The LXX in Greek or Hebrew First?

Introduction

One of Hillman's Key foundations to support his own interpretation of Jesus is his unique assertion that the entire Greek Septuagint (LXX) is an original composition created in Greek Alexandria in the third century BCE by imigrant Jews from Cyprus who needed to create for themselves a credible legitimacy with a history and religion where only one God should be revered ("Monism" - coined by him from monotheism). He acknowledges the existence of Hebrew manuscripts discovered in the Qumran caves, yet claims that this community were translating the Greek into the first Hebrew copies! Since Hillman's theory is that Jesus was practicing the same Bronze-Age Mystery rite begun by Medea, it should be present and practiced by the forefathers of Judaism, as well, such as Abraham. Because of his unique and questionable methodology Hillman can perform the same eisgesis using the Greek LSJ Lexicon in the Greek version of the Hebrew Bible as he does with Greek New Testament and Apocryphal texts. It is, therefore, imperative that he makes the claim that the whole of the Bible was originally composed by Hellenised Greeks surrounded by their culture of Mystery religions and incorporated terms associated with it as they composed their tales. He stretches the claim even further saying that through composing the LXX, Yahweh had his "birthday" also in the third century, reinforcing this claim in his own rendering of the Birthday song. Also, Hillman denies any influence on the writing of the Hebrew Bible from any other prior Semitic or Assyrian culture claiming that before the third century, there was no Hebrew culture independent from Greek influence and there is no evidence of a developed written language apart from some dismissively primitive scratches in paleo-Hebrew.

Despite, abundant archaelogical, nuministic and textual evidence amply proving him very incorrect on these points, he has his own justifications to tenaciously maintain this assertion. It is so that he may imply that Greek-speaking Hellenised Jewish authors of 3rd century Alexandria wrote their texts through the religious lens of the Greek Mystery cults and that they encoded drug terms into their Greek texts using the Orphic Vox. Because the same Greek words coincidentally appear in different books in a way that he can use the Orphic Vox for implying cult activity, he claims these particular books were composed by the "same dude." It is upon this unsupported, fragile foundation that he bases all of his own retranslations of passages from the Hebrew Bible, exclaiming that he brings the correct terms while "the whole planet is off" with its translations!

Here is an example of Hillman's own imaginative writing penned 28 Nov 2022, just prior to the launch of the twice weekly LadyBabylon666  teaching shows beginning in Jan 2023.  It demonstrates very clearly why having the Hebrew Bible being written by drug and cult-aware Greeks is so important for supporting his Lady Babylon Theory.

The perverted Greeks who wrote the Old Testament liked to hide the Orphic Vampire Virgin girl too.  It took skill, but Magic is all about image and code, so one of the ancient prophets of Jehovah managed to incorporate in his prophecy the cleverly disguised archetypal Satanic image of a prepubescent girl getting covered in the ejaculate of an Egyptian man-giant with a donkey-sized sex organ. The prophet laundered this image in the pretenses of the dirty dreams of an anonymous young girl; you know, the naughty dreams all girls have at that age.  Enoch’s “horse-cocked” Giant dreams.

Who?  They were fallen angels, led by Jehovah’s right hand Dragon.  “Horse-cocked” was their Greek epithet.  A.k.a, the Fallen. The “Dragons” in the late Bronze Age guarded the Tree of Life. Scythian arrow poisons and Late Bronze Age culture writ large. 

It was Promethean horse cock meant to be consumed by the winged Sorceress. Half girl, half viper.   St. Isidore tells us they derived the word for “poison” in Greek from the word, “viper.”

The pervert who recorded the Satanic image in the girl’s dream went by the name Ezekiel.  He ended up in a collection now called the Bible.  And he called the stuff the man squirted on the little girl his “blood.”  His essence.  The sacred sort.  The kinky shit you find in the Roman provocateur Petronius.  Like a dude with a medicated dildo in his anus, getting sodomized by a pretty little half-naked girl who whips his tied down erection with some stinging nettles.  Real ancient kink.  Satyrs and all.

That’s right, there are satyrs in the Word of God.  Wonder why?  Because it’s component parts were written by Greeks, if you follow the 2nd century linguist Africanus.

St. Paul studied the Septuagint.  Where do you think the word “Savior” comes from?  It comes from Satyr.  Specifically from the STR root used by the Star cult to create oracles. Isaiah wrote about the ass-headed cult Way.  Their communion drug was called “oistron,” and it was used by midwives to induce sleep while simultaneously inducing labor.  Diana’s priestesses used it.

