About “Raca” “Raka” “Raqa”
“Jots” and “Tittles”
Valley Of Hinnom Hell’s Fire

Challenging Dumb Doctrines

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(08/17/04)

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From “A Ruach Qadim Excerpt” by Andrew Gabriel Roth

    We now come to a passage whose meaning has been greatly debated from the Greek camp but which is crystal clear in the Aramaic text:

“But I say to you that anyone who provokes to anger his brother in vain is condemned to judgment, and anyone who would say I spit on you’ (raqa) is condemned to the assembly (the Sanhedrin), and anyone who would say ‘You are a coward’ is condemned to the fires of [Gehenna].”  (Matthew 5:22, Younan Peshitta Interlinear Version)

   What an inconvenient situation this is!  An original Aramaic phrase is most impolitely transliterated into Greek without a word as to its true meaning. As a result, scholars like Charles Ryrie (Ryrie Study Bible, p. 14) guess that it means “empty-headed.”  James Trimm too renders it “you are nothing.” (Also, “thou fool.”)  In both cases, these men are assuming the word is raka, which in Hebrew and Aramaic does mean “nothing.”  However, what both of these men have forgotten is that Messiah came from Galilee, and there spoke a very particular dialect that has been handed down in pristine condition to the Peshitta (Aramaic) text. In that case, the same word pronounced with a slightly different inflection is raqa, which is the common invective “I spit on you.”

   In Y'shua's culture, this was one of the worst acts that one Jewish man could do to another, especially if that person was a relative or close friend. The matter was in fact so serious that it ranked right up there with other Jewish defiant acts of separation, such as shaking off sandals and tearing clothing in front of someone deemed “dead.”  Furthermore, people who were caught spitting were literally brought before the Sanhedrin, just as Y'shua says!

   Therefore, the reason for the confusion clearly rests on the fact that more than a thousand years had again intervened between the Galilean Aramaic culture that the Peshitta records and the Hebrew culture of the Middle Ages reflected ..., which would have forgotten the earlier Aramaic reading in favor of the remaining concept in the Hebrew of their day.

http://aramaicnttruth.org/downloads/Peshitta%20Matthew%20and%20the%20Gowra%20Scenario.pdf

http://www.peshitta.org/  (Peshitta Online)

“Jots” and “Tittles”

The Master Yahshua told his disciples that not one “jot” or “tittle” will pass away from the Law until all is fulfilled (see Matt. 5:18). The word translated “jot” (iota in the Greek New Testament) refers to the smallest Hebrew letter (“Yod”), and the word translated “tittle” (keraia in Greek) refers to the “horn,” or smallest stroke of a Hebrew letter, probably something like a “serif” in our modern English typefaces.

The smallest stroke of the smallest letter of the Hebrew text was important to the Master Yahshua, and, if we esteem the Scriptures as He did, we also will pay attention to the details of the Sacred Writings. But how can we determine what a “jot” or a “tittle” is without having a knowledge of the original Hebrew text? It’s my hope that this site will help you to both read and write basic Hebrew words and sentences, and thereby become aware of the “jots” and “tittles” that “shall in no way shall pass until all is fulfilled” (Matt. 5:18).

http://hebrew4christians.com/Grammar/Introduction/Why_Hebrew_/why_hebrew_.html

Hell’s Fire

From “Is There a Sword in the House?” ©2001 Jackson Snyder

 Matthew 10: 28. And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.

    Some English translations have Yahshua saying, "fear him who can destroy you in hell." The word mistranslated "hell" is Gehenna, which is not ‘hell’ at all, but a huge, deep ditch that surrounds the south side of Jerusalem. In years past, children had been burned alive in sacrifice to the god Moloch in Gehenna. In Yahshua’ day, Gehenna was the Jerusalem dump where all the trash was taken to be burned. In this context, Yahshua is coining a phrase used all the time today: “fear the guy who can trash you!” In contrast is the fact that today Gehenna is covered with thick grass and flowers - as though Hell was patched up with a piece of heaven.

Valley Of Hinnom

The Hinnom Valley is a deep, narrow ravine located in Jerusalem, running south from the Jaffa Gate on the west side of the Old City, then eastward along the south side of Mount Zion (seen in the top of the photograph with the Hinnom Valley below it) until it meets the Kidron Valley which separates the Temple Mount from the Mount of Olives on the east side of the city. It is named from a certain "son of Hinnom" who apparently owned or had some significant association with the valley at a time prior to Joshua 15:8.

The Valley of Hinnom had a very horrendous history in ancient times. It was used as a place where the pagan worshipers did all sorts of vile and wicked things - including burning children alive as sacrifices to the idols Moloch and Baal. One section of the valley was called Tophet, or the "fire-stove," where the children were slaughtered (2 Kings 23:10). It was a place of tremendous evil for many years.

After their return from the Babylonian exile (see Why Babylon?), the Jews turned the Hinnom Valley into the city dump where garbage and anything deemed unclean (including the bodies of executed criminals) was incinerated. For that purpose, a fire was kept constantly burning there. Even though it was no longer used for evil worship, with all the filth and thick smoke it remained a very dark and dreary place.

The Hebrew name Hinnom when translated into Greek is gehenna, from which the word and concept of hell originated. By the time of Yahshua Christ, the deep, constantly-burning Valley of Hinnom was also known as the Valley of Gehenna, or Hell, and had taken on a popular image as the place "down there" where the wicked would eventually be cast into the flames for destruction.

http://www.keyway.ca/htm2002/hinnom.htm

Jackson Snyder (801) 605-1715  Vero Beach, FL