No More Excuses for Not Learning Aramaic

If Anne Bedian can teach herself Aramaic, what's stopping the rest of you?  There's now no excuse for not learning Aramaic.  Anyone can teach it to themselves. 

And you are a follower of Kabbalah. Were you born into this, from a Jewish heritage?

No, absolutely not! Kabbalah predates Judaism. Actually, it predates all religions. Judaism came out of Kabbalah. This is ancient, ancient wisdom. The major works of the Kabbalah are the books of the Zohar, which are over 4,000 years old. It's a commentary on the Old Testament. One of the things I really love about it is, because I'm such a language buff - I already have five languages down - is that Aramaic is one of the languages. It's such a powerful language, it's the language Jesus spoke. So, I taught myself to read Aramaic, so I can read the Zohar out loud.

Her interview also demonstrates how little people really know about their own religion's origins and how there can be a big difference between the historical reality and the traditional story passed on by adherents.  To set the record straight, the Zohar was written in Spain around 1290 CE by Moses de Leon.  It is traditionally attributed to Shimon Bar Yohai, a disciple of Rabbi Akiva in the early second century CE.  So, I'm not sure where the "predating Judaism" and the "4000 years old" stuff and the "predating all religions" is coming from.  The Old Testament itself is probably not 4000 years old.  (It's 2008, add even the earliest dating of Moses of 1446 = 3454 years.) Also, if it predates all religions, how can it be a commentary on the Old Testament?  So, we have a nice incoherent mishmash of comments about Kabbalah, the oldest religion in the world. 

HT: Jim Davila