Friday, September 1, 2017

Lion-like Men in the Bible,



Lion-like Men in the Bible-
2 Sam 23:20 and 1 Chr 11:22 (King James Bible)                          2017-09-01hgk
20 And Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, the son of a valiant man, of Kabzeel, who had done many acts, he slew two lionlike (Concordance1 word #739) men of Moab: he went down also and slew a lion (#738) in the midst of a pit in time of snow.    [This verse is identical to that in  1 Chr 11:22 concerning the killing two lionlike men (739) and a lion (738) in a pit.]

COMMENT: 
According to  Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible1, the original Hebrew for word 'lionlike' (#739)  describing of the two men of Moab killed by Benaiah is -- ariyel or ariel -- meaning "lion of God, i.e., heroic: lionlike man."  "Ariel" comes from root words # 738 and 410. Root word 738 -- ariy or aryeh -- means  a lion or  young lion. And root word 410 -- el -- means: mighty, especially the Almighty (but used also of any deity) God (god) x goodly, x great idol, mighty one, power, strong.

The word  "ariel" describing the two men of Moab that were  killed by Benaiah was translated as "lionlike' in both verses in (2 Sam 23:20 and 1 Chr 11:22) in six versions of the Bible: the King James Bible (KJB), New King James Bible, 21st Century King James Bible,  Authorized  KJB,  Young's Literal Translation, and the Orthodox Jewish Bible.  Seven other versions of the Bible translate it as 'sons of Areil.' These versions include: American Standard Version, New American Bible, New American Standard Bible, Revised Standard Version, New Living Translation and the New Life Version.  Several of these versions make footnotes to indicate the meaning of 'areil' was  unknown. Translating the Hebrew word “ariel” (739) as “sons of Ariel" was done even though there is no Hebrew word for “sons” in relation to "ariel" in the Hebrew text. Also 'ariel' appears as a proper name, 'Ariel' only in Ezra 8:16 referring to the name of a Levite not a Moabite, and in Isaiah (29:1,2,7) Ariel refers  to the City of David (or Jerusalem).  There is no indication that 'ariel' refers to a proper name of a Moabite in these two verses about  'lionlike' men in 2 Samuel 23:20 and  1 Chronicles 11:22. Although there is no Hebrew word for warrior or soldier used in the original text, five versions of the Bible used (mostly likely incorrectly) the words: 'warriors or soldiers' -- they were used in the Good News Bible, Easy to Read Bible, English Standard Bible, God's Word, and the New International Version.  The Douay-Rheims 1899 Bible translates "ariel"  (#739) as "lions," but the  next part of the verse says Benaiah killed 'a lion' (aryeh),  which is a different  word  (#738). Benaiah's greatness probably was not because he killed three lions (aryeh); neither was it be because he killed two cubs and a lion as stated in The Message version. 

Adding the suffix “el” in the word "ariel" adds a god-like or super-natural dimension  to the word for lion. Perhaps these men of Moab were "creature-men," i.e.,  genetic hybrids of fallen angels  and animals -- something like the giants or Nephilim as described in Genesis 6:4.  Chapter 9 of the Book of Revelation  describes visions of future judgments involving locusts having the shape of horses, the face of a man and teeth of  lions (vs 7).  In verse 17, there was a vision of horses with heads of lions that issue fire and their  tails were serpents with heads that inflict harm. All of these creatures are wildly bizarre, outside our normal comprehension and may be images that represent something natural to us, but we do not know unless it is revealed by God.  By faith in scripture, we reasonably believe that David killed Goliath, a giant about 9 feet tall* who was very strong having 6 finger and six toes. There are many references to giants in the scriptures (Genesis 6:4; Numbers 13:33; Deuteronomy 2:11, 20; 3:11, 13; Joshua 12:4; 13:12;15:8; 17:15; 18:16). 

Modern archeology and observations confirm the existence of such giants having 6 fingers, 6 toes and some having two rows of teeth.  Also the ancient Egyptians had elongated heads with skull bone plates and suture patterns unlike those in human skulls.  Elongated skulls of Paracas "people" in Peru also had non-human skull plates and suture patterns as well as DNA “mutations unknown in any human, primate, or animal."2  Possibly these were Nephilim or hybrids of fallen angels and women. In Egypt, the Sphinx of Giza represents a presumed mythical creature with the body of a lion and the head of a human.  Egyptian, Greek and Roman mythology describes many 'god-like' "hybrid" creatures such as centaurs (part man and part horse), Pegasus (a winged horse), Horus (part hawk and part human), Dagon (part fish and part man) and many others3.  Why was the history of some of the greatest nations of the past (Egypt, Greece and the Roman empire) filled with so much mythology or fantasy? Was it fancy? Perhaps there were powerful giants, nephilim and possibly also hybrids created by fallen angels breeding women (Genesis 6:4) and animals but not recognized as real by history but relegated to fantasy or mythology.  Perhaps these myths tell of real hybrid creatures of the past.

There are extra-biblical writings about man-beast hybrid creatures cited in the Bible. Twice the Bible refers to the Book of Jasher (2 Sam 1:18; Josh 10:13).  In the Book of Jasher4 (61:15), Jasher tells about a man named Zepho who found a creature like a beast-man hybrid that ate oxen. Jasher described the creature: "from the middle upward it resembled a man, and from the middle downward it resembled an animal."  Zepho killed it with a sword. 

The Bible tells us that Benaiah was one of the thirty mighty warrior men of David. The chief ones were Adino, Eleazar, and Shammah who individually killed 800 men, many Philistines soldiers, or a troop of Philistines (2 Sam 23: 9-12). Another of the thirty was Abishai who, by himself,  killed 300 men (2 Sam 23:18).  Benaiah was mighty because he killed two lion-like men (Concordance word #739: ariel ) from Moab and a lion (2 Sam 23:20-21; 1 Chr 11:22-23).  These two lion-like men according to the definition of the original Hebrew word (ariel : word #739) were heroic men like a 'lion of god' or 'lion-like men.' He also used a staff to kill a 7-foot tall5 Egyptian man armed with a spear.  The word for a normal or natural "lion" (#738) is "aryeh."  It is reasonable to believe that God choose the original Hebrew word (739) "ariel" meaning "lion of god" or "lionlike men" to convey the meaning as He wanted understood -- a very different kind of man or creature -- which was exceptionally powerful and dangerous, otherwise killing two "ariel" would not be so worthy of mention. The Bible seldom overstates the facts, but usually simply says so in a simple language.  Therefore it seems that Benaiah was a great warrior because he killed two lion-like men, both powerful creatures being part man and part lion.
 
Footnotes:
*Goliath was 6 cubits and a span (~9 feet) tall (1 Samuel 17:4).
1.     Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible by James Strong (1995) Thomas Nelson Publishers,  Nashville.
2.     New DNA Testing on 2,000-Year-Old Elongated Paracas Skulls Changes Known History
www. ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/breaking-new-dna-testing-2000-year-old-elongated-paracas-skulls-changes-020914
3.     Mythology:   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_hybrid_creatures_in_mythology


NEWS AND NOTES
The Salk Institute in California created a human-pig hybrid embryos. Such human-animal hybrids are often called “chimeras.”  The US Congress introduced  the Human-Animal Hybrid Prohibition Act in 2008 to prevent the creation of human-animal hybrids to protect the dignity and integrity of the humans but the bill failed to pass.  MIT Technology Review estimates that about 20 pregnancies of pig-human or sheep-human chimeras have been accomplished.   So far no scientific paper describing the work has been published.  Source: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/545106/human-animal-chimeras-are-gestating-on-us-research-farms/