No wonder the Magi gave the Morning Star all the frankincense and myrrh he could handle.  It’s always about the drugs.

Frankincense and Myrrh were bases for just about every pharmaceutical in the Greco-Roman medico-religious arsenal.  From abortifacients and aphrodisiacs to antidotes and cult communions. It’s all in the ancient doctors.

There was considerable cult overlap.  For example, the Christians, following the pagans, called their communion the “Love of God.”  It was His divine “blood.”  The stuff Ezekiel’s Egyptian ejaculated on that little girl in her divine wrath inducing wet dream—don’t let it bother you, dear reader, that vampiric prepubescent girls crave the orally acquired semen of men with large penises; it’s Magic.  They accordingly called her a Succubus.

Hence, Jesus and the incubus accusations.  Afterall, you can’t use Satanic magic without risking getting spotted and called out by some clever first century Pharisee…like He did.  That’s for sure.

And if it’s not Pharisees calling you out for being a Satanist, it’s the parents of the children you keep fondling.  Yes, the Greek says Jesus was touching kids, and uses the word for “molest.”  Now you know why his followers asked him to stop—and angered Him.

The offer of the Water of Life should have been an important clue to historians that Jesus was deep into Mystery drugs.  But the Muse of history was thwarted by the conquering Cross of Constantine when the pharmaceutical reality of the “Blood of Jesus” was turned into a well meaning but facile spiritual metaphor.  Afterall, the Aqua Vitae was the stuff that quenches the unquenchable thirst.

Drugs aren’t analogies; they are reality.

You should have been there to see him, the son of God, offering his thirst quenching communion to that lady at the well.  She knew exactly where he was going.  That’s why everybody caught the bus to her hometown.  That kinda stuff was heavily frowned upon in Jerusalem—could maybe get you crucified—but those naughty Samaritans and their luminous Lucifera lady goddess—- whom Jehovah rightly divorced…another long story—- was  into some, politely phrased, “temple prostitution.”  Too many drugs and virgins.  Dildos too.  Just boys in the Temple, from now on, Solomon.  The Satanic Magician Solomon, that is.

(This excerpt has been retrieved from his website of teachings which he has taken down now)

The Old Testament passage to which he refers is Ezekiel 16. No, the imagery of the helplessness of a blood-covered abandoned newborn needing compassionate care, is not an encoding of a Bronze Age mystery rite which Jesus practiced (referring to the drops of blood-sweat on his skin.) Likewise Jesus crying out the first phrase in Hebrew of Psalm 22 was not an invocation in Greek to the Goddess Lamia the Saba chthōn! And Jesus, to whom the parents brought their little ones to him to "touch," was not molesting them nor was he being told to stop by his disciples.

The Basis of Hillman's Claim

The only arguments Hillman ever gives to “prove” that the LXX was written first and subsequently translated into Hebrew are:

1. The comparative sizes of the vocabulary means that information is lost when translating from the more complex, technical to the less complex, technical language. 

2. The letter of Julius Africanus to Origen 

1.Vocabulary Size

Hillman claims there are an estimate of 1.5 million Greek words. It is a fact that the Greek language has an immense vocubulary of several hundred thousand known words (although many of them had been coined by one author and not reused). However a count of the lemmas or headwords of a unique word concept in Harvard University's Ancient Greek WordNet API stands currently at only 97,412 lemmas. These lemmas may apply to nouns which are then divided further into 5 cases each in both singular and plural, immediately increasing the word form count from 1 to 10. Likewise for each verbal lemma, the form count increases with singular and plurals in different persons, tenses, moods and voices. Therefore, the approximate number of resulting Greek word forms expands to about 1,800,000. It is also a fact that the combinations of consonants of the Hebrew system of writing is more limiting and even with adding unique vowel points, the basic vocabulary (lemma count) is nearer to 8,000 words, but which again increases with this language's system of grammar creating up to 430,000 words in the Biblical texts. It is also neccesary to qualify these numbers, further. The relatively limited subject range of the Biblical texts does not call for any broader vocabulary of Hebrew than is found there. Other texts on fragile papyrus have generally not survived other than a few extra biblical texts like the peshers (commentaries) found at Qumran, the Wisdom of Ben Sira and Hebrew inscriptions on stone and pottery add about another 100, 000 words. But on the other hand, Greek texts were written for all experiences of life and over a much longer time span of composition. Many words went out of use, to be replaced by others, but all of these words are still included in the Lemma and word form counts. But, to do a fairer comparison of the relative vocabulary sizes of Greek and Hebrew, a collection of Greek texts written on a more limited subject over a shorter period of time, should be used. A more equivalent example can be found in the works of Homer which has approx 9,900 lemmas and 200,000 words.

