “in Jesus the resurrection from the dead” (Acts 4:2). We know that “the dead in Christ will rise first” (1 Thess 4:16), so it sounds to me like they were teaching the rapture, not the Great White Throne.

But, they also may have mispronounced the word, “hear,” so let’s talk about that instead.

The Sh’ma

One of the fundamental truths of the Bible is expressed in Deut 6:4.

Hear, O Israel, YHWH our God, YHWH is one.
שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ יְהוָה אֶחָֽד
Sh’ma Yisra’el, YHWH ‘eloheinu, YHWH ‘eḥad.

This is a firmly Trinitarian passage. The word, “our God” (Heb. אֱלֹהֵינוּ ‘eloheinu), is grammatically plural yet is called, “one.” It isn’t just that there is one God (which is true), but that God Himself is one – He is a unity. Some translate it as something like, “the Lord is our God, the Lord alone,” which you think would be a good way around the doctrine of the Trinity, but even the Jewish JPS translation does “IS ONE.” How they dance around the natural understanding of that is a topic for another day.
Deuteronomy 6:4 is often called, “The Shema” or “The Sh’ma” or “Shema Yisrael” or something of the sort. The first two words of Deut 6:4 are “Shema Yisrael.” The word, “Shema” (שְׁמַע) means “Hear!” and “Yisrael” (יִשְׂרָאֵל) means “Israel,” so “Shema Yisrael” means, “Hear, O Israel!” When the Shema is in print, the last letter of the first word, Shema (שְׁמַע), and the last letter of the first word, ‘eḥad (אֶחָֽד), are typically bigger than the other letters. You can see it in the third line of this picture:

One reason for this is to make sure that nobody goofed when they read it. The last letter of shema is ʿayin (ע) which sounds similar to the letter, ‘Ālef (א), but if you mistakenly mix them up, then instead of saying “Hear, O Israel!” you would say, “Maybe, Israel?” That’s not a good way to start the sentence. The word for “one” is ‘eḥad, but if you mistakenly read the last letter, daleth (ד) as a resh (ר), then instead of saying “YHWH is one,” you would say, “YHWH is other,” which is polytheism.

The typesetting is new

The first letter of the Bible (ב) is usually written bigger as well. This is a later convention; it isn’t something that Moses did when he first wrote the words down. This is evident in the oldest copy of Genesis 1 that we have. It is from the Late Hasmonean Period (100-1 b.c.) and does not have an enlarged first letter:

(source)

In another post, we talked a bit about the Galilean dialect. We saw that in the Talmud, it was written:

A Baraitha (Y. Ber. 4d, according to YFG 7) states: tny ’yn m‘byrym lpny htybh l’ ḥypyn (ed. pr.: ḥypnyn) wl’ bšnyn wl’ ṭb‘wnyn mpny šhn ‘wśyn ḥytyn hwtyn(!) w‘ynyn (ed. pr.: hyhyn ḥytyn w‘yynyn ’’yn) “It is learned: It is forbidden to send before the ark (to lead in the prayers) inhabitants of Haifa, Beisan, and Tibon, since the pronounce ḥet’s like he’s and ‘ayin’s like alef’s (ed. pr.: he’s like ḥet’s, and ‘ayin’s like alef’s).”¹

Now we see why this is important! If someone came to the ark and said, “Maybe, O Israel, YHWH or God, YHWH is one?” then we would have a serious problem.

The Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Talmud

The Talmud comes from the Pharisaic tradition. We know that the Pharisees had a tendency to go overboard in creating new rules, so it’s not much of a stretch to write this rule off as one of those. I also tend to wonder if this anti-Galilean policy had anything to do with Jesus and His disciples. I mean, the Book of Hebrews says that we have a Galilean High Priest:

Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. (Hebrews 4:14-16 NKJV)

I also wonder if seeing the Sadducees’ conflict with John and Peter had anything to do with the Pharisees wanting to restrict Galileans in the temple. The Pharisees represented the average Jew back in the day, while the Sadducees were more of the academic elite type. Just like today, there was a tendency for these academics to drift into liberalism, even to the extent that they even denied the future resurrection of the dead. The New Testament records an interesting account of some Galileans in the Temple:

Now as they spoke to the people, the priests, the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees came upon them, being greatly disturbed that they taught the people and preached in Jesus the resurrection from the dead. And they laid hands on them, and put them in custody until the next day, for it was already evening. However, many of those who heard the word believed; and the number of the men came to be about five thousand. The next day the rulers, the elders and the teachers of the law met in Jerusalem. Annas the high priest was there, and so were Caiaphas, John, Alexander and others of the high priest’s family. […]
When they saw the courage of Peter and John and [perceived] that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus. But since they could see the man who had been healed standing there with them, there was nothing they could say. So they ordered them to withdraw from the Sanhedrin and then conferred together. “What are we going to do with these men?” they asked. “Everyone living in Jerusalem knows they have performed a notable sign, and we cannot deny it. But to stop this thing from spreading any further among the people, we must warn them to speak no longer to anyone in this name.” (Acts 4:1-6, 13-17 NKJV)

Notice a few things. The academic liberal Sadducees are upset because these Galilean-redneck-accent-having dispensationalists are preaching about the rapture (not that academic liberals today would be upset about a silly thing like that). Then this message became popular with the common folks – about 5,000 in number to be exact. It got so out of hand that the high priest had to get involved. Josephus identifies this high priest as a Sadducee:

But this younger Ananus, who, as we have told you already, took the high priesthood, was a bold man in his temper, and very insolent; he was also of the sect of the Sadducees, who are very rigid in judging offenders, above all the rest of the Jews, as we have already observed;²

We see that pre-trib teaching is a real problem for Sadducees, enough for all this drama to take place. The Pharisees would have been there in Jerusalem to see everything, so I wonder if they came up with some rules to prevent the Galilean disciples from having too much influence. It’s a bunch of speculation, but fun to think about.

What really matters

Maybe these controversies influenced the authorship of the Talmud, maybe not. Either way, John and Peter stuck to their guns. They knew that Jesus was resurrected; they saw Him themselves! There is no way that they would have gone through the difficulties they did if the whole thing was a fabrication. And, since Jesus promised He would come back, we can trust Him. After all, He came the first time, didn’t He?

1. E.Y. Kutscher, Studies in Galilean Aramaic, trans. Michael Sokoloff, (Jerusalem: Bar-Ilan University, 1976), 69.
2. From Josephus, Antiquities, 20.9.1. (BTW, if you want to see Josephus talk about Jesus, read one sentence further :)