View source for Without Vowels project

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If you want to [[Project:Contribute|contribute]] to this site, please [[Special:CreateAccount|create an account]]. Your edits may be moderated as a measure of SPAM protection.

This site is intended to analyze the meaning of Tanakh (Hebrew Bible, also known as Old Testament among Christians) as it was originally written, without vowels and other niqqudot but only with consonants and '''[[Project:BibleWiki|collect all possible translations and all commentaries for the entire Hebrew Bible]]''' at this site.

This site was created based on the belief that Tanakh has many different senses because the sense changes when other vowels are inserted instead of the "standard" vowels of Jewish tradition. But traditional Bible commentaries are also welcome.

Also it is much easier to study partial Hebrew grammar without vowels and other niqqudot.

Start with reading [[Grammar:Tutorial|A tutorial for biblical Hebrew without vowels]]. It is quite simple. [[Grammar:Quick|This page]] contains a "quick sheet" for quickly identifying a grammar form having a Hebrew word.

This site follows the '''[[Project:Rules|rules]]''' and thus does not adhere to any particular religion or confession.

== The aim of this site ==

This site is created with a [[Project:BibleWiki| purpose to collect all possible translations and all commentaries for the entire Hebrew Bible]].

{{:Topics}}

== Not sponsored by a theological college ==

This project is not sponsored by a theological college. Instead as most professional theologians have abandoned literal meaning of God's word and instead try to study it in context of traditions of men (what ''men'' means by their words recorded in Bible, not what ''God'' means), this new level of research of Bible (streamlined by our wiki software supporting certain methodology of studying Bible, allowing everybody to edit the meanings of Hebrew words and translations of Bible) was started by [[User:Victor_Porton|Victor Porton]], a believer in literal (as well as spiritual) interpretation of Bible, a professional programmer and amateur mathematician, in order to welcome all [[Project:Volunteer|volunteers]] not requiring a scientific degree to participate in this project, [[Grammar:Tutorial|learning ancient Hebrew without vowels]] and [[Project:Translators|translating]] Bible. We do not require a scientific degree from the volunteers because we need as many volunteers as possible, to foster our project. Biblical Hebrew without vowels is easy and virtually anyone can learn it. This site just like Wikipedia does not require a scientific degree to edit it.

== Technical features of this site ==

It is a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki wiki] site that is anybody can edit its content.

On this wiki is uploaded [[TanakhIndex|the text of Tanakh]], verse by verse (you can start [[TanakhIndex|here]]).

Among of a verse are displayed the previous (except of the first verse of a book) and the next (except of the last verse of a book) verses in gray color with the purpose to allow the user to easily relate the text of a verse with the previous and next verses.

Every word is hyperlinked. Clicking the word you come to the page which is intended to contain the grammar of this word (without vowels). The grammar concerns the declined form of the word, not its primary form. (You are however free to create a page for the primary form of the word and interlink the pages with the primary and declined forms.)

The text of Tanakh is divided into fragments (so called ''parashot'') with || markers (denoting so called Pe-marks) and into smaller fragment with | (so called Samekh marks). If you do some translation of a Tanakh fragment please click the link ''Exegesis'' and edit that page to insert your translation.

When editing a wiki page, to enter a Hebrew word with a reference to our without-vowels dictionary, click the "Aleph" icon in the editor toolbar and enter the word. Alternatively you may select a non-hyperlinked Hebrew word and click "Aleph" in toolbar in order to turn this Hebrew word into a hyperlink to our dictionary.

The text of Tanakh was obtained from [http://www.tanach.us/Tanach.xml this site]. It is converted into the wiki format by [http://withoutvowels.org/misc/split_into_verses.py this Python program]

You cannot edit pages with Tanakh text (Tanakh:* namespace), because they are created automatically and your edit cannot overwrite it.

See [http://withoutvowels.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3AAllPages&from=&to=&namespace=104 the list of translated verses].

[[Some suggestions how to improve our software]]

== Philosophy ==

The primary reason for creating this site is the belief that Tanakh is the word of God and it should be studied in all senses possible. Non-believing linguists/historians which wish to analyze the original meaning of Bible are also welcome.

Before starting musing on Tanakh, you are recommended to read all theological articles about meaning and interpretation of Tanakh provided on this site:

* [[Theology:Victor Porton|Victor Porton's opinion on the meaning of Tanakh]]
* [[Theology:Spaces Hypothesis|Victor Porton's hypothesis on spaces in Hebrew Bible]]
* [[Blog:Main/Faith_and_technology_of_Bible_study|Faith and technology of Bible study]] ([[User:Victor Porton|Victor Porton's]] blog post)
* [[Blog:Main/I_Corinthians_on_Hebrew_Bible_interpretation|1st Corinthians about spiritual sense of Old Testament]]

== Support this project ==

See '''[[Project:Contribute|this page]]''' about how you can help this project.

If you want to contribute to this site, [[Special:CreateAccount|create account]]. Your edits will be moderated to prevent spam. You must follow [[Project:Rules|the project moderation rules]], if you edit this site.

== This is not "Bible code" ==

So called [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible_Code Bible Code] is the concept stating that reading Bible not character by character but for instance skipping every 50 letters, we can get a message.

There is certain skepticism regarding Bible Code, because of lack of proper reason to skip every say 50 characters reading Bible.

This project is different, it is well founded by the fact that initially Tanakh was written without vowels and other niqqudot, and thus it is the natural way to read Tanakh without them.

That saying, this project is like Bible Code but without skipping characters.

Many adherents to Jewish tradition would oppose reading Tanakh without vowels because they are adherents to the verbal tradition. Nevertheless many adherents of Jewish tradition accept Bible Code. That makes no sense to accept Bible Code but not to accept Without Vowels project, because if one accepts Bible Code then according to common sense he should also accept reading Tanakh without vowels.

== Useful internal links ==

* [[Project:Community_portal|Community portal]]
*[[Special:AllPages|site contents (index)]]
*[http://withoutvowels.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Search&search=&fulltext=Search&profile=all For search text in Hebrew (everything)]

== Useful resources ==

You can use [http://www.2letterlookup.com/ 2LetterLookup] to look up meanings of Hebrew words.

[http://www.sdbh.org/vocabula/index.html Semantic Dictionary of Biblical Hebrew (UBS)] is a more traditional detailed Hebrew dictionary.

[http://biblos.com/genesis/1-1.htm Hebrew with strongs and parallel English]

[http://biblewiki.wikidot.com BibleWiki] anyone who has an interest in studying the interpretation of the Bible and wants to take the time to think and write about their study. Baptists, Catholics, Lutherans, Mormons, etc… anyone who claims to use the Bible as a basis for their beliefs.

[http://thewikibible.pbworks.com/ The Wiki Bible Project] (an editable wiki like this site, but not focused on Old Testament only and not so much tied to the Original as this site; also unlike this site they accept only Christian opinions)

== Misc links ==

*[http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Gesenius%27_Hebrew_Grammar Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar] (a very hard to read book)
*[http://www.ancient-hebrew.org/ Ancient Hebrew Research Center]
*[http://www.hebrew4christians.com/ Hebrew for Christians]
*[http://scholarsgateway.com/parse Meanings for every grammar form of every word in Tanakh] (understands only words with niqqudot, and thus little useful for us)
*[http://www.sdbh.org/dictionary/main.php?language=en Semantic Dictionary of Biblical Hebrew] (work in progress)
*[http://www.godrules.net/library/Slavic/hebrewgreek/inter.htm Strong dictionaries in Russian]
*[https://nt.withoutvowels.org The sister site about New Testament]