Hillman makes another arguement that the comparative complexity and technicality of the Greek language proves that the Greek was written first, with information being lost upon translation to the less technical language. But, in fact his "proof" can more readily show the opposite is true. Taking the illustration of his own translation of Mk 14:51-52, he evidently sees much complexity in the Greek words there and had to expand his definition in English (the less complex language) to convey what he believes the more technical Greek words are conveying. There are nineteen words in the standard Greek texts of Mk 14:51-52, but his translation into English needs exactly double that number - thirty eight words to convey the same meaning that he claims the Greek does. Applying the illustration to the LXX, it follows that if the less complex, vocabulary-poor Hebrew language is trying to convey the meaning of a more technical Greek word, it would be expected that several Hebrew words together are needed to convey the same information. Hillman, himself, often used a short English phrase to translate a single Greek word. Therefore, it should follow that the Hebrew Bible in Hebrew ought to have a lot more words in it compared to the LXX. But it doesn't! Why not?

The Hebrew language may not have a vast vocabulary and the same word can mean different things in different contexts (exactly as happens in English). But each word is itself pretty complex. It contains information about gender, number, case, prepositional relationship and meaning. In fact the translation from Hebrew into English (even with its larger vocabulary) often requires more English words to explain the single Hebrew word. So, when a Hebrew word is translated into Greek with its bigger vocabulary than both Hebrew and English, there is such a vast vocabulary to choose from, the translators only needed to pick the one perfect word to convey the same thing. There is virtually a word for word equivalence throughout. This is only possible because the translation language actually has a huge vocabulary. Nevertheless, rather surprisingly, there can also be slightly more Greek words than there are Hebrew in a paragraph! Further than that, even with this expansive vocabulary, sometimes there was no suitable Greek word to use, so a transliteration of the Hebrew word into Greek of the same sounds, was made. On the other hand, transliterating Greek words into Hebrew is never seen.

In the recording, below, Hillman, himself, proves the point that a Greek word can be found that perfectly defines the Hebrew  - even including the additional semantic fields that word can take in different contexts. But, inevitably, while calling himself one who studies ancient languages (but only Greek dialects with no knowledge of semitic), he views it from the standpoint of Greek priority.

Additionally, Hillman makes the audacious claim that the Hebrew translators even created a new word to cover this Greek one, because their own language was "dead" at the time. This is factually incorrect since Hebrew was not a dead language when the Torah was translated into Greek. While Aramaic had become the primary spoken language in Judea during the time of the Second Temple, Hebrew remained the language of religious and scholarly texts, including the Torah. It was still understood and used by many people, particularly those involved in religious studies and practices, such as the peshers (commentaries) which were primarily written in Hebrew. The Dead Sea Scrolls, which contain many pesher texts, are almost entirely written in Hebrew. Some Greek and Aramaic is also found in these texts, but Hebrew is the dominant language. Hebrew continued to be spoken and written upto the time of the Bar Kokhba revolt and the decimation of the people and nation at the time. During the next decades, the living use of the language faded away into hibernation until it was revived in the tenth century.

In conclusion, Hillman's argument about vocabulary size is a straw man, while in practice, it actually lends more to the proof that the Hebrew was translated into Greek - exactly as Africanus actually said!

2. The Testimony of Africanus

The composition of the Hebrew Bible in Hebrew not Greek was definitely confirmed by the second c. lexicographer, Julius Africanus in his letter to Origen. I will summarise the context, then quote in full the end of the first paragraph. Having highlighted an inconsistency between the authentic book of Daniel and this disputed "History of Susannah" with the way this unknown author claims Daniel received his revelations, Africanus then turned to the detail of Daniel's interrogation of two witnesses who claimed Susannah had committed adultery. The text continues with: 

For, not satisfied with rebuking them through the Spirit, he placed them apart, and asked them severally where they saw her committing adultery. And when the one said, Under a holm-tree (prinos), he answered that the angel would saw him asunder (prisein); and in a similar fashion menaced the other who said, Under a mastich-tree (schinos), with being rent asunder (schisthenai). Now, in Greek, it happens that holm-tree and saw asunder, and rend and mastich-tree sound alike; but in Hebrew they are quite distinct. But all the books of the Old Testament have been translated from Hebrew into Greek.

