Christianity and the Tree of Life

[refugeeguru]

[QUOTE=Richard Amiel McGough;43993]I think that makes perfect sense. I wasn't talking about the horizontal lines. They have always been connected with the three "mother letters" Shin, Aleph, and Mem as far as I recall. I was talking about the other paths. The tradition I learned has three paths connecting Malkuth to Hod, Yesod, and Netzach. If you have any insights as to why one system is superior to the other, please let me know.

Yes, I do (or I think I still do - will have to go rummaging through my notes - I haven't looked at that for several years - will post what I "extract" from my files.)

And the correlation with the alphabet is very different. How is that established?

I probably need to get a copy of your version to make the comparison, but, sort of, "off the top of my head", one of the critical things is the layout of the Double letters - the Bet has to be "top right", and the Tau has to be "bottom left" - AFTER / WHEN the Tree is split into its male and female halves -- with the Resh being the middle letter of the three double letters in the central vertical column - so that when the ten sephiroth are split, the Resh gets split.

The Bet-Resh-Yod (10) - Tau, with the 10 and the Resh divided is the covenant (Brith) of Jesus' heart being split, of the Average of Torah (611) and the 613 commandments, ie Bet-resh-Yod_Tau = 612. (I will collate and add some diagrams on that in future posts - ie on the 4 chambers of Jesus' heart, and how they relate to Abraham's covenant between the parts.)

I read a couple of Dion's books years ago - and lost them in one of the raids we suffered (hazards of being a refugee with a price on my head) - I thought she wrote very well, and I liked her books.

Yes, I am pretty heavily into the seven days and the menorah, and also the links to the "Seven Alephs" of Bereshit 1:1 and Jesus' Commentary on the verse via the Woman at Jacob's well story - another post for the To Do list!

Will read through your dream / Bible Wheel inspiration account too -- I have a hunch that we can tap into knowledge in/via our dreams -- some of the rabbis teach that it takes a certain number of sleeps and walks before we can fully absorb and integrate new knowledge - helped along greatly by interaction with a female of similar spiritual orientation. My educated guess is that whoever or whatever gave you that Bible Wheel inspiration is closer to, or more of, God, than most of the stuff you heard in sermons.

The atrocities and mass slaughter in the Bible don't exactly make me feel all warm and fuzzy either, but so far, when I have been able to get a fuller handle on the background, the choice has often come down to the lesser of two evils rather than a choice between good and evil. (Will see how we go with Nu 31 etc when we get there).

regards,

Peter

[refugeeguru]

Hi Richard,

Just some diagrams on my own preferred "config" for the double letters. I like having the Bet "top centre" because it makes the "mechanics" of getting it into the top right position when the Tree is divided into male and female halves (as per Abraham;s Genesis 15 split), quite simple.

And with the Bet above the Reish and the Tau, the central column has the template or skeleton for the word covenant - Bet-Reish-Yod_Tau (Brith).

ברית
Brith – Covenant

I will also paste in some more diagrams highlighting the "pluses" for shifting Tiphereth down so that it sits in the centre of the Tree -- the "benefits" include:

• The configuration of the links into the "nodes" (ie the sephiroth) relates to the structure of the Torah
• The Tipereth (beauty) visually sits at the centre of the Tree - fitting for something associated with beauty, the Tree (cf the Golden Ratio links), and with the 8 Connecting links, and with Jesuss
• It highlights the very special link between Joseph and our world (ie Malcuth), and between the two messiahs

Have edited the post to put the diagrams of the allocation of letters to vertical lines into into a separate pdf. An important part of the allocation, is that teh central line in the Tree spells out the skeleton of teh word for covenant. So, the centre of the Tree, will have the three letters, ברת, which are the skeleton or backbone of the word for covenant.

This is important because the Tree is a model of Jesu's heart – and when the Roman soldier cut Jesus' heart with the spear, he was cutting the covenant that ensured humanity's future. More on this in future posts.

The pdf of the sample allocation of the Double letters to the vertical lines in the Tree is here.

