Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1841-1853, 1846-08-27

of spritualists among the Jews the Pentateuch was
composed of body and spirit. BY the body, they
understood the material sense of the Hebrew anguag
by the spirit, the spiritual sense lost to material
mind DOvet's view is that the Septuagnt Is
mere literal rendering of the outward, material sense
of the Hebrew, of its body, without its soul. And
his translation of tie first ten chapters Of Gene
sis which he gives in his work, manIfests the reality
of bis view at every step. He eleyates the whole
subject into the mystic style Of the great primitive
eastern scripture. Who, In reading the account OF
the fall of the FIRST parents Of the race, in the I'd
chapter of Genesis in Bible, found true to
his experience lever found il other than poor
fable if his sat down to judge Its or an unn
telligible puzzle, if he would look at it reverently
But in D'Ovets translation the serpent OF our Bible
become selfish cOncupiscence winding serpent-lke in
the heart the nakedness and the apron of fig leaves,
becomes, and they kesc that roid Of light they ,rere,
and hey yielded forth dark covering tcth sadness
and mourning formed And thus, in D'Oliyet's rem
derng the deepest spiritual experience of every child
of Adam and Eve is matched BY that of their first pa
rents. This is single instance. The rest of the
ten chapters similar.
And this Greek translation of the Hebrew books Of
scripture has been the key to the knowledge of He
brew of Christian scholars, from the beginning, who
have studied Hebrew by this Septuagnt, as die
tonary. But the Septuagint may be dictionary, not
that explains but that covers up Hebrew transla-
ton that hides not reveals key that locks, and not
unlocks, door shut through which you shall never
enter into the mystic inner meaning OF the Hebrew,
and not door opened that admits you into tia
second veil drawn the holy of holes, IN which
Moses enshrined lis spiritual thought to the Jew.
This is the main source OF the Hebrew scholarship
4 that has since interpreted the Bible to u.s.
II But D'Ovet, wide deep, wonderful scholar,
studies Hebrew originally, In the universal laws of
language which God has fixed in the organs of human
utterance, with inevitable necessity, the laws Of
fhn noIn
ges of its cognate Eastern dialects: in its seminal
Egyptian ideas; in the sanctuary Of the sect of the
Essences, the repositories of the Jewish spiritual
philosophy. He enters into the very life of the Ian
guage by standing the sources from which it flowed
at the root of the tree, in the soil from which it grew.
The tree bore its flower and fruit in the age of
Moses In the hebarium Of the Pcntatcuch, its spe-
cimens deposited. The ransators of the Septua-
gint, even if they knew all Of Hebrew which could
be known in their time, and intended TO reveal all,
could only give a copy of these dried specimens.
! dried, and faded and mutilated through ages. The
modern translations copies Of these copies, and
copies from another. All life must have de-
parted even supposing the utmost desire to render
+, faithfully.
With all the dead means the rest possessed TO start
WITH DOivet goes back to the soil In which the He
brew tree grew. With his mystic botany he Analyses
SOIL air. all mnstering elemens explores localities,
and finds cognae products; understands at least the
principle Of life of the ree and then gives the
resulting foliage, and flower, and fruit, in La Lem
gue Hsbraique Restiiuse,' The Hebrew Language
Restored Another Cuvier, In the philosophy of
language Let US hear him.
His translation of the three first verses of the 9th
chapter of Genesis, though differing from Bible,
has particular bearing upon our present inquiry.
The 4th he renders thus, literally, DIVERSIONS
litterales y:
But the bodily shape haring by the soul Itself, the Likeness
IFS orn not shall you feed UPON
i AL &c
recte' thus:
But the bodily substance which possesses the soul
itself the principle srhich makes its body like ITSELF Of you
shall not make food
That is to say-thou shalt not eat the human body,
which is the outward image and likeness of the soul
| itself, man, the image of God.
Dr. Kraitsir, formerly Professor in the University
of Virginia, with genius kindred TO D'Olivet's,
whose lectures and teachings the science of Ian
guage, as we have known them here in Boston, within
the last year, not TO be matched in the country,
if even in the world, and which will mark an ezra
with us in true knowledge of language, gives this
verse thus:
But the bOdy's blood 0ih soul like yours, eat not
That is, ye shall not eat your brother man-ye
shall not be cannibals.
And this verse our bible renders But flesh rith
the life thereof ,chch the Hood the eof, ye shall not
eat Thus palpable mistraDslation breaks the unity
Of the subject matter of the chapter and brings into
IT.,
murder, all that confusion, and homogeneous mixture
of subjects already spoken of; which led the writer
of this bfore he had asked DR.. Kratsr's translation
and before be had heard of the existence of DOvets
works, to presume a misranslation. He was already
satisfied, in his mind, from the general train of
reasoning in the earlier part Of this article, that the
shedding of the blood of man. referred in the chap
ter must be for cannibasm; and then led him to
seek after the original authority.
We next take the Samaritan version. D'Olivet
gives the 4th verse; found in that version thus:
But the bodily form by its soul assimaed TO unirer-
sal man, you shall not eat
Which seems to stand freely thus: But the bodily
form, which by the power of the soul within ITSELF has
the image of universal man, you shall not eat.
Here, again, in the Samaritan version, the verse
is plain prohibition of eating the flesh of for
food.
In the third place we to take the Septuagint
version. The fourth there, in the familiar
Greek, is this, word for word
But flesh in blood Of soul eat not 60
The usual meaning given to it is this: But flesh
in the blood Of ats life, ye shall not eat
This is not the natural meaning. The natural
meaning is that first given. 49,
The Greek word here used for soul, Is psyche* (as
we know it, not unamiliarly, by adoption into the
modern languages,) that word In Greek, which is
appropriated to the human SOUL ethereal surviving
the body, distinctive from the brute; and given, in
animal nature, to the butterfly, as the image in out
ward life of the ethereal transmgratng human soul !;
of its meiamorphosis, and passage into the element
of spiritual freedom, winged as the angel The Greek
called the human soul psyche; out of all the animal
creation, he called the butterfly alone by the same
name; and because it alone therein seemed 10 him
the material image of his own SOUL sculptured it on
his tomb, the emblem of Immortality. -(What
shall say to the Deaths head and croSs-bones Of
Christianity in the comparisonD