Africanus is convinced that two pairs of puns that only work in the Greek language show that the History of Susannah was originally a Greek composition forged as part one of the stories about Daniel. The reason he is discussing it with Origen is that the Church had included it in their canon whilst the Jews had recognised it as a Greek forgery and not included it theirs. It is also happens to be one of the few manuscripts among the Dead Sea Scrolls which is written in Greek - to be expected as a Hellenised Jewish composition of the second century, BCE.

Yet, Ammon Hillman repeatedly asserts that Africanus said the entire Hebrew Bible was an original Greek composition. He claims the Muse led him to this letter of Africanus where he gave proof that all of the Hebrew Bible was translated from the native Greek of the LXX! But should he put such unquestionong confidence in what he believes is the guidance of his "Muse"? This is discussed further in the page on his methodology.

Rather oddly, Neal Sendlak, of the Gnostic Informant channel, although often co-hosting some of Hillman's shows, had disassociated himself from Hillman's claim about the primacy of the LXX, many months prior to this show, The Devil's Reckoning, but remains silent. In fact Neal has produced several excellent and detailed shows collaborating with knowledgeable experts in the Hebrew Bible and LXX and a solo show stating the facts which disprove Hillman. In late November, SEndlak is speaking more openly in criticism od Hillman, not just about this academic disagreement, but also expressing concerns about unresonable demands and dark personality triats. He announced that Hillman has said he must be purged and has ceased communicating with Sendlak. This is a sadly familiar pattern.

Example Demonstration that the Hewbrew Text was the Original composition

If the Hebrew Bible were a translation from the Greek, you would expect the Greek to be beautifully composed prose (and poetry) with no signs anywhere of it being the translation from the Hebrew. No transliterations from Hebrew words or Hebrew names whose meaning only makes sense as an abbreviation of a Hebrew phrase, nor attribution to God in Hebrew terms. Yet there are plenty.

Even the style of poetry is highly indicative of the direction of translation. If the Hebrew Bible were originally written in Greek, one would expect the psalms to be written like typical Greek odes and hymns with the characteristic rhythmic patterns of vowel length, like all other Greek poetry. There is none - nor in much of the prophetic or wisdom material which appears written in a poetic form in most English translations. Even if there had been any Greek poetry, when it is translated into a different language, all those rhythmic patterns of the Greek language are lost! But what one does notice is the very unique form of Hebrew poetry everywhere, which is preserved unchanged when it is translated into any language. This is because Hebrew poetry is formed by making pairs of lines which repeat the same idea, but in only slightly different words. Because every language is a communication of ideas, every language can produce "Hebrew-style" poetry.

Even more characteristically Hebrew, is what is called a chiasm, or chiastic passage. This is where a key point is emphasised by arranging arguments relating to it, symmetrically before and after it like a sandwich. And when there are not only repeating parallel couplets, but they are also are arranged chiastically, it most definitiely has to have been an original Hebrew composition! An unmistakable  example of this arrangement is found in Ps 18:20-24

( 20The LORD has rewarded me according to my righteousness;

  A (

( He has repaid me according to the cleanness of my hands.

  ( 21For I have kept the ways of the LORD

B (

  ( and have not wickedly departed from my God.

  ( 22For all His ordinances are before me;

      X (

  ( I have not disregarded His statutes.

  ( 23And I have been blameless before Him

B' (

  ( and kept myself from iniquity.

     ( 24So the LORD has repaid me according to my righteousness,

  A'(

     ( according to the cleanness of my hands in His sight.

It is evident that each two-line verse contains a repeat of the same idea - typical of Hebrew poetry! Verses 20+24 (reward for righteousness) and 21+23 (righteousness is staying faithful to God's ways) are also repeating the same idea and are arranged symmetrically around the key point in verse 22 (how to keep faithful and be rewarded) - typical of a Hebrew chiasm. However, in the Greek LXX all of this appears a block of prose with no attempt to make it rhythmic as in typical Greek poetry. It certainly is beyond doubt that the Greek was translating the Hebrew. 

The direction of translation is also clearly demonstrated by LXX expert, Dr Joel Korytko in this half hour segment which is packed with convincing examples that the LXX is written in "translation Greek."

Let the factual observations from both ancient and modern accredited experts in both languages, establish the truth, once and for all.