VerticalPathsSampleAllocation.pdf


Tthe diagrams in the pdf are the ones that were previously in this post. he allocation of 3 and 4 (Gimel and Daleth) to the right side of the Tree is done to match the two halves of the first verse of theh Bible - 3 words (Gimel = 3) in one half, and four words (Daleth = 4) in the second half. Several other possible allocations are possible, and are in more common use than those shown in the pdf.

[refugeeguru]

Menorah Deacons Charkras Days

[refugeeguru]

The Tree can be arranged in a symmetric array:



But by shifting Tipereth / Beauty lower, various other concepts are conveyed:

[refugeeguru]

The "Eight" connections to Tiphereth have a lot of symbolism, including Jesus rising on the "8th" day -- ie if we look at His resurrection occurring on the 8th day, rather than simple teh 1st day of the next week.

The 8 symbolism has extra meaning in some cultures, and in our mathematics, where we use a rolled 8 as a symbol for infinity:

[refugeeguru]

A link between Jesus' Hebrew title (Mashiach) and His Greek name - with a link to the Chinese symbol for good fortune (888 = Jesus), which was in teh Tree diagram above

[refugeeguru]

One of the links between the word God dictated to Moses for Tree (Etz) as in teh Tree of Life, and the Golden Ratio

[Richard Amiel McGough]

A link between Jesus' Hebrew title (Mashiach) and His Greek name - with a link to the Chinese symbol for good fortune (888 = Jesus), which was in teh Tree diagram above

This full spelling was one of the identities that really pushed me in the direction of Christianity when I was studying the Kabbalah back in the early 1990s. I found it very impressive. It was a good thing the tradition I learned used MYM = 90 rather than MM = 80 as the value of Mem, contrary to much of the Rabbinical tradition.

But I'm not very impressed with the slight similarity between Chet and the Chinese character for the number 8. Are there any similarities with the other characters and Hebrew letters for the ten digits? If not, I would suspect this is a mere coincidence.

[Richard Amiel McGough]

The "Eight" connections to Tiphereth have a lot of symbolism, including Jesus rising on the "8th" day -- ie if we look at His resurrection occurring on the 8th day, rather than simple teh 1st day of the next week.

The 8 symbolism has extra meaning in some cultures, and in our mathematics, where we use a rolled 8 as a symbol for infinity:

I don't find the connection count convincing. In the tree that I learned, Tiphareth has six connections which matches well with the fact that it is the sixth sephirah. And the letter count of the Torah is highly suspect since there are textual variations in various versions, so I wouldn't put much significance in it. This kind of "logic" is post hoc - fitting patterns after the fact - and so not convincing to me. It can be done with anything, and there is no way to know which is correct. We get competing explanations. E.g. Tiphareth is associated with Man and six is the number of man, etc.

[refugeeguru]

But I'm not very impressed with the slight similarity between Chet and the Chinese character for the number 8. Are there any similarities with the other characters and Hebrew letters for the ten digits? If not, I would suspect this is a mere coincidence.[/QUOTE]

Hi Richard,

the significance is that both scripts or character systems (Hebrew & Chinese) represent the number 8 with a gate.



The same imagery / connection is found in several spiritual traditions such as Hinduism and the Torah; even the Vatican gets in on the act.



The Ishtar Gate in Babylon was the 8th gate -- the Star of Ishtar has the same 8 spokes as those that show up in Hindu art, in St Peter's Square, and in the Jesuit logo.



(Star of Ishtar)





There are some similarities, but they are quite obvious and predictable, between some Chinese numbers and the Roman ones, but I don't think that means anything more than people having similar (& simple) ideas in different places.

There are some links between the letters of the alphabet and Chinese characters -- the only one that (so far) I feel inspired to write much about is the link between the Parable of the Sower and the Plough, Miracles, Mysticsm, and the word Israel -- all bound up in the links between our letter A and its corresponding pictogram in Asia, and of course, the source for it all - Aleph / Aluph / Eleph