HNWK

Enoch, According to Proto-Semitic

I learned Hebrew during COVID 19 quarantine. Biblical Hebrew. I have had Fr. Paul Nadim Tarazi, Fr. Marc Boulos, Dr. Richard Benton, Dr. Michael Heiser, and Dr. Timothy Mackie boring into my head for years the importance and kbd (weightiness, substantivity) of learning biblical hebrew if I am to be a serious student of scripture. Which I would like to fancy me.

I used independent scholar Jeff Benner’s Learn to Read Biblical Hebrew. I am now also going through his Learn to Read Biblical Hebrew Volume 2, and he can prolly take more of my money with several if not all of his books. He has some strong opinions that differ from convention on a number of topics related to the bible that I agree with and that I do not agree with. A big-picture explanation of our differences will likely stem from his origin in West Coast American Protestantism, and mine in Afroasiatic Orthodoxy and Church History. Nevertheless, of all the materials I have perused, his is the best introduction.

The Biblical Hebrew alphabet is actually not the Hebrew alphabet at all. It is the Aramaic alphabet mimicked by Hebrew speakers and readers whilst in Babylonian captivity sometime a few centuries BC. The Samaritans still exist. Shocker. And they have preserved the Paleo-Hebrew that the Hebrew Bible was likely first written in. The Dead Sea Scrolls of the Qumran community of the Essenes corroborates this story. Benner traces the history of all alphabets, especially Semitic, to a script found in the Sinai and Cannan, and calls it Ancient Hebrew. Others call it Proto-Sinaitic or Proto-Caananite or Proto-Semitic. YHWH knows.

Here is a great comparison chart he made to show this script, Paleo-Hebrew, Babylonian Aramic/Hebrew, Latin, and Greek. Using this chart, I mapped out what the meaning of my name could be. My name in Modern Hebrew is vocalized Khanok, in Ge’ez transliteration Henok, and in anglicization Enoch. In Biblical Hebrew, I have understood Henok to mean the dedicated or devoted man. A zealot. The zealot of the city-state, is Henok son of Cain. The zealot of the wilderness, is Henok son of Jared. In Modern Hebrew, they say Henok means teacher. I’m sure there is some connection betwixt and between these two meanings re: devotion to learning and studying. The Hebrew letters that make up my name are (K)HNWK. That is: khet, nun, we, and kef.

Khet has been anglicized as H, KH, and CH. It is the same first letter, and root word, as the high holiday Hanukah, Hanukkah, Khanukkah, Chanukkah. The original literal meaning, and associated pictograph, is tent wall.

Nun is anglicized as N. It’s literal meaning is seed, and the pictograph looks like sperm. In Biblical Hebrew and Biblical Greek zer and speiró (from Strong’s) represent this connection.

We in Modern Hebrew (influenced by Europeans) is Vev or V. Hence the YHWH to Jehova connection. WE or we means and: in Hebrew, Arabic, and Ge’ez. Coincidence? I think not. Providence. We was historically used as a vowel for the O (oh, o) and OO (u) sounds, before the Masoretes invented a system of dots that represent vocalization in their tradition several centuries after the ascension of Joshua of Nazareth. We literally is a tent.

Kef is anglicized as K. It literally means open palm.

Biblical Hebrew proceeds from practice to theory rather than theory to practice as do the increasingly abstract philosophic traditions of the Greeks, Latins, and Anglo-Saxons. Biblical Hebrew takes a grounded reality, something that you could experience with your five senses, and builds a dynamic meaning on top. Thus, the letters that make up (K)HNWK could have a dynamic meaning in addition to their literal meaning.

Khet is outside. Nun is heir. We is add. Kef is allow. This sounds like Henok can mean let an outside heir be added to the fold. In other words, the Torah (instruction) of the Jews should be extended and shared with outsiders. With strangers. With goyim. With gentiles. With Greeks. With Latins. With Anglo-Saxons. With Cushites and other Semites.

The Prophet Isaiah has relayed to us, for generations, "It is a light thing that you should be my slave to raise up the tribes of Yaiqob, and to restore the preserved of Yisraél: I will also give you for a light to the Gentiles, that you may be my salvation unto the end of